Divide & Conquer (16 page)

“Special Agent Grady?”

Ty turned to meet the doctor who"d called his name, abject terror clogging his throat.

The doctor was a younger man despite his nearly white hair, and he projected an air of knowledge and experience around him. “I"m Dr.

Jameson,” he said, holding out his hand. “An agent downstairs called up to say you were on your way.”

Ty shook his hand automatically, not bothering to try to be polite.

“Special Agent Garrett has you listed as his emergency contact.

Does he have any family? Wife or children?” Jameson asked, his voice dropping to a tone that was probably supposed to be soothing.

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Ty"s mouth went completely dry, and he had to work just to swallow hard enough to get words out. “He has family in Texas,” he said hoarsely.

The doctor nodded. “His next of kin will need to be notified, of course.”

Ty stared at the man, trying to take in what he was implying as he felt tunnel vision threatening. It just wasn"t making it through. He opened his mouth to respond but couldn"t manage it.

“Special Agent Grady? Are you all right?” Jameson asked in concern. “I was told you weren"t injured. Your partner will need someone with him until his family can arrive.”

Ty closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side, trying to maintain control for just a little while longer. “You saying he"s alive?”

he managed to ask shakily.

Jameson"s jaw dropped. It would have been comical under other circumstances. “I"m so sorry—I thought you"d already been informed.

Special Agent Garrett is in serious but stable condition.”

Ty took a deep breath and balled his hand into a fist, telling himself that throttling the doctor would get him nothing but jail time.

“Can I see him?” he asked through gritted teeth, glaring at the doctor dangerously.

“Of course,” the doctor said immediately, apparently realizing how upset Ty was. “This way.” He turned and led the way, punching in an access code at a secure door, which he held open for Ty before leading him through a maze of bays to one only dimly lit. The doctor stopped at the entrance by the glass door. “You should have some time.

We"re taking him for a CT scan soon.”

Ty stood at the doorway, looking in at an all-too-familiar scene.

They were going to have to make a deal about staying out of hospitals for a while. It was beginning to wear on his nerves.

“Thank you,” he forced out to the doctor before he moved into the darkened bay.

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“He has a concussion,” Jameson said. “We don"t know how serious yet. He hasn"t woken up, but the swelling inside his skull is already subsiding. I think he"ll be okay.”

“You
think
a lot of things, Doctor,” Ty said coldly without looking away from the bed. “What do you know?”

Jameson spoke after an awkward pause. “Special Agent Garrett has a hell of a hard head,” he said frankly. “I expected several skull fractures, but I only found bruising and a split scalp that we stitched up.

As it is, his brain got rattled. We"re focusing on trying to reduce the swelling, and my hope is that we won"t find any internal bleeding.

There"s no evidence of any so far. That doesn"t rule out other injuries or blood clots. But overall? Your partner is a very, very lucky man.”

With that, the doctor nodded uncomfortably when Ty glanced at him, and he left.

Ty watched him go, then looked back down at Zane with a sickening lurch of his stomach. He moved closer to the bed and leaned over him, looking at him closely. “We"ve done this before, Zane,” he whispered to his partner. “You need to be more creative with your near-death experiences.”

There was no reply. Zane lay absolutely still, the rise and fall of his chest only barely visible under the cotton gown and sheet. He was hooked up to three different IVs, and his head was wrapped in enough gauze to make a turban.

Ty gave a sniff and looked up into Zane"s face again. “Fine, copycat. Don"t talk to me, then. I"m not leaving,” he said stubbornly as he dragged the heavy chair over from the corner of the bay and sat next to the bed. He crossed his arms over his chest and resolved to sit there until Zane woke, McCoy"s orders be damned.

He was still sitting there when two orderlies arrived almost an hour later to take Zane to the CT scan.

Ty stood to the side and watched them prepare Zane to be moved.

