VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel) (31 page)

Quickly, she pulled the sheets back up over Brianna to cover her nudity, then retrieved the knife Dylan had dropped. Once she had the bindings cut, she lowered Brianna’s hands to her side. Leaning in she smoothed the hair from Brianna’s uninjured eye and whispered in her ear. “It’s okay, Brie. I’m here. You’re safe now.”

A sob racked Brianna’s body as she clutched Abigail’s hand in hers. “Abby, I didn’t tell them, I didn’t.”

“Abby?” Both Senator Klein and his son said.

Staccato gunfire sounded from outside the mansion and yelling could be heard downstairs.

“
We’re moving in. Secure the mansion. No one leaves.”
Jake’s word filled their ears.
“Luke, I’m on my way upstairs.”

“That would be our task force securing the area, Senator. Your days of selling women have ended,” Luke said, shoving Dylan to the floor.

“You bastards,” the senator said. Moving quickly for a man of his age, a weapon appeared in his hand, focused straight on Luke’s heart. “I’m not letting some lowly government grunt destroy what I’ve built.”

He was going to kill Luke, the man she loved. She had to do something.

“Luke!” Abigail didn’t pause, just threw the knife at the senator and herself at Luke.

A boom sounded in the room as the gun went off.

Searing pain and heat exploded in her side as she landed on Luke’s warm body.

She looked into his beautiful hazel-green eyes and smiled at him. “I love you,” she whispered.

Then everything went dark.

“Abby!” Luke cradled her to him even as he saw Jeffers tackle the senator, clipping him in the jaw with his elbow and snapping the weapon out of his wrist.

“I love you,” she whispered, then went unconscious.

Something sticky filled his hands and he rolled her away from him. His hand was bloody and the right side of her torso was covered in it. “Oh God, baby, no.”

Someone pushed a towel in his hands and he pressed it against the side of her chest.

“Sami. Get in here now,” Jake was beside him talking to his sister.

“Why’d you do it, Abby?” He pulled her in closer, keeping pressure on the wound, the bleeding slowing.

“Let’s clear the room.” Castello led Master Lee, his woman and the bodyguard from the room, while two of Jake’s agents secured the Kleins who were both babbling about warrants.

“Please wake up, Abby. You know I didn’t want this.” Pain seared his chest so hard he couldn’t take a deep breath as he stared down at the woman he loved. He cradled her against his chest, smoothing the hair from her head and feeling the side of her neck for a pulse. It was there, but it was fast.

“Luke, let me look.” His sister-in-law Katie was there.

“She won’t wake up.”

“It’s probably shock.” She caught his hand in hers. “Just let me see where she was shot, so Sami and I can let the hospital know.”

“I’ll get an evac copter on the way, Luke,” Jake said, already stepping away to make the call.

Luke eased Abby down onto his thighs, and lifted the blood-soaked towel from her side.

“The bullet was meant for me. Why did she do this?”

Katie examined the spot, then placed a clean towel over the site, pressing his hand back down. “Keep the pressure on it. It’s helping stop the bleeding. And she jumped in front of the bullet because she loves you. I’d do the same for Matt. Sami would for Jake.”

“That’s right. We protect our men,” Sami said, breathless from the apparent sprint in from her truck. She squeezed in beside him. “Luke we need to stabilize her as best we can for transport.”

“I can get her down to the truck, Sami.” He started to gather Abby close once more, but his sister laid her hand on his shoulder.

“No, Luke. The medic and I will take Brianna in it. She’s more stable than Abigail. It will be faster for her to go by helicopter to the closest trauma center.”

That made sense, but there wasn’t a helicopter here. He looked down at Abby’s pale face. And there was so much blood. Just like he’d seen in his dreams.

“Luke, I need to get an IV in her and keep her blood pressure from dropping.”

IVs. Sami knew what to do. She’d done it hundreds of times in the ER. Helped save hundreds of lives. She could save Abby.

“Luke, you have to let her go.” His sister’s eyes held both calm confidence and a gentle pleading.

