Chapter Twenty-Three

Saturday, April 12, 4:36 a.m.

She was so thirsty. Carmen tried to lick her cracked lips, but even her tongue was dry. She tried to open her eyes once, twice, three times…finally.

The room was dark with the background hum of an IV pump.

“Waa…” Her throat was so dry it hurt to talk.

“Do you want some ice chips?” a familiar voice asked.

John.

A shadow rose and loomed over the bed. A plastic spoon touched her lips and deposited a few blessedly cold slivers of ice on her tongue.

She moaned in pleasure as the relief sank into her parched tissues. As soon as they melted, he slipped a few more into her mouth. She could get used to being taken care of like this.

Their fight in all its stupid, irrational glory flared up in full-color, 3-D splendor in her head. She had told him in no uncertain terms she didn’t want him to take care of her, yet here he was doing it anyway. Instead of feeling angry, she felt…guilty.

She’d been wrong.

About Halverson, the reach of the FAFO, and what she really wanted—a man she could depend on.

She’d thrown it all away.

She sure as hell didn’t deserve to have him looking after her now.

Carmen turned away the next time he offered her more ice. “How long have I…” She wasn’t sure what had happened.

“You have the measles. You spiked a fever, and the staff here weren’t… They didn’t… The surgery took a lot out of you.”

“They thought I might die?”

“They don’t know you like DS and I know you,” he said with a shocking amount of pride in his voice. “After talking with Henry, we decided to try something a little unorthodox.”

She tried to snort. It came out strangled. “You’re an expert at a little unorthodox.”

He tilted his head a little. “Did you know you and I have the same blood group?”

Blood group?

She sucked in a breath. “You gave me a transfusion?”

“Plasma only. Henry thought the antibodies I have in abundance might do some good in you, and since your fever broke and you woke up…I’d say he’s right.”

She glanced at his arms and saw a bandage in the crook of his elbow, right in the donation sweet spot.

He’d given her his blood and saved her life. Again.

“Why?” she asked, tears clogging her throat, making her voice husky. “Why do you keep saving me?”

For a moment, he seemed frozen in place, not moving, blinking, or even breathing. Then he leaned down so his mouth was next to her ear and said very softly, “Because I love you.”

No. No, he couldn’t. “But…but—”

“No buts. No maybes. No ifs.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’re it for me. From the day we first met until forever, you’re it.”

Tears tracked hot trails down the sides of her face. She wanted to tell him everything. Every secret, hope, and dream, but there were still too many obstacles between her and that happy ending he’d promised her all those years ago. She wasn’t that girl anymore.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I’m scared I’ve changed too much, grown into someone you won’t want. I’m not that innocent, naive young woman who thought you could walk on water.”

“Don’t go giving me a messiah complex.” It was a protest, albeit a quiet one. “I screw up plenty. Hell, I screwed up every day of the nine years I spent away from you. I should have tracked you down after we got out of that death trap in Afghanistan. I should have known you wouldn’t have left without talking to me without a reason.”

She began to sob.

Several of the monitors sounded alarms.

Someone grunted, and then DS was on his feet and at her bedside next to John. He took one look at her face and asked, “What’s wrong? You dying?”

John sighed with theatrical flair. “I’m trying to tell her I love her.”

DS gaped at him, then stared at her before returning his gaze to John’s face. “You idiot. You don’t tell a woman you love her while she’s still sick and in a hospital bed. You give her flowers, take her out for a good steak dinner, then get on your knees and offer her a fucking diamond ring when you say you love her.” He smacked the back of John’s head with the flat of his hand. DS turned back to her and gave her the biggest fake smile she’d ever seen. “We’ll all just chalk this up to a fever dream, okay?”

Her sobs turned into laughter. That didn’t stop the tears from flowing, but it did allow her to crawl out from under the thousand-pound rock of uncertainty she’d been living under.

Before she could regain her composure enough to talk again, a nurse came in and shooed both men out of the room.

She took Carmen’s vitals, then smiled at her. “Your father and husband haven’t left you alone once in the last thirty-six hours or so.”

Her who? Those lying, conniving cheats.

“They’re a couple of…” Was there even a single polite word for either of them? “Rascals,” she said with an apology in her tone. “I hope they didn’t cause any trouble.”

“No, they were a big help, actually. Every department is understaffed, thanks to the measles. They saved me from a lot of work and running around.” She glanced at the almost-empty IV bag hanging off the pole next to Carmen’s bed. “I’ll be back in a minute to hang a fresh bag.” She gave Carmen a wave and left.

John and DS strolled in, looking as innocent as two men caught with their hands in the cookie jar could look.

“My husband and father?” she asked. “Really?”

John opened his mouth, but her eyes were closing.

“No, don’t tell me now. Explain when I’m not so tired. I think I’m going to want to remember it.”

The next time she woke, she was alone in the room, but she could hear a familiar rumble of male voices outside her room. They got louder until she could make out individual words.

“You think I’m going to let you anywhere near her? You’re fucking nuts.”

That was John’s voice, and he sounded furious.

“I need to talk to her.”

The other man sounded…desperate.

“Why? She doesn’t know anything.”

“She was the last person to talk to Halverson. I need to know if he said anything about the FAFO or Sarah to her.”

“Look,” John said, his tone softening a little. “I get how you feel. She lied to you, betrayed you, then left you to deal with the consequences alone. Even if Halverson did say something to Dr. Rodrigues, it won’t have been enough to explain what she did and why she did it.”

