She started to nod and caught herself just in time. “Yes. No more laughing—it hurts.”
Dex reached across her bed and pressed a button that she assumed was the call button for the nurse.
“Rusty…” she began.
“Don’t worry—I’ve been taking care of him until you get out of here. Your dad went earlier to go feed him and give him some attention. He misses you, but he’s being spoiled.”
“My dad?” Dex must be talking about someone else. “My dad hates animals, and I’m sure Rusty bit the shit out of him.”
Dex shook his head. “Your dad said he wasn’t a huge fan of animals, but he did it for you. It sounded like they got along pretty well.”
“Wow.” Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she thought, because she was now convinced she was hallucinating. She frowned, but when that furrowed her brow, it hurt more than she was comfortable with. She mentally shrugged, glad Rusty was being taken care of.
“Are the people in the other car okay?”
Dex’s face darkened with anger, and Kate’s stomach tightened. “What happened?”
Dex stroked her forehead. “Your car was rammed on purpose.”
Ice crystalized inside her veins. “Why?” She wondered why he told her that instead of answering her original question. Were the people in the other car dead?
“They thought you had information about their illegal activities, and they wanted to make sure you weren’t able to share it.”
“Were they the terrorists I heard you talking about?”
Kate watched as understanding lit Dex’s expression and then morphed into concern. “That’s why you ran from Club Desire that day?”
She started to nod, but the pain in her neck and head stopped her. “I overheard you on the phone talking about Merestone.” Her chest ached as she remembered her shock.
He brushed a kiss against her lips and then pulled back to look into her eyes. “Kate, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how much you heard, but now that it’s all over, you need to hear everything.”
All over?
Kate wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or nervous. “Tell me.”
He outlined the plot and the reasons behind his undercover assignment, then he told her about her father hiring Opal to watch her, and that the FBI found everything they needed on Mark Stanton’s computer to prove that he was the only one actively working with the terrorists. Balkins, Ralston, Opal, and a few others knew about it, and they were paid well for their silence.
“My father?” she finally asked, braced for his answer.
Dex shook his head. “He invested heavily in Merestone when they were a start-up, but never did anything illegal. He can tell you the rest. He’s been here every day of the last two weeks. We’ve been taking turns sitting by your bedside so we could both sleep, grab showers and food, take care of Rusty, and always have one of us here with you for when you woke up.”
“Dex, why did you hesitate when I asked you about the people in the other car? Are they dead?”
“The driver is in custody. The passenger is dead. She jumped out of the car with an axe and smashed in your front windshield to try to finish you off. The security detail we had following you to keep you safe had to shoot her.”
Kate remembered the two pops she thought might have been gunshots. She was glad she hadn’t known at the time what was going on. “Security detail?”
He actually looked embarrassed. “After all the attacks, we thought you might be in danger from your work with Merestone. It was a good thing we had a team following you.”
She supposed that made sense. She was glad they were there to protect her from the woman with the axe. “The other car?” she pressed.
Dex was silent for a long moment as his brows bunched. “That wasn’t a car. The impact from the first car pushed you into a light pole.”
Relief slid through her that no one else had been hurt.
“But there was one other casualty,” Dex said before her relief could fully set in.
From the slight glint of mischief in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t talking about another person. “Tell me,” she said in her most serious tone.
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “The Lexus is totaled. You’ll have to suck it up and get a new car once you’re fully healed.”
She groaned. “Not my Lexus. I just bought that car.”
“Then I’m sure you have very good full-coverage insurance.” He grinned down at her.
“There is that,” she conceded. She licked her dry, chapped lips. “Dex?”
As if he sensed the shift to a more serious conversation, he looked at her tenderly. “Yes?”
“I know you were at The Dungeon for your case. How much of what happened between us was just the case? And how much was…”
She wasn’t sure how to describe it, so she gave up and relaxed back against the hard hospital pillow.
The nurse came through the door, interrupting them, and saving Kate from answers she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear.