17
Washington, DC
4:45 PM Friday, January 16
Jack’s anger pulsed hot. As he rounded the corner of the private medical facility, his gaze and his annoyance zeroed in on the woman pacing the hallway. Brynn turned, and surprise flashed in her eyes before he caught a momentary glimpse of relief, making her appear vulnerable.
He slowed. Was it an act? A conversation from their past rose to the surface. Brynn hated hospitals, and in the last forty-eight hours she’d been in them twice. The Brentwood Medical Spa, though, looked nothing like a typical hospital. Instead of hard linoleum, sterile walls, and shared rooms, this medical facility boasted oak flooring, warm taupe walls decorated with art, and private patient suites.
Still, the luxurious aesthetic could not erase the beeping noise of machines, the antiseptic smell, or the unease shadowing Brynn’s blue eyes.
And yet, he had to steel himself not to give in to the desire to comfort her. She had disobeyed a direct order, and it was exactly why Jack had voiced his concerns to Walsh. Brynn could not be trusted.
“What were you thinking?”
At his harsh tone, Brynn’s expression tightened. Her shoulders rolled back, spine stiffening as she faced him head-on. “My job.”
He ground his molars. Her attitude had him stewing. “Your job is to follow orders. Going rogue will not work here. If I can’t trust you to work with me—”
A half snort cut him off. “Work with you? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one stuck on the sidelines watching you and your team work. I think the only reason I’m here is to take the hit as this continues to spiral downward.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to curb his growing frustration. “I already told you the goal is not to let that happen. But finding you on your day off working an angle—”
“Wait.” An awareness lit her eyes before accusation narrowed them on him. “How did you find me?”
He swallowed, expecting this question. “We know about Joseph Ansari.”
She eyed him. “What do you mean you know about Joseph Ansari?”
“We have a contact at the FBI.” He met her fiery gaze. “Mr. Ansari is pivotal to their Joint Terrorism Task Force. Sometimes our . . . interests cross.”
“Did you know Riad was going to the mosque?”
Jack shook his head. “No, but when we saw its proximity to the shopping center and learned of Moustafa Ali” —he shrugged—“we made an educated guess.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you found me here.”
“The JTTF is currently working a case. Your arrival outside the mosque today was unexpected.”
Comprehension dawned and Brynn’s posture softened a bit. Her soft, pale skin revealed exhaustion in the purple crescents beneath her eyes. She released a long breath, turned, and walked to a leather chair and sat.
“What was your conversation with Mr. Ansari?”
“Like you don’t know.” Her long blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail with loose pieces spraying out around her face, highlighting the worry lines creasing her porcelain skin. “I figured you’d have an audio recording of my conversation.”
Jack sighed. He didn’t know whether to feel aggravated by her obstinance or the way it unexplainably charmed him. “Brynn—”
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
Jack’s attention turned to Dr. Davey walking toward them. The surgeon was a friend of Lyla’s family who the SNAP agency called on in situations like this.
Dr. Davey pulled his mask to his neck before turning to Brynn. “Ms. Taylor. We did everything we could.”
Brynn inhaled sharply. “I don’t understand. It was a heart attack. Mr. Ansari didn’t seem unfit, was only sixty-eight. Were you able to contact his wife? Did she mention anything about a heart condition? Cholesterol? Blood press—”
“Sometimes hearts just give out.” Dr. Davey pressed his lips together, gaze bouncing between Jack and Brynn. “We’ll run some blood work—”
“We’d like to have our labs run it,” Jack said. “Your labs don’t need the extra work, and the timeliness of this case matters. If that’s okay?”
Dr. Davey’s expression tightened, but he understood Jack’s request was more courtesy than permission. He sighed. “Fine.”
“I’ll have Lyla let you know where to send it.” Jack reached for Dr. Davey’s hand. “We appreciate everything you did.”
“Of course.” Dr. Davey’s beeper went off. He grabbed it off the waist of his scrubs and gave it a quick look. “I have to go.”
Brynn stood and stepped forward. “You’re sure it was a heart attack?”
Dr. Davey swallowed, and Jack knew Brynn saw the same thing he did. Hesitation. “Unless the lab says otherwise, my thirty years of experience say it was just that.”
