Ty stuck his head into the hole they’d made, but there was nothing else in there but more plaster and cement block.
“Fuck,” Ty breathed as he pulled back out and looked around a little wildly. Out in the concourse, the way he had come, he could see two firemen in their bulky yellow suits working their way toward him. It had been at least six minutes, then, counting on standard response time. It seemed like it had been so much longer. A lifetime longer. Ty turned and looked deeper into the store filled with dull smoke and shifting shadows.
“Garrett!” he yelled as he headed that way. It was dark where the lights had all been blown out, and most of the debris was unidentifiable. He ducked under a fallen ceiling support, forced to crawl across the soaked carpet to get under it.
The rubble blocked so much of the floor that he had to climb on it rather than pushing it aside. As he got closer to the back, the smoke cleared, blown by a cold breeze from the outside. And then he saw it: a bright splotch of red against a charred gray wall. The blood streaked in vertical lines like someone had tried to wipe it down the wall, and a thick, scorch-marked metal door lay at an angle under it, blocking the corner.
But one long leg ending in a familiar dress shoe extended out of the mess of splintered particle board into what used to be the entrance to the storeroom.
“Zane,” Ty gasped as the feeling in his entire body seeped away. He moved as fast as he could, batting away the light pieces of wallboard and shoving the still-hot metal door over and out of the way. Ty knelt beside him. “Zane?” he whispered. His voice wavered as he ran his hand over Zane’s face.
He wasn’t cut up or burned; the metal door had saved him from the explosion. One shoe was scorched, but even the laces were still intact. He didn’t look like he was injured at all, other than the garish bloodstain on the wall behind him from his impact and slide to the floor under the door that had shielded him from the blast.
But Zane didn’t move, didn’t twitch, didn’t open his eyes when Ty tapped his cheek. Nothing.
Ty’s stomach turned. He pressed his fingers to Zane’s neck, feeling for a pulse. His other hand ran through Zane’s hair as he did so.
The pulse was there. Ty gasped in relief, leaned down, and pressed his lips to Zane’s forehead, heedless of who might see, and then he looked back into the store for help. He knew without a doubt he couldn’t carry Zane out of there.
“Hey!” he called as he saw a beam of light playing through the swirling smoke. “Man down!” he called to the fireman desperately.
As the fireman came closer, hacking his way through the wreckage to clear a path for his retreat, Ty recognized him just by his size.
“I could kiss you, man,” he told the large black man he knew only as Tank. The man handed his axe to the other fireman and knelt down at Zane’s other side.
“Not on a first date,” Tank answered. He checked Zane over quickly for injuries, then hefted him onto his thick shoulders with a grunt. “You hurt?” he asked. Ty shook his head. “Shake a leg, then, Bulldog. Building’s not stable,” he said as he turned and carried Zane into the smoke.
Ty stood there, unable to make himself move. His entire body shook as he watched them disappear.
The other fireman gripped his arm. “Come on. We gotta get out of here,” he said. “The ceiling’s starting to come down.”
Ty nodded and forced his feet to move. He followed the man along the path Tank had cut through the devastation.
By the time he got out of the building—wet, filthy, half-blind, and coughing—the ambulances had cleared out and the firemen were trying to put out what was left of the flames.
What remained were the television cameras. Reporters saw him as he emerged, and Ty could see the recognition sweep through them as he wiped the soot off his face. They began shouting questions over the barrier that had been hastily set up.
Ty ignored them and stalked toward the milling emergency workers.
“Hey,” Ty called out to a young agent in a pristine windbreaker standing and staring at the building. The kid looked at him with wide eyes, apparently recognizing him. Ty had earned a reputation with the rookies, not necessarily by deed but through word of mouth. They were all too terrified of him to realize most of the stories were exaggerated. Right now Ty didn’t care. “Where’d they take the wounded?” he demanded.
“Uh, I—”
“Where?” Ty shouted angrily.
“UMMC,” the kid stammered.
