“Roz says you tried to save her. You got in front of her and that maybe that bullet was meant for her.”
“Maybe.” But Faith didn’t think so. As far as she could remember—and it was coming back to her more clearly—Roz had gone down before the shooter had appeared in the window. Roz had been shot from behind by someone in the second van, presumably the same person who had taken out the guards.
But she kept quiet, because she needed to think this through. Ryan had said not to try and hide anything, but surely it would be understandable if she were a little vague on some of the details. She had just been shot, after all. She rubbed a hand over the bandage.
“How do you feel?” Ryan asked. “Do you need something for the pain?”
Strangely, she felt fine. She expected it to hurt much more, though she’d never been shot before. Except for a dull ache, she felt nothing. She rolled her shoulder and waited for the stab of pain. It never came. “I feel fine.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, but a little unexpected. I—” She broke off as Ash and Christian Roth came toward the bed. She gave a quick glance at Christian’s face, shuddered, and looked away from the fury radiating from those pale silver eyes. Ash appeared little better. Considering the two didn’t seem to be friends, Ash was taking Tara Roth’s abduction hard.
A doctor appeared in the doorway. His eyes widened as he saw Faith sitting up in the bed and all the people in the room. “I have to see to the patient. I’m afraid you’ll all have to leave for now.”
Christian’s whole body clenched, but before he could answer, Piers turned and spoke. “The patient is fine. Go away.”
Faith waited for the man to argue but an almost bewildered expression crossed his face and he turned and left. She glanced at Ryan who shrugged.
“Faith, this is Christian Roth, Tara’s husband,” Ash said. “He’d like you to go through what happened again.”
She bit her lip but nodded. Closing her eyes for a second, she tried to gather her thoughts, then started to speak slowly, from the point where she had noticed the bodyguards. Christian interrupted now and then with questions. Had she seen the van before?
“No, and I didn’t get the plates, but I’m sure one of the bystanders did.”
“I already got them; we’re running the plates now,” Ryan said. “But I don’t expect to find anything.”
“Well, try anyway. Go on,” Christian said to Faith.
“Tara told me they were after Roz, so I went back, but they—”
“Do you think they could have been mistaken?” Piers interrupted. “Could they have been after Roz and taken the wrong woman?”
She thought back. They’d gone straight for Tara, but that didn’t mean anything. Both women were small, both had been similarly dressed, the only major difference was hair color and they’d both been wearing caps. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She finished up to the point where she’d blacked out. And waited.
Christian turned away and paced the room, which hardly seemed big enough to contain him. Finally, he stopped by the far wall and slammed his fist into the concrete.
Faith winced.
“We’ll find her,” Ash said.
“We’ll tear the fucking world apart until we do,” Piers growled. He cast Faith a glance and then looked at the other men. “Let’s go next door.”
Christian paused at the door, came back, and stood gazing down at her, making a visible effort to hold in his emotions. She caught a glimpse of the charm he could no doubt show under other circumstances.
“Thank you,” he said. “You were shot trying to save my wife, and I won’t forget that.”
He nodded and left the room. When the door closed behind him, Faith dropped her head into her hands and pressed her fingers to her forehead as though she could force the thoughts from her mind. Guilt gnawed at her nerve endings.
Something had come back to her during that second telling. Something that had hovered on the edge on her consciousness the first time.
The last thing she’d seen before she was shot. Out of the corner of her eye. The window of the white van gliding down.
A face.
The security guard she’d spoken to on her first day at her new job. Just before he’d raised a pistol and shot her.
Which meant what?
Ryan had told her to tell Christian everything. How the fuck was she supposed to tell him that this was all her fault?
That, in all likelihood, her employers had kidnapped his wife.
Chapter Eleven
Ash led the way into the private room next to Faith’s. He was trying to hold his fears at bay. One of them had to stay in control, because he could see that Christian was on the point of imploding.
Once, Ash would have loved to see this—Christian losing the woman he loved. But not now. And certainly not at the cost of Ash’s daughter.
“Christian, you need to get a grip.”