That’d been the last Cam had heard too. “I talked to Quinn this evening before we went dark for an operation.” They turned the corner to the ICU hallway. “He said she was waking up.”
“She did wake up around midnight. Ate a little too. And then?—”
“This is your fault!” Keith came barreling toward him, pointing an accusatory finger. “She had the TV on, and they cut to a report about the blast in South End. You just can’t quit, can you?”
“Is that what the doctor said caused it?” Cam asked Bobby, horrified and being towed under by a cresting wave of guilt.
His older brother shook his head. “Blood clot like they warned us.”
“She was fine, then she wasn’t!” Keith hollered in his face. “Because of you!” He reared back an arm, hand fisted, and before Cam could blink, Nic was between them, palm in Keith’s chest, shoving him up against the wall.
“That’s enough, Sergeant.”
“Why are you even here?” Keith spat, eyes hard and angry. “This is a family matter.”
“And Boston’s mine.”
Cam’s heart skipped a beat, then lurched into his throat. He moved to break up the stare-down, but Jamie’s hand around his biceps stopped him.
“I didn’t have much of one growing up,” Nic went on. “But your brother and his friends took me in. That’s why I’m here, for my family, which by extension is your family. So, stand the fuck down. None of us needs this right now, least of all your mother.”
“What’s going on?” Everyone’s attention swung the opposite direction.
Quinn stood in the doorway of Edye’s room, arm around their tearful father. Cam’s heart plummeted, all the way to the floor, the roller coaster making him nauseous. Keith looked equally green, raising his hands, and when Nic dropped his, Cam reached for his brother. Keith came to his one side, Bobby to his other. A hand coasted across his lower back, giving him the courage to ask, “How’s Mom?” even as he feared the answer.
“No change.”
The brothers sagged against one another. Cam broke first, going to his father and pulling him into a hug. “Tell me,” he said to Quinn over Ken’s shoulder.
“They may need to operate again. She’s on blood thinners now to try and dissolve the clot less invasively.”
“And the clot was an effect of the surgery,” Bobby said behind them. “Nothing else.”
“I’m sorry,” Keith mumbled.
Cam dragged him into the hug too. “It’s okay. We’re all on edge.”
“You should go see her, Cam,” Quinn said after a moment.
Cam nodded, handing Keith and his father off to each other. He glanced back at Jamie and Nic standing beside each other. The latter nodded. “Go,” he said. “We’ll be here.”
Taking a deep breath, he entered the dim room. And realized he hadn’t inhaled nearly enough. Because all the oxygen vanished, whooshing out of him like he’d been punched in the gut.
Last he’d seen her, his mom had been frail but awake and sharp. Now, she was laid flat out, unconscious and breathing with the help of a ventilator. Knees going weak, he caught himself on the bed’s foot rail, shaking the bed and drawing the notice of the nurse in the room.
He smiled gently, not seeming the least bit surprised. “Talk to her,” he said. “There’s still brain activity. She needs to know you’re here.”
The nurse slipped out, and once Cam got his legs back under him, he moved to the chair at the side of her bed. He wanted to hold her hand, and the nurse had helpfully made a path for him through the IVs and wires. Her hand was warm, which was a small comfort, but the way it didn’t move, didn’t curl around his, wiped the comfort away.
He squeezed for both of them. “I need you to hang on, Ma. I’m getting closer. We found where the kidnapped girl was held. Maybe Erin too.” He swallowed down the bile that rose up just thinking about Erin in that room and focused on his mother instead. “I’m going to find out what happened to her, I promise, but I need you to fight, Ma. I need you to fight like you fought for me.”
Eighteen
Nic sat at the table in Cam and Jamie’s suite, dress sleeves rolled up, going over again the documents in the rainbow-colored file folders and on the poster sheets hanging on the wall. Real estate for additional notes on the latter had become sparse, three different sets of handwriting adding bits and pieces as connections and observations struck.
But for all their efforts, as the sun rose on Thursday morning, they were still no closer to finding Shannon or Erin. And the sleeping man on the couch was near to breaking, no matter how tightly Nic held on to the rope.
There was a click across the room, and Jamie’s bedroom door swung open.
