“And speaking of protection,” she continues, shifting down to accommodate the slower speed limit along Lake Shore. “I talked with Ramirez while you were in the shower last night, about an FBI safe house….”
Well, that shoe dropped quickly. I thought I’d at least have another day before Mike and Dani’s plot began to play out.
“Let me stop you right there,” I say. “Before you waste your breath trying to convince me to ship myself off to some undisclosed location to rot, tell me if this place you’re talking about is even in Illinois.”
Her silence is deep and profound. No, then.
“Is it even in this time zone?” I press.
Dani frowns at the windshield. “A contract out on you is one thing. Spade is something else entirely. He is ex-military, an assassin. Neither Ramirez nor I is equipped to protect you from that. An entire police precinct is not equipped.”
“It’s like Petrov, Dani. I can fix it if I can face it.”
“Not this time.”
There’s no reasoning with her when she sets her mind on something—Han was right about that.
“Are you coming with me to this safe house in wherever?”
Silence again.
“Then I’m not going.”
“I must help find Spade so you can come back.”
“Running never works, Dani. You said that to me once, remember?”
“Circumstances change. We have to adapt.”
“Stop making boneheaded decisions. Adapt.”
Tyler. The memory is so strong, it takes me a minute to remember where I am, and when. I shake my head to clear it.
“This is not a choice I am offering you,” Dani says. “I am explaining what will happen. Ramirez and I agreed that my telling you would be best, but it has been decided.”
“That is just crap. This is my job. My life. I’m not sitting by, buffing my nails, while other people handle it. It’s not like I’m helpless. I have a superpower, too.”
She sighs. “Your ‘superpower’ is worse than useless against someone like Spade. If you ever get close enough to use it, you will be dead before you open your mouth.”
“That was true of you, too, and now look at us.”
A ghost of a smile crosses her lips and is gone again. “I was never trying to kill you. If I were, you would be dead.”
That comment sends a chill down my spine.
“I am doing the best I can,” she continues, the edge in her voice softening. “And that means getting you as far away from here as possible.”
“Dani.” I reach across the gearshift and curl my hand around hers. “Please don’t do this. Don’t send me away. I would sooner have this guy put a bullet in my brain than let you go up against him alone, which is what you’re planning, isn’t it? I’m a lot of things, but I’m not an idiot.”
She doesn’t answer. Of course.
It’s time to have The Talk again. But how do I tell her what I need to in a way so that she won’t immediately shut me down? My grifter abilities are failing me here.
“Listen. I know I’m crap at talking about my feelings. But if there’s one thing I figured out from Tyler’s death, it’s that you get lots of chances to lie and only one chance to tell the truth. So here it goes.
“I know what it’s like to think you don’t deserve happiness. I’ve felt that way since the night Tyler died. But all of this is what we choose, what we make of the consequences of those choices. And yeah, we’ve both made some poor decisions, but that’s not all we are.”
“It is not the s—”
“I’m not finished yet,” I say, squeezing her hand hard. I need to get through all of it now before I chicken out. “The choices you’ve made whenever I’m around have led to the consequence that I’ve fallen in love with you.” I register her wince when I say that, but I keep going. “You talk about me enacting miracles, but to me, that’s the miracle. You made me believe in love after living with a guilt that nearly destroyed me. All your effort at keeping your distance is not going to make that less true. And sacrificing yourself for me is just going to wreck me again.”
Her jaw clenches as she stares through the windshield. She’s thinking. I can almost hear the wheels turning in her head.
She opens her mouth to speak, but my phone rings. She changes tack and says, “Answer it.”
I sigh. “Okay, but we’re not done with this conversation.”
I look at the caller ID, remembering suddenly that I still haven’t called Lily back. But it’s not Lily, it’s Sam. Maybe he finally found something useful. I press Answer.
“Drugs,” Sam says, sounding breathless.
“Drugs?”
“Drugs. Hypnosis. NWI is manipulating people, Julep. Fake Mrs. Antolini was right.”
