Forged in Ash (22 page)

Yeah, apparently he wasn’t hallucinating. Rawls saw the rejuvenation too.

“What? How?” Rawls stumbled closer. He went down on his haunches in front of Cosky’s wheelchair and skimmed the faintly red skin with his fingertips. “Sweet Jesus.”

“Is there a problem?” the technician asked, confusion on her face. She glanced between Rawls and Cosky.

“Not now.” Rawls rose slowly to his feet.

Cosky wasn’t quite as sure. The joint looked good. The kneecap had shifted back into place. The blisters and burns were gone. In fact, all the injuries he’d sustained earlier in the day had vanished. But there was still the matter of the earlier injury. Had Kait’s healing had any effect on the fracture to the tibial plateau?

“When will I get the results of the X-ray?” Cosky asked.

“Dr. Phillips has a call in to your orthopedic surgeon,” the tech said. “I’m sure he’ll be in as soon as he’s had a chance to view the films and consult with your attending physician.”

When the tech set the brake on the wheelchair and moved in to help Cosky over to the bed, he waved her away.

Rawls waited until the woman had pushed her way through the curtain, before squatting in front of Cosky again. This time he did a thorough probe of the joint, from left to right and top to bottom. Once finished he just squatted there, staring, disbelief still shining in his eyes.

“Well?” Cosky prodded.

“Maybe the patella didn’t shift after all. The leg was pretty swollen; maybe it just appeared that way.”

Right.

“Like it appeared to be blistered?” Cosky asked dryly as he lifted and bent his arm, offering Rawls a look at his elbow. “And like my arms and my shoulder appeared to be skinned and leaking?”

Rawls’s forehead wrinkled. Walking around the wheelchair, he grabbed the handles and pushed Cosky toward the curtain. Cosky didn’t bother to ask where they were going. He could guess.

Kait was still sleeping when they entered her room, but she’d rolled onto her right side and tucked her hands beneath her cheek. The knot in Cosky’s chest loosened. It loosened even more as her eyelashes quivered, and her lips twitched. Her sleep looked much more natural now. Normal.

She stretched—a long, lazy arch of muscles and bones beneath the covers. Her breasts lifted, and the sheet slipped down to her waist. Suddenly Cosky was left staring at the round, ripe curves that were all but falling out of her loose hospital gown.

A flash of heat rolled through him.

Only this fire had nothing to do with healing.

Tension flooded his groin. His cock swelled.

And then he realized Rawls had noticed those tender, exposed curves too. This time the tension that flooded his blood and knotted his muscles had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with rage. When Rawls leaned forward, his hand reaching for Kait’s chest, Cosky shot out of the wheelchair, his hands cocked, every muscle in his body rigid and begging for action. The only thing that stopped his fist from breaking every bone in his buddy’s face was the sheet Rawls dragged back up to Kait’s collarbone.

Son of a bitch.

Still reeling from the adrenaline rush, Cosky collapsed back into the wheelchair. Only then did he realize he’d shot up on both legs, and his right leg hadn’t crumbled beneath him. Not only had it taken his weight, it had done so without pain.

He was still processing that when Rawls captured one of Kait’s hands. She frowned and muttered grumpily. With a soft
ssshhhhh,
Rawls waited for her to settle again, before unwrapping the gauze. Once the bandage lay in a creamy puddle on the thin blanket, he simply stood there. Frozen.

Finally, with a befuddled shake of his head, he stepped to the side.

Cosky leaned forward as Rawls moved out of the way, and Kait’s hand came into view. Her perfect, slender hand, with its perfect, pink skin.

Not a blister or burn in sight.

“Fuck.” Mac snapped his cell closed and scowled through the windshield at the steady stream of traffic, while he tried to get his heart rate and respiration back under control.

He wanted to chalk his tension up to frustration and rage, but he’d never lied to himself, and he wasn’t going to start now. Nor did frustration and rage explain the missile that had sprouted in his pants the second Amy Chastain’s voice had marched down the line. What the fuck was it about the damn woman that pushed his buttons like this?

