“Fair enough.” Reluctance laced her words. “What happens now?”
Adam deferred to Leigh.
“As soon as Dr. Sloan gives you the okay, you’ll be free to go home, although I think it’s safe to say no one will want you staying by yourself for a while.”
Sabrina’s brow furrowed. “Can I go back to work? I have a lot to do on this case.”
Leigh scrunched up her entire face and glared at Sabrina. There was no real heat behind it, but Sabrina looked worried.
Leigh pointed to her own face. “You see this? This is my ‘You’re killing me’ look. Memorize it. It means I don’t like what you’re suggesting, but I know you’re going to do it anyway. It doesn’t mean I don’t like you, so don’t look at me like I’m being mean to you.”
Sabrina’s expression cleared as Leigh spoke. “So I can go to work?”
“I’ll talk to Dr. Sloan,” Leigh said. “No promises.”
Adam’s phone rang. He ignored it. It rang again. “Oh no,” he said as he grabbed it. “Sorry, Ryan. I forgot you were there.”
Ryan laughed. “No problem. Can you ask Sabrina about getting into the house?”
“Let me put you on speaker,” Adam said. “Go ahead.”
“Hey, everyone,” Ryan called out.
Everyone gathered in the small room replied, “Hey.”
“Sabrina?” Ryan said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is there any chance we could get into the house? We need to check for any signs of intruders.”
Sabrina’s face paled. “Of course. There’s a set of keys to both the main house and the guest house behind it. They’re on the key ring in my house. I assume you’ve already been in there.”
“We have,” Ryan said. “Nothing looks out of place to me, but you’ll have to check it carefully to be sure. There’s no rush on that, of course.”
“Oh, she thinks she’s ready to go back to work,” Leigh said. There were chuckles all around.
“I’ll leave that to the medical professionals,” Ryan said. “Is there a security system at the house, Sabrina?”
“There is,” she said. “A really good one. My dad was at high risk for wandering. The gates, fences, doors, everything is all monitored. I can’t figure out how anyone could have gotten in without setting it off.”
“All the more reason for us to check it out,” Ryan said.
Sabrina gave him the code, and before he disconnected the call, Ryan promised to keep her informed.
“Pete,” Sabrina said. “You have to quit looking at me that way. I’m fine. But I have to ask . . . how did you know to come looking for me?”
Pete gave Sabrina a halfhearted smile. She could see how much effort it took for him to do it. “You called me,” he said.
“I did what? When?” She hadn’t called Pete. Not on purpose, anyway.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through. “The call came in at 6:23 a.m. I answered the phone, but all I could hear was a rustling sound and what I thought was you grunting. I called your name several times, and when you didn’t answer, I was afraid something was wrong. I was hoping you’d butt-dialed me and it was no big deal, but I didn’t want to risk it.”
Sabrina processed Pete’s version of the events. How had she called him?
“Sabrina?” Concern saturated Adam’s voice. “Can you tell us what you remember?”
She started at the beginning. Top down. Just like a computer program. It would help if her head didn’t feel like someone was taking a jackhammer to it, but she could figure this out. “I got up and got ready to go for a run.”
Adam raised his hand and she nodded at him. “Do you run every morning?”
“Weather permitting,” she said. “I don’t care to run in the rain.”
Adam raised his hand again. Pete snickered. “Do you carry your phone, or is it in your pocket?”
Her pocket . . . She patted her right thigh. “My phone’s gone. He took my phone.”
Pete’s eyes widened.
“Let’s go back a little.” Adam spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m assuming by the way you’re patting your leg that you put your phone in your pocket before you ran?”
Sabrina focused on retracing her steps. “Yes. I got up. Got dressed. Picked a playlist. Put the phone in my pocket. Put in my wireless earbuds. Left the house. Went down the driveway. My earbuds died about five minutes into my run, but I didn’t bother taking them out.”
How much farther had she run? Where had the guy come from that she didn’t see him?
“They were on the ground near you,” Pete said. “I assumed they fell out when you—”
“It was a man,” she said. “I don’t know where he came from. He was just there. I thought I’d run into him. But now I’m not sure. Maybe he ran into me.”
Adam tilted his head as if he was considering her comment. “If he’d been waiting for you, he could have popped up right as you ran by him.”
“I guess.” Sabrina leaned back against the pillows. “Ugh. I wasn’t paying attention. I should have been more on guard.”
“You were out for a jog on gated private property,” Pete said. “Hardly a reason to expect someone to attack you.”
Sabrina wasn’t sure she believed him, but it was nice of him to say that. “Thanks, Pete.”
“Are you sure it was a man?” Leigh asked.
Sabrina considered her question. “Yes,” she said. “When I ran into him, I grabbed his arms. He was hairy. And his arms were thick, but not like fat thick. He was solid muscle. He was at least a foot taller than me. His hands were . . . huge.”
“We won’t completely rule out a woman.” Adam nodded toward Leigh. “But it’s more likely the attacker was a man.”
“Agreed,” Leigh said.
“Now, where were we?” Adam ticked off items on his fingers. “You ran into the attacker . . .”