“What? No way. Duke wouldn’t do that.” I couldn’t be that wrong about everything.
“Not Duke. Devi.”
“Dr. Raktabija?” I say, floored. “But Ackley killed Duke. Not Dr. Raktabija.”
“I’m not saying she killed Duke. I’m saying she’s drugging the initiates.”
“Start over. What makes you think she’s drugging people?”
“She asked a few of the other initiates to stay after the workshop last week. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then I happened to ask one of the initiates what the extra session was about and she couldn’t remember. Then Devi asked the same people to stay after today, and I managed to get myself invited. All I remember is it started as a relaxation exercise, and then nothing. Julep, I don’t even know if I kept your secret. You could be in danger.”
I laugh. “Well, that’s not new. But how do you know it wasn’t just some sort of deep meditation?”
“Hypnosis doesn’t work like that. You may not have full control of your actions, but you remember. Which is where the drugs come in.”
“You were drugged?” I say.
“Brigitte brought in a snack tray and bottled water. Devi told each of us to drink, saying that we’d be more relaxed if we were well hydrated. When I finally woke up a few minutes ago, I felt hung over and had a funny, fuzzy taste in my mouth. Julep, I literally drank the Kool-Aid.”
“Crap,” I say. Dani glances at me, concerned. “That’s probably why Mr. Antolini is so screwed up. Devi reprogrammed his brain and sent him out to embezzle a bunch of money. His repeated exposure to whatever drug concoction she’s serving must have sent him off to cuckoo-land. Where are you now?”
“I’m downtown—just leaving NWI. Where are you?”
“With Dani. We’re on North Lake Shore. You’re probably only five minutes away from us. Can you meet us at the Ramirezes’? I have to fill you in on the—”
I feel the impact before I cognitively understand that anything has happened. The glass shattering, the great pressure as our velocity switches trajectories from forward to sideways.
The noise is deafening. Tires screech along asphalt, then concrete, then wood. The Chevelle screams as whatever has plowed into us continues to push us toward the harbor.
I finally suck in enough breath to scream myself, grabbing the door handle and bracing my feet against the dash for a follow-up impact that doesn’t come.
Dani’s unconscious and limp, blood pouring from a cut along her jaw.
“Dani!” I yell, finally noticing the grille of the semitruck obscuring the entire driver’s-side window. “Dani!”
“Julep!”
I hear Sam’s terrified voice from the phone I’d dropped between the seat and the door. I fish for it and grab it on the first try.
“Sam! Help—”
But before I can give him any details, the Chevelle pitches onto its side. I assume that it’s rolling over, that the semi has finally pushed us far enough to tumble upside down. But it’s so much worse than that.
The splash as the Chevelle is pushed into the harbor looks like a tsunami from my vantage point. The displaced water rockets into the air like fireworks, and then rains down on the car with a machi
ne-gun sound. The water is freezing as it hits my skin.
The lake is already lapping at my knees, and I have precious little time to get us out of here before we’re pulled under. I drop the useless phone and yank at my seat belt, missing the release button three times in my haste. I breathe deep and finally calm my shaking hands enough to use them.
Getting Dani free is not nearly so easy.
“Dani!” I screech at her, my voice a dried husk of itself. I climb onto my seat to escape the inexorable lake. I reach for her seat belt buckle, but it’s warped from the impact, and I can’t unlatch the belt no matter how hard I squeeze the button.
The water is up to her hips now, which means it’s up to my rib cage. If I don’t get us both out of here, we’re going to drown.
And as soon as I think that, a great bubble burbles up from beneath us, and the Chevelle sinks faster. The water’s up to my neck before I remember Dani’s gun.
I reach under her jacket and feel around for the holster I know is there. My numb fingers finally locate it, but I have a bitch of a time unsnapping the strap that holds the gun in the holster.
