Shee chuckled and turned to Angelina. “Where do you keep tools?”
Angelina’s mouth hooked to the left. “I generally marry them.”
“I mean, like, screwdrivers.”
“Oh.” Angelina hit the elevator call button. “There’s some downstairs. I’ll get them.”
The silver doors opened and Mason found himself alone with Shee in the hall. She stared at him, and he could see her brain searching for words.
“I don’t want to talk about anything right now. Just the current mission,” he said.
She nodded and chewed on her lip. After a moment, she perked.
“You want to see Mick?” she asked.
He nodded. “Sure.”
Shee pushed through Mick’s unlocked door and led him inside. The main area of Mick’s apartment looked like a typical living room but smelled like a hospital. The smell only grew stronger as they entered Mick’s bedroom.
Mason had to keep himself from gasping out loud. It had been years since he’d seen Mick, but the man in the bed looked nothing like the one he remembered. Pale, thin, his cheeks sunken...
Mason hung his fingers on the silver roll guards, watching his old leader’s chest rise and fall beneath a thin blanket.
“I’m having trouble reconciling this man with the one I remember,” he said.
“Tell me about it,” mumbled Shee.
“What’s the prognosis?”
“Angelina said his doctor said he should be awake.”
“Shouldn’t he be in a hospital?”
She shrugged. “Apparently, Mick’s guy is pretty high up the food chain. And if he was in a hospital—”
“The world would know he’s alive.”
“Exactly.”
She motioned to Mick’s head as her phone rang. “The gunshot wound is on the other side—”
She stepped aside to answer and he rounded the bed to see where the sniper had left his mark.
“Where? Okay. We’ll be right down,” said Shee into her phone.
“What is it?” asked Mason, staring at Mick’s scar. It made him smile—the first evidence that the man in the bed really was Mick McQueen.
Leave it to Mick to survive a gunshot to the head.
Shee tucked her phone into her pocket and headed for the door. “Martisha’s downstairs. We should go down.”
Mason patted Mick on the arm and followed Shee into the hall. Before they could recall the elevator, a low rumbling filled the air.
“What’s that?” asked Shee.
Mason cocked his head. “Sounds like a boat?”
Shee moved to the window overlooking the back of the hotel. Her jaw fell slack.
“It’s Martisha.”
Mason joined her at the window. Below, a heavyset black woman in nurse scrubs tossed the lines of a Boston Whaler Montauk to the pier. He recalled admiring the little boat the day before. Another identical craft remained tied to the opposite side of the pier.
“She looks in a hurry.”
“I think she’s running.” Shee flung open the door to the stairs and started down.
Mason started after her, and then stopped at the top of the stairs.
Shit.
He hadn’t totally mastered stairs with the new leg.
Deciding it would be faster, he returned to the hall to find the elevator doors sliding shut. He threw his arm out to block them from closing and hopped inside, slapping at the ground floor button.
“Come on, come on, come on...”
By the time the elevator spat him out and he pushed through the back door of the hotel, Shee had dropped into the remaining Boston Whaler. Croix, Angelina and Bracco stood on the pier.
He moved as fast as he could as Shee barked orders at the others.
“Stay here. Lock the place down. I want men on doors front and back.”
Mason pushed past Bracco, whose bulk practically blocked the entire pier.
“I’m coming,” he said, eyeing the ladder. He couldn’t circumvent it the way he had the stairs.
“I’m starting to think the world wasn’t made for a one-legged man,” he grumbled.
“What?” asked Shee.
“Nothing.” He made his way down, using his upper body strength to do most of the work, before dropping himself into the boat.
Shee started the engine.
“Let me drive,” he said, moving to the center console and hipping her out of the way.
Shee glared at him, unsure.
“Boats are kind of my thing,” he added.
She relented.
“Good point.”
&&&
Chapter Forty-One
Mason slammed the boat into reverse as Shee threw out a hand to catch her balance against the bench seating. She braced as Mason maneuvered back and shifted into forward.
Martisha’s craft had already disappeared around the river’s bend.
“We’re going to lose her,” Shee screamed over the roar of the engine.
“Not many places for her to go.”
Shee found her sea legs, wind whipping her hair behind her like a flag. She was thrilled Mason had made it to the boat. He looked at home behind the wheel. Unlike him, boats weren’t her thing.
They passed a small fishing craft. Shee turned to see its operator shaking a fist at them as they passed.
“I think we’re going too fast,” she said.
Mason maneuvered around a larger boat, sending docked crafts rocking in their slips. “She isn’t following the speed limit.”
Shee spotted Martisha’s boat, wondering what they’d do if they caught her. As far as she knew, the woman hadn’t done anything except tend to her father. An islandy accent on the opposite side of a phone wouldn’t hold up in court. Only the nurse’s panicked escape helped to confirm their suspicion she was somehow involved in something.
An idea occurred to her. There was one thing they could prove.
They could have her arrested for stealing the boat.
Shee squatted in front of the console and tapped Mason’s leg to get him to move out of the way. She hit metal.
Whoops.
Somehow, he still recognized her request and shifted to the right, enabling her to open the compartment beneath the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she rooted.