“Yes. It was like hitting a wall. I reached out with my hands, to catch myself.” Sabrina stretched out her arms. “But when I grabbed his arms, he threw me to the ground. I wasn’t sure if I could outrun him, but I thought if I could get him on the ground I’d have a better chance. I tried to get up . . .”
Why was it hard to remember the details? “I’m not sure what happened. I think I tried to kick his legs? Maybe? Or grab them? I think I pushed him away from me, but that’s the last thing I can remember.”
“It’s okay,” Leigh said. “Your brain is protecting itself. Don’t fight it. You might remember more details over the next few days. Or you might not. It’s okay either way.”
“No, it isn’t.” Sabrina closed her eyes. None of this was okay. The phrase “pounding headache” had never made more sense to her than it did in this moment. Her right leg . . . “Oh.”
She sat up fast. Too fast. Searing pain scorched its way through her skull and she caught her breath at the intensity of it.
Adam’s hand on her back and arm sent a shiver through her. “Are you okay?” His words came low, right at her ear.
“What is it?” Leigh asked.
“My leg. My phone. That’s how I called Pete.”
Leigh, Adam, and Pete all made eye contact with one another, but not with her. What wasn’t clear about this?
“My leg is killing me,” she said. She pulled the hospital gown away from her right thigh, revealing a rectangular-shaped bruise already forming. “I fell on my phone. I’d put Pete’s number in last night, and when I fell I must have leg-dialed him. With my earbuds dead, the Bluetooth would have been off, so Pete would have been able to hear, but it would have been through the material of my pants, so it would have been muffled.”
Now they all nodded in understanding. “Makes sense,” Pete said.
“And if you were only two minutes out, in the cool morning air, the sound of the siren would have reached the attacker in advance of you,” Adam said to Pete. “You may have saved her life.”
Pete’s face flushed. “I would have liked to have sav
ed her a headache.” His words were gruff, but his smile was more natural now. “So the attacker hears the siren, takes Sabrina’s phone, and rabbits,” Pete said. “The property is fenced. How did he disappear?”
“My guess is however he got in. When we check the perimeter, we’ll find out how he did it.” Adam narrowed his eyes at Sabrina. “But until then, I don’t think you should stay in your house alone.”
He said it nicely, but there was an undercurrent she didn’t recognize in Adam’s voice. Either he was mad, which she didn’t think was accurate, or he was not going to be easily dissuaded. But was he suggesting what she thought he was suggesting? “Well, my house isn’t big enough for two people, and I’m not staying in my father’s house by myself or with anybody else,” Sabrina said.
“I’m not suggesting you should.” Adam’s tone was conciliatory. “But—”
“I can go to a hotel. Or I can sleep at my lab. It’s secure. I have a sofa in my office.”
“You can’t sleep in your office. Come stay with me!” Leigh’s excitement was impossible to miss. “It will be awesome. Like old times. You guys can all come over tonight, and I’ll cook. You’ll solve the case.”
A sleepover at Leigh’s? Sabrina couldn’t quite picture it, but it did sound better than a hotel. And it was way better than sleeping in her lab. That sofa was awful.
“What do you think?” Adam looked so hopeful that she wasn’t sure she could have said no to anything he asked her to do.
“Sure. Why not? But I need to go to my house and pack.”
“I’ll come with you,” Adam said.
“Excellent,” Leigh said. “Now that we’ve got it all figured out, I think Pete here needs to crash.” Her mouth stretched into a huge yawn. “For that matter, so do I.”
Heat flooded through Sabrina’s entire system. “Oh no! You’ve both been up all night and I’m yammering. Pete, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I think you should go get some sleep.”
He nodded. “I will, but I’m going to call you later to check on you.”
“Sounds good.”
Adam shook Pete’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough.” Adam’s voice sounded a little funny and Pete didn’t say anything. He just nodded. It was like he and Adam were having some conversation without words.
When they were done, Pete stepped to the side of her bed and gave her hand an awkward pat. “Don’t do anything crazy today,” he said.
Leigh followed him to the door. “I’m going to go spring you,” she said to Sabrina. “Be back in a sec.”
Sabrina watched the door close, then she turned to Adam. “Leigh’s been so wonderful. I’m so glad she was here. The ED was deserted when I came in, but I’m sure Leigh helped move things along. The doctor was in my room within a few minutes and then they whisked me off to radiology. She said I was lucky to be in here on a Monday morning and not a Saturday morning.”
Adam gave her a weak grin. She got the feeling he wouldn’t have minded if things had gone a little slower.
“What can I do to help today? Besides taking you home. Are you supposed to drive? Should I take you to your lab?”
Sabrina studied Adam’s face, looking for any clue that he was joking. “You aren’t going to give me grief about going to work?”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Would it do any good?”
“No. But I’m surprised you aren’t trying.”
“I know you too well.” He laughed. “You aren’t going to go home or go to Leigh’s and take a nap. It’s not in your nature. Not only are you itching to start working on the evidence we recovered from Lisa Palmer’s house, but my guess is your brain is already working overtime on who attacked you, how they got in, what they wanted, and why they took your phone.”
He was good. And somehow the idea of being known so well wasn’t terrifying as long as it was Adam who was doing the knowing.
