“Don’t encourage her.” Suds stands, assesses the top of my head, then strolls to our client’s bedside. “You look like shit.”
“I’ve been better… Say, have you heard from Landy?”
“No, why?” My husband glances at me but unable to nod or shake my head, I give him a thumbs down.
“How long has she been missing?” At the hint of panic in Dash’s voice, Suds raises his palms.
“Whoa, I didn’t say missing. I’m suggesting we haven’t talked as of late. We’ve been a little preoccupied what with getting shot at and all.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?” Rustling comes from his side of the curtain.
“I don’t know. Hey, I don’t think you should be getting up.”
“Can I borrow your phone?”
“Sure.” More silence ensues, so I assume our new employee didn’t pick up his call.
“I need to go.” At the firmness in his tone, Suds sighs.
“I’ll call for an Uber. Where’re we off to?”
“My private jet’s in Westchester. I’ll call my pilot. He’ll be waiting for us.”
While the two men work out the details, I pull out the IV tube from my arm and jump into the outfit I had on in the factory.
Chapter Nineteen
Suds
“No way. You are not coming.” My God, she’s still high from painkillers and had at least a dozen stitches in her scalp. Maybe I can convince the doctor she’s lost her fucking mind and get her committed.
“Yes way, and you can’t stop me.”
Seeing her dressed in last night’s bloody clothes, I lay down the law. “Forget it. I’m not letting you on that jet.” My arms cross. Sometimes, a husband must make a stand.
As I duck around the curtain, she jumps out of bed, follows, and pokes me on the back. “No problem. I’ll take the next commercial flight out of JFK. She’s my responsibility, too. I hired her. No man left behind, right?”
While I applaud the sentiment, we don’t even know for sure, the woman is missing.
Dash slides the drape aside, joins us at the center station, and fires a mega-watt smile at the fiftyish nurse in charge. “Me and my lady friend need to leave now. Do you have waiver forms?”
Fuming that he’s included my wife, I elbow his sore ribs. “Whose side are you on?”
“Landy’s.”
The harried nurse clicks her keyboard, points toward the printer, then parts a group of policemen to respond to the shouts of a doctor. Clearly, her small-town hospital isn’t used to triaging gunshot wounds.
On the other side of the room, a machine comes to life and as it spits out paper, my wife opens her mouth to give me more shit.
I shut her down with a look. “Not another word.”
Zipping her lips, she signs her form, and while she places it on top of the mile-high paperwork, I race to catch up with her doctor.
“Hold on.” I can’t very well say my damn fool of a partner refuses to remain in the hospital so I tap dance around as best I can. “My wife works for the FBI, and they insist she get on a plane immediately. Do you have any instructions or meds she should take?”
He jerks a prescription pad from his front pocket, scribbles, and shoves three sheets in my hand. “No more than four a day. If there’s any oozing or she runs a temperature, she needs to see her own physician immediately.”
When I look up to thank him, he’s already gone. Mission accomplished I do a full three sixty searching for my companions. Thinking they left without me, I’m about to lose my shit but then spot them at the automatic sliding glass doors.
