Kissed Blind (Hot Pursuit #2)(46)

“Oh my God, where is he?” she asked again.

Cici. The voice was Cici. I was laid down on the seat of the Rover, the scent of the interior familiar, and memories rushed in. Oliver had thrown up. He’d looked at me, his expression had changed, and I was hit on the head.

“What the hell is going on? Where’s Oli?” That voice I recognized instantly—Camille.

That was the third time someone asked about Oliver. Where was he? I tried to speak, but all that came out were sounds of pain. There must have been a cord attached from my mouth to the back of my head. When I moved my lips, the cord tightened and tugged on a knife stuck in my skull. I struggled to raise my fingers and inspect the damage. By some miracle, nothing was there. No knife. Thank God.

“Everyone get in the car.”

My door shut and three more followed, one after the other. The car moved, and I rocked back against the seat.

“Oliver’s gone. He wasn’t there. Di, we’re taking you to the hospital. Talk to me,” Vance said.

Panic gripped his voice. I wanted to say something, to tell him I was all right, but my brain wouldn’t cooperate. More moans came out. The goddamn throbbing on the back of my head was like someone was playing whack-a-mole against my skull.

“I’m calling the police,” Cici said. Her voice came from the front of the car. She was in my seat. Even in my weakened condition, I found enough strength for that to irritate me.

“No!” Camille said. “I’ll call them.”

An instrumental of a Foo Fighters song, and the theme song from Acts of Desperation, began to play, but it wasn’t coming from the radio. It was next to me—a ring tone.

“It’s Oliver,” Camille said, confused. “Hello?”

What followed was silence filled with sparse sounds of agreement. The call ended.

“Was that Oliver? Where is he? What’s going on?” Cici asked.

“Someone’s taken him,” she said through a slow whisper. “They have him and said they’ll kill him.”

The car stopped.

“We’re calling the police now,” Vance said.

“No!” Camille said. “They said not too.”

“What?” Vance asked. “We have to.”

“They said they’ll be in touch.”

“It’s a bad move. We need to call the police.”

“When it’s my husband’s life on the line, I make the call of what we do and what we don’t do.” She snapped. “Take her to the hospital, and I’ll wait for the next phone call.”

Vance offered nothing else, but I felt the conflict brewing inside him. The car moved again, and I drifted into a black dream.

Soon, Vance’s arms wrapped around me, and I came to. “What’s going on?” I muttered against his chest. Finally, my brain rose to the challenge.

“I’ve got you. You two stay here. You’ll draw a crowd if you go inside.”

“Not a problem,” Camille said as if no other option existed. “Hurry, if it’s possible.”

Vance’s exhalation of air brushed against my cheek, and I felt a tightness take ahold of his chest. “As quick as I can be.” He’d somehow managed to keep his voice even and hadn’t let on to the rage I knew boiled inside of him.

“What happened?” I asked as he carried me.

“I waited at the end of the street for you and you weren’t there when I pulled up. I looked down the street and couldn’t see you. I ran and found you unconscious in an alley next to a pile of puke.”

“Oliver threw up. We stepped into the alley so he could have some privacy.”

“Did you see anything or anyone?”

“No, I was standing across from him. I’d given him a tissue to wipe his mouth and someone came up behind me. I didn’t hear anything. All I saw was Oliver’s expression change, and then it was lights out.”

“How do you feel? Are you okay?”

I tilted my face toward his and he looked down on me. “I think it’s just a bump on the head. They just knocked me out. It didn’t even break the skin.”

“Scared the shit out of me finding you like that.”

“Don’t worry. I’m fine. I don’t need to go in there. Put me down. I can walk this off.”

He laughed. “Keep dreaming. You have a concussion at the least. You blacked out. You’re getting checked.”

A cool burst of air greeted my skin when Vance walked through the automatic doors into the emergency room. He set me down in a chair and spoke to someone at the front desk. A few minutes later, I was taken back into an exam room.

I was seen almost immediately. After a nurse started an I.V. of clear fluid, they wanted to take me for a CAT scan, which I refused. It sounded way too time consuming, and Vance and I needed to be available as soon as possible. I also declined the blood tests they wanted. What could have been the point of those? I felt fine, woozy, but fine.

I did submit to a neurological exam after Vance threatened to kill me if I refused one more thing. I had to do all this touch my nose nonsense and look here and look there while they shined a light in my eyes. My vision was fine. Nothing was blurry and I wasn’t seeing double.

My diagnosis was a mild concussion, but after some rest, I would recover completely. They wanted to keep me for observation, which was never going to happen. I could rest at home later, and it wouldn’t cost me a dime. After I signed the forms for leaving against medical advice, Vance and I left.