“Me, too. But I’ll find a way to get back at you.” She turned to Dianne. “Now give her another hug and come along. That drink is calling my name.”
“Presently.” Dianne thrust an overnight case at Lynch and stood frowning at Kendra. “I meant it, you know.” She paused. “But perhaps I’m not entirely angry that you were such an idiot. I was proud of you, too. It was good what you did for Waldridge.” She turned away. “But that’s after the fact. You should have been smart enough not to have had to risk your neck for him. Next time, keep that in mind.”
“I will,” Kendra said gently. “I promise.”
“See that you do.” Dianne turned to Lynch. “Okay, get her to her room and see that they give her those fluids.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lynch said. “Though I believe my job will just be to tag along with this nice nurse.” He smiled, his gaze on the nurse’s ID badge. “Marty? Sorry to keep you waiting, Marty. I know you have your job to do.”
“No problem. Take your time.” The nurse was smiling back at him with the slightly dazzled look that Lynch usually managed to elicit, Kendra noticed wearily. Sometimes it amused her, but now she was just grateful Lynch’s charisma almost automatically guaranteed that things would go smoother.
Lynch turned back to her mother. “Good night, Dianne. I’ll call and give you a report when I leave here.”
“Tag along?” Dianne repeated dryly, her gaze on the nurse as she joined Olivia and started down the hall. “I doubt if you know the meaning of the phrase.”
“Of course I do. I’m a real team player.” He waved the nurse to go down the hall. “Let’s go, Marty.” He fell into step with Kendra’s wheelchair. “Good night, ladies,” he called back to Dianne and Olivia. “I’ll keep you informed.” He looked down at Kendra, and said in an undertone, “And you do know they’ll both be on my ass if they don’t receive a call that meets with their approval? So you’d better have a good night.”
“You won’t know if I do or not.” She looked up at him as the nurse wheeled her into a room at the end of the hall. “Go home, Lynch. They cleaned me up in that ER, but you still look like you’ve been through a war.”
“When I see you tucked in.” He leaned against the wall and watched the nurse help her onto the bed. “I made a promise.”
“Yes, you did.” She leaned back wearily against the pillows. She was suddenly aware of the weakness she hadn’t permitted herself to acknowledge before. “Thank you for bringing them, Lynch. I was going to call both of them, but I might not have gotten around to it right away.”
“Imagine that.” He watched the nurse move around the room. “You only had to contend with bullets and dehydration and hired killers chasing you down. Hardly worth mentioning.” His gaze shifted back to her. “Anyway, they knew how much you cared about them. You called your mother, and she found a letter to Olivia when she went to your studio after she flew back here. So I knew that those were two people I had to make certain to bring up to date.” His lips twisted. “Of course, I might not have had the entire list. Did you send out any other touching good-bye’s to anyone else?”
“No, thank heavens. Those were the only two. At the time, I felt as if it was something I should do, but I obviously made a complete mess of it.”
“I wouldn’t say that, but you clearly made some mistakes.”
“Now that’s diplomatic,” she said dryly. “I can always count on you, Lynch.”
“Yes, you can. Not that you’ve demonstrated any degree of faith that you could lately.”
His voice was without expression, but she could sense the edge beneath it. He was definitely not pleased with her. How could she blame him? She had known this would be his reaction when she had deliberately not told him what she was planning to do. “You would have found a way to stop me.”
“Yes, I would.”
“It was the only thing I could-”
“No, it was what you chose.” He inclined his head. “And I have no intention of discussing it with you when you’re lying in that hospital bed. When I attack, I prefer an opponent to be on their feet.”
“So you can knock them down?”
“It has a certain appeal at the moment.” He turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kendra.”
“Yes.” But she had to say one more thing. “You saved both me and Waldridge today. I haven’t said thank you.”
“No, you haven’t. You’re welcome.” He smiled recklessly. “But I didn’t give a damn about Waldridge at the time. I still don’t. If I’d had to go in another direction, Waldridge would have just been collateral damage.”
She felt a ripple of shock. “Charles Waldridge should never be considered collateral damage.”
“Maybe not to you. I’m having a few problems with him. Good night, Kendra.” He went out the door.
She lay there, only vaguely aware of the nurse dimming the lights, putting the burner phone her mother had brought on the nightstand, and leaving the room.
Lynch’s words had been disturbing and so had been the leashed emotion she had sensed since she had left the ER. It had probably been present since he’d brought her from the desert, but she’d been too wired and profoundly relieved to notice.
And now she wasn’t in any shape to probe the mental and psychological mysteries of Adam Lynch. The pain medication they’d given her was taking effect, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She’d have to deal with Lynch in the morning…
2:35 A.M.
Her phone was ringing, she realized drowsily. The hospital room was still dark, but she could see her phone screen flickering on the bedside table. Who the hell would be calling her at the hospital in the middle of the night?
Something must be wrong.
She reached for the phone. No ID. Maybe a wrong number? But she couldn’t take a chance of not answering after what she’d just gone through.
“Kendra Michaels.”
“You sound half-asleep,” Charles Waldridge said. “And so you should be. Yes, it really is two thirty in the morning. Just another bit of blame to heap upon my head, Kendra.”
She was suddenly wide-awake. “Why on Earth are you calling me at this hour, Charles? Are you all right?”
“Yes and no.” He paused. “But I had Griffin call and check on you, and he said you were doing splendidly. I asked him to get your burner number so that I could check on you later myself. How is that wound?”
“Practically nothing. Why is it yes and no?”
“The physical checkup I went through showed that I was in the pink of health considering what I went through for the past week. Everyone was particularly happy that my brain functions were positively normal.”
“That’s wonderful.” She paused. “What’s the no?”
“The fact that I’m disturbing your sleep and calling you at two thirty in the morning.” He added soberly, “Because I may not be able to talk to you again for a long time.”
She stiffened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ve spent the last six hours being debriefed on Night Watch by Griffin and his boss, John Howell, the director, plus several members of congressional committees who are very interested in the progress I’ve made. It seems I’m an asset who can increase their political clout because I can give their voters a gift they can’t get anywhere else. They’ve scheduled another round of talks with more committee heads this afternoon.”
“And that means you may have to go to Washington or some university think tank?”
“That means I’ll have to go on the run,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“I know how it works, Kendra. It starts off with my being treated as if I walk on water and everyone kowtowing. Then there’s a subtle change as the program is infiltrated by the money and power brokers. I watched it with Night Watch.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. I know Griffin is honest and wouldn’t intentionally set you up with anyone who wouldn’t want the best result from Night Watch.”