Page 113 of Silent Threat
Blood covered his entire side. He had to be standing through sheer will.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you why I was here.” He held her gaze, his voice weak. “That’s the way undercover ops go.”
She wanted to cry. Instead, she snapped at him. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? You’reshot, dammit.”
Bleeding. He could die.The thought cracked her heart in half. “I forgive you. But I reserve the right to still yell at you later when you’re fully recovered.”
“Deal.”
Annie tugged on his left arm. “Sit down.”
He slid to the floor, leaving a wide smear of crimson on the white wall behind him.
Her stomach tumbled at the sight. She shook off the nausea and pressed her hand against the still-bleeding wound. She refused to pass out. Cole needed her.
People came running, Libby first, then Kate.
Libby was carrying a first-aid kit and set it on the ground next to Cole. “An ambulance is on its way.”
Kate dropped onto the floor next to Cole. “Holy mocha brownies. Don’t worry. I have this.” She began administering first aid with the confident efficiency of a woman who knew that every second counted.
Annie removed her hand from the wound and leaned against Cole. She wouldn’t look at her fingers that dripped with red. She hadn’t lost any blood, but she felt as if she might pass out before Cole did.
Libby ran off again, then returned a few minutes later with blankets and wrapped them both up, careful not to get into Kate’s way.
“Bullet didn’t come out on the other side,” Kate told them. “It’s still in there.”
“I can feel it.” Cole rasped the words.
Under the blankets, he took Annie’s hand and squeezed. He let his head drop against the wall and closed his eyes, drawing slow and measured breaths against the pain.
“What happened?” Libby couldn’t hold her curiosity back any longer. “Murph is out with the police looking for Dr.Ambrose. Did Ambrose have anything to do with this?”
“Dan kidnapped me,” Annie said, the words beyond surreal. “He was my stalker.”
She couldn’t tell them about Cole’s mission, so she fell silent.
“Why? Where is he?”
“The police found an old woman in Dan’s basement,” Kate put in without looking up from her task. “Murph texted. She was in bad shape. She had to be taken to the hospital.”
Annie’s thoughts were a hopeless jumble. “She’s his mother.”
The two women stared at her. Kate said, “I thought—”
“He found her.”
“Where is Ambrose?” Libby asked.
Cole, because his eyes were closed, didn’t see the question and remained silent.
Annie closed her eyes too. “I don’t know.”
She just needed to breathe there for a minute. If Dan was out there in the storm, frankly, she didn’t care, as long as he couldn’t hurt them.
She leaned her head on Cole’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around his torso, and refused to worry about what anyone might think.
The ambulance came first, then Harper Finnegan arrived while the medics were loading Cole in the back.
