That earned him a short huff of laughter.
It barely touched the panic clawing at his chest, but it broke the edge of it enough for him to drag in a full breath.
They drove the rest of the way in tense silence, the city blurring past outside the windows. Pierce’s mind never stopped moving, circling the same hard truth over and over.
This had just changed everything.
Whatever mystery they’d been trying to piece together had crossed a line. It wasn’t notes, old photos, and strange conversations anymore.
Somebody had opened fire in broad daylight. And Charley had nearly paid for it.
By the time the hospital came into view, Pierce was already reaching for the door handle before Ray had fully slowed.
Ray shot him a look. “Hold up until I stop the truck, man.”
Pierce’s hand tightened on the handle. His pulse was hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat.
As soon as the truck rolled to a stop, Pierce was out the door heading for the emergency room entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The exam room was too quiet.
Charley sat propped up in the narrow hospital bed. Her legs were crossed and covered by a thin blanket that did nothing against the chill of the room. Thankfully, whoever had assigned her this space had put her in one with an actual door, rather than one of those curtain-separated bays where you could hear everything going on in the emergency room. At the moment, privacy felt like the only decent thing she had been given all day.
Everything around her looked sterile: pale walls, bright overhead lights, stainless steel. There was a monitor in the corner of the room that she wasn’t hooked up to anymore. An IV line was taped to the back of her hand, pumping antibiotics into her, though just looking at it made her skin crawl.
Her right arm rested awkwardly in her lap, a stark white bandage wrapped around the upper part of her arm just below the shoulder. It didn’t hurt much yet, though the doctor had warned her it would later, once everything wore off. But right now it was more of a dull awareness than actual pain. She tried not to think about the tetanus shot they’d given her, which had hurt like a bitch. Apparently, getting grazed by a bullet, stitched up, and jabbed with an IV hadn’t been enough. No, the universe had apparently been looking down at her and thought,“You know what this girl needs? More needles.”To her, it felt personal. She hated needles.
The rest of her, though, felt numb in a way that had nothing to do with lidocaine.
Two detectives had left a few minutes ago. She had told them enough to explain the shooting. They had asked the same questions just in different ways, over and over again, until she felt like she was stuck inside on an endless replay.
However, she had left out parts too. Not because she wanted to be difficult, but because she didn’t know what she could and couldn’t say. She wasn’t touching that. Not until she talked to Pierce.
The thought of Pierce made her chest tighten. She wondered if he knew what had happened yet.
She didn’t have her phone. Hopefully, someone had picked up her purse and bag. She hadn’t seen Seth since she arrived at the hospital. Once the ambulance doors opened, everything had turned into a blur of doctors, nurses, and questions. One minute, Seth had been there beside her, trying to keep her focused and calm, and the next she had been swept into a mosh pit called the emergency room.
Now she was alone.
Her gaze dropped to the piece of paper in her hand. It was slightly wrinkled from how tightly she had been holding it. A nurse had brought it in not long ago and told her it had been found on the floor in the ER, where they had been working on the stranger before taking him up to surgery. It had been tucked inside another sealed envelope with her name scrawled across it.
There was something else she learned from the nurse about the stranger. His name was Calvin Henderson. One of the three names from the first note. That alone had been enough to send a fresh chill through her body.
But the paper in her hand now left more questions than answers. Written in the same handwriting as the other notes were two more names: Dr. Marwood and Colonel Reed.
Charley stared at the names again. Dr. Marwood meant nothing to her. At least not yet. He was a brand-new player who had been dropped into the middle of this fiasco.
But Colonel Reed…That one sent a cold shiver skating up her spine every time she looked at it. That man had definitely left her on edge when she met him at the grand opening celebration.
She thought back to when they were at the bus stop, and Calvin had told her that he needed to make sure that she wasn’t like the rest of them—the evil ones.Had he been talking about Colonel Reed and this Dr. Marwood?
Charley swallowed hard and shifted carefully against the pillow, wincing when the movement tugged at her bandaged arm.
She had been hoping that this had all been some terrible nightmare that she would wake up from.
Her brain kept replaying the scene when those shots were fired. The way Calvin’s body jerked, her shoulder burning as the bullet grazed her arm. She could still feel the warmth of his blood under her hands as she had pressed down on his chest, begging him to stay with her.
