Someone fired.
Mason roared.
Shelby fell to the ground, fire lancing her back as gunshots erupted around her. She grabbed her chest as she wheezed for the air that had been knocked out of her upon impact.
Footsteps pounded toward her as she squeezed her eyes against the pain. She must’ve landed on a paver or something. She just hoped it was a cavalry coming to pull her out of harm’s way and not the enemy.
Someone dropped beside her. “Look at me.”
Fuck. She knew that voice.
She opened her eyes, though she knew it was Mason who’d gotten to her before her teammates. She had to have been still pretty drugged because he sounded too worried for her brain to understand. He should be furious and trying to get away, not running toward her.
“Hurry up!” he yelled above her and looked at her again. “Let’s roll you to your side. I need to see how bad it is.”
She took in a rattling breath as he rolled her and coughed, struggling to get in enough oxygen. She tasted copper and wiped her mouth, her hand coming way streaked with blood. “I’m hit,” she tried saying. Her body began to shake as pain bloomed. She’d been shot.
“I know, baby. Help is coming. Hold on. Hold on. You’re going to be okay.”
“Why…you…here?” She tried asking why he was there with her and not on the plane trying to escape. She didn’t want him fleeing justice, but she didn’t understand why he hadn’t tried getting away.
“I came for you, baby.”
Another man dropped next to her with Carson and Viola taking up places around her. The guy ripped the back of her shirt and started doing something to her back, but she couldn’t see. Mason had grabbed her hand and held it as he watched her intently. She gasped at the pain and coughed more blood when the sudden intake of air triggered it.
“Darrell…have to get him…on plane.”
“Don’t worry about Darrell. Rick has gone after him. He won’t let him get away. Just focus on you,” Viola said, squeezing her upper arm.
Shelby glanced at her and frowned at the words. They didn’t make sense. “Get away?” she breathed.
Viola’s gaze jerked to Carson. “Don’t worry about that now, Landry,” he said. “Just know that Showalter here isn’t a criminal. He was the mole. He’s been working with Jerome Parker to take down William Baxter.”
“What?” she asked, looking at Mason again and hacking up more blood.
“We’ll explain everything later. Right now, I want you to quit talking, breathe slowly, and relax,” Mason said calmly.
“This will help,” the man said behind her. Warmth spread throughout her body, deadening the pain, making her eyes heavy.
“No. He gave me something already.” Though she wasn’t sure if the words came out. She didn’t want to pass out, medicated or otherwise. She wanted to ask questions, find out what the hell Viola meant about Darrell, and get clarification on what Carson said about Mason. She felt confused. Surely she hadn’t heard them right. She jumbled their words round in her head, trying to find the correct order of them so she could comprehend what they’d tried telling her.
She shut her eyes on a sigh. Just thinking about everything was taking too much effort. The areas where hands touched her began to tingle and a sense of flying came over her.
The last thing she felt was Mason’s lips against her ear as he said, “I’ve got you, baby.”
Whether or not it was her confused mind still playing tricks on her, she knew how true those words really were.
If only he knew that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Carl O’Brian is alive.”
“Mason Showalter is the whistleblower.”
“Darrell Tobin is dead.”
Bits of conversations Shelby had heard while in her hospital bed after having surgery had flitted through her mind every day since. A lot of time had passed, but she still hadn’t been able to accept the truths she’d learned that day. And after two weeks in the hospital and another three weeks at home, Shelby wasn’t back to her old self physically either. Doctors had told her it’d take at least six weeks, possibly longer, to heal, but she didn’t like those terms. She was going crazy being cooped up at home with her thoughts. Her memories.
“Darrell Tobin is dead.”
“Mason Showalter is the whistleblower.”
“Dave sold you out.”
That last bit of information had come from Viola. She’d been fighting tears when she’d confessed this, and Shelby had known her friend had felt at fault. She wasn’t. Shelby refused to accept that, but no matter how she’d tried telling Viola this, she wouldn’t listen. She would close up and change the subject. All Shelby had gotten from her were the facts. Dave had a gambling problem she hadn’t known about. He’d gone to Mason and sold him the truth about their identities to pay a large gambling debt. Viola had wanted to pay Mason back the money Dave had extorted from him, but the man wouldn’t hear of it. She loved him a little more for that, not that it helped Viola. The woman had gone through more these last five weeks than Shelby could even dream. Sure, she’d been shot and was healing, albeit slowly. Viola, on the other hand, was uprooting her life, getting divorced from the man she thought she knew, and living with Shelby temporarily. The F and B case had changed them both.
“Darrell Tobin is dead.”
Her eyes watered at the reminder. She and Viola hadn’t been the only ones affected by the case. The knowledge that Darrell was a traitor to the bureau hurt more than the physical pain she’d gone through. She hadn’t believed it at first. The scenario she’d devised after waking in the limo had felt more believable. Her instincts couldn’t have been that far off. When she’d voiced this to Rick, he’d gently but firmly stated that it was her sense of preservation that had concocted it. Her heart hadn’t wanted to
