“You can’t go back to St. Louis.” Joshua Richards stood in front of Jessie, arms crossed over his chest, shaking his head. “At least not now and not alone like you want to. It’s just not going to be part of our deal.”
“I already regret I made that deal,” Jessie grumbled.
“Only because it’s interfering with your love life. Otherwise you’re as anxious to see Jake Brandino brought to justice as I am. And you know that your testimony, along with Laura’s and Adrian’s will be what puts him away.”
“If I’d known that having the FBI protect us would be almost as bad as the witness protection program I might have thought twice.” Jessie tried to make her posture as tough as her words, and stifled a groan. She felt worn-out and sick to her stomach from the general anesthesia they’d used. All the places where she’d had needles poked in her, lines taped to her skin and technicians probing for one more place to find a spot for some piece of equipment clamored for first place on her personal list of sore spots.
None of them could compete with the bone-deep ache in her hip where they’d taken out bone marrow. The nurses had told her that each donor had a different reaction to the removal, and lucky her, she was about the sorest they’d ever seen. Normally she hated painkillers, choosing not to use them because of the lack of control she felt while on them. But today she blessed whoever invented the medications that allowed her to be propped up in bed without wanting to scream.
While the pain medication dulled the physical aches, nothing much touched the ache in her heart. She really expected to hear from Stephen by now, but it hadn’t happened. Going through the preparation and the surgery without him made her feel empty. She hadn’t realized just how deep a part of her life he’d become until he wasn’t there anymore. What had the last two months meant to him? Now that the investigation was over, did it mean their relationship was finished, too?
She lay back against the pillows letting sadness wash over her. Life was finally coming together in so many ways, yet she had no one to share it with in the way she wanted. Steve had protected her, encouraged her and shown her an entire new way of life. And then he left. “Steve’s testimony is going to be important, too. I hope you’re protecting him as well as you’re protecting us.”
Joshua scowled a little. “He’s a detective with a large law enforcement agency. We’re doing what we can, or at least what he’ll let us do. But you don’t have the training and resources that he does, Ms. Barker. That’s the biggest reason that I can’t agree to any quick trips back to Missouri for you. Anyplace you go for a while you’re going to require protection.”
Jessie sighed. “Just call me by my first name. We’re going to be involved in this whole effort to convict Brandino for long enough that formality might as well go out the window.”
“Maybe for you. I need to do my job, even when it doesn’t make me very popular. That includes keeping the three of you as safe as possible before, during and after any hearings involving Jake Brandino and the crime family he’s a part of.”
Jessie tried to keep her temper in check. She owed Joshua Richards and his task force a great deal for bringing her back together with Laura. And he wasn’t responsible for her happiness, just her safety. “I’m sorry, Agent Richards. It’s difficult for me to admit you’re right, but you are. Letting someone else be in charge is difficult for me.”
The man seemed taken aback by her admission. “Hey, isn’t this argument supposed to go on for a while? I haven’t won one this easily in months, especially not with you.” Now it was Jessie’s turn to be surprised.
“Okay, you got me. I didn’t know you were capable of making a joke, or smiling.” Even his steel-blue eyes warmed up when he smiled all the way. “But then I guess I haven’t given you much occasion to smile, have I?”
“Don’t feel bad about that, Ms. Barker. In that respect I have to give you credit because you’ve given me the biggest reason to smile that I’ve had in years. As bad as it was otherwise, your encounter with Cassidy made it possible to clear my father’s name.” There was a peaceful quality to Joshua as he said the words. Jessie wondered for a moment what he’d do now that his personal mission was done. But it wasn’t her place to ask, so she kept quiet.
Joshua finally sat down in the chair next to Jessie’s bed, a move that filled her with relief. He looked so keyed up standing by the window. Maybe now he’d be still for a moment. “So explain to me why you want so badly to go back home right away. You know we’ve promised to help you move in just a few weeks.”
“Throwing in a false information trail about where we’re going, as well, and all at no cost,” Jessie said, trying not to sound as snide as she felt. “At least I don’t have much in the way of family and friends who will be confused when their Christmas cards come back.”
“Hey, be glad I was able to get those higher than me to agree to this unusual situation. Only the fact that you wouldn’t have anything to do with the federal marshals kept my bosses from turning everything over to them and Homeland Security where it should have gone.”
“I know, and really, I’m thankful for that part. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Anything with my sister involved could have been a lot worse, Agent Richards,” a cheery voice called from the doorway. Laura breezed into the room as fast as she was able. With each day she looked more like her old self, although Jessie’s room was close enough to hers to realize that Laura’s nights brought restless sleep and nightmares.
“Well, you must be feeling better because you’re getting obnoxious,” Jessie said, unable to stay unhappy around Laura. “Thanks for coming by to see me. This is a change, me in bed and you up and around.”
Laura grinned, making her blue eyes light up. “I’m enjoying being more mobile again. Now we need to get us both that way at the same time. Maybe we can check out the local malls.”
