Forsaken (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #3)(69)

“Safe would be telling me those calls are not traceable.”

“I’m a sniper, not a Sunday school teacher.”

“Killing people and knowing how to stay alive yourself are two different things.”

“Things which, I suspect, we both do well.”

“Not well enough, or Sheridan and his cronies would be dead already,” I reply. “How do you know Dr. Murphy’s phone isn’t monitored, considering her connection to Sheridan?”

“She has a disposable,” Liam replies. “And so does Derek. Anyone Amy might need on an emergency basis has one.”

Amy hugs herself and grimaces. “There’s nothing about this plan that feels safe.”

“There’s nothing about leaving Gia here that’s safe,” I assure her.

“We need an exit plan,” Tellar says. “I’ll scout the building.”

“Get me a computer,” I say, “and I can hack the hospital floor plan and Gia’s test results and treatment plan.”

Liam glances around and then walks over to a man on a MacBook, speaks to him for a moment, and then hands him a wad of cash. He returns and hands me the computer. “Hack away.”

Power. Money. Liam Stone has them. People who have them, like Sheridan, usually want more. Tuning out Tellar and Amy, I close one of the two steps between myself and Liam and stand toe-to-toe with him. “Circumstances dictate that I trust you. My sister’s love for you dictates I trust you. But hear this, Liam Stone: Don’t hurt my sister—or I will choke the life out of you and burn your body to ashes, like I did the hired hand who set our house on fire.”

I turn and walk away, cranking up the computer and getting busy.

Liam, Amy, and Tellar are quick to join me, without comment about my confrontation with Liam. In all of three minutes I have hacked the hospital’s computer system, and my first order of business is to pull Gia’s file and download her test results, which I text to Liam to pass on to Dr. Murphy.

The reply is almost instant. “The arsenic levels are low,” he reports, “but there’s a second drug in Gia’s system, a sedative used before surgery that frequently causes people to lose pieces of time.”

I glance up from the computer, where I’ve just pulled up the ER floor plan. “That explains why she doesn’t remember what happened to her.”

“The good news is it doesn’t impact the toxicity of the arsenic, and there is a plan for treatment. We just need to get Gia out safely.”

That’s something I’m ready to have happen now, not later, and I start the conversation about how to execute a plan with that result. Ten minutes later, we have plotted our exit strategy. Twenty minutes later, Derek and Dr. Murphy are at the side door by the ER. Liam and Amy are in the SUV that is pulled around to the front, and Coco has arrived. Petite, brunette, and proper-looking, she is nothing like what her name and her ownership of a hospital gown suggest. Hugging her black trench coat around her, she waits for her moment and follows another visitor through the ER door.

Tellar and I are on her heels, following her down a corridor and slipping behind a curtain. Gia is lying in a bed, her lashes dark half-circles on her pale cheeks, unaware there are three people standing in her room. As Coco shrugs out of her coat and removes her shoes, I go to Gia. Tellar turns off the heart monitor so it won’t buzz when I pull the leads off.

“Gia,” I whisper softly.

Her lashes lift, eyes glassy. “Chad? You came.”

It kills me to think she believed I’d leave her. “I never left. I found you. I brought you here, and now I’m going to take you someplace safe.”

“And leave me?”

“No, but you’re going to go with Tellar, the friend who helped save you, and he’s going to get you to a doctor. I’ll be there soon.”

She glances at Tellar, who’s leaning over the bed now, and then back at me. “Promise?”

“Yes, sweetheart, I promise. It’s going to get scary, though.”

She tries to smile. “You need me to make a bomb?”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling back at her as I pull out her connections to the machine. “Yeah. To blow up Sheridan’s house.”

“That would be . . . fun.”

How she manages that word despite the kind of pain I see etched in her face, I don’t know, but my admiration for her grows every second I’m with her. “We need to take your medication with us,” I explain as Tellar hands me two IV bags and I lay them on top of her. “You need to hold onto these tightly. No matter what, hold onto them.”

“Yes. Okay. I don’t . . . remember what happened.”

“Remember me. And us.” I lean down and whisper in Gia’s ear. “Alone isn’t better. You were right.” I stand then and look at Tellar. “Let’s do this.”

He nods, scooping up Gia, and I turn and do the same with Coco, who pulls her coat over her head to hide her identity. I inhale and I exit the room in a rush, and a nurse comes after me. “What are you doing? She’s not discharged.”

“She is now,” I say, pushing through the double doors and entering the lobby. It kills me to know I’m leaving Gia behind.





SEVENTEEN



I EXIT THE HOSPITAL to find the open door of the SUV waiting for me, and I huddle down to allow Coco to climb inside. She quickly scoots across the seat and gushes, “That was a rush,” pulling her coat around to put it on, perhaps the only one of us enjoying this.