“Just gonna stand there staring?”
Elias’s voice startled her.
“Shit, boy, don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Sneak up?” He let out a pained-sounding laugh. “I’m stuck in bed. Pretty sure you were the one doing the sneaking, Amka.”
She glanced around the cabin, exactly like the one she’d gone in just over a week ago to convince Leo to go look for him.
Her feet hurt now when she shuffled over to the chair and sank into it. Funny how she’d barely felt the pain in battle mode, but now her arthritis was back with a vengeance.
“How is she?” Elias asked, and for some reason, she knew exactly who he meant.
“In pain. Doc thinks it’s a concussion. Too many hits to the head. She’s observing her.”
He nodded. “That’s what they told me too.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “You two…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. You do more than run for your lives?”
“Yeah, Amka.” He shut his eyes and sighed, deep and mournful. “We did a lot more than that.”
“Pam the hot doc seems to think Leo’ll pull through.” She struggled out of the chair. Thing was too damn soft. “Think Dolores is salvageable?”
Elias cringed.
“Went out in a blaze of glory, huh?” She couldn’t help a wave of pride at what her old plane had managed to do on her last flight.
“Yeah.” He got a far-off look in his eye. “Should have seen her.”
She cocked her head, wondering if he was thinking of the plane or the woman flying it. Little of both, she figured. For that one flight, they’d been one and the same.
She cleared the emotion from her throat. “So, remember the blond guy? One they called Deegan?”
He went stiff. “Yeah.”
“Found his body washed up a few miles downriver from your…altercation. Smashed up good. Three bullets in him.”
Elias paled and his face went blank, reminding her yet again that her godson hadn’t signed up for this bullshit. He’d always been one of the good guys, not the bad.
“That other man killed him. Not you.”
He opened his mouth and shut it again. “Any sign of him?”
“The spook? Vanished.” She bent forward. “You think he’s undercover MI6?”
“Hell if I know.” He stared off at something. “Maybe he was one of the good ones. He saved my life after all.”
She nodded in return and bent low. “You’rethe good guy here, Elias. Always have been. Always will be.” Giving in to a rare urge to show physical affection, she kissed his cheek and whispered, “Proud of you, boy. Like your mom and dad always were. So damn proud.”
He replied, tight-lipped, “Thanks, Amka.”
“I love you, Elias.” She nodded once, holding back the wave of emotion that tried to seep out, and left without looking at him again.
Outside, she turned to Dr. Ford Cooper. “He’ll be going with you when this is done, I figure.”