Damned if he could figure it out.

Trying to focus on something beyond his redheaded albatross, he turned his attention back where it belonged—on their tail.

How many weeks had it been since he’d noticed that cocksucker and his navy-blue hatchback, only to shrug the bastard off? Six weeks? Two months?

“Goddamn fucking—” He set his mouth and sucked back the rest of his rage.

Throwing a tantrum accomplished nothing. Next time he’d trust his fucking instincts and act on them regardless of how paranoid they seemed. If he’d grabbed the asshole back then, they’d have a six-week head start.

They might actually have a clue to pursue by now.

Zane pulled into the stream of traffic, before glancing across the van at him. “Amy didn’t know?”

“Amy,” Mac said through his teeth, ignoring the way his dick twitched at her name, “isn’t aware of any DOJ-ordered surveillance on us.”

Zane stopped at a red light. “You’re sure she’d know?”

“She says she’d have heard.” Mac glared out the window as he concentrated on dragging in deep, calming breaths.

If there was no surveillance on them, then the guy in the parking lot was either a coincidence, or a nonagency tail.

He caught Zane’s lingering glance in the rearview mirror. “Anyone back there?”

“No blue hatchback,” Zane said after a long pause.

“But?” Mac prompted, hearing the qualifier in his LC’s voice. Twisting in his bucket seat, he studied the traffic behind them.

“There’s a silver Accord eight cars behind us. I’ve seen a silver Accord off and on, never close enough to get a look at the driver, or plate. No distinguishing marks on the vehicle.” His eyes were grim as he touched Mac’s gaze. “It could be nothing. Lots of Accords on the road, and silver’s a common color.”

Which would make it a perfect surveillance vehicle.

“See what happens if you go evasive,” Mac said.

Two turns later the Accord turned left and sped out of sight. Which could mean the car belonged to someone who lived and
worked in Coronado—or, it could mean the driver of the car had realized he’d been made and broken the tail.

Frustrated, Mac faced forward and ground his shoulders against his backrest. “If we
are
being followed, we can’t afford to lead them to Cosky’s attacker. Head back to the ER. I’ll call Hollister and Russo in. They’re on standby; they’ve got time to cruise for her.”

“We need to get some surveillance on ourselves,” Mac continued, as he texted Russo and Hollister to call him. “See if we’re being tag teamed.”

If someone was tag teaming them with three or more cars, it would be nearly impossible to identify the tails. The vehicles would trade out before being made.

“Tag teaming would be as expensive as hell,” Zane said slowly. He frowned and shook his head. “Hell, if they had a team on each of us, we’re talking fifteen to twenty men.”

“Judging by their operation in Seattle, the fucking money’s there.”

“Or maybe it’s a coinci—” Zane glanced in the rearview mirror and broke off, frowning. “I’ll be damned,” he said slowly, staring in the mirror, before jerking his eyes away and focusing on the line of traffic in front of them. “A blue hatchback just pulled in behind us. Seven cars back, too far away to make the driver or plate.”

Now that was one lovely coincidence.

“What do you want to do?” Zane asked, glancing in the rearview mirror again.

Mac frowned. “Don’t tip him off. Keep your eyes open. See how many repeating vehicles we can identify. When we have more intel, we’ll set a trap. For now head to the ER.”

Zane nodded in agreement and took the next right. “What about the prints Rawls pulled? We sending them to Amy?”

Yeah…tension flooded his muscles and sizzled through his blood as Amy’s name hit the air again—which was all the more reason to limit his interaction with the fucking woman.

“I already texted them to Radar.” He scowled at the questioning look Zane sent him. “Amy would have to call in a favor to get the prints run. We know Seattle’s FBI field office has a mole. We don’t need her reaching out to the wrong person.”

Which was all true, but had nothing to do with the reason he’d contacted Radar.

Amy knew better than to contact anyone in Chastain’s old field office. There was no doubt in his mind she’d get the result back without alerting their mole. The real problem was that sending the prints to her meant interacting with her, repeatedly. Fuck, he was still hard from their thirty-second conversation earlier.