Tenderly he lifted Abby off his legs and slid her to the floor, keeping pressure on her wound with his hand as his sister slipped a tourniquet on Abby’s opposite arm and proceeded to insert an IV needle, which was attached to a bag of IV fluid.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he leaned in to whisper in Abby’s ear. “We’ve got you. You can handle this. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

As Sami worked to slip on the blood pressure cuff and check her vital signs, he continued to whisper to Abby, even after he heard the whap-whap-whap of the helo’s blades outside on the mansion’s lawn.

“Let me get a pressure dressing on the site, Luke,” Sami said, nudging his hands off the towel he had pressed tightly to Abby’s side. When they moved it, a soft moan escaped Abby.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear again. “I’m so sorry I let this happen to you.”

He watched Sami and the medic work.

“The blood isn’t coming as fast now. That’s a good sign, right?” he asked.

“Could be.” Sami said without looking up. “We won’t know until she’s been seen at the hospital. The gunshot wasn’t a through and through.”

“The bullet’s still in there?” Damn, that wasn’t good.

“Right. She’s going to need surgery and God only knows what it nicked while it bounced around in there.”

A litter was brought in and Luke stepped to the side as they lifted the limp body of the woman who had become so important to him on it.
Why wasn’t she waking up?

“Her BP is 80 over 45, pulse is 120,” Sami was saying to one of the people in orange-and-brown flight suits as they moved down the hall. “We started an IV of Ringers and there’s a pressure dressing to her right side, just under the ribcage.”

“Estimated blood loss?”

“About five hundred to a thousand ccs, if I had to guess.”

“Can I go with her?” Luke asked, numb with worry, hearing everything as if from a long distance.

“Sorry, sir. There isn’t that much room inside,” one of the young helicopter crew said. He’d introduced himself as a transport nurse and he seemed to know what he was doing. At least Luke prayed he did.

He followed the team, Sami and the medic outside to the waiting copter. As soon as they had her on board, he grabbed the young transport nurse by the front of his flight jumpsuit and stared straight into his eyes. “You take care of her, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll get her to the hospital.”

“Luke, she’s in the best hands,” Sami said beside him, but still Luke didn’t let go.

Castello stepped into his view. “You’re wasting time that Abigail doesn’t have.”

His words cut into the pain and anger coursing through Luke. He released the kid and stepped back, watching as the helicopter took off.

“Let’s go,” Frank said. “The others can clean up this mess. You want to be there when that lady wakes up in the hospital.”

He ran after Castello and jumped into the front seat of the sedan they’d arrived in just as Frank hit the gas, tearing across the grass of the estate towards the exit.

He just prayed she was alive when he got there.

“She said she loved me,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“I didn’t get to tell her…” he swallowed, unable to finish.

“You will, kid. You will.”

He prayed Frank was right.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By the time Luke and Castello arrived at the hospital, the staff had already taken Abby into surgery. His ass was going numb from sitting on the damn fake leather couches in the waiting room. Castello had been the only one with him at first.

Thank God, Frank knew not to talk. He couldn’t take useless prattle or meaningless reassurances. Not now. Not with the vision of all that blood Abby had lost still fresh in his mind. All he could think about was how she’d thrown herself in front of him and how he’d never told her how much she meant to him.

Slowly his family started to arrive. First Matt and Katie, who’d taken the time to get the women admitted to the emergency room to be checked out and help the local cops get statements from the ones less drugged from the ordeal.

Next came Dave, who handed him a coffee. “Drink it, you look like shit. Abigail doesn’t need to wake up and see you looking like this.”

Kirk F. Patrick arrived with a bag of sandwiches from the caterer, Paolo. He handed one to Luke, who took a few bites, not really registering what was in it, but wanted to prevent Dave from forcing it down his throat.

Sami and Detective Jeffers walked in next. They’d stayed with Brianna all the way to the hospital. She’d given them all the information she could about her attack in the condo, her torture and what she’d discovered about the slavery ring. She still hadn’t told anyone where she’d hidden the flash drive she supposedly left for Abby. The hospital team had quickly sedated her upon her arrival so they could begin fixing her broken arm, nose and clean her various wounds.

