“Why Los Angeles?” I ask for the thousandth time as Mark helps me gather my belongings. For someone brought into the hospital with nothing but the clothes I wore, I’ve accumulated a surprising amount of stuff. Cards, planters, gift baskets, and an endless stream of strange goodies from media outlets trying to woo me into exclusive interviews dot the shelves along the window in my room.
“Who gave you a seven-foot-tall stuffed giraffe?” Mark marvels, staring up at it as if the giant toy will explain itself.
“Some cable news channel. One of the nurses offered to take it to the pediatric burn unit. Said it would be loved there.”
Mark tweaks the thing’s nose. “Good. I don’t know how to fit that thing in my car. No sun roof.”
A soft, feminine chuckle from the doorway makes my breath freeze in my throat. I know that laugh. I know that voice.
It’s Elaine.
“Maybe you can take it home and keep it for your first baby,” she says quietly.
I’m wearing a sling for my healing shoulder, and a cast on the same arm for my broken bone. My ribs have healed just enough that I can get away with having them wrapped. No cage-like brace, thank goodness. I’m wearing a head wrap like the kind women going through chemotherapy adorn. Explaining my bald head is too hard.
I look at Elaine. Brian is behind her. He’s carrying a giant box of my favorite chocolates from a store in San Francisco.
This is one of the million questions Mark hasn’t answered yet.
Why did Mikey trap me in the storage room?
“Hi, Carrie,” Brian says in a low, self-effacing voice. He hands the enormous box to Mark, who takes it with a curt head nod. “These are for you. Your favorite.”
A not-so-slow simmer turns into a boil inside me. I am off all my painkillers except for ibuprofen. The massive rush of hormones that kick in from the injection of rage are like taking ten steroids at once.
“Thanks.” What else am I supposed to say? Ignoring the baby comment is hard enough. Babies? I can’t even take a shower without help right now. I don’t even have a home. Mark and I are together, but on shaky ground here. Who’s thinking about babies right now? I frown.
Elaine’s so hurt. I can tell by the way she holds her head, looking down. No one knows what to say. Mark is uncharacteristically quiet.
I turn to him. He’s the safest person I can be angry with.
“Were they part of El Brujo’s operation?” I ask, my tone biting. It’s like I’m accusing him of lying to me before he even has a chance to try to tell the truth.
“Jesus, no,” Brian mutters. He tucks his shirt in his pants, but it’s already tucked in. He’s nervous. Twitchy. Awkward and uncomfortable.
Good.
“I told you!” Elaine chokes out, turning to Brian. “I told you she’d think that.”
“What else am I supposed to think?” I sob. I use my good hand to rip the head covering off my scalp. Elaine’s eyes fill with pain. “Look what they did to me after Mikey trapped me in the storage room!”
“Oh, God, Carrie,” Brian groans. “That’s fucking awful. I’m so sorry. Mikey’s…”
“In a juvenile detention center,” Mark finishes for him. “Where he belongs as various layers of law enforcement sort out his level of involvement with El Brujo.”
“WHAT?” I shout. “MIKEY? One of El Brujo’s minions?” When I yell, my head begins to pound. I slump down into a chair. Mark and Elaine rush to my side.
She smells like baby powder and looks so pale, her blonde hair hanging limp. Grey roots show at the crown of her head. I reach up to touch my own tiny bit of growth and swallow, hard.
“Carrie?” she says, her voice filled with emotion. “We had nothing to do with this. We didn’t know Mikey did that—that—that horrible thing to you.”
“I have to apologize for my son,” Brian says gruffly from across the room. He’s holding a baseball cap in his hands and twisting it like he’s trying to break a chicken’s neck.
“Carrie,” Mark adds gently, “Brian’s the one who helped me get to you. Through the conduit. Brian was a helper.”
I blink hard. “What?”
“The conduit. The pipe I came in through. That was how El Brujo smuggled larger shipments of drugs. And, later, small women,” he explains, his voice brimming with disgust. “But the town began doing infrastructure work on some of the pipes, and cut everything off. Brian knew who to reach to get me into the pipe, fast. That’s how I crawled in and stabbed Frenchie when he was holding you.”
Hazy memories come back to me. “Galt! He was snooping around the storage space back where Allie was. And Chase texted us and said not to shoot him.”
Mark’s eyes cut over to Brian and Elaine. “I can’t talk about that now,” he hisses. Both of them step back, shaken.
“Mark came to me. Said he needed to get in that storage room. Explained what was going on. I got a buddy who knew how to cut in.” He gives me a heart-wrenching look. “Turns out all those years of side jobs in construction paid off. Sometimes the difference between life and death really is who you know.”
My stomach drops.
“So you helped Mark save me?” I try to stand, but my legs are too weak.
Brian takes a halting step toward me. He looks at me.
His eyes are shining with emotion. Oh, man. Are those tears?
