43
Alex’s eyes fluttered open. A nurse stood next to her bed.
“Where am I?” she whispered.
“In recovery. You made it through the operation just fine.”
The last two days slowly came back to her. She’d had to wait for surgery because the snowstorm had trapped the surgeon, who lived well beyond the outskirts of town. She was just grateful it was over. Even with medication, the pain had been excruciating, and it was hard to breathe.
Thankfully, another doctor treated her when she first checked in and determined her injuries weren’t life-threatening. “You’re lucky,” he’d said. “Hanging can cause significant damage to your throat.” He smiled. “Your friend Logan says getting you to stay quiet will be a challenge, but you have to if you want to get your voice back.”
She’d started to respond to him, but instead, she just gave him a thumbs-up.
Then he’d laughed. “Good job. Keep it up.”
He also confirmed that she had three broken ribs, and that one had punctured a lung. “When the surgeon gets here, she’ll get you fixed up. Make it easier for you to breathe. We don’t see any damage to your internal organs, but she’ll check that out too. You’ll need to rest for six weeks or so, but you’ll be fine.”
“We’ll move you to a room when you’re really awake,” the nurse said. “The doctor will talk to you soon. In the meantime, we’ll give you lots of nice drugs to keep the pain manageable.” She pointed to the IV bag next to Alex’s bed. “Morphine now, then we’ll switch you to something else.”
“Thank you.” Alex didn’t like pain medication. Anything that made her feel she’d lost some control bothered her. But this wasn’t the time to take a stand. This was the time to shut up and let the doctors and nurses do their work. Right now all she wanted to do was sleep.
“I’ll come back in a few minutes.”
Alex thanked the kind nurse again. She reached down to touch her chest. It was wrapped tightly. She tried to take a deep breath. It was uncomfortable, but at least she could breathe easier than before.
She nodded off more than once. But she wanted the privacy of her own room, so she fought to keep her eyes open. Finally, the nurse and an orderly returned.
“Ready?” she asked.
Alex nodded.
The orderly wheeled her out of recovery and down a long hall, the nurse keeping pace. So did one of the agents who’d been with her since she arrived. When they reached her room, the agent stayed in the hall, and the orderly pushed the padded gurney inside, where he and the nurse helped her into bed.
“Take it slow and easy,” the nurse said. “We don’t want to put pressure on those ribs.”
It took a while for Alex to finally get comfortable, but when she did, it felt heavenly.
The orderly pushed the gurney out of the room, and another nurse came in to take over. She covered Alex with a sheet and blanket, then hung her IV and attached another bag to the side of the bed.
“You’re hooked up to a catheter. For now just enjoy knowing you don’t have to get up.” She frowned. “You haven’t eaten in quite some time. I can give you something light, but nothing heavy yet.”
“I’m not hungry,” Alex whispered. “But maybe some water? To be perfectly honest, I just want to sleep.”
The nurse stepped to the side table, then filled a glass with water from a pitcher. “Just a little at a time,” she said when she brought it to Alex.
Alex took a few sips, then put the glass on her tray.
“I’ll get you a specially warmed blanket. Then you can get some sleep. And if you wake up in pain, push this button.” She pointed to a machine near the bed.
“Thank you.”
Alex was already drifting off when the nurse covered her with the second blanket. At that moment, she thought it might be the best thing she’d ever felt.
Logan had finished his lunch and was watching the news when Noah walked into his hospital room.
“How are you doing today?” he asked.
“Well, let’s see. They put screws in my ankle, put this stupid cast on my leg, and stuck my foot up in the air.” Logan pointed at his leg, elevated on top of a foam pillow. “How do you think I’m doing? But at least the doctor said I can go home later today, and I’ve been able to switch to over-the-counter pain meds. I’ll be fitted for a boot before I leave, and I have to use crutches for a while.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Hey, man, thanks for what you did for me at the warehouse. Your makeshift splint probably kept this from being a lot worse.”
Noah smiled. “No problem. I’ll break a chair for you anytime you want.”
Logan laughed. “How’s Kaely?”
“Good. She gets to go home later today as well. She and Alex both could have had serious neck injuries from what Bayne did to them. Especially in Alex’s case. Kaely told me Alex had given up right before we broke into the warehouse. Pushed that chair over to her so one of them would hopefully survive. She could have easily died, Logan.” He shook his head slowly. “She saved Kaely’s life. She’s quite an agent—and human being.”
“Yes, she is. And so are you. I’m sure glad you didn’t let me open that door. None of us would have made it.”
“God was with us,” Noah said. “That’s all I can say.”
“Boy, Bayne didn’t miss a beat, did he? What a monster. He killed Cooper and Palmer as soon as they delivered Alex and Kaely to the warehouse. I mean, what they did was awful. Especially Palmer. But I almost feel sorry for them.”
