"You okay?" she called across the trauma room for the dozenth time.
"Good," came his steady response. "You?"
"All good." The words came muffled through her oxygen mask.
The night nurse—a formidable woman named Bernice—appeared between their beds with the expression of someone who'd reached her limit. "If you two ask each other that question one more time, I'm moving one of you to pediatrics."
"Sorry," they said in unison.
Bernice adjusted Izzy's oxygen flow. "Your O2 levels are still low. Both of you. Less talking, more breathing."
She bustled out, and Izzy counted exactly sixty seconds before Cory stage-whispered, "How about now? You okay now?"
A laugh bubbled up, turning into a cough. "You're impossible, Fraser."
"That's Chief Impossible to you, Reyes."
The trauma room doors swung open with institutional authority. FBI agents Debartolo and Preston entered, looking like men who'd just won the lottery but were trying not to gloat about it.
Debartolo pulled a chair between their beds. "Looks like we got us the heroes of the hour."
Izzy studied the agents over the top of her oxygen mask. Something had shifted in their demeanor—less accusatory, more... Was that respect?
"That was some tactical thinking with the flash-bang," Preston admitted, pulling out his tablet. "Using it as a decoy to fake your deaths? Impressive."
"We aim to please," Izzy managed, though talking made her chest tight.
Debartolo actually smiled. It looked unnatural on his face, like a cat attempting opera. "Janet Morrison's been talking for two hours straight. Waived her right to counsel. Says she wants everyone to know how 'clever' she was."
The pieces finally falling into place made Izzy's head spin more than the poisoning. "It was all her?"
"Yup." Preston pulled up his notes. "Started planning the moment Tom rejected MedFlight's two-million-dollar buyout offer. Which he confirmed, by the way. Can you imagine? Your husband turns down two million on principle, so you decide murder is the logical next step?"
She watched Cory shift in his bed, could practically hear his analytical mind clicking. “So you’ve got enough to move against MedFlight then.”
But Debartolo was already shaking his head before Cory finished. “Just the old guy’s word. No way we can touch an international outfit like MedFlight with that.”
“What about the other air ambulance outfits they obviously targeted?” Izzy pointed out.
Both agents grimaced. “The Bureau will investigate, but that outfit’s got deep pockets,” Preston said.
“And serious connections,” Debartolo added. “Never say never, but….”
Cory nodded tiredly. “Yeah.” He tugged at the cord of his mask. "How did Janet find Brad Houzer?" he asked.
"Town gossip, apparently. Her hairdresser’s son runs with the same crowd. Janet knew he owed money, knew he was desperate. Approached him at the Wagon Wheel, taught him the sabotage technique herself." Debartolo shook his head. "Learned it from Tom's own technical manuals. Twenty years of filing his papers, she'd absorbed everything."
"The fentanyl," Izzy breathed. "Tom's prescription."
"Exactamundo," Preston confirmed. "When Brad got greedy, demanded more money, she slipped the fentanyl into his regular pills. Made it look like an overdose."
The cold calculation of it made Izzy shiver.
"The jacket at the hardware store," Cory said, and Izzy could see the pieces clicking into place for him too. "She wore Tom's jacket."
"With the hood up, keeping her face turned from cameras. And she used the self-check-out." Debartolo pulled up security footage on his tablet. "She's five inches shorter than Tom, but bundled up, quick movements—people saw what they expected to see."
"The mechanical pencils?" Cory pressed.
