“Don’t think you’re getting out of physical therapy so easily,” Brian warned, as he walked with them down the hospital corridor. At the elevator, he leaned forward to push the button. “I’m scheduling you for three times a week on an outpatient basis.”
Kendra smiled at him as the elevator doors opened and Annie efficiently swung the wheelchair around, backing into the empty car. “You really shouldn’t worry about being called the Terminator, Brian. By the time we’re finished with those physical therapy sessions, I’ll have come up with a few more nicknames for you.”
Kendra felt halfway human after the hot shower. And she felt nearly human by the time she dressed for the first time in more than two months in something other than hospital-issued cotton gowns or T-shirts and sweats. Since the clothes—black sweater, khaki trousers, serviceable cotton panties and bra, black socks, and brown loafers—were her own, somebody had obviously been to her apartment in Mount Pleasant, Virginia. The makeup case tucked into the overnight bag made her think that the anonymous someone had been a woman.
The feminine tricks inside the makeup case couldn’t quite erase the time she’d spent in the hospital. Still, she felt better when she swiped her mouth with a raspberry lip gloss and dusted her high cheekbones, which jutted out too sharply, with a bronze powder that was supposed to make her look sun-kissed. It fell short of the mark, she thought ruefully.
Stepping out of the tiny bathroom, she gave a start when she saw Phillip Leeds standing beside the window, staring outside. He swung around, his eyes running over her in quick appraisal. “You’re looking much better, Agent Donovan.”
Self-consciously she put a hand up to her severely short hair. “I . . . thank you, sir. I’ll be glad to go home.”
“You’ll be on medical leave until Dr. Campbell signs off on you returning to active duty at the Bureau. But we’ll be looking forward to getting you back. We’ve missed you.”
She doubted that. Other than Leeds and the top brass, she hadn’t had any visitors from the Bureau. They’d sent her a bouquet, wilting on the built-in dresser, and a card. For the first time, Kendra was struck by how solitary her life had become. She’d always been an outsider (a freak). But ambition to prove herself, to make a life beyond her parents’ prepackaged, narrow expectations had left her with few friends.
She moved to the small bag that had come with her street clothes, and stuffed her few personal items into it. Five books. Three magazines. She left the newspapers.
“You know that you’ll have to talk to someone.”
She glanced up at Leeds, not pretending to misunderstand. “You mean a shrink.”
“I don’t think they like that term.”
“Then we’re even. I don’t like shrinks.”
“Agent Donovan . . .”
“I’m fine.” She closed the bag and was grateful when Annie arrived, pushing the wheelchair through the door.
She gave Kendra a wink and patted the back of the wheelchair. “Hop on, Agent Donovan.”
Gingerly, Kendra sat down in the wheelchair, putting her bag on her lap. She summoned a smile for Leeds. “I’m fine. And you didn’t have to come all this way to escort me home. I could’ve managed.”
“That I have no doubt about. But I think I already told you that you’re a valuable member of our team, Special Agent Donovan.” Deliberately, he kept his tone light. He was grateful when the nurse chimed in, either urging or ordering Kendra to keep on her diet and exercise program, and teasing her about somebody called the Terminator.
Dr. Campbell was waiting on the first floor and added his own encouragement, reminding Kendra about her physical therapy schedule as well as follow-up exams.
Kendra was relieved when she was finally able to get out of the wheelchair. Waving at the doctor and nurse, she walked over to Leeds’s BMW. She still felt sore from that morning, but no longer shaky. And God, it felt good to be outside again. The sun lightened the sky to a brilliant blue, and the temperature, if she wasn’t mistaken, was on the plus side of seventy. Not bad for early May.
She’d gone into the hospital in mid-March. More than two months of her life gone, vanished like a puff of smoke. That depressed her. But it could be worse, she supposed.
She could be dead.
Sighing, she slid into the passenger’s seat. Her finger itched to buzz down the window. But that could wait. When she got back to her apartment, she’d sit out on her tiny balcony, with her face turned up to the sun. God knew she could use some color.
Right now, though, she had more important issues at hand. She waited until after Leeds had steered the car onto the I-495 before she turned to look at him. “So . . . what happened to Sir Jeremy Greene?”
Leeds’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. As far as tells went, it wasn’t much—but then Leeds had always been good at Texas Hold ’em, Kendra thought.
“I don’t think it would be appropriate to have this conversation now,” he finally said, glancing over at her.
“I see. Then when?” She kept her tone cool and calm, but her heart began to accelerate. “When we get to my apartment? Tomorrow? Next week? Never?”