Finally, Jake came in with a report on the senator. “He’s going to need surgery to repair the torn ligaments and nerves from the knife wound. Abigail had one hell of an aim with that knife. It knocked off his aim and probably saved your life.”

At that point Luke left the nearly claustrophobic waiting room to get some fresh air.

Lucky wasn’t what he was feeling. Scared shitless was more like it. Guilty for not keeping her safe. Abby’s actions might’ve saved his life, but if he lost her, would it really matter?

“She’s one brave woman,” Castello said from behind him.

“The bravest,” he said without turning around.

“Smart, too.”

“The smartest.”

“Too good for you.”

“Damn straight.”

“Best to walk away and let some other smart guy have her.”

“No way in hell.” He turned and stalked into his friend’s personal space, fists clenched and ready for a fight. “She’s mine, and if she’ll have me, I’m never letting her go.”

A slow grin split the older man’s face. “Good. I’d hate to have to kick your ass for being stupid.”

Some of his anger and frustration dispelled, they went back inside just in time to meet the surgeon coming to talk with them all.

The doctor took off his green scrub hat and rubbed his hand through this thinning hair, then down over his haggard face. Luke’s stomach sank and his knees went wobbly.

“As you know, due to HIPPA laws I can’t really give you much information. The surgery went well and we did get the bullet out in one piece,” the surgeon said, focusing on Luke. “For now Ms. Whitson is stable and in recovery.”

“Can I see her?” he asked, desperate to see for himself that she was okay.

“Not just yet. As soon as she’s in her room in the Surgical Intensive Care she can have visitors, but no more than two at a time.”

* * * * *

Abby lay so still in the hospital bed.

Watching her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, Luke held her limp hand in his, running his thumb over her knuckles, wishing she’d grouse at him to stop.

At least her vital signs were steady as they beeped across the monitor screen above the bed. The surgeon, as well as Sami and Katie, had all reassured him that she was stable and that it would just take a little while for her to wake from the anesthesia. When he’d asked how long, no one could give him a damn answer.

And here he sat, finally at her bedside, waiting for her to wake up.

“Sometimes it helps if you talk to her,” the nurse said, coming in to check the blood dripping into one of her IV’s. Sami told him they’d had to start a second one to give her the blood, something about it not being able to mix with the other IV solution.

“Not really sure what to say.” He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to rail at her for getting hurt. He wanted to fuss at her for putting him before her own safety. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but not with an audience of medical professionals walking in and out of the room, and certainly not with Abby not awake to hear it.

“Talk about anything. It’s the recognition of your voice that helps them muddle back to consciousness.”

“Muddle?” He couldn’t help the half-grin at her terminology.

“Not a medical term, but patients often tell me it’s like trying to walk through thick fog. So, muddle.” She smiled back, a charming blush on her cheeks—a look that would’ve encouraged him to flirt with her just weeks ago—before Abby. He nodded without saying more, then focused once again on the dark-haired woman in the bed.

Just talk
.

“Senator Klein may lose the use of his right hand. Seems someone threw a knife into his wrist severing the nerves and damaging a few ligaments. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

Nothing.

“Kirk F. Patrick brought cheesecake for all the nurses. Said his nana said they’d give you extra special care if we fed them. Had to run the kid off though, he kept trying to get hook up dates with the younger nurses.”

He smiled at the memory, but Abby still didn’t move.

“Jeffers stopped by. He’s been in your friend’s room all night. Said she had lots of details but still refuses to tell him where the flash drive is hidden. We need that evidence to cement our case. Of course the videos we found in the mansion and Babbette’s injuries cover us for probable cause.”

“
Brianna
,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “Her name is Bri-ahn-na. Why can’t you get it right?”

She was awake.

Thank God.

He stood and kissed her on the forehead, smiling through his own tears when she slowly opened her eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to ever think she was more important to me than you are, sweetheart.”

“I already knew that.”

“You did? How?”

She gave him a whisper of a smile, his heart swelling at the sight until he thought it would burst out of his chest.