“Jesus, Carrie, what they did to Joe and me was bad enough. That fucking monster blackmailed me. For years. He got the bar in a fire sale through some bullshit fake company he laundered money through. I had no idea. He learned me and Joe had been paying some of the bartenders under the table and threatened to set me up like he set up Joe. You had moved already and I…”
“What does that have to do with helping Mark get into the pipe to come fight Frenchie and El Brujo?” I ask, confused.
He sighs. “The dean wanted Mikey to come help him with some ‘special projects’. Insisted it had to be Mikey. Said if I didn’t let him, he’d ruin me.” Brian looks like he’s about to be sick. “So I let him.” Brian’s voice chokes up. “Mikey never talked about what he did. Just said the dean thought he had a great career ahead of him in football. Made it sound like the dean was giving him little jobs around the university. I didn’t like it, but I never imagined he’d be doing anything like this.”
“What kinds of special projects?” Mark asks gently.
“You know. Moving stuff. Mikey said he loaded and unloaded a lot of stuff around campus.”
I know what was in some of those coffee bean bags. I shudder. Did Mikey move coffee bean bags? Did Mikey know what he was moving?
“You think Mikey trapped me in there on El Brujo’s orders?” I ask, piecing it together, my voice filled with horror. “That El Brujo roped Mikey into his network as a way of controlling you? Or of getting to me?”
Dad’s letter from prison floats into my mind. He warned me not to trust someone. At the time, I had no idea who he was talking about. It could have been Mark. Dean Landau. Brian. Eric Horner. Chief Cummings. So many choices….but I never thought of Mikey.
Mark rubs my knee. “We don’t know yet. Mikey’s refusing to talk,” he says.
“Oh, he’ll talk!” Elaine says in a voice filled with a mother’s rage. “He’ll talk, all right! Whatever that weasel did to get inside my son’s head is over. It’s over now, thanks to you, Carrie. You killed the dean—El Brujo!” she crows. “We all get our lives back.”
“I killed him? No, I—”
“That’s what the official report says,” Mark says, clearing his throat. He gives me a hard, meaningful look.
It might as well say, Don’t argue.
Hah. Right. Fat chance, bud.
“But I—”
Mark’s mouth slants over me, the shock of warmth and heat making me flush. The kiss is meant to shut me up. Keep me quiet. Stop me from saying something Mark doesn’t want Elaine and Brian to hear.
I’ve been silenced in far, far worse ways, so why not enjoy this?
Flashes pop incessantly in the hallway. Two guards shove the media away. I hear scuffling sounds and groans of disappointment out there.
“Have you, um, seen the headlines, Carrie?” Elaine says, nervously babbling as Mark keeps my mouth occupied. “You two are all over the news. You killed El Brujo. You’re famous. And now you two will get married and have babies and you’ll recover and be fine and—”
“Elaine,” Brian growls, putting his arm around her. “Let’s leave them alone.”
“Not before I get a hug,” she insists.
“If you try to pry them apart you might get groped,” he grouses.
I look over when I hear that, just in time to watch Elaine give Mark the once over and murmur under her breath, “Not that I’d mind.”
“Elaine!” I screech, pulling away so fast that Mark pitches forward, sending me off balance. A splinter of pain drives its way into my shoulder. Mark’s eyes go from the dazed look of a man filled with passion to the laser-sharp focus of a special ops soldier.
Which he is.
She reaches for me, chuckling, jiggling in a motherly way. Our embrace is so welcome. “I’m sorry, Carrie,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m so sorry. But we’re going to make this right. You and Mark can stay in the cottage and—”
I pull away and smile. One side of my face stays down, the side with the deep scrape from Frenchie’s ring. “Thank you,” I say, squeezing her shoulders. I look at Mark. His arms are folded over his chest. He’s wearing a suit again. I know it’s to hide the gun. He’s so imposing, so commanding, and oh, so sexy right now.
And he’s mine.
“But,” I add, making her brow crease with interest, “Mark and I are moving to L.A.”
Mark smiles and unfolds his arms. Tension drains from him.
“L.A.?” Elaine questions. “Why?”
“Because,” Mark explains, stepping forward to hold my hand, “I know where we can go so the media don’t follow. Just for a while.”
“You’ll come back?” Even Elaine knows that the answer isn’t what she’s hoping. I can’t lie to her.
Mark and I shake our heads at the same time. “No.”
“You’ll visit?”
“Of course!”
“Promise?” Brian asks, pulling me in for a gentle hug. My tears return.
“Yes,” I say into his shoulder. He’s shaking, just a little. Not enough to cry, but definitely enough to almost cry.
When he pulls back he looks at Mark skeptically. “Joe would have liked you.”
“Joe did like me.”
“Not at the end.”
“No. Not at the end. With good reason, too.” Mark isn’t the type to shirk responsibility. Brian’s eyes perk up with respect. “And I can’t make it up to him. But I can make it up to Carrie,” Mark adds, regret and determination in his voice.
Elaine puts one hand on our forearms. “And that is all we can ask for.”