“Any clue or piece of information could break the case open,” the other man said. “I need to talk to her.”

Carmen thought back on the moment Halverson had forced her into the SG’s office at gunpoint. He’d rambled a lot, but then, he already had a fever.

“John,” she called out, but her voice wasn’t louder than a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “John.”

The voices broke off, and someone tall with broad shoulders came inside.

“Who are you talking to?” she asked.

John reached over and covered one of her hands with his. When he squeezed, she squeezed back. “It’s Agent Ketner. Turns out, his girlfriend was mixed up somehow with the FAFO. He wants to ask you some questions.”

“Bring him in.”

John shook his head. “You barely survived the fucking measles. You need rest, not an interrogation.”

“He isn’t going to interrogate me,” she said in a soft, chiding tone. “I don’t have much to tell him, but I can, at least, give him the peace of mind my answers might provide.”

John stared at her with lips compressed tight. Finally, he nodded. He went to the doorway, gestured to someone, and came back in. Agent Ketner entered, slowing his pace considerably once he saw her bed and all the monitors. He stared at Carmen with wide red eyes and an ashen face.

“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Ketner said. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions about Dr. Halverson. If he might have mentioned Dr. Sarah Jones or if he made any other references about a woman being involved with the FAFO.”

“I’m sorry, he didn’t,” Carmen said. “Dr. Halverson was the kind of man who didn’t like to share the credit with other people. Even if she was involved, he wasn’t likely to mention her.”

“Damn it.”

“I don’t think he could have done all this alone. I think there were several people assisting him in various ways. Maybe he never met any of them. Maybe he was scared they’d claim all the credit for themselves. Whatever the reason, he never mentioned more than the FAFO, which he also seemed to despise. He was sweating when he died. So he probably had the measles, too.”

Ketner stared at the floor for a long time before he met her gaze again. “I’m sorry for my poor attitude earlier in the investigation.” He glanced at John, too. “I’d been told you two and your whole department was dirty, taking kickbacks from other pharmaceutical companies.”

“Your information was wrong,” John said, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I know that now, and again, I’m sorry.” The visitor rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell happened since the moment I realized she’d played me.”

“What else did she say?” Carmen asked.

“Do you have her phone?” John asked at the same time.

Ketner put up his hands. “She never named anyone or any specific corporations, but she talked about how the CDC hadn’t kept up with the times. She compared your lab and research facilities to a backwoods campground.”

“We’re always upgrading our facilities. If we’re going to stay one step ahead of pathogenic microbes, viruses, and fungi, we have to.”

“How did you two meet?” John asked.

“I met her six months ago at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico.”

“Let me guess,” John said in a I told you so tone. “She was just your type, right down to being a fan of all your favorite sports teams.”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. He closed his eyes. “God, I’m an idiot.”

“Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to feed you the wrong information,” John said. “No one spends six months in a relationship with someone for a small favor.”

“What was happening six months ago?” Carmen asked, almost to herself.

“El Paso, then Utah,” John answered. “This is big. Maybe a lot bigger than we thought.”

“They killed her,” Carmen said, looking at Ketner. “Before she could tell you anything.”

Ketner’s mouth tightened until it was nothing but a white slash across his face.

“We’re going to find out what happened to her and everyone involved in the FAFO or whoever the fuck is doing this shit,” John told him with a confidence and certainty that was more than a promise—a vow.

Ketner squared his shoulders, nodded at both of them, then left the room.

John stared after the other man for several long seconds, then turned to look at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Like crap. How long has it been since the surgery?”

“Three days.” He sighed. “The hospital wants to discharge you. They need the bed. The nursing staff and your surgeon argued against that, but they were overruled.”

Lying in bed was easy. Anything else…not so much.

“I’ll need help.”

He gave her a cheeky grin. “That’s what husbands are for.”

“So I hear,” she said. “Too bad I don’t have one.”

“Pretend, okay? I’ll take care of you like you took care of me.”

She didn’t want to pretend. She wanted the real thing.

She wanted him.

What did he want? He said he loved her, but what did that mean, exactly? There was still so much they hadn’t worked out, hadn’t said.

The nurse came in, took her vitals, and looked at her underarms to check on the rash. She gave Carmen two thumbs up, so she supposed the rash was either disappearing or gone.

Two hours later, she was sitting in the front passenger seat of a small SUV John said was a rental, with DS in the backseat, along with a large bag of medical supplies.

The two men seemed to have become best friends at some point.

“You two are weirding me out,” she said.

“What does that mean?” John asked.

“You’re getting along. It’s creepy.”

“It’s a limited-time offer,” John said.

DS cackled. “I’ll go back to my usual cantankerous self once things return to normal.”

She gazed out the window at the lack of vehicles on the roads. “Where are we going?”

“A hotel, for now,” John said. “DS is heading back to Atlanta to organize your return trip and hold down the fort. At the moment, no airline will allow you to fly with them. We might have to wait as long as a couple of weeks.”

Two weeks with John Dozer alone. They’d either kill each other or end up married, and since he was already pretending to be her husband…

No, she had to get that idea out of her head. This period of time was out of the ordinary. Once things went back to normal, well, nothing had really changed. He was still ignoring her orders and requests whenever he felt like it.

She’d only be in the same place later as she was now. With a man who didn’t trust her to make the right decisions for herself or anyone else.