Snake Skin (31 page)

"I told them to take care of Taylor. I'm
fine." Her legs were trembling despite the support of the car trunk
she leaned against. "Anyone find my cell phone? Fletcher called me
on it, maybe we can do something with the call."

"I really think you need the medics, Lucy,"
Walden said, his voice sounding funny.

"No, I need that cell phone. Burroughs,
would you go look for it?"

Burroughs ignored her, instead whirling away
to grab a paramedic and pull him over.

"Why doesn't anyone listen to me?" Lucy was
getting angry now, sweat dripping down the back of her shirt,
making it stick to her. "Find the damn cell phone!"

"We will, I promise," Walden said. "Just as
soon as the medics check you out."

"I told you, I'm fine."

"Lucy," Burroughs reached around her,
snagging her by the waist as she sagged against the bumper. "Listen
to me. We'll take care of everything but you need to lie down on
this stretcher."

He pulled his hand away and raised it before
her face. It was covered with blood, so much blood that it slipped
off his palm in a steady stream.

Mesmerized, Lucy followed the drips of
blood. They swirled in slow motion, tiny red beads of glistening
sunlight, dropping, spilling, falling...

Chapter 26

Sunday 1:22 pm

The ambulance ride to Three Rivers passed in
a haze of sirens and beeping monitors and men shouting above her.
The medics strapped her face down onto the gurney, which wasn't
helping her breathing. The lurching and swaying of the ambulance
made her feel more queasy than the last time she'd tried to get on
a boat.

"I'm going to be sick," she groaned, not
sure if anyone could hear her. Gloved hands appeared below her,
holding a yellow plastic basin. She threw up, waves of pain slicing
through her until her vision went black again.

She woke up, still face down, this time
mercifully motionless. She blinked and inhaled the sharp scent of
starched hospital linens. Everything was white, except for the
black spots dancing in her vision.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice a weak
croak. She tried to raise her head but was overcome by vertigo.

"Hold still, Agent Guardino," came a man's
voice from behind her. "You're at Three Rivers' ER. Everything's
going to be fine."

The man sounded so calm, so superior that he
pissed Lucy off immediately. "I didn't ask where I was. I asked
what happened."

She tried to roll over to face him but pain
screamed through every nerve ending. Her eyelids peeled back as she
clamped her jaws against the urge to cry out. Christ, this was
worse than childbirth.

"Don't move." Hands held her shoulders down
as her shirt was cut away, the cold metal of the trauma shears
slick against her wet skin.

Why was she wet? Oh yeah, there was a fire.
Lots of water. And blood—there had been blood, too. Where was it
coming from?

"Is Taylor all right?"

"Taylor?" the man asked. Idiot.

"The other FBI agent," a woman's voice
supplied. "Ortho's with him, has a Colle's fracture."

"He's fine," the man translated. The
sticky-slippy feel of gloved hands probed her back.

"Ah-ye!" she cried out against her will as
more pain spiraled through her.

Lucy realized that in addition to removing
her shirt, her jeans were now gone as well, there were IV's in each
of her arms and sticky pads with wires attached to her chest.
Disembodied hands poked and prodded, telling her to "hold still"
and tell them if "anything hurt."

"Let's get X-ray in here," the man said.

"No." She put all her energy into the one
syllable. The room grew silent and she felt the stares of the ER
personnel on her.

"Agent Guardino," the man drawled out her
name in an exasperated sigh. "I need you to cooperate."

Lucy decided she couldn't be hurt too bad,
no one seemed very excited. There was none of the hustle and bustle
major traumas created. Instead, everyone seemed rather annoyed by
her intrusion into their workday.

Not as annoyed as she was.

"Tough shit. I've had quite enough of being
a patient, thank you very much. I have work to do. Like finding a
fourteen-year-old girl and the creep who took her before it's too
late. Now, tell me exactly what's wrong and exactly how you're
going to fix it and exactly who the hell you are."

She felt more than heard the man's intake of
breath. A pair of female legs dressed in blue scrub pants walked to
the head of the gurney.

"This is Dr. Williams," the woman who had
spoken before answered. "He's a trauma surgeon and he's examining
your back, trying to decide if he needs to take you to
surgery."