“You’re driving,” Ty told him as he pointed at Zane’s truck.
Chapter Six
IT FELT like it took forever to get through traffic to the University of Maryland Medical Center, even though it wasn’t even a mile away from the Inner Harbor. On the ride there, Ty sat tense and silent in the seat next to the rookie he didn’t know and didn’t give a shit about right then. When they arrived, Ty tersely told the kid to head back to the office and that he’d pick up the keys later. Despite the rookie’s stunned gape, Ty jogged inside the ER without a glance back.
He was at the information desk asking for Zane’s location and status when he heard a familiar voice behind him.
“Grady, I’m glad to see you.” McCoy stood behind him, looking somber and worn.
Ty turned in surprise, but any formal greetings to his immediate superior were lost on him. “Have you seen him, Mac? Is he okay?”
McCoy slid his hands into his pants pockets and tipped his head to one side before answering in a tired voice, “I don’t know anything yet. I just got here. Where were you during all of this?”
“I was in the truck, sick from a Vicodin I took this morning,” Ty answered immediately. It didn’t even cross his mind to gloss it over.
McCoy’s eyebrow jumped, but he didn’t otherwise comment. “I’ve got six agents in this hospital tonight, Grady. Are you going to be able to work?” he asked bluntly.
Ty nodded jerkily. McCoy just looked at him, not breaking eye contact. “I’ll do whatever you need,” Ty insisted in a hoarse voice.
McCoy nodded slowly. “For right now, I need you to go home.” He raised a hand when Ty opened his mouth to question him. “Seriously. You look like you just got spit out by a giant drooling dog, and I’ve got to muster together a group to investigate what happened.”
Ty looked down at himself in consternation. He didn’t look that bad. “But I can help—”
“Not when you’re being targeted. I can’t afford to put a team on you to protect you, so I want you off the radar. This may have been a second attempt, for all we know.” He turned his chin as an agent appeared at his elbow and murmured in his ear. McCoy turned his eyes back to Ty. “All right. They’re asking for you in the Shock Trauma Center. Fifth floor. Get me a status report, then go the hell home. Do not sit here with Garrett and make yourself and him a target, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Ty said mutinously. “Anything else?” He wanted to dart to the elevator and get up there as fast as he could, but he had to at least pretend he still gave a shit about the case.
“Go on,” McCoy answered, nodding his head toward the elevator. Then he started talking with the other agent, who held an armful of file folders.
Ty’s mind whirred the entire ride up the elevator, throwing all sorts of grim scenarios at him that he tried hard to ignore. He’d no sooner gotten to the nurses’ station than he heard his name again.
“Special Agent Grady?”
Ty turned to meet the doctor who’d called his name, abject terror clogging his throat.
The doctor was a younger man despite his nearly white hair, and he projected an air of knowledge and experience around him. “I’m Dr. Jameson,” he said, holding out his hand. “An agent downstairs called up to say you were on your way.”
Ty shook his hand automatically, not bothering to try to be polite.
“Special Agent Garrett has you listed as his emergency contact. Does he have any family? Wife or children?” Jameson asked, his voice dropping to a tone that was probably supp
osed to be soothing.
Ty’s mouth went completely dry, and he had to work just to swallow hard enough to get words out. “He has family in Texas,” he said hoarsely.
The doctor nodded. “His next of kin will need to be notified, of course.”
Ty stared at the man, trying to take in what he was implying as he felt tunnel vision threatening. It just wasn’t making it through. He opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t manage it.
“Special Agent Grady? Are you all right?” Jameson asked in concern. “I was told you weren’t injured. Your partner will need someone with him until his family can arrive.”
Ty closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side, trying to maintain control for just a little while longer. “You saying he’s alive?” he managed to ask shakily.
Jameson’s jaw dropped. It would have been comical under other circumstances. “I’m so sorry—I thought you’d already been informed. Special Agent Garrett is in serious but stable condition.”
