Echoes at Dawn (KGI #5)(19)

“The idiots who were hired to bring her in the first time made a clusterf*ck of the entire situation. The mountains are littered with their dumbasses. We’re stuck cleaning up their damn messes. Grace Peterson escaped because she’s not acting alone. She has help. Good help.”

Far fe Kel#x2nsworth swore. “Who? Tell me who. I’ll take care of it.”

“Doesn’t matter who,” Hancock said calmly. “I’ll find Grace Peterson and I’ll bring her in. You’d be best served to stay out of it and let us handle the situation.”

It was the closest that anyone had ever come to telling Gordon Farnsworth what to do. No one else dared. But there was something in this man’s voice that gave him pause. Farnsworth tasted fear for the first time in his life and he didn’t like it a bit.

“See that you do,” he clipped out. “I don’t have any time to waste. I don’t have weeks or days. I may only have hours, and each hour that rolls by and she’s not here is one hour I can’t afford to lose.”

There was silence in his ear and he was stunned to realize that he’d been hung up on. Swearing viciously, he shoved the phone into his pocket and strode down the hall to his daughter’s room.

At her door, he paused, breathing in heavily, ridding himself of the rage and the awful taste of fear in his mouth. Elizabeth needed him to be strong.

He pushed inside and saw the nurse he’d hired to remain by Elizabeth’s bedside day and night checking Elizabeth’s vital signs.

“How is she?” he whispered, afraid of the answer.

The nurse shook her head. “No change. She’s resting easily. Breathing is good for now. No temperature.”

Farnsworth waved her away and then settled into the chair beside his daughter’s bed. He collected her tiny, frail hand in his and bowed his head, staring down at his feet. He closed his eyes as cold fury laced with paralyzing fear gripped him.

He couldn’t lose her. She was the only good thing in his life.

“Daddy?” she whispered.

He yanked up his head, surprised to see her awake and staring at him.

“What are you doing?”

He put his other hand to her cheek and rubbed his thumb up and down, the knot growing in his throat. “Just checking on you and saying good night. How are you feeling?”

“I’m good.”

It was her standard answer no matter how she really felt. It enraged him that she sought to protect him. She never wanted him to know when she was tired or hurting. It should be him protecting her. Him finding a way to make her well again.

“That’s good,” he said, moving his hand to her forehead to stroke away the golden hair. “I need you to hang in there. I have someone coming who can help you.”

Elizabeth cast him a doubtful look. It was what he’d said a hundred times before when he’d brought in a new doctor. And always the result had been the same. Nothing could be done.

“This time will be different,” he promised. He leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “This person is going to make you all better, and then think of all the wonderful, fun things we can do together. I want you to make a list. We’ll do every single thing on it.”

And he would. He’d spend any amount of money in the world to make her happy.

“I’ll do it tomorrow, Daddy. I’m tired tonight.”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course you will. We’ll make a list together. How’s that sound? Maybe we can order pizza and have a party right here.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “That

would be awesome. Maybe I’ll feel better by then.”

Tears burned Farnsworth’s eyelids k019at w and he furiously blinked them away. “Go to sleep, baby. Daddy’s right here. I won’t leave until you’re asleep.”

CHAPTER 11

THEY landed in Belize in the dead of night. Rio helped Grace from the plane after wrapping her in a dark, hooded coat. The warm, humid air was a welcome change to the chill of the Rocky Mountains. She embraced it, breathed it in to alleviate some of the cold that had settled into her bones.

Some of her shock had worn off and her mind wasn’t as fuzzy as it had been for so long. But with the new awareness came consequences. Fear that she’d trusted the wrong men. Memories of the horrors she’d endured. Phantom pain mixed with the very real pain of her current injuries. It all mixed and swirled in her mind and body, overwhelming her.

Lucidity sucked.

Rio ushered her into a pitch-black battered van and instructed her to lie down in the cargo area. Truth be told, she’d done nothing by lie flat on her back for the last umpteen hours. She crawled inside but sat up with her back resting on the side of the van.

Her rib cage was still sore as hell, but her breathing felt normal to her. Perhaps not quite as strong or as deep. She could tell her respirations were shallower than usual. But she was at least in the early stages of healing and already she could tell the difference.

She glanced down at her arm and slid her fingers over the area where the break had occurred. She flexed the affected fingers, satisfied that there was no lingering numbness. Terrence setting the break had helped enormously even if it had hurt like hell. If he hadn’t done it, she might have lost the hand before her body began the healing process.

There was still some swelling, and definite tenderness and bruising, but there was no crepitus to denote weakness in the fracture.