by Dale Mayer
She almost missed what he said, her gaze caught on the badly damaged hand. No wonder Laszlo wore a glove. With a mental headshake she focused on her meal. She’d picked up a salad, thinking it was probably safe. But it wouldn’t give her a ton of substance. Laszlo reached across and gave her a large portion of his bread. “If you’re here, you should at least try the bread. It’s a regular food at all meals.”
She took a bite, her eyebrows lifting. “This is lovely.”
He nodded.
Without worrying about showing her hunger, she wrapped her fingers around her fork and polished off her food. When she pushed away her plate, she said, “I didn’t think I’d be able to eat.”
“Emotional shocks are like that,” Cade said. “You’re much better off to force yourself to eat and to give your stomach something other than itself to work on.”
She winced at the thought. The whole time she’d been eating, he’d been on the phone. She wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but obviously this trip wasn’t a holiday for him. Then again, if he had his own business, he might be able to work from anywhere. “Working vacation?”
His lips twitched. “Something like that.” He pulled out a card and wrote something on it. He pushed it toward her. “My number, in case you need us.”
Surprised and touched, she accepted it with a thank-you. She glanced up at them and said, “If you find out anything, hear anything about Elizabeth, can you tell me please? I can’t understand any of the conversations going on around me, and I know some of it is about her.”
“What’s your number?” Cade asked. “And no promises, but, if we get wind of anything, we’ll be happy to pass the information on.”
Pleased, she gave him her number.
“You really shouldn’t be so open about that,” Cade scolded her gently. “We could be serial killers.”
She rolled her eyes. “In that case, lose my number,” she joked. “Still, it’s not something I do lightly. Just goes to show the depth of my concern for Elizabeth.”
The men exchanged glances but didn’t elaborate.
These men were the types to have secrets. Not that that was a bad thing. She could use a little more privacy sometimes in her life too. She glanced at her watch and realized she’d been away from Elizabeth’s room for close to an hour. “I’ll head back again.” She smiled. “Thanks for the company and the assistance.” She collected her dishes, turned and added them to other dirty dishes on a table beside the kitchen’s Employees Only door.
With a last glance back at the men, whose heads were bent over Cade’s cell phone, she made her way to Elizabeth’s room.
The last nurse was just leaving. She held the door open and said, “No change.”
Grateful to hear English, yet sad at the news but not ready to give up yet, Faith sat down and gently covered Elizabeth’s hand. “Elizabeth, I’m back.”
Cade said, “Erick just texted that he received the accident reports for your father.”
“How did he get that so fast?” Laszlo shook his head. “The doctor downstairs just refused to give it to us, if you remember.”
“He said we weren’t entitled to it or something along those lines.”
“Same diff,” Laszlo snorted.
“He’s also got his brother’s and Badger’s parents’ reports, and he has my sister’s report. Anybody hear from Geir yet?”
“No. What about Erick? Has he spoken to Geir?” Talon asked.
“I’ll ask him.” Cade sent a text. The response was almost instant. “He says no.”
“And did anybody reach Jager yet?” Laszlo added.
“Erick is on that. He has what he has, and Tesla has agreed to start extrapolating some of the data.”
“Not sure Stone isn’t already on it too,” Talon said. “Between those two, I’d be surprised if anybody manages to pull a fast one on us again.”
“Why did it take us two years to figure this out?” Cade asked them.
“Because, in those two years,” Laszlo said, “most of us were recuperating, and most of these accidents hadn’t happened. Neither did we all sit down and compare notes. We also don’t know that we’ve got anything figured out yet either. It’s just an awful lot of disturbing coincidences.”
Talon laughed. “You know exactly how I feel about that.”
Laszlo checked his watch. “Okay, the specialist can see us now.”