“Remon Riad. Moustafa Ali.” Brynn backed away, her eyes growing distant. “Tarek Gamal. Seif El-Deeb.”
“We appreciate your help,” Jack said to the doctor before directing his attention to Brynn. She’d taken a seat, her eyes closed as her lips repeated the names on a whisper.
“Riad. Ali. Gamal. El-Deeb.”
It was a method he recognized from their time at the Farm. She’d memorize pieces of the mission in an attempt to figure out which were critical to the case. Like puzzle pieces scattered in her brain until they fit into a picture only she could see . . . or control.
“It doesn’t make sense.” Brynn looked up, a crinkle between her brows. “Riad. Ali. Gamal. El-Deeb. Joseph Ansari. The last three are dead after talking to me.”
His jaw tensed. “What did you talk to Ansari about?”
“Riley called me and said Moustafa Ali was a member of the Sidi Al-Rahman Mosque. Like you said, the shopping center where we spotted Riad was nearby, and I thought maybe he’d gone there to talk to Mr. Ansari.” She shook her head. “But he didn’t know Riad. Though there was something . . .” She pressed her lips together for a second. “It seemed like he was nervous.”
“He wasn’t expecting you.”
“Just like the FBI,” Brynn added. “But was he expecting someone else? Do you think that whatever the FBI is working on has something to do with Moustafa Ali?”
“They’re always working a case, but I’ll reach out to my contact there and find out.” Otherwise, whatever information Joseph Ansari might’ve had just died with him. “Did he mention anything about Moustafa?”
“Only that he . . .” Brynn’s head rocked forward before she pressed her palms to her temples. “Um . . .”
Jack frowned. “Brynn, are you—” Her body crumpled, and he jolted forward to catch her in his arms. “Dr. Davey! Nurse! I need help!”
Brynn’s head lolled to the side, the color in her face gone, causing the blue-green veins to stand out. Her lips were tinged blue. Jack reached for her pulse, but his fingers shook in a violent rhythm, making it hard for him to feel for the beat of life he was desperate to find.
“We’ve got her, Jack.” Dr. Davey reached for Brynn, but Jack wouldn’t release her. “Jack.”
He let her go, watching in horror as Dr. Davey scooped her small frame into his arms, bypassing the wheelchair a nurse had rushed over. Gut-wrenching panic swept over him, and Jack dropped his face into his hands and prayed.
The crying had always gotten to her.
Brynn had kept very still, her back pressing into the hard plastic chair someone had kindly offered her when she and her mother walked in. The hallways were crowded, smelled like campfire and an unfamiliar stench that made Brynn’s knotted stomach swirl. She learned the unpleasant odor was burned flesh. And hair. And bone. Human.
That wasn’t what gave her nightmares though. It was the crying. Or rather, wailing. Despair that began deep in the gut, shredding through the heart until it clawed its way out of someone’s mouth in a skin-chilling sob.
Brynn sat there for hours, her skin covered in goose bumps, waiting for her mother to come back and tell her that her father was dead. And then her cries would join the ones echoing in the hallway of St. Vincent’s Hospital with the other widows and orphans of 9/11.
Except, she didn’t cry. Her father was okay. Injured but alive. Brynn had wanted to be happy—she had her daddy—but the cries wouldn’t go away.
Laughter.
Brynn groaned and turned, trying to force herself awake. Or at least make the laughing stop. Why would someone be laughing in the hospit— Hospital!
Images flashed in her mind. Sidi Al-Rahman Mosque. Joseph Ansari. Jack. Hospital. Her breathing . . . she couldn’t catch a breath. She inhaled, and a vise cinched tighter around her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t—
“Brynn, it’s all right. You’re all right.”
A loud beeping noise competed with the soothing voice she thought she recognized, but . . .
Slowly, her eyes drifted open to find the source of the voice staring over her with familiar blue-green eyes. Lyla.
“A nurse is on her way.”
“Nurse?” Brynn’s voice rasped.
“Y’all know there’s a limit on visitors.”
Lyla stepped back as a nurse in pink scrubs entered the room, and Brynn was surprised to see Garcia and Kekoa. They played a weird game of Frogger, moving around so the nurse could get to the machine next to Brynn’s hospital bed.