How the hell a Goddamn voice could light such a fuse to his libido was beyond his understanding. But he’d already gotten his exercise today thanks to one fucking woman. He didn’t need another one sending him out for a minimarathon in the middle of the night.

His cell phone rang as Zane pulled into the ER’s parking lot.

“The plates came back stolen.” Radar’s crisp voice informed him.

“Location?”

“Portland. A month ago.”

In other words, it was another dead end. Mac expelled a frustrated breath.

“Fucking perfect.” He drew a ragged breath and regrouped. “Look, I hate to ask, but we’re up a creek. I’m having a strip of tape brought in to you. Will you find someone to run the prints on it?” He smiled tightly at the immediate agreement. “Thanks, we owe you.”

Before he even dropped his hand, his cell rang again. He checked the caller ID. Russo. Thirty seconds later Echo Platoon’s lieutenant
commander had agreed to meet him at the ER. “Radar’s going to take them?” Zane asked.

Mac nodded and picked up the length of tape Rawls had left curled in the cup holder. Rawls had stuck a second length of tape to the side with the smudged prints, thereby sealing the prints in plastic. “Not much of a shot here. Rawls smudged them just sealing them for mailing.”

Zane shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

True, although they had another avenue to pursue now as well. A hard smile spread across Mac’s face as the hatchback and Accord came to mind. Not to mention Cosky’s crazy stalker.

“Has Rawls heard anything on the scanner?” Zane asked as he set the parking brake and pocketed his keys.

“She’s still in the wind.” Mac pushed open the passenger door and climbed out of the van. “Probably gone to ground.”

Which was to their benefit, because the longer she avoided the police, the better their chance of nabbing her.

“I’ll wait here for Russo,” Mac said, waving Zane toward the emergency room. As he waited, he scanned the parking lot for familiar vehicles. No blue hatchback or silver Accord. Several minutes passed and a gray Civic pulled into the parking lot. It parked in the very back. Nobody got out of the car. He shifted against the van, trying to get a better look without giving his interest away.

More minutes passed and a Jeep Cherokee pulled up beside him. The door opened and Russo climbed out. His dark gaze swept the parking lot and settled on the Civic. “You got something?”

“Not sure,” Mac said with another glance at the car in question. The driver looked like he was eating lunch. “Swing by it on your way out and text me the plates.”

Russo simply nodded and turned to stare at the entrance to the ER. He ran a lean hand through crisp black hair. “How’s Cos?”

Mac shook his head. “Doesn’t look good. He caught the same fucking knee when he hit the ground. Smashed it to hell and back.
Again
.”

“Damn.” Russo wiped a hand down his grim face and took the tape Mac handed him, then swung back to his Jeep. “Tell Cos I’ll be by later. We’ll do a couple more grids for his lady, unless the cops run her down first.”

Mac watched him climb into the Cherokee. The engine fired and the jeep took off. Without waiting for Russo to cruise past the Civic, Mac headed for the ER. His phone chimed several minutes later indicating that he had a text message. He forwarded the plate number onto Radar with a request to check it out.

He stopped at the front desk and received directions to Cosky’s room—or curtain was more like it. A low murmur of voices sounded behind the cloth, so low he couldn’t hear what was being said. Which meant whatever they were discussing was sensitive. His hunch was confirmed a second later when he pushed his way through the curtain and the voices stopped in mid-drone. Zane turned back to the bed as soon as Mac closed the curtain behind him.

“So when are they releasing you?” Zane asked.

“Hell if I know.” Cosky exchanged an odd look with Rawls. “They want to take more X-rays.”

The comment was delivered without the irritation or frustration that Mac expected. In fact, Cosky seemed strangely satisfied and relieved. A marked departure from his attitude as they’d loaded him into the ambulance.

“Have they scheduled surgery?” Mac asked, stepping up to
the bed. Cosky’s knee was covered in ice packs, but considering the damage it had sustained, surgery seemed not only likely, but imminent.