“I am. As you can imagine, this is a tough time for him. I’m not sure if he’ll be able to get there in light of current events. What hospital is she in?”
“Inova Fairfax ICU.”
“I’ll mention it to him, but I can’t promise anything. He’s due to leave on a trip and will be gone until Sunday morning.” Her heart sank at the thought of days without him around to make everything better.
“I understand. I wanted to pass the information along.”
“Thank you for calling.”
“No problem.”
“Collins…”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?” Sam wasn’t sure why she asked, but he’d been nice to her in their previous dealings, and he sounded rough.
“It’s been a difficult few days. I thought I was losing her on Sunday, but she seems to have rallied somewhat. The doctors say it’s still hard to tell for sure if she’ll recover.”
“Well, make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
“You sound like my daughter. She said I won’t be any good to Nicoletta if I let myself get sick, too.”
“She’s right.”
“Thank you for your kindness, Sam. I need to get back to her, but you take care, too.”
After they said their goodbyes, she closed the phone. “She’s in the ICU with pneumonia and asking for Nick.”
“Ugh,” Freddie said. “Just what he needs.”
“I know.”
“Will you tell him?”
“I suppose I have to. I mean, if she dies, I wouldn’t want him to have regrets—not that he has anything to regret where she’s concerned.”
“Agreed. You tell him, and what he does is up to him.”
“I just hate that mentioning her name messes him up. It’s hard to watch.”
“I get it. I’m sorry you have to deal with this on top of everything else.”
Sam sent him a text on the BlackBerry to ask him to call her when he got a break in the action.
As they approached HQ, Sam took in the view of the bombed-out front entrance to the building, which was roped off with yellow crime scene tape and swarming with federal agents working the scene. “Speaking of things that are hard to deal with.”
“No kidding, right?”
“That they’d have the nerve to bomb our building to steal a body…”
“How’d they get into the morgue, anyway?” Freddie asked. “You have to have an ID to get in there.”
“Maybe someone opened the door in the chaos, and they snuck in.”
“I want to ask Archie to pull the video on that.”
“He’s probably already done it.”