She glanced down at herself, realizing she was no longer wearing her clothes but a pale pink hospital gown made of the softest cotton with silk hemming. “What happened?”
The nurse took her vitals, her name badge identifying her as Rachel Allen. “Your heart decided to play a really bad joke.”
Her heart?
The nurse placed a blood pressure cuff around her arm and pressed a button. She glanced over her shoulder to a bedside tray with a box on it. “Is that what I’m smelling?”
“Malasadas. Homemade.” Kekoa beamed, his pride expanding the size of his body. “I made them for Brynn, but I can probably snag you a couple.” He made his eyebrows dance before giving the nurse a wink.
She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers, revealing the pink rubber ring. “Married, big boy. Army sniper.”
Garcia chuckled.
“No worries.” Kekoa raised his hands in defense. “I’ll still share.”
“I thought those were for her?” Lyla tipped her head to Brynn.
Before Kekoa could respond, Dr. Davey entered, glanced around, and let out a sigh with a shake of his head.
“All right, everyone out.” He thumbed toward the door. “I need to check out my patient, and all of you are breaking visitation rules.”
“I warned them.” The nurse removed the blood pressure cuff from around Brynn’s arm and did another awkward two-step with Kekoa’s large frame. This caused him to snap a beat with his fingers, his head and shoulders moving in some kind of dance move.
“All that muscle and no rhythm—a shame.”
Kekoa stopped dancing, and his jaw hung open with phony outrage. “I’m Hawaiian. I was born with hula sway in my hips.” To prove his point, he jutted his hips side to side, nearly knocking into Dr. Davey, who huffed his disapproval.
Lyla, Garcia, Nurse Allen, and Brynn laughed.
“See, Doc.” Kekoa smiled. “Laughter is the best medicine. Maybe I should be getting your pay—”
“Time to go,” Dr. Davey announced. “Or I’ll enforce a family-only policy.”
Brynn’s stomach sank.
“Doc”—Kekoa pressed a hand to Dr. Davey’s shoulder—“we are ohana. And ohana means—”
“I have children, Kekoa. I’ve seen the movie.”
“Come on, boys.” Lyla ushered Kekoa out the door with both hands against his back, Garcia following behind her.
“It feels like the room doubled in size, doesn’t it, Ms. Taylor?” Dr. Davey lifted the edge of the box on her bedside table, revealing rows of fried balls of dough. A sweet cinnamon scent filled the room. “Fried fat. Normally I’d warn you against eating one of these, but your cholesterol had nothing to do with your heart deciding to take a nap.”
“My heart?” That was the second mention of it. What she could remember was being unable to breathe and passing out in front of Jack. “What happened? How long have I been out?”
“A few hours.” Dr. Davey held up his stethoscope. “May I?”
She nodded, then jumped at the cold metal against her chest. Inhaled deeply and exhaled as directed until Dr. Davey stepped back.
“Sounds healthy.” He typed something into a computer the nurse had rolled over before turning to her. “Ms. Taylor, I’d like to discuss what happened to you, but I think Jack needs to be here. I need your permission.”
“I guess that’s okay.”
“Director Peterson is here and would like to sit in on the conversation as well.”
At this, Brynn pushed herself up against the hospital bed and tugged a knitted blanket over her. “Uh, can I get dressed first?”
“Of course. Nurse Allen has your clothes.”
The nurse went to an armoire built into the wall and pulled out Brynn’s clothing. “Do you need any assistance?”
“No thanks.”
Dr. Davey nodded. “I’ll go get Jack and Director Peterson.”
Once they left her room, closing the door behind them, Brynn slipped from the bed and quickly changed out of the hospital gown. She pressed a hand to her chest where her heart pounded beneath her rib cage. Nothing hurt. Why had Dr. Davey said her heart took a nap? What did that mean?
Her reflection in the mirror caused her to groan. Not even a lush sweatshirt could erase the bedraggled state of her hair or the smudge of mascara at the corners of her eyes. Nice. The whole team saw her like this.
The whole team.
