“Only for a moment,” Nate said.
“What did she say?”
“It wasn’t easy for her to talk. She’s still weak.”
“She must have said something.” Quinn hesitated. “Did she ask for me?”
A pause. “Yes.”
Relief? More guilt? It was becoming hard for Quinn to separate all he was feeling. “What did you tell her?”
“That you’d be back soon.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
Quinn looked back at him. “What else?”
“Nothing,” Nate said, meeting Quinn’s stare. “I think she wanted to say something more, but she drifted off. As far as I know, that was the last time she was awake.”
Quinn closed his eyes. He should be happy, ecstatic even. But instead he was frustrated and angry and guilt ridden and jealous that Nate had already talked to her. He had to get a grip. He had to get himself under control.
When he opened his eyes again, Nate was still looking at him.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. He opened his mouth to explain himself, but Nate held up a hand, stopping him.
“We’re all a bit out of sorts right now,” Nate said. The corner of his mouth ticked up in a wry grin. “It’s been a pretty screwed-up few weeks.”
Quinn felt a bit of his tension ease, and returned the half smile in kind. “It has been, hasn’t it?”
“I blame you.”
“Excuse me?” Quinn said, tensing again.
Nate shrugged. “If Romero’s men had taken you instead of me, I wouldn’t have all these welts on my back.”
“But that means I would.”
Another shrug. “There’s give and take on everything.”
Quinn suddenly felt his fingers being pressed together. He turned back to the bed. “Orlando?” he whispered.
Her eyes were still closed, and the rhythm of her breathing unchanged. He glanced at her hand. The fingers encircling his palm had relaxed, but he knew they had definitely squeezed him. Had she only been dreaming?
“Orlando?”
No response.
Quinn’s phone vibrated. His first inclination was to ignore it, but it was a patterned ring, one he used for only two people: Nate and Daeng.
He eased his hand out from under Orlando’s and retrieved his cell.
“Yes?”
“We have a problem,” Daeng said.
Not wanting to disturb Orlando, Quinn told Daeng to hold as he and Nate relocated to an empty room down the hall. Keeping the volume low, he put the phone on speaker so they could both hear.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“We ran into a little trouble when we went for Misty’s car.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Daeng briefed Quinn and Nate about the men who’d spotted them outside Peter’s place, and the subsequent chase that ended with Howard using his car as a blunt instrument.
“Is he all right?” Quinn asked.
“He’s shaken up and bruised, and probably going to hurt for a while, but he should be okay.”
“And the other two?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t have time to check them. All I know is that they weren’t moving.” Daeng paused. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“They took pictures of us as we drove by. I would have searched for their phones, but the police were almost there.”
Quinn was silent for a moment. This was definitely not good. “Where are you now?”
“Steve’s friend’s cabin. It’s in a place called Trevor Hollow. I’ll SMS you the GPS coordinates.”
“You didn’t use Misty’s car to get there, did you?” After the chase and the accident, Misty’s car would be white hot.
“No. We appropriated another vehicle before we left DC.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “You should be safe there. Just hunker down, and let’s let things cool for a few days.”
“Will do.” A beat. “Orlando?”
“Asleep. But…but better.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“Stay safe.”
After Quinn hung up, Nate asked, “Who were these guys chasing them?”
“Probably the same outfit that sent the team to kill us last night,” Quinn said.
“Wait, what? What happened last night?”
As concisely as possible, Quinn did what he had earlier promised, and brought Nate up to speed.
“Sounds like you pushed somebody’s button,” Nate said.
“Yeah, but whose?” Quinn asked.
“This Witten guy — he couldn’t tell you?”
“He didn’t know. His organization works client-blind.”
Nate nodded in understanding. There were a handful of agencies that operated under client-blind rules, when only a select few — often only one person — would know who was really picking up the tabs for specific operations. “So do you at least think this unnamed client is the one Peter was worried about, and maybe the person who gave Romero the list?”
“For sure? No, I don’t, but it’s damn hard to ignore the connection.”
When they returned to Orlando’s room, they found Dr. Montero and Liz waiting in the corridor outside the door.
“Dr. Montero only has a few minutes,” she said to her brother.
“Perhaps it’s best if I start with an update,” the doctor said.
Quinn nodded.
“Your friend’s vital signs are right where we want them. And there’s been no signs of infection, which was one of my major concerns.”
“So she’s out of the woods?” Quinn asked.
The doctor weighed his response. “I think it’s safe to say she’s no longer in danger.”
No longer in danger. Those were words Quinn had longed to hear, words that meant he wasn’t going to lose her.
That she would live.
“She will, however, be weak for some time,” the doctor continued. “It could take months or years before she reaches the level of strength she was at before being shot, if she ever does.”
While Quinn knew the last part should have been troubling, all he could hear was that Orlando had years to live, not just hours or days.
“What she’ll need is rest and physical therapy. Lots of both.”
“How long?” Quinn asked.
“There’s no way to know right now. She may need PT for the rest of her life.”
“No. I mean, how long does she have to stay here? When can we take her home?”
The doctor frowned like a father disappointed in his child. “You realize she’s still in very serious condition? I wouldn’t consider discharging her for two or three weeks at the earliest.”
“What if there’s a facility closer to home we can take her to?”
Again, the frown, but this time the doctor considered what Quinn said. “I would have to know more about the place, and talk to the staff there. Even then, there is no way she can leave here for at least ten days. Any lengthy trip prior to that could jeopardize the progress she’s already made.”
Ten days and Quinn could take her back to California. He could live with that.
Not home at first, of course, but closer than Isla de Cervantes. Two private hospitals that catered to people in his and Orlando’s world came immediately to mind. One was near his home in Los Angeles, while the other was near hers in San Francisco. He had more experience with the former, but the latter would be closer to her son, Garrett. Quinn could easily bring him to visit her every day.
He suddenly realized everyone was staring at him. “What?”
“I asked if you had any other questions,” the doctor told him.
Full of thoughts about getting Orlando home, he almost said no, but as he started to speak, his hand brushed against his pocket and he felt the tiny lump of the microfilm canister. In his rush to fly back to be with Orlando, he hadn’t even realized he’d brought it along.