He knew they wouldn"t let him go along, even if he flashed his badge around. He smelled of smoke, and his suit was damp and dirty and probably ruined. His entire body ached from head to toe, and he couldn"t decipher which injuries had come from his run-in with Tank 100 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

on the softball field and which ones had come from his foolhardy headlong search through the bomb debris.

He also noticed as he glanced at his reflection in the stainless steel paper towel dispenser that his face was smudged with smoke and dirt.

McCoy had been right: he looked like hell. It would do Zane no good if he woke up to find Ty sitting there looking like this.

He cleared his throat and touched one of the orderlies on the arm to get his attention. “If he wakes up, will you tell him his partner will be back?” he requested in a hoarse voice.

The orderly glanced at him, looked him up and down, and then smiled. “Sure thing.”

“Thank you,” Ty murmured as he gave Zane one more glance and then went to call himself a cab.

“IT WAS him!” Pierce shouted, eyes bright with excitement.

Graham raised an eyebrow, more and more convinced that his buddy was losing his mind.

“Who was him?”

“That asshole FBI agent from the aquarium! He made me drive him to the hospital!”

“What"d he do, hold a gun to your head?” Ross asked drily.

“No,” Pierce answered, sounding more excited than angry. “He just pointed at me and told me I was going to do it, and I had like this physical response where I had to do what he told me to! It was awesome!”

Graham frowned. “That doesn"t sound awesome.”

Hannah rolled her eyes at them all. She was beginning to grow tired of the game; Graham could tell from the constant sighs she emitted lately. Soon she"d be back under a football player from school.

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“The FBI guy from TV was hot. He could tell me to do anything,” she told them as she counted out stacks of money from their last robbery.

“So why is this exciting?” Graham asked, ignoring her comment.

Pierce grinned manically and dug out a pair of keys from his pocket, holding them up and letting them dangle. “Because he left his keys with me.”

“That was kind of stupid of him, but I still don"t get it.”

“He"s a fucking monster—he"s got to be like six and half feet tall and eats nothing but steroids and babies.”

“Dude.”

“He"s like Moby Dick and I"m Captain Ahab,” Pierce continued with relish.

“Third-year AP English,” Hannah grumbled.

Graham frowned. “Did you finish that book?”

“No, why?” Pierce answered distractedly.

“No reason.”

Pierce nodded, looking smug. “I"m gonna kill him,” Pierce said as his eyes lost focus.

“Wait, what?” Hannah exclaimed, sounding just as alarmed as Graham was.

“Come on. We"ve got work to do,” Pierce said to Ross, and the two of them left together, strutting out of Graham"s kitchen.

Graham and Hannah shared a look. Graham wasn"t sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line, the bombings had become more important to Pierce than the robberies. And now he wanted to kill someone?

Graham frowned as Hannah bit her lip and looked away. Neither of them had the nerve to buck Pierce, and they both knew it.

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WHEN Ty returned less than an hour later, just after the lunch rush, he proceeded immediately up to the fifth floor, punched in the code he"d seen the doctor enter to get access to the secure area, and walked straight to Zane"s bay, hoping he"d be back from the scan. The last time Ty had suffered holding still for one of the damn things, it had only been about ten minutes, all told.

When Ty arrived, there were two doctors—neither Dr. Jameson—

and a nurse already in the bay.

He hung back, practically vibrating with the need to get information and see how Zane was doing. Then he saw Zane slowly turn his head away from the door toward one of the doctors, who was talking to him in low tones. Zane was
awake
.

Ty held his breath and stepped into the bay. The nurse must have seen the movement out of the corner of her eye, because she turned to look at him in alarm.

The doctor turned as well. “And you are…?”

Ty merely flipped his badge open to show it to the doctor. He could be an officious ass too.

The doctor wasn"t impressed. “Unless you"re Special Agent Garrett"s family, you shouldn"t be here, sir. I"ve been informed of no guard assignment.”

“Consider yourself informed,” Ty said to him in a low voice.

“I must insist—”

“Ty?”