Joshua shook his head. “And I thought your sister was the hard one to corral. You’re going to be interesting, Laura.”
“Hey, what happened to formality?”
The agent shrugged. “I can’t call you both ‘Ms. Barker’ without beginning to sound positively Victorian. So you’re going to get your way for that, at least. And since you have somebody else to keep you company, I’m going to head out for a while. I need to talk to your brother anyway.”
Laura come closer to the bedside and took the chair Richards had vacated. “Go on. He’s having a good day and he’d welcome the company. I think I was starting to bore him.”
“I doubt that,” Jessie told her sister as the agent left. “It’s hard to imagine you boring anybody. Are you really feeling as good as you look?”
“I think I am. Are you as uncomfortable as you sound?” Laura’s face showed concern.
“I didn’t think it showed, but I’m not all that great. I guess I’m just crabby and lonely and anxious for all of this to be over so I can find a way to get that man to let me travel.”
“He’s just trying to keep us safe, Jess. After what happened with me, that sounds like a really good idea.” She leaned back in her chair and pulled one heel up on the seat, wrapping her arms around her leg. It was Laura’s thoughtful position, one that Jessie could never figure out how she managed. “Hmm. Maybe if we could find the right team to be the bodyguards, or whatever they’re going to call them, then he’d be willing to cut us a little slack.”
“Maybe.” She hated to squash Laura’s idea, but she didn’t feel as hopeful about that as her sister. Jessie knew the bodyguard she’d want most, and he wasn’t available for the job.
She didn’t realize the pain medication was taking effect until Laura spoke softly to her a few minutes later. “Looks like you’re drifting off. I’ll go see what I can do about that bodyguard problem while you take a nap.”
“Fine,” Jessie agreed. Today wasn’t the day for arguments with Laura. There might never be a day for arguments with her sister again, now that she was back and life with her seemed so very precious.
“This is a temporary setback,” Jessie muttered through teeth clenched to stop their chattering. Two days after she’d donated bone marrow for Adrian, about the time most people were feeling just fine and bopping around the halls according to the nurses, she got to be the one-in-a-hundred with an infection afterward. Antibiotics dripped from the bag on a pole over her left hand while she fought alternating bouts of fever and chills.
Laura had been banished from the room unless she scrubbed down and wore a mask and other protective clothing. When Jessie heard that, she virtually ordered her sister to stay away. “There’s no sense in two of us getting sick. The doctors will skin me if they think I’ve passed on whatever germ this is to you.”
Laura had agreed, still a bit teary and pouting, but not arguing. There seemed to be something on her mind that she wasn’t sharing with Jessie. No matter what she asked Laura about Adrian’s condition and any developments in the case, her reply had been the same: “You don’t need to worry about any of that right now. Just get better.” Of course that didn’t help much.
So here she was during sleepless night number two, waiting for the medicines the doctors were pumping into her to have their desired effects. The modern-language Bible she’d had one of the nurses find for her and bring in was her best source of comfort right now, reminding her that she wasn’t really alone in all this.
As if to reassure her another nurse came into the room just then, not bothering to turn on the light or make much noise. Quietly and efficiently the woman looked at the bag of fluid on the pole, removed a vial from one of her pockets and started to attach it to the port in the bag. Jessie felt a little puzzled by her actions. Hadn’t someone just changed the bag about an hour before? She tried to see the clock in the darkened room. Maybe she’d slept more than she thought and it was time for this to happen again. In any case she didn’t remember anyone else mixing solutions as this woman seemed to be doing.
As she started to ask the nurse about that Jessie heard the soft whoosh of the elevator doors at the end of the hall, followed by quick, heavy footfalls and an odd clicking noise. Somewhere in the recesses of her foggy brain she searched for what could be making that sound. It was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. There was a large shadow in the doorway, making the nurse turn toward the figure. “You can’t bring that in here,” she said in a quiet but officious tone. “Don’t you have any idea how dangerous that is? I’m calling security.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” said a deep male voice, which rose a little louder as the whole shadow loomed forward. Then there was a low growling sound and then a flurry of action all at once.
The nurse cried out as if in pain while the man raised his voice. “No! What’s gotten into you? You’re going to get us all in trouble.” He pulled back to the doorway and Jessie could see him groping for the light switch. He reached it just about the same time Jessie found the control on the bed rail that turned on the lamp over her head.
For a moment the light dazed her and then she felt sure she was hallucinating when she looked at the figures struggling near the door. Then the site where the needle went into the top of her left hand began to burn and taking her eyes off the trio just inside the room she ripped off the tape holding it steady and plucked it out. Clamping her thumb down on the place where blood now dripped she groped clumsily for the call button while yelling for help. “Call security and the police!” she shouted, trying to lower one of the bed rails so that she could get out of the high bed. “Anybody, we need help. Call the police!”