Garcia, Kekoa, and even Lyla being there comforted her in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. Had Jack called them in? How long had they been there? She peeked over her shoulder at the box of Hawaiian donuts Kekoa had made for her. Ohana. Family. Emotions she hadn’t been able to shake since her last visit to the hospital—was that only a day ago?—came rushing back.
A knock on her door startled her. She wiped beneath her eyes and quickly tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ear before giving her head a quick shake. Wasn’t going to look much better than this, but at least she wasn’t greeting her ex and her boss in a nightgown.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Dr. Davey walked in, followed by Peterson and Jack, whose eyes widened in surprise when he saw her.
“Why are you dressed?” He cleared his throat, cheeks pinking. “I mean, you look like you’re ready to leave.”
“I am ready to leave.”
Jack rounded on Dr. Davey. “You’re not releasing her yet. She had a heart attack—”
“I had a what?” Brynn’s heart quickened. She brought her hand to her chest again. “I had a heart attack?”
“An episode,” Dr. Davey said. “But not because you’re unhealthy, which is why”—he looked at Jack—“I’m allowing her to be discharged.”
“Is someone going to explain what happened to my officer?” Peterson’s grumble drew the attention of Jack and Dr. Davey.
Brynn glanced up at her boss, but his gaze remained focused on the doctor as he waited for an explanation. Had he just said “my officer”? Never once had she heard him speak possessively about anyone in their division, which gave his demand all the more power to find roots in her already emotionally fragile state.
Dr. Davey rolled over the stool and sat. “When Mr. Ansari came in earlier, he was presenting with the symptoms of a heart attack. But when we ran blood panels on him before surgery, the numbers weren’t . . . right. I put a rush on it.” Again he set his gaze on Jack, the message clear. “I may not have all your access, but I do get a few things done the traditional way.”
Jack smirked.
“I contacted Mrs. Ansari, who gave me permission to disclose the information regarding her husband’s health.” Dr. Davey looked at Brynn. “When you asked me if I was sure it was a heart attack, something didn’t sit right with me. According to his wife and confirmed with the medical file his primary doctor sent over a few minutes ago, Mr. Ansari was healthy. He had no history of heart disease, cholesterol, or any other underlying conditions. I was about to call the lab tech when they called me first. They asked if we wanted to run a drug test.”
“A drug test?”
“Yes,” Dr. Davey answered Jack. “It’s common for labs to ask about toxicology panels when they see an irregularity in the blood work indicating drugs in the body. After Ms. Taylor’s concern, I agreed. Not because I was questioning my initial belief of cardiac arrest but because of a symposium I recently attended by the AMA. With the rising opioid crisis, the American Medical Association is trying to—”
“Wait, are you saying Mr. Ansari had opioids in his system?”
Dr. Davey glanced over to Brynn. “No. But also, yes. Except not how you imagine.”
Director Peterson blew out a frustrated breath, rolling on his heels. “Good grief, Doc, you know we’re not paying you by the hour. Can we get on with it?”
Brynn had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. She was sure Peterson had zero idea the man he’d just chewed out likely made quadruple his salary. Dr. Davey wasn’t amused but continued a bit quicker.
“Right before your episode, Ms. Taylor, I got the call about the drug panel, which reminded me of the symposium—” Peterson rocked faster on his heels, forcing Dr. Davey to speed up his words. “One of the doctors discussed fentanyl being inhaled and the dangers—”
“Mossad,” Brynn cut in as her mind raced back to her time at the Farm. She looked at Jack. “Khaled Mashaal, remember the lecture?”
Jack nodded. “It was reported as a botched assassination attempt on the Hamas leader. They sprayed fentanyl into his ear, and he collapsed with respiratory distress that was—”
“Corrected with naloxone,” Brynn finished before her attention turned back to Dr. Davey.
“Which is what I gave to you.”
Brynn’s gaze found Jack’s, reading the tension pulling his features tight. Her thoughts swirled back to why she had been at the private medical facility in the first place. Ansari. Someone had poisoned Ansari and . . . her? “I don’t understand. Why didn’t I . . .”
Understanding filled Dr. Davey’s eyes. “I believe most of the dose, if it was sprayed, was inhaled by Mr. Ansari. You must’ve breathed in the residual, which is why your reaction came later and why you’re . . . still alive.”