“Alex said something when we were on the way to the hospital, and it stuck with me,” Noah said. “She said, ‘If you do a deal with the devil, you have to be prepared to pay the bill.’”
Logan nodded. “I guess their bill came due.”
“They still haven’t found Bayne.” Noah shook his head. “He may be long gone, I don’t know, but I still have to wonder if the storm slowed him down. Maybe he’s closer than we think. Of course, he’s a planner, so I’m sure he had a contingency plan in place. Terry says his wife claims she doesn’t know where he is, and maybe she doesn’t.”
Noah sat down in the chair near Logan’s bed. “How long will you have agents outside your rooms?”
Logan shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they just want to err on the side of caution.” He frowned. “They didn’t find any pages from Davis’s book at the warehouse. I guess Alex and Kaely were his last victims, so he didn’t need one.”
“You don’t look convinced.”
“He’s a psychopath. He loves attention. For him to just slink away . . .” He looked out the window. It had snowed twice more since the storm, but only lightly. Still, it was a mess out there.
“So you think running away is—”
“A rather anticlimactic ending? Yeah.”
“Don’t forget the bomb. He thought there would be a major explosion, and we’d all die. That’s pretty dramatic.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Logan said slowly. “Still, he likes to take credit for things. Maybe we’re not hearing from him because he failed.” Logan grunted. “I’m sure he doesn’t like to lose.” He paused for a moment. “Hey, can you find me a wheelchair? I want to see Alex.”
“She just got out of surgery. I expect she’s resting.”
“I know. I just want to talk to her a minute. If she’s asleep, I won’t bother her. I haven’t spoken to her since yesterday, and our conversation was limited since she could barely talk. I want to know what she thinks about Bayne’s next move. Maybe we can help the police narrow down their search if we can figure out where he’s headed.”
“Shouldn’t you wait a bit, man? I mean, seriously. Let her have some time to recover.”
Logan knew what Noah said made sense, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he needed to see Alex. “I won’t stay long.”
Noah sighed. “You BAU people really don’t take any time off, do you?”
Logan smiled. “It takes over your life. We analyze everything. It’s a sickness, I guess.”
Noah’s expression tightened. “Yeah, I believe that. Kaely’s thinking about Bayne too.” He stood. “Stay there while I look for a wheelchair.”
Logan laughed. “Like I’m going anywhere.”
Noah had just walked out of the room when Monty came in. “So how long are you going to milk this?” he asked, grinning.
“Hey, I’m already tired of it.” He was glad to see Monty, who gave him a quick hug.
“Glad you’re alive, brother. I can’t stand to lose anyone else I care about.”
“Thanks, but I’m still mad at you for not getting out of there when I sent you that text.”
“Couldn’t leave you, man. No one in the car wanted to go.”
“If that bomb had gone off . . .”
“Then we’d all be singing hallelujah,” Monty said with a grin.
“I guess that’s true.”
Noah came back into the room with the wheelchair.
“I’m going to talk to Alex if she’s awake,” Logan said. “I’m concerned about Bayne. He failed to pull off his pièce de résistance, so now what?”
Monty was silent for a moment. “Yeah, that bothers me too, but if he has any sense, he won’t be hanging around.”
“With more than ten inches of snow, travel’s been really affected. What if he’s nearby? I’m not convinced he’s gone.”
“Terry just told me Bayne cashed out his dwindling bank accounts before coming here from Australia, leaving his wife just enough to get by until the life insurance came through. After he paid the settlement from Davis’s lawsuit, he was pretty much wiped out, but he probably has enough to keep him going for a while.”
Noah spoke up. “He despised Davis for years. Was jealous of his success. Then when Bayne was hit with the lawsuit, it triggered his hatred. His instability. He started putting his plan into place, although the authorities in Australia now think his wife might not have known about all the killings he planned, let alone the methods he employed. They don’t believe she’s as twisted as he is. She just wanted the insurance money. Anyway, he targeted other profilers in an attempt to make it look like Davis was killed because of his profession, not because of who he was. Kaely and Alex caught his attention because they made it into the media. He was jealous of what he considered their undeserved celebrity.”
“So,” Logan said, “Bayne hated Davis because of his success. That hatred simmered for years. Then when Davis took away his financial stability, his psychopathic personality burst forth. He couldn’t hide it anymore. He figured out a way to take revenge and to make himself rich. And no one would suspect him because he was dead.”
Noah frowned. “Now that he’s failed, what do you think he will do?”
Logan hesitated a moment before saying, “I don’t know. If he’s smart, he’s somewhere safe. Someplace he’ll never be found.” But even as the words left his mouth, something inside told him this wasn’t over yet.