Before she could say more the man slammed the small figure in nurse’s scrubs into the wall. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got her. Did she hurt you, Jess?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what she put in that bag.” Steve pulled out a cell phone and started talking into it while keeping his left arm stiff against the throat of the struggling woman. “We need police up here as soon as possible, and the emergency room staff all on the third floor transplant suite. Now.”
Breaking off the call, he nearly roared his yells for help out into the hall where one lone aide finally came down the corridor at a run. “Check the other two rooms and make sure they’re okay. This woman I’m holding isn’t a nurse and she may have tried to kill your patients.”
The next person in scrubs Steve directed over to Jessie’s bedside and the wide-eyed young intern checked her over quickly, put pressure over the spot where she’d removed the needle and tried to read the label on the bag now dripping fluid onto the floor. “Are you short of breath? Heart pounding? Any more severe pain anyplace?” he asked Jessie while at the same time she felt something land on the bed.
“I think I’m all right. And don’t you dare try to take this dog off the bed,” she warned the intern. “No matter what else happens, she’s not moving.”
“Sure. Fine,” he said, too busy working on her hand to quibble about Maude licking her face in happy abandon.
In less than two minutes the room was a swarm of security personnel and Seattle police officers as well as at least one man Jessie recognized as one of Joshua Richards’s specially picked staff. Cassidy had been cuffed and whisked out of the room. Once Steve didn’t have to hold on to her anymore he was at Jessie’s side instantly. Before either of them said anything he leaned over and gave her a long, fervent kiss. After the interruption with Maude, the intern finishing up on Jessie’s hand didn’t even give them a second glance.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Steve’s worried eyes searched her face.
“If that vial contains what it says it does, she should be all right,” the intern said, wrapping the last of a bandage. “It’s concentrated potassium solution. A little bit of it in the IV line wouldn’t be so bad. But if everything she pushed in there had gone into your body, you would have died within twenty minutes or so.” He looked hard at Jessie and then at Steve. “You got really lucky there.”
“Not lucky,” Jessie said firmly. “Blessed. Incredibly blessed.”
There was more commotion at the door and Laura burst into the room. “Steve! What went on in here? And how did you sneak the dog in? Come here, sweetie.” Maude jumped off the bed and dashed over to Laura, deciding she was okay and giving her a quick kiss, then going back to Jessie on the bed, all at a speed Jessie didn’t think was possible on those short, stubby legs.
“You’re okay.” Relief washed over Jessie at the sight of her sister with tousled hair and pajamas, but looking fine otherwise. “How’s Adrian?”
“Fine. Asleep until all of this commotion. Whatever happened, they went for you first.”
“Fortunately, so did Steve and Maude.” She looked up into Steve’s eyes, their green and brown depths radiating love. “Now they’ll probably be back in here hooking me up to more antibiotics in a little while, and they’ll try to shoo everybody out. But no matter what they say, we’re all staying in here for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, we are. I’ll help you argue for anything you want,” Steve said, holding her free hand.
“Me, too,” Laura said. “Even if I have to sleep sitting up on a chair, I’m not leaving until after sunrise.”
Neither the medical staff nor Joshua Richards had been successful in getting Steve and Laura or even Maude out of Jessie’s room. The four of them had held firm to the point of wheeling in a recliner for Laura to sleep in, where Maude had finally joined her after being coaxed off the bed by Steve.
In the early-morning hours once Jessie had been thoroughly looked over by her doctors and the room was quiet again, she and Steve talked softly, heads together so they didn’t wake Laura or the snoozing dog. “How much of a part did my sister play in getting you back out here?”
Steve chuckled. “About equal with my mother. Laura told me you looked miserable without me, and Mom told me I was an idiot for coming back alone. It didn’t take long for me to admit she was right.”
“I have a lot to thank Laura for. If she hadn’t coaxed you to come back the way she did, you wouldn’t have been here when Cassidy slipped into my room.”
“Joshua said it wasn’t the first time she’d been on the floor. He told me the doctors think now that your infection might have been caused by her, just so you’d have an IV line she could tamper with. She could have been in and out of here so quickly no one would ever have known why you died.” Jessie could feel him shudder. She put her unencumbered hand on his shoulder.
“That wasn’t the way God wanted it to be for us. This may all look like a great string of coincidences to some people here, but I don’t think so. After this I’m willing to trust His timetable for my life.”
“Good. I hope you think it includes me because this time I’m not leaving. I want to stay by you and protect you as long as you need the protection, Jessie. I want to get to know your sister and your brother. I love you, and I want to make you a permanent part of my life, no matter what kind of adjustments it means we’ll both have to make.”
“We’ve got as long as we need to talk about that, Stephen. With God to guide us, I’m sure we’ll get through whatever happens. Together.”
That was the way the dietary aide found the group when she brought in Jessie’s breakfast tray. All four of the room’s occupants slept, smiles on their faces. She set down the tray on the bedside table and went away quietly, knowing that when her family met at the dinner table that evening, she would definitely win their daily contest for the oddest thing that happened in their day. This one would be the highlight of the week, she thought, walking up the hall with a smile even bigger than the dog’s.