They got up and walked to a different part of the hospital. Cade knocked on the specialist’s door and entered with Talon and Laszlo following. The doctor looked up and smiled, then reached across the desk and shook hands with all three. Cade listened as the Norwegian flowed thick and fast around the room. And just as abruptly as it started, it ended. The men shook hands again, and Laszlo turned to motion them out of the room. In the hall he said, “Only lifesaving treatments were done at the time, but, now that my father is in a little better shape, the doctor wants to see him again. So I’ll take that as a good sign.”
“Is it hard for your father to get around?”
“It is. I think I’ll hire somebody to stay with him and my brother.”
The men studied Laszlo’s face. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home and take care of that yourself?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m just not sure who to hire.”
“Mason or Levi might have an idea.”
Laszlo looked at him in surprise. “Why them?”
“They have worldwide contacts. What you really need is somebody who’ll drive them back and forth, plus do the shopping, cooking, things like that, but can also be a guard,” Talon said. “Your father is the only one who survived these attacks.”
Laszlo’s face darkened. “I can send Levi a text.” He stopped and frowned. “Or Bullard. Maybe he has somebody closer.”
Cade stared at him. “I know the name, but I don’t know the man.”
Talon smiled. “Well, you’d certainly never forget him if you did meet him. He has a place similar to Levi’s but fancier and in Africa. Dave works for him, managing the estate, like Alfred at Levi’s.”
“You think they might know somebody?”
“It can’t hurt to ask.”
“I suggest we toss this onto Erick’s plate and see if he can find somebody suitable.”
“Preferably somebody already in Europe—or, even better, in the Scandinavian area.”
“As long as he can be here in the next few days, that will be good enough.”
As they walked outside the hospital, Laszlo lifted his keys to pop open the car locks. Cade got into the back and pulled out his phone. “I’ll get a hold of someone. Maybe Levi is the better one in all this. He can talk to Bullard, see if he can shake somebody loose.” He sent a text to Erick, surprised when a response came back almost immediately. “Erick is on it.”
“Perfect,” Laszlo said. “We’re almost there.”
When Cade turned to look around, he realized they were heading out into the country. “I thought you guys lived in town?”
“Not for a long time,” Laszlo said. “My dad’s always been a bit of a loner. And, after my mom passed away, he wanted to get farther away from people.”
“Something we all understand,” Talon said. “We’ve seen enough of the world. It’s nice to have open space.”
Laszlo took a right turn and then a left turn onto a long driveway. Cade studied the area with interest. Rolling hills and trees, lots of rock. He smiled. “What are the winters like?”
“Well, let’s just say it’s a real winter here,” Laszlo said drily.
At the front of a house that looked like a sprawling bungalow, he hopped out, and the others followed suit. Cade motioned toward the trunk. “If we’re staying here too, want to get our bags out?”
“Let’s see how things are first,” Laszlo said. He pocketed the keys. “We can always come back and grab our bags.”
Interested to meet Laszlo’s family, they walked inside to find no one at home.
Cade glanced at his fri
end. “Where are they?”
Laszlo rolled his eyes. “They’ll be in the back.”
He walked through the main part of the house to another section where, even though it was the middle of summer, a roaring fire blazed in the fireplace, and two men sat on the couch with what looked like an alcoholic drink similar to a beer in front of each of them, watching a sports game on TV. Laszlo stepped in front of the men, and both men cried out in surprise. He stopped them both from their struggles to stand up, leaning over and giving each a hug.
He put the TV on Pause and said, “I’m here with a couple friends.” He motioned the two men over, and Cade stepped up to shake Laszlo’s father’s hand.
Laszlo said, “This is Henry. Or at least a close-enough form of my father’s name that you can use.”
They shook hands.
“And this is my brother, Jair.”
Cade shook his hand and smiled at the man who looked similar enough to Laszlo to recognize the family resemblance. But whereas Laszlo glowed with health and vitality, Jair looked to be on the sinking end of life. And yet he was the younger brother, as far as Cade knew. He glanced at Laszlo’s father to see he was not in much better shape.
