Page 90 of Justice for Francesca

Suddenly, he was yanked backward. Cosmos finally succeeded in dragging Tripoli to his feet and out of his twisted flashback. “We’ll follow the ambulance. We’re not leaving her.”

Cruz walked up to the two men. “I can talk to you at the hospital.”

Tripoli heard the conversations around him, heard the EMTs giving each other information, but he processed none of it. He focused all of his attention on Francesca’s face and chest. Her breaths were getting shallower. She’d never opened her eyes. “Hold on, sweetheart.”

28

THE EXPLANATION

Francesca

The moment felt so cliché. Beeping machines. Monitors with all manner of lines, numbers, and initials on them. Sterile setting. Squeaky soles on linoleum floors and hushed voices. As she swam up from sleep, a faint memory stirred of another time when, two years ago, she’d been in much the same situation. It wasn’t until just this moment—probably something to do with the combination of circumstances and the effects of the medicines running through her body—that she remembered how Ethan had been at her side in another hospital room.

Warm breath ghosted the palm of her hand. She turned her head to the right to see the man in question seated there, her pink elastic around his wrist, his lips against her skin as he whispered, “Good morning, beautiful.”

“Morning,” she whispered back.

There was a soft knock on the door, and a head appeared in between the door and the frame. “Knock, knock. Can we come in?” Mickie’s pixie-haired head poked through a sliver of open space in the doorway.

“Hey, Mickie. Cruz,” Ethan greeted. “Come on in.”

The couple slipped into the room, and Mickie crossed up to Francesca’s left side and grabbed her arm. “How are you today?” The woman’s eyes were misty with relief that she was awake.

“Hoping I finally get to shower,” Francesca joked. “Good to see you.”

“Glad to be seen,” she replied.

A hand reached out to Ethan with a large coffee cup. “I come bearing gifts,” Cruz intoned. He took a sip of his own coffee, sighing in relief. “Whoever thought of putting chain coffee stores in the basement of a hospital is a frickin’ genius. Remember when you used to have to drink actual hospital coffee?”

Ethan smiled in response.

Pressing the remote alongside her, Francesca raised the bed to be in a more upright position, and Mickie helped her to readjust herself against the pillows. “Where’s mine?” she grumbled.

“Naughty girls who don’t listen to orders and get people shot don’t get expensive coffee,” he grumbled.

“Some friend you are,” she complained.

“If I bring you an illegal coffee while you’re in here, does it negate the twenty-six I owe you?”

“Nice try. What’s happening at the office?”

The agent rolled his eyes, then leaned back against the wall of the private room, his hands scrubbing his exhausted face. “Total fucking chaos, but that’s no surprise. Thank you for your contributions to that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome. Told you I’m a people pleaser.”

“Yeah, well, thanks to SAIC Ortiz, everyone’s under a microscope right now.”

“Any clue how my father got to her?”

Cruz looked at Mickie, who reached a hand across the bed to Ethan. “C’mon, handsome. They want to talk shop, which means we can’t be here. Take me down to the cafeteria for some lovely hospital breakfast.”

Rising from the chair, Ethan nodded at Cruz. He bent down to kiss Francesca on the lips. “Guess I’m taking Mickie to breakfast. See you in a bit. Love you,” he whispered.

“Love you too,” she replied.

Ethan crossed around the foot of the bed, swung an arm around Mickie’s shoulders, and they headed out the door. Careful not to spill his coffee, Cruz sat in the chair the man had just vacated and arched his back to make it crack, as well as twisting slowly to the right and stretching. “It’s a bit murky yet, but the computer analysts got into her home email and discovered she was being pressured by the Colonel Cartel out of Buenos Aires.”

“I thought they’d been shut down last year?”

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