Page 112 of Conrad

He raised his head to look at Declan—his nose taped, his hands bandaged, a tech working on his leg. The gathered bloody gauze piled in a hazardous-material bin next to him.

“You’re not fine.”

“Please. I’m more worried about Avery. Have you checked on her?”

His mouth pinched. “Not since the EMTs put her in an ambulance.”

Declan raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir,” Stein said.

“Can you get me some water too?”

Stein stepped through the curtain and walked down the hall, past the other bays, some of them with their curtains drawn. A toddler with his mother in one bay, a teenage girl in another. He didn’t see the blonde anywhere.

The nurses’ station was empty, and he had to wait a long moment for a nurse to arrive—a woman, her dark hair pulled back, wearing a pair of teal scrubs, a stethoscope around her neck. She addressed him in Spanish and then changed to English. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for the woman brought in earlier—blonde, American, petite.”

“And you are?—”

“A friend. We were together.” Close enough.

“Yeah, ah, she was sent to imaging and, I believe, orthopedics for casting.”

“She broke something?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

He could still see her flying through the air, the hard slam into the pavement, right in front of oncoming traffic.

He’d nearly run to her, but Declan lay broken too?—

A couple Vespas had stopped in front of her, one of the men getting off. And by the time the EMS had shown up, she’d been sitting up, holding her arm. Had glanced at him at least once with an expression he couldn’t place. Almost desperation. Or maybe pain.

He nodded, ran his hands down his face. “Vending machine anywhere?”

“Down the hall.” She pointed out of the ER area, into a hallway, and he headed out, into the austere waiting room with the orange formed seating, the windows that overlooked the stately courtyard. Of course the hospital had to be a historical building, with columns that cordoned off the monastic style, and inside, a grand staircase to the second floor, travertine tile flooring, a renaissance feel that suggested learning and grandeur alongside new technology.

He stopped at a vending machine tucked into a corner, dropped in a euro, and a bottled water fell to the gap. He scooped it up and headed back to the ER.

No more conference. He didn’t know why, but the accident sat like a burr under his skin. Something felt off, not random . . .

He entered the ER, glanced at the nurses’ station. The tech who’d been cleaning up his boss stood at the desk, talking with the nurse. Stein nodded at him—good, maybe now they could go home—and then turned toward Declan’s bay at the end.

Slowed.What?—

Avery stepped out of the curtained area, her satchel slung over her shoulder, holding a plastic bag. She wore a cast in a sling but seemed to be moving just fine.

But wait, wait—was that . . . bloody gauze?What?—

“Avery!” He lifted his voice and she jerked, turned.

And just like that, memory slammed into him. Those green eyes—had they been green all along?—and the scrape on her jaw, the set of her mouth.“Are you with me?”

The sense of it punched him in the sternum, and he froze.

Her eyes widened.

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