“I’m happy to finally meet Laszlo’s family,” Cade said quietly. The two men looked at each other.
Laszlo said with a smile, “Although English is spoken in many parts of the world, neither of these two understand it.” He quickly translated, and the men beamed and nodded.
They spoke for a few more minutes, and then Laszlo turned the TV back on and ushered Cade and Talon out into the other part of the house. “We’ll stay here for the next couple days, until we get somebody to help them. In the meantime, they haven’t eaten.”
“Is that our job too?” Cade joked. It made sense if mobility and lack of energy were issues. And he was no slouch in the kitchen.
“It is now.” Laszlo walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and cupboards, checking each. “And, of course, they haven’t shopped.”
“I gather they struggle to get through the day,” Cade said. “Do we need to head into town and fill up the cupboards?”
“We’ve got enough for tonight,” Laszlo said. “But it won’t be fancy.” He went to the freezer and pulled out the ground meat. “I can throw something together. But we’ll have to do a major shopping trip tomorrow.”
Cade stepped in to help, knowing his friend was perturbed at his family’s inability to look after themselves, even when it came to the basics. “The problem with two injured people is they tend to not want to make the effort for themselves and don’t want to ask the other to make the effort for them either because they both are in rough shape.”
Laszlo nodded, taking off his glove and placing it on the side. Then started to unwrap the meat. “That’s why I need somebody else here. I left them food, but they’ve eaten everything that was easy to access and walked away from anything harder.”
“And we’ve all done the same thing many times over these last couple years. Not to worry. We’ll get them some help.”
Pitching in together, the three of them produced a meal, and very quickly Laszlo served up two large bowls to take to his brother and father.
Cade sat at the kitchen counter, and his phone pinged. He had turned it off so he could eat and then realized he didn’t dare take the chance of missing an email with these attacks on their families. With Talon behind him watching, he flicked through all the messages. “Things are blowing up.”
“In what way?”
“Erick said Tesla managed to get into the bug we left at the arms dealer.”
Talon straightened. “She managed to what?”
Cade nodded. “He’s told somebody we were looking for the purchaser of those two land mines.”
“He didn’t say it in English surely?”
“No, she ran it through a translator.” Cade read on. “The buyer wanted to know exactly who was asking. When our gun supplier told him, apparently he started to laugh.”
At that, Talon and Cade stared at each other. “He knows us,” they said in unison.
Chapter 3
Faith woke up with a start. The steady beep of the machines reassured her that Elizabeth was still alive. The room was dark except for the small light over the head of the bed. Faith wasn’t sure what woke her, but, as she straightened, she groaned. The back of her neck had kinked from lying with her head on Elizabeth’s bed. Definitely not the most comfortable sleeping position. She sat up and leaned back slowly, reaching to massage her shoulders and neck. Realizing that wouldn’t be enough, she stood and stretched to the floor and then to the ceiling.
The whole time there was no sign of any change in Elizabeth. Her body didn’t appear to have shifted at all since Faith had last looked. She leaned over and kissed her friend gently on the cheek. “If you’re in there, Elizabeth, just heal, sweetie. Take your time. Don’t answer. Don’t respond. Just put all your energy into healing. Stay alive. The doctors don’t know everything. Miracles happen, and you’ve always been my miracle.”
Faith settled again in her chair, picked up her laptop and checked the time. Her emails were ringing softly as they were downloaded. It was just after six in the morning. She suspected the nurses would be in soon, and she’d take that time to grab some food and coffee. She’d love a shower, but that didn’t seem to be in the offing. She didn’t know if this hospital had any facilities for long-term guests like that.
She had often wondered why something like that wasn’t available the world over, especially at the major hospitals or the ones with cancer specialties. Surely those medical facilities drew in tons of patients and their family members from all over the planet. People came to look after their loved ones or to be with them, and yet there was rarely any place for them to go but a hotel, which meant leaving the people they cared about in the time of these crises. Not a good solution.