Ty took a deep breath and balled his hand into a fist, telling himself that throttling the doctor would get him nothing but jail time. “Can I see him?” he asked through gritted teeth, glaring at the doctor dangerously.
“Of course,” the doctor said immediately, apparently realizing how upset Ty was. “This way.” He turned and led the way, punching in an access code at a secure door, which he held open for Ty before leading him through a maze of bays to one only dimly lit. The doctor stopped at the entrance by the glass door. “You should have some time. We’re taking him for a CT scan soon.”
Ty stood at the doorway, looking in at an all-too-familiar scene. They were going to have to make a deal about staying out of hospitals for a while. It was beginning to wear on his nerves.
“Thank you,” he forced out to the doctor before he moved into the darkened bay.
“He has a concussion,” Jameson said. “We don’t know how serious yet. He hasn’t woken up, but the swelling inside his skull is already subsiding. I think he’ll be okay.”
“You think a lot of things, Doctor,” Ty said coldly without looking away from the bed. “What do you know?”
Jameson spoke after an awkward pause. “Special Agent Garrett has a hell of a hard head,” he said frankly. “I expected several skull fractures, but I only found bruising and a split scalp that we stitched up. As it is, his brain got rattled. We’re focusing on trying to reduce the swelling, and my hope is that we won’t find any internal bleeding. There’s no evidence of any so far. That doesn’t rule out other injuries or blood clots. But overall? Your partner is a very, very lucky man.” With that, the doctor nodded uncomfortably when Ty glanced at him, and he left.
Ty watched him go, then looked back down at Zane with a sickening lurch of his stomach. He moved closer to the bed and leaned over him, looking at him closely. “We’ve done this before, Zane,” he whispered to his partner. “You need to be more creative with your near-death experiences.”
There was no reply. Zane lay absolutely still, the rise and fall of his chest only barely visible under the cotton gown and sheet. He was hooked up to three different IVs, and his head was wrapped in enough gauze to make a turban.
Ty gave a sniff and looked up into Zane’s face again. “Fine, copycat. Don’t talk to me, then. I’m not leaving,” he said stubbornly as he dragged the heavy chair over from the corner of the bay and sat next to the bed. He crossed his arms over his chest and resolved to sit there until Zane woke, McCoy’s orders be damned.
He was still sitting there when two orderlies arrived almost an hour later to take Zane to the CT scan.
Ty stood to the side and watched them prepare Zane to be moved. He knew they wouldn’t let him go along, even if he flashed his badge around. He smelled of smoke, and his suit was damp and dirty and probably ruined. His entire body ached from head to toe, and he couldn’t decipher which injuries had come from his run-in with Tank on the softball field and which ones had come from his foolhardy headlong search through the bomb debris.
He also noticed as he glanced at his reflection in the stainless steel paper towel dispenser that his face was smudged with smoke and dirt.
McCoy had been right: he looked like hell. It would do Zane no good if he woke up to find Ty sitting there looking like this.
He cleared his throat and touched one of the orderlies on the arm to get his attention. “If he wakes up, will you tell him his partner will be back?” he requested in a hoarse voice.
The orderly glanced at him, looked him up and down, and then smiled. “Sure thing.”
“Thank you,” Ty murmured as he gave Zane one more glance and then went to call himself a cab.
“IT WAS him!” Pierce shouted, eyes bright with excitement.
Graham raised an eyebrow, more and more convinced that his buddy was losing his mind.
“Who was him?”
“That asshole FBI agent from the aquarium! He made me drive him to the hospital!”
“What’d he do, hold a gun to your head?” Ross asked drily.
“No,” Pierce answered, sounding more excited than angry. “He just pointed at me and told me I was going to do it, and I had like this physical response where I had to do what he told me to! It was awesome!”
Graham frowned. “That doesn’t sound awesome.”
Hannah rolled her eyes at them all. She was beginning to grow tired of the game; Graham could tell from the constant sighs she emitted lately. Soon she’d be back under a football player from school.
