Suspects(61)

“I know who you are,” he said quietly. “Mike has told me about you.” He knew the rest of her story too, Mike’s interest in her case and his concern about kidnappers taking her too. “Mike and I were in the military together, that’s where I met him. I was the one who talked him into leaving the navy and signing up with us. He’s had a bad break here. You can’t keep a good agent away from fieldwork. We had a big operation going last week, and he showed up as it was going down. He was supposed to supervise from the base. Things started to go wrong, and he flew out of his office to help. He got there in time to save the operation and the lives of three of our agents. He got shot in the process. He must have left his office so fast he forgot his vest. He probably didn’t even think about it. All hell was breaking loose when he got there. He wouldn’t even have had time to put a vest on then. He was lucky. The bullet grazed his heart but it didn’t kill him. They’re keeping him in a medicated coma to give his body a chance to heal after the surgery. They may keep him like this for a couple of weeks,” he explained, “but the doctors think he’ll pull out of it. We just have to wait and see how he does. He’s made it for six days, which is a good sign.” He tried to reassure her, she looked so devastated. He looked about five years older than Mike. He was well dressed and had gray hair, and she assumed that he must be high up in the CIA if he was Mike’s superior.

“I told them I’m his sister,” she confessed, “but they wouldn’t have let me in otherwise.”

“I’ll put your name on the list. I’m glad to meet you, Ms. Morgan. You mean a great deal to our boy here. He’s been very worried about you in Paris.” Theo was touched that Mike had told his friend about her. “Mike actually has a sister, but she’s not on his list of next of kin, and I haven’t called her, if that’s not what he would have wanted.” Theo knew she wasn’t on the list either, but she had come anyway.

“I don’t know how close they are,” Theo said. “I don’t think they’re very close, but she’s the only relative he has.”

“He’s not one to make a big fuss. He was injured in Iraq, when a bomb went off in a restaurant, and he got through it on his own, and didn’t want anyone around. He’s a strong guy and he’s got nine lives. He’ll come through this,” Paul Blakely said firmly, wanting it to be true. He was worried too but didn’t want to scare her.

“Well, I’m staying till he’s better,” Theo said with a stubborn look in her eyes, and he smiled.

“I think he’d be glad you’re here,” he reassured her. “Give me your contact numbers, and I’ll let you know if there’s any change, if you’re not here.” He stood up to go and see Mike then, and she jotted down her hotel and her cell number on a piece of paper, and he slipped it in his pocket. She walked out of the waiting room with him, and she saw him show his badge and ID card at the desk. The nurse nodded and stood up immediately. They knew that Mike was CIA, several of the senior agents had been in to see him, and there was a special code for no information on his chart. They didn’t want anyone to come in and finish the job, which was a risk with law enforcement officers, especially those of Mike’s high rank. Killing a senior CIA agent would have been a feather in the cartel’s cap.

Paul Blakely nodded at Theo and walked into Mike’s cubicle. She turned to walk down the long hall to help pass the time. Paul only stayed for a few minutes, and then asked the nurse some questions before writing Theo’s name down on a list of approved visitors. There were only a few names on it, and then he left and took the elevator back downstairs.

Theo was back an hour later, and the nurse nodded and pointed at Mike’s bed. Theo was approved now. “You can go and see him.” Theo took her place near his head again and spoke to him in gentle, soothing tones, telling him again how much she loved him. They let her stay fifteen minutes that time. She went outside to get some air after that, and Patrick followed. She walked around the block, and he kept a discreet distance from her. She continued coming back on the hour to visit him all day. Patrick tried to get her to eat between visits, but she wouldn’t.

“There won’t be much change in his condition, as long as he’s this heavily medicated,” the nurse told her. “They want to keep him this way so he doesn’t do any damage to his heart moving around so soon after the surgery. He might be this way for another week,” she told Theo, and she nodded.

“I understand. I just want him to know I’m here, on the chance that he hears me.” The nurse smiled in response.

“A lot of patients tell us that they did hear their loved ones when they were comatose. There’s a lot we don’t know about the human mind. Just keep talking to him, it will be good for both of you,” she said kindly.

Theo stayed until eight o’clock that night. She had been there for eleven hours when she left, and had seen him eleven times.

“See you tomorrow,” she said to the nurses as she left.

“Do you know who she is?” one of the nurses said after the doors closed behind her. Theo had a look about her even in black jeans and a black sweater. “I think she owns that online shopping site that I spend my whole damn paycheck on every time I check it out. Theo.com.” The others smiled when she said it. They knew the site.