"Surgery? For what?"

"Agent Guardino, you do remember the bomb,
don't you?" Williams asked in an oh-so-condescending tone.

"Of course I do. Taylor and I jumped through
a window, fell from the porch roof. I had my breath knocked out,
but I didn't hit my head or anything. Just hurts a bit to breathe,
that's all. Probably cracked a rib or something."

"Actually, you have a rather large piece of
metal impaled through your rhomboid muscle," Williams told her. "I
need X-rays to confirm that it hasn't penetrated the chest cavity
before I remove it."

"A piece of metal? Really?" Well hell, you'd
think she'd have noticed something like that. No wonder the guys on
the scene were looking at her kind of funny. "Guess that's why it
hurts so fucking much when I breathe. How big is it?"

A hand clad in a purple latex glove appeared
before her eyes, its thumb and forefinger spread a good five inches
apart. "That big," the nurse said. "But there's only about a half
inch sticking out from the skin, so we need to see how deep it
goes."

"Oh." Lucy sighed. So much for taking
control of this situation. "Okay. Let's get that X-ray, then."

"Why thank you, Agent Guardino." The
surgeon's sarcasm ripped through the room.

"No problem, doc," Lucy said airily. "Hey,
since you've got my ass hanging free, could someone either throw a
sheet on me or turn the heat up? It's freezing in here. And I need
my guys—"

"After the X-ray."

Lucy conceded the point. The flow of people
surrounding her shifted as a large machine was wheeled in. "Any
chance you could be pregnant? How much do you weigh? Any past
medical history?" an anonymous tech droned out the questions in a
monotone that made it impossible to tell if they were a she or a
he.

She rattled off answers and gave her
personal information to a nurse who squatted down giving Lucy one
person she could make eye contact with.

More pain while the tech jostled her,
sliding witch's-tit-cold film cartridges under her. The nurse asked
if she wanted any meds, but Lucy declined. She needed to keep her
head clear. Everyone backed away, there was a final beep, and the
X-rays were done.

"Would someone please send in my guys?
Anyone? I don't care—FBI, Pittsburgh—" Lucy tried to raise her head
to see if she'd been abandoned in the room but couldn't look that
far over her shoulder. Then she heard the door whoosh open and
footsteps approach.

"Lucy?" It was Nick. She stiffened as fresh
pain washed through her. Not pain from the piece of metal in her
back, this was a deeper pain. Harder to control. "Oh my God—"

"Is Megan okay?" She wanted to twist around
far enough to see his face but couldn't. "Did something
happen?"

"Yeah, something happened. My wife
apparently developed delusions that she was superwoman and could
fly." He took the stool in front of her. His face was pale, closed
shut with worry. And anger. "Megan's fine. She's asleep."

"You shouldn't have left her alone."

He jerked his chin up at that. "She's with
your mother." He left the unsaid words dangling between them, that
it was Lucy who had left Megan, not him.

"I'm sorry." Tears blurred her vision. She
blinked hard, not wanting him to see. But of course he did.

"For what? Leaving Megan or almost dying?"
There was an edge to his voice and she recognized fear. But his
fear and anger didn't stop him from taking her hand as she reached
out to him.

"I panicked. I felt trapped—powerless. There
was nothing I could do.
Nothing
. Not even cheer her up
playing that damn video game. I needed to do something. So when the
chance came, I panicked and ran. I'm sorry."

He leaned forward so his forehead touched
hers. "I know. Megan knows too. She's a smart kid."

"Takes after her dad that way. You were
right, kind of, about that mystical thinking. All day long, I can't
stop seeing Ashley and Megan together, like if I can save one, I
can save them both."

"But that's the problem with magical
thinking. What if you can't save Ashley?"

Shit. She didn't have an answer for that
one. Nothing except the one thing that had driven her to this job
in the first place. "I have to try."

He nodded, his head bobbing against hers. "I
know. But that's the problem, isn't it?"

"I can't help it, Nick. It's not just
because it's my job—you and Megan are far more important than any
job. You know that. But it's a job no one else wants to do, and few
people can do, and—"

"And you happen to be very good at it." He
sat back, still holding her hand. "I know. John Greally told me
that you found the guy who did this. And he told me you saved lives
when you ran into that house."