Her instincts were right on; the nurses opened the door and stepped in less than five minutes later. They looked at her and smiled. “You’re awake. Did you sleep all night?”
Faith shook her head. “No, I dozed off and on, but there’s been no change in her condition.”
The nurse nodded and checked on Elizabeth. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We didn’t expect her to last this long. Every day she survives gives us that extra bit of hope.”
“Was the head injury enough to cause brain damage?” Faith asked, as that had been one of the biggest fears she’d held.
The nurse shook her head. “No. We’ve been keeping a close eye on it. But the swelling of the brain hasn’t been bad enough to even warrant surgery. She just needs time to heal. The internal bleeding was severe. We pumped a lot of blood in, but it seemed like we were still losing her. When the organs start failing, there’s not much we can do. She’s holding though, and that’s what’s important.”
Faith smiled down at her friend. “Hear that, Elizabeth? Every day you’re alive is a really good sign. So you stick around and keep fighting. Do you hear me?”
Of course there was no answer.
The nurse reached out a gentle hand to pat Faith’s shoulder. “Go walk around a little bit. Go to the cafeteria. Pick up some coffee, maybe some breakfast. The doctor won’t be here for a bit, but I need to check her over.”
Faith nodded. “I was just thinking the same. I should have grabbed a hotel. But I don’t want to leave her side.”
“Good. She’s hung on so far.”
“Where is her family?”
The nurse gave her a patient look. “The family finds it difficult to see Elizabeth at this stage. Death is painful for many people.”
“She’s not dead yet though,” Faith protested. “She deserves every chance we can give her.”
“Which is why I’m letting you stay here. I wouldn’t have given her much chance of survival before you arrived, but now …” She tilted her head as she considered her patient with a curious look. “She seems a little more stable. Not in so much pain. Definit
ely calmer now.”
Faith would like to think she’d had something to do with that. She returned her laptop to her large bag, pointing at her other luggage. “Is it okay if I leave my carry-on bag here?”
The nurse nodded. “No problem at all.”
She picked up her large purse and headed downstairs.
The cafeteria was always open, and, at this hour, it was calm and quiet. That suited her. She walked around to find some food. She stuck to something simple again, not being much of a world traveler in terms of food adventures, but scrambled eggs and toast were pretty universal.
With her tray full she sat down and pulled out her laptop. She had to wonder at seeing Cade here. How terrible for Laszlo that his father had been in a hit-and-run. She hoped the police found whoever did it. She wasn’t sure she understood the details of Elizabeth’s accident. But she’d been driving at the time, so it might just have been bad road conditions.
Faith stared out the window at the bright sun breaking free of the horizon. She couldn’t imagine knowing somebody had hit her father, then drove away to avoid being caught.
Elizabeth was a schoolteacher. She adored all children from infants up. Yet Faith wasn’t sure she wanted any children. She’d been an only child, and, although she’d hated that, her mother had been very quick to cling and to become almost a child herself. As far as Faith was concerned, she was mothering her mother already. The thought of starting all over again with a newborn—or even a two-year-old—was daunting.
Of course she didn’t have a partner in her life either, and maybe that would change her mind. Particularly if he wanted a family. There was just no way to know. She’d gone into flying because of her love of planes. She’d always been addicted. Her mother had fought her strenuously.
So, when she finally got her first job as a commercial airline pilot, making terrible money, her mother had burst into tears. Now seven years later, her mother had come to terms with it but still wasn’t happy. And, of course, she didn’t see Faith as much as she wanted to, because Faith was, for a long time, volunteering for as many flights as she could. The number of hours she was allowed to work a week was limited, but, anytime she could get on a route, she took it. She imagined, if she had had the same love of driving, she’d be a nomad wandering the world. Having her own plane was not in the cards. That was an expense she could ill afford. And wasn’t sure she wanted one. Even a small one.