I yank the gun free just as our heads sink beneath the surface. I open my eyes, ignoring the sting, and panic for a split second that I didn’t take a big enough breath before being pulled under. The roof of the Chevelle is underwater with us, so there’s no possibility of breathing until I get us out of this car. Us. Because I’m not leaving without her.
The thought galvanizes me, and I hold on to my renewed focus, even through the fear that the gun might not work underwater. I steel my resolve, I position Dani’s gun an inch from the buckle, and I pull the trigger.
The gun kicks back into my hand, a bubble ballooning at the muzzle and disappearing just as quickly. The buckle shatters and the belt floats free. By now my lungs are burning and my vision is starting to go dark around the edges. I’m out of time. If I’m going to save us, it has to be now.
I circle my arms around Dani’s chest, praying that none of her body parts are pinned beneath any part of the Chevelle. My heart nearly stops when her foot catches on the steering wheel while I’m trying to maneuver us through the broken driver’s-side window. But her foot comes free on its own, and I get us clear enough of the car that I can risk pushing off from it toward the surface.
It feels like it takes hours to break the surface, but it’s probably only a minute. I suck in a giant lungful of air, and then pull with all my strength to get Dani’s head above water as well. No doubt her lungs are already full of lake, but I can’t fight instinct.
“Help!” I scream. “Help me, please!”
Two splashes pelt me with more water. Hands pull Dani away from me. Other hands tug me by the armpits to the nearest floating dock. The taste of harbor water fills my mouth, and I splutter. My rescuer heaves me onto the dock. I stumble-crawl away from the edge and collapse. I cough and gasp and shiver. I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s just my water-soaked hair dripping all over my face.
As soon as I am capable of speech, I ask, “Where is she? Where is she?”
My rescuer, a bedraggled-looking woman in a waterlogged business suit, points down the dock to where an equally waterlogged Sam is performing CPR on Dani.
I drag myself to where Dani is lying like death on the cement.
“Stay back,” Sam says between rescue breaths.
But I don’t. I can’t. I curl up next to her as Sam continues CPR. I can’t remember the words she said to me. I’m sure I’ll mangle them beyond recognition, because I don’t know a scrap of Ukrainian. I’m going to try anyway. Anything to keep her here with me.
“Hoўda, hoўda-hoў, nichenќa….Don’t leave me. Please, Dani. Dani, Dani, Dani. Hoўda, hoўda-hoў, nichenќa….”
Sam and I settle into a rhythm. Over and over. Breathe, breathe, don’t leave me, compress, please, compress, Dani, Dani, compress, Hoўda, hoўda-hoў, nichenќa, breathe.
The EMTs arrive in a rush of movement at odds with the slow motion inside the bubble of space around me and Dani. I lose track of Sam. There is only me and her. Even when the EMTs move her to a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance, I don’t let go of her hand. No one protests as I climb in with her. Or maybe they do and I don’t notice. Where she goes, I go.
The ride to the hospital exists in a temporal vacuum. The EMTs work on her, following protocols that have no meaning to me. The only thing I can do is stroke her hair and will her to wake up.
When we arrive at the hospital, I pace next to the stretcher through the aseptic halls to a pair of double doors. Then the nurses intercede. It takes three of them to break my grip on Dani and block me from mindlessly following her into the back.
One of the nurses stays with me. He’s trying to talk to me, but I ignore him. There’s nothing he can say that will change the fact that Dani is probably going to die. It’s Tyler all over again. What have I done?
Sam bursts through the emergency-room doors a few minutes later. “What’s going on?” he asks the nurse standing next to me.
I don’t pay attention to the nurse’s response, but I see Sam nod as he takes my hand. He leads me to a couple of chairs in the waiting area. My vision goes dark around the edges again, and I can’t seem to get enough oxygen. I sink into a chair and force myself to take deeper, slower breaths. Sam squeezes my hand.
“It’s not your fault,” Sam says. “Don’t think for a second it’s your fault.”
“It was a hit meant for me. How is it not my fault?”
