“I want to go,” she said. “Now.”
He pointed across a cluttered room full of boxes and shelves of God only knew what. “There’s the door. You want me to help you?”
When she looked surprised, he said dryly, “I’m not keeping you here. You’re free to leave whenever you want.”
“So where am I.”
There was a telling pause. “You’re—”
“Here, right.” She pointed to the mattress she was on. “Here.”
Lickety-split, memories came to her: She remembered the phone call she’d answered as she had rushed to meet Luke in that alley for the first time, her direct report’s warning urgent and rough. Then she re-called coming to in front of that marble fountain, Mozart putting that photograph in her face and saying her real name. And finally, she was back on the floor of that fetid apartment, bound and gagged, listening to her colleagues walk around above her, for hours.
After which came the switchblade, the dog . . . Luke and his rescue.
The culmination of it all was ironic as hell: Luke had brought her exactly where she had wanted to go all along.
She was close to the supplier’s lair, if not actually inside of it.
She knew this in her gut.
Rio eased back against the wall. Then cursed as the injury on her head raised its proverbial hand in ouch class.
“Yes, I’m hungry.” She tucked one arm behind her skull at an angle where it didn’t hurt. “And thirsty. And I’d like to go to the bathroom.”
“I can help you with everything—”
“There was a nurse,” she blurted.
“There still is. She’s just out grabbing something to eat. She’ll be back.”
“What did she say was wrong with me?”
“Head injury.”
“Ah, and here I thought it was my elbow.”
Rio looked past him at a row of empty hospital beds. At the end of the lineup, there was what she assumed was one behind a privacy curtain. The rest of the place did not resemble a hospital or a clinic in the slightest. In the muted gleam of two bald light bulbs hanging on wires from the ceiling, she saw there was no medical monitoring equipment. No nurses or doctors. Not even running water in the form of a bathroom or a sink. And then there was the debris, all kinds of boxes and bins and shelves full of things that had antiquated labels on them.
She had to get out of bed and go exploring—now.
“Ladies’ room, please,” she said. “I’m assuming you have one?”
He nodded and got up. “We have to—well, go out into the hall.”
“Hopefully it’s not far.” Liar. She didn’t care how far she had to go. “I’m a little wobbly on my feet.”
“Considering you’ve been out cold for about seven hours, I’ll take that as an improvement.”
Rio hesitated at the little duration news flash—and tried to put together a timeline. When the effort of adding and estimating the different stages of her adventure made her head pound, she put out her hands and Luke firmly took them with his own. After she shifted her feet off the mattress, he pulled her upright— She made it only halfway to goal. For some reason, her knees refused to straighten, so to keep her balance, she had to stay bent at the waist.
“Do you want me to carry you—”
“No, I’m going to walk. Thanks.”
Well, shuffle was more like it.
She had to rely on him more than she wanted to—and she thought about the old couple coming out of the emergency room from the other night. Little had she known then she’d soon be playing the role of the wife, with the other half of the duo the supplier’s rep.
Luke was really steady for her. Let her pick the pace. Didn’t rush her, and seemed ready to stay with her even if it took a decade.
The support and kindness felt . . . weird. And also . . . lonely.
Because it was nice of him, and she didn’t have anyone in her life to fill that “nice” role, head injuries or no head injuries.
Plus she was pissed off she was so weak—except then she figured it might be to her benefit. As she recovered more and more, she could keep up the act, and the more compromised he thought she was, the less he was going to keep an eye on her. And that was going to give her a chance to— “Whoa, okay, I got you.”
Without any warning, the floor rushed up to greet her and there was nothing she could do to stop the abrupt introduction. Luckily, Luke scooped her body from its free fall and hefted her into his arms.
And that was when she became acutely aware of him.
He was incredibly strong, his muscles cording up under his thin sweatshirt. Then again, she had the sense that he could have been wearing chain mail and she would have been all, Hey . . . pecs. Plus that cologne of his. What the hell was it?
No five o’clock shadow on him. And a great jawline— “No.”
He looked down at her. “What?”
Flushing, Rio shook her head. “Nothing. Let me get the door for us.”
She reached forward for the handle, but he pulled her out of range. “I need to check first.”
“For what?” When he didn’t answer, she pretended to be unaware of what she’d asked. “You can put me down?”
Luke set her on the concrete floor like she was a shot glass on the head of a pin, and as she was grateful for the wall’s support, she wondered where she could get some food. Calories would help wake her up. And give her the energy to investigate.
Meanwhile, the door he opened was really solid, made of steel, it looked like, but the paint was flaking on the other side, and the corridor that was exposed was dim— Okay, wow. It smelled like 1972 out there, a combination of cigarette smoke, carpet cleaner, and not-been-vacuumed-for-a-while.
“All right.” He came back over and hefted her into his arms again. “We’ll be quick.”
In the hall, she tried to get a bead on what kind of a building they were in—and decided it was a building. As she looked around, the scale of everything was too large for a residential home, and even too big for a lot of institutions, the corridor easily fifteen feet across and God only knew how long.