The shouting came with the smell of engines and light, too much light. She wanted the too-bright light to go out so she could sleep. So she could go to Pete and tell him she was sorry, and feel him holding her again. So he could forgive her, and all of this could end.
Twenty-Three
Cassidy woke slowly to the sound of beeps and a sense of malaise so powerful it made her want to cry out in anger, but it was like her mouth refused to open. Someone had removed her contacts so nothing in her surroundings was in focus, and this more than anything made her anger worse. Heavy blankets lay across her body, and as she stirred in the bed—a hospital bed, she understood instantly, something in her arm stirred, too. An IV tube.
The sound of movement outside the room caused her to turn her head. Her door was shut, but the noises of doctors and nurses moving around, a sound of laughter, the half of someone’s reply, put the final pieces of the puzzle together. Though she had no memory of arriving. There was only the sensation of floating—that glorious, precious feeling of utter peace and beauty—more joy than she had ever experienced in her life, and probably never would again.
Another wave of despair washed over her. How had this happened to her?
She remembered Pete’s angry posture. And there was a memory of being lifted. Someone’s voice in her face, yelling. Whose voice? Pete’s?
The logical side of her brain laid out the facts: Mel had injected her with some kind of drug, and the effect had given her a powerful high. But where was Mel? Had he brought her here?
A figure stood in the doorway. In an instant, she identified him: Bruce.
Bruce entered the room, and though she couldn’t see shit without her glasses, his distress was clear. He held a cup of coffee, and she noticed for the first time the chair placed close to her bed. He quickly put the coffee on the side table and stood at her side.
“Jesus, you gave us a scare,” he said.
Cassidy didn’t know what to say.
He seemed to sense that this was the wrong angle, and his smile faded. He sat down and cleared his throat, his body posture tense. “You had overdosed. Our team got there . . . ” He paused to rub a hand across his chin. “I thought you were on a plane to LA.” He sighed, and she remembered the hesitation in his voice when she’d told him that she needed to return to Tamarindo for her things.
“Wait,” she said. “Who’s we?”
He gave her a sharp tilt of his head. “Right. Maybe we should start over.” He sighed. “I’m a federal agent for a special unit of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, actually. Costa Rica’s OIJ is involved too. We formed a special task force to fight human trafficking in this region.”
“Mel,” Cassidy breathed, gasping as the memories came flooding back. The treehouse, the peaceful dinner on the porch, the feeling that she was safe, cared for, his gentle touch, and the way he had attended to her needs so masterfully. A sob choked in her throat, and despair came down on her again like a flood.
“Hey, hey,” Bruce said, moving closer, touching her shoulder. “We got him, okay?”
Cassidy nodded, not because she cared about Mel being captured, but because she didn’t want to have to explain the feelings swirling around in her head: her shame at being deceived, the emptiness now that she was once again alone, and her frustration that she had been unable to save herself.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he said. “My team has been working on this bust for months. I knew someone big was at the top, but I didn’t know it was Mel until the end. I didn’t know when the bust would occur. Everything started happening so fast.” He ran a hand through his hair again.
“It’s not your fault,” Cassidy said, and closed her eyes. Being unable to focus her vision but trying anyway was giving her a headache. “I should never have come,” she said as a bitter seed sprouted in her gut. “Or at least, I should have . . . ” She stopped, unable to continue this line of thought.
“The important thing is that you’re alive,” he said.
Cassidy opened her eyes again to squint at him. “Did I . . . die?”
Bruce’s look was serious. “Our kits have Naloxone. Otherwise, you would have.”
Cassidy had a faint memory of waking with a start, of being unable to breathe because there was something weighing on her chest, but there was no memory of anything after that.
“What time is it?” she asked, her gaze sweeping the room for a clock, but finding none, at least nothing her eyes could detect.
“I brought all your things,” he said. “Are these yours?” he asked, fishing around in the nearby closet and producing a set of glasses.
Gratefully, Cassidy put them on and the world righted itself. Bruce’s brown eyes were so full of kindness, his posture hunched and tense, that it made her start to cry all over again. She took it all in: the TV on the wall opposite her, and the tubes and bags of fluids hanging from their poles, and the monitor with a sensor attached to her arm. As if she had conjured it to life, it automatically squeezed her arm, then released, and a set of numbers popped up on the monitor.
Bruce was looking at the screen too. “You’re blood pressure is still low.”
“Can I still make my flight?” Cassidy asked, knowing the answer.
Bruce gave her a