“Whoever was behind the wheel of the semi, it’s his fault. You can’t make him pay if you’re too busy blaming yourself.”
My breath calms, comes easier. I no longer have to remind myself to exhale. As usual, Sam knows exactly what to say to make me see reason. I get up and walk to the window, then back again. Sam watches from his chair, his expression wrecked. He’s still wet, but then so am I. I turn and walk back to the window. I can’t hold still. I can’t, or I’ll crumble.
Angela comes striding through the door. She spots us and makes a beeline for me. She throws her arms around me. “Oh, thank god,” she says, squeezing me tight. She pulls back and swings a tote bag from her shoulder. “I brought you dry clothes.” She hands me the tote bag, and I look at it blankly.
She catches on to my disoriented state and leads me to the bathroom herself. I’m not sure how she finds it. It’s down a far hall, and she works at Mercy. We’re at Northwestern.
“Can you change by yourself?” she asks.
I nod and drop the bag. I make it to a toilet stall just in time to vomit. Angela grabs my tangled hair to hold it back. Her touch is soothing, and I shudder under it. She whispers to me in Spanish, and I’m profoundly grateful that I don’t understand what she’s saying.
Once I feel steadier, I clean myself up and change clothes. She hovers near me but doesn’t interfere, doesn’t demand anything. When I’m ready, she loops her arm around my shoulders and guides me back to the god-awful waiting area.
Sam leaps up when we return. He’s not alone, though. Ralph is with him.
“I’m so sorry, jang mi. I would’ve prevented it if I could. I will take over as bodyguard until yours is back on her feet.”
The concern on his face sends me over the edge. I collapse into the nearest chair and sob, covering my face with my hands. Sam rushes over and kneels in front of me.
“What can I do?” he says.
“Nothing.”
He takes my hands so I’ll look at him. “There must be something.”
I shake my head, fighting to regain control. The last thing Dani needs is for me to freak out right now.
About twenty minutes later, the buzzer that the front desk gave us in exchange for our paperwork starts buzzing. With Ralph in tow, Angela and I meet the doctor in an alcove off the waiting area reserved for doctor–family member interactions. He looks capable and experienced and grave. Grave isn’t good.
He starts to ask the obligatory family question, but I cut
him off. “We’re the only family she has,” I say.
He nods and lets it go. “We managed to stabilize her. She’s breathing on her own, but it took both endotracheal intubation and positive end-expiratory pressure.” He goes on to talk about maintaining adequate oxygenation, shifting interstitial pulmonary fluid, and increasing lung volume. All of which sounds vaguely positive. It’s when he mentions respiratory failure that I feel the freak-out starting to come back.
“So what does that mean? Is she going to…”
“Her chances for full recovery would be good if water aspiration were her only medical issue. But she’s also experienced some amount of cranial trauma, and I’m concerned that she hasn’t regained consciousness yet. Head injuries are notoriously unpredictable. She could wake up and be fine.” He hesitates before continuing. “But it’s also possible she may never wake up.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach, and if I had anything left to throw up, I’d do it.
“What about brain damage?” Angela asks. God, I hadn’t even thought of that.
“There’s no way for us to know until she’s conscious.”
“Can I see her?” I ask, my voice like sandpaper.
“I’m afraid not. We’ve moved her to the ICU for now, but she won’t be strong enough for visitors until the morning, if then. You can call the nurses’ desk tomorrow to find out if you can visit.”
I nod, my eyes burning. Angela squeezes my hand, and then peppers the doctor with additional questions. The doctor’s answers are mostly vague and unsatisfactory. He doesn’t know much more than we do. But he says that Dani’s youth and strong constitution are compelling factors in her favor. Thanks, doc.
The doctor’s phone beeps, and he checks the message. “I have to go. But the nurses will know Ms. Ivanov’s status, if you want to check in. If her condition changes, someone will call the contact number listed on her medical chart.” Which happens to be Mike’s, because my phone is at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
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