“The FBI guy from TV was hot. He could tell me to do anything,” she told them as she counted out stacks of money from their last robbery.
“So why is this exciting?” Graham asked, ignoring her comment.
Pierce grinned manically and dug out a pair of keys from his pocket, holding them up and letting them dangle. “Because he left his keys with me.”
“That was kind of stupid of him, but I still don’t get it.”
“He’s a fucking monster—he’s got to be like six and half feet tall and eats nothing but steroids and babies.”
“Dude.”
“He’s like Moby Dick and I’m Captain Ahab,” Pierce continued with relish.
“Third-year AP English,” Hannah grumbled.
Graham frowned. “Did you finish that book?”
“No, why?” Pierce answered distractedly.
“No reason.”
Pierce nodded, looking smug. “I’m gonna kill him,” Pierce said as his eyes lost focus.
“Wait, what?” Hannah exclaimed, sounding just as alarmed as Graham was.
“Come on. We’ve got work to do,” Pierce said to Ross, and the two of them left together, strutting out of Graham’s kitchen.
Graham and Hannah shared a look. Graham wasn’t sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line, the bombings had become more important to Pierce than the robberies. And now he wanted to kill someone?
Graham frowned as Hannah bit her lip and looked away. Neither of them had the nerve to buck Pierce, and they both knew it.
WHEN Ty returned less than an hour later, just after the lunch rush, he proceeded immediately up to the fifth floor, punched in the code he’d seen the doctor enter to get access to the secure area, and walked straight to Zane’s bay, hoping he’d be back from the scan. The last time Ty had suffered holding still for one of the damn things, it had only been about ten minutes, all told.
When Ty arrived, there were two doctors—neither Dr. Jameson—and a nurse already in the bay.
He hung back, practically vibrating with the need to get information and see how Zane was doing. Then he saw Zane slowly turn his head away from the door toward one of the doctors, who was talking to him in low tones. Zane was awake.
Ty held his breath and stepped into the bay. The nurse must have seen the movement out of the corner of her eye, because she turned to look at him in alarm.
The doctor turned as well. “And you are…?”
Ty merely flipped his badge open to show it to the do
ctor. He could be an officious ass too.
The doctor wasn’t impressed. “Unless you’re Special Agent Garrett’s family, you shouldn’t be here, sir. I’ve been informed of no guard assignment.”
“Consider yourself informed,” Ty said to him in a low voice.
“I must insist—”
“Ty?”
At Zane’s soft word, the doctors and nurse turned back to their patient. Ty stepped closer to the bed, looking at Zane with a mixture of relief and guilt. “Hey,” he responded weakly.
Zane’s hand shifted and his chin turned, but he just blinked lazily and stared out into the bay with unfocused eyes. “You okay? You were in the truck,” he said. The words were so garbled it took Ty a few beats to decipher them.
“Yeah,” Ty answered carefully as he studied Zane. He knew that look. It took him a long moment for it to register, but he knew it. It was the same one his great-grandmother had always had when he’d been little, staring past him as she listened to the sound of his voice. “You can’t see,” he blurted.
“Excuse me,” one of the doctors interrupted. “Special Agent Garrett, is this man okay to stay with you? Do you know him?”
Zane blinked slowly. “He’s my partner,” he said, the words coming out a little more clearly, though still labored. “Tell him. He was in the truck.”
“Tell me, my ass. He can’t see,” Ty grunted to the doctor as he pointed at Zane accusingly.
The second doctor spoke. “You are correct, Agent…?”
“Grady,” Ty told the man in annoyance. “Why can’t he see?”
“Ty,” Zane said softly, the tone clear, asking Ty to calm down and let the doctors explain.
The first doctor flipped a page on the chart. “As we were just explaining to Agent Garrett, there was a lot of swelling from the blow to the head. While most of it has subsided and we’ve confirmed there is no further internal bleeding, we think there was enough to form a few blood clots. We started him on the appropriate drugs, and in a couple of days, we’ll run another CT scan to determine the extent of the damage.”
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