“Well, in that case . . .”
Juan was an idiot.
Sabrina Fleming was still alive.
How could that blockhead have messed this up? He outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. She was alone. It was dark.
The plan had been foolproof.
Until the fool proved him wrong.
And then Juan took her phone. Why?
He didn’t need her phone! He needed her dead.
At least the oaf had called him immediately rather than driving straight back with the phone on and searchable.
That would have been a disaster.
As it was, the phone had been disposed of. And if by some fluke of fate it was discovered? Well, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
He sipped his espresso and considered his options. He’d had to talk fast to convince Juan that trying again today would be a mistake. They would wait. Watch. An opportunity would present itself and when it did, Juan would be free to get the vengeance he craved.
He had time. Not a lot, but enough. This was but one piece of the intricate puzzle he’d been putting together for the past three years.
The phone rang.
Ah. Another piece.
“Hello, dearest. How was your flight?”
6
By 10:30 a.m. Sabrina regretted the decision to go to work with every fiber of her being. She refused to slump against the seat of the car and instead held her back and neck straight as Adam parked in front of her lab. She needed to get some more ibuprofen into her system. Soon.
But more than anything, she wanted to get someplace where she felt safe. She hadn’t been prepared to feel so exposed, so vulnerable, but from the moment she’d stepped out of the emergency department doors she’d been unable to shake the sense that someone was watching. That at any moment a red dot would appear on her chest, or worse, Adam’s.
“Bri.”
She turned to Adam, but he wasn’t looking in her direction with the earnest, concerned expression she’d been expecting. He sat in the driver’s seat, leaning forward at a slight acute angle. He clenched the steering wheel. His throat worked and his mouth moved, but he didn’t speak. He shook his head a couple of times, then blew out a long breath. “Sit tight.” He climbed from the car.
What had just happened?
He opened the trunk, closed it, and opened her door seconds later. “Don’t stand up too fast.” He had a box tucked under his arm and extended his hand toward her. “Or that headache you’re pretending you don’t have will set you on your rear.”
“Excuse me?” How did he—?
He took her right hand, and she twisted toward him. She put her left hand on the door and swung her feet to the ground. Instead of pulling her, he waited. He studied her the way she studied computer code, like he could read everything she wasn’t saying just by watching her face.
And maybe he could. Because the moment she thought she could stand, he pulled her toward him. He didn’t start walking, just took one step back and steadied her.
“Ready?”
She nodded. Ouch. That was a mistake.
He offered her his arm as he had last night and set a slow pace toward the lab.
She focused on putting one foot in front of the other. To think that earlier this morning she’d been running, feeling the air in her lungs, the breeze on her skin. Now she wanted to run but couldn’t. All she could do was pray she could stay on her feet long enough to get to her lab and sit down in the safety of those four walls.
“Almost there.” Adam’s lips brushed against her hair.
Did he know how scared she was? Or how much she was hurting?
Or both?
They rode the elevator in silence. He stayed close until they reached her door. He stepped back, his body angled between her and the open hallway. She leaned forward for the iris scan. The motion sent pain splintering through her head, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
Adam’s hand tightened on her elbow. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t dare nod. “Yes.” The door clicked, and he opened it for her. She stepped inside and l
eaned against the wall. Maybe the room would stop spinning if she closed her eyes.
She heard the door close. Heard him set the box on a desk.
Then she sensed more than heard Adam move toward her. “Bri.” He pulled her against him, his arms tightening until her face was pressed against his chest.
Her arms wrapped around him without her conscious permission.
“I . . . I thought I’d lost you this morning,” he said. “When they told me . . .”
He pressed his forehead against the top of hers and for the first time in several hours, she relaxed. They had stood like that for what could have been a couple of minutes but was probably only a few seconds, when his entire body tensed.
He pulled away, his neck and face flushed. “Sorry about that.”
Why was he sorry? She wasn’t complaining. She’d take a blow to the head once a week if it generated that kind of response from him.
Well, maybe not every week. That probably wouldn’t be good for her brain cells.
Still . . .
Adam cleared his throat. “Let me get you a chair. You need to sit. Where do you want to sit? Over here?”
Adam Campbell was rambling? Adam Campbell didn’t ramble.
“I can walk.”
He grabbed a chair and placed it beside her at the workstation she’d paused by. “Sit. Please.”
“I’m fine.” She eased into the chair. It would be easier to make him believe her if she didn’t feel like someone was shoving an ice pick through the top of her head.
He pulled a small bottle from his pocket and handed it to her. “Leigh gave me this before we left.” The little cylinder contained pain relievers. “She said you’re going to need something stronger but to take this to get you by until you’re done working.”
She opened the bottle and poured a couple of tablets into her palm.
“How badly are you hurting?” he asked.
“Honestly?”
“That would be preferable,” he said with overdone nonchalance. “Saves time, but you can keep lying if it makes you feel better.”
He knew anyway, so why was she compelled to keep up a front? If she couldn’t be honest with Adam, was there anyone she could be truthful with? “I’m not sure anything can help me feel better,” she said.
In Too Deep Page 7