The shrug came automatically, before she
remembered the piece of steel in her back. Pain lanced through her,
making her gasp. She blew it out, small little breaths like when
Megan was born.

"Should I get the nurse?" Nick asked.

"No. I'm fine. How's Megan? Are any of the
tests back?"

"Her color looks better. No fever. The
doctors haven't been back." He glanced up, over her shoulder and
she knew he wanted to be back with Megan. Watching, waiting. Nick
was good at that.

Unlike Lucy.

"When they do, I don't care what time it is,
you have them call me." Shit, she'd lost her phone in the fire.
Damn, damn, damn. Could anything go right this weekend? She needed
to be in contact with Megan's doctors, she needed to be with her
daughter, she needed to find Ashley, she needed to hunt down
Fletcher...and here she was, lying nearly naked on a cot, freezing
her ass off. "I lost my cell. But I'll pick up a new one as soon as
I'm back in the office."

"You're not going back to work," Nick
protested.

"I have to—"

"No. You don't. Think of your daughter,
Lucy."

Low blow. Totally unlike him. "Nick—"

"Okay, then, think of your team. That girl.
Ashley. How can you focus on them when you're exhausted and worried
about Megan? You've said yourself, a distracted agent is a
dangerous one."

She blinked hard and fast, lowering her face
so he couldn't see her tears. She couldn't handle this. Not now.
"Give Megan a kiss. I'll be there tonight. I promise."

"You promised her, not me, Lucy," Nick said,
his voice edged with a fury that was foreign to him. "Don't you
dare let her down."

"I know. I know. I'll be there." She looked
up again. "I love you."

He sighed and squeezed her hand, then
dropped it. Heavy footsteps came from behind them.

"Hey, Guardino, didn't no one never teach
you when to duck?" Burroughs said.

"I love you." Nick kissed her forehead then
stood. "I'd better get back to Megan."

And he left.

"You okay, boss?" Walden added, moving to
the head of the bed.

Lucy turned her head to one side, swiping
away stray tears on the sheet. "I'm fine. They're just checking an
X-ray. Any word on Fletcher?"

"Dust in the wind," Burroughs said. "Be
awhile before we can get much out of the house, but the arson guys
are working on it."

"Good. He'll have a car, one that's under
the radar. And if he wasn't keeping Ashley in his house—" She
stopped, icy cold rushing to her head as she realized she'd only
assumed that Ashley wasn't in the house.

"No remains in the debris so far," Walden
assured her.

"Okay." She swallowed, pushing past the fear
that she was already too late to save Ashley. "Right. I need all
the background on Fletcher, his complete personnel file. He's been
planning this for a long time and we're playing catch up."

"ICE is cooperating, thanks to the SAC. But
unfortunately the media is already all over this."

"Shit." She jerked her head up, ignoring the
talons of pain raking down her back. Took a second to breathe. "Get
me a new phone, programmed to my old number and wired for a trace.
Fletcher called me once, he's gonna reach out again."

"Why? He's got Ashley, he's in the clear,"
Burroughs protested. "Why risk calling you?"

"Because he's the Maestro, the game master.
He won his prize but he wants to play some more. With me."

They talked strategy. Lucy's neck ached with
the effort of craning her head up all the time, but Walden seemed
to instinctively understand. He grabbed a low stool and sat down in
front of her, taking notes as she dictated a to-do list.

"What do you want from me?" Burroughs asked
as Walden's list lengthened. He was staring at her with that look
in his eye again. That "I'm just a horny guy, so sue me" look that
he'd had ever since she'd met him.

"First up, you can stop ogling my ass." He
jerked upright, eyes front as if he hadn't even been aware of what
he'd been staring at. "Second, get me some clothes for when I bust
loose from this joint. Third, give me your phone so I can call
Bobby Fegley."

"Fegley?" Burroughs asked, his tone
dismissive. "The cripple? What's he got to do with this?"

"He knows that game Fletcher invented better
than anyone. Which means he has some insight in how Fletcher
thinks. I'll talk to him while the doctors are mucking about."