At Zane"s soft word, the doctors and nurse turned back to their patient. Ty stepped closer to the bed, looking at Zane with a mixture of relief and guilt. “Hey,” he responded weakly.

Zane"s hand shifted and his chin turned, but he just blinked lazily and stared out into the bay with unfocused eyes. “You okay? You were in the truck,” he said. The words were so garbled it took Ty a few beats to decipher them.

“Yeah,” Ty answered carefully as he studied Zane. He knew that look. It took him a long moment for it to register, but he knew it. It was Divide & Conquer | 103

the same one his great-grandmother had always had when he"d been little, staring past him as she listened to the sound of his voice. “You can"t see,” he blurted.

“Excuse me,” one of the doctors interrupted. “Special Agent Garrett, is this man okay to stay with you? Do you know him?”

Zane blinked slowly. “He"s my partner,” he said, the words coming out a little more clearly, though still labored. “Tell him. He was in the truck.”

“Tell me, my ass. He can"t see,” Ty grunted to the doctor as he pointed at Zane accusingly.

The second doctor spoke. “You are correct, Agent…?”

“Grady,” Ty told the man in annoyance. “Why can"t he see?”

“Ty,” Zane said softly, the tone clear, asking Ty to calm down and let the doctors explain.

The first doctor flipped a page on the chart. “As we were just explaining to Agent Garrett, there was a lot of swelling from the blow to the head. While most of it has subsided and we"ve confirmed there is no further internal bleeding, we think there was enough to form a few blood clots. We started him on the appropriate drugs, and in a couple of days, we"ll run another CT scan to determine the extent of the damage.”

“The clots are very near the optic nerves, possibly even inside them,” the second doctor said. “That"s why he can"t see.”

Ty stared at them, trying to decide if he was justified in hitting one or both of them. He didn"t suppose he was. “Clots,” he repeated.

“So it"s not… permanent, right? It can be fixed?”

“We chose a very successful drug for dissolving clots,” the first doctor said. “Once we have a chance to repeat the CT scan and run a retinal exam, we"ll have a better idea, but I would say it"s only temporary and won"t require surgery to resolve it.”

Through this conversation, the nurse was changing out an IV, and Zane didn"t even flinch as she set in another port. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Garrett?” she asked. “Are you in any pain?”

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“Headache. I"ll live,” Zane slurred.

“Well, Agent Garrett, try to get some rest,” the first doctor said.

“You may find it easier to just keep your eyes shut. I hesitate to cover them until we know more about your condition. We"ll be back to evaluate you in a few hours.” With that, the two doctors nodded at Ty and left.

The nurse slid the call button cord inside the curve of Zane"s arm.

“If you need anything, just buzz, and I"ll come running. My name"s Bree.” Then she left them alone.

Ty stood in place, uncertain of what to do. He couldn"t fight the feeling that this was all his fault somehow. If he"d just gone in with them….

“Stop it,” Zane murmured.

“What?” Ty asked defensively.

Zane turned his face toward Ty. “Stop beating yourself up. Are you okay? You were in the truck,” he repeated for the third time, his voice low and exhausted.

“You really do have a concussion, huh,” Ty murmured. The heavy chair he"d sat in earlier had been put back in its corner, so he moved to the bed instead and perched on the edge. “I"m sorry,” he offered lamely. “I should have been in there with you.”

Zane shifted his hand against Ty"s thigh. “Both"d be here.” His tone conveyed that it would be a bad thing.

Ty didn"t respond other than to lower his head and look at Zane"s hand. “Does it hurt?” he finally asked.

Zane grunted. “Headache. I"ll live.”

Ty would have smiled at the absurd repetition, but he knew Zane couldn"t help it after that hard of a knock on the head. He nodded silently, belatedly remembering that Zane couldn"t see him. “You can"t see anything?” he asked tentatively. “No shadows, nothing?”

Zane was silent for a long moment as he blinked his eyes over and over. “Nothing,” he whispered.