Page 26 of Tango
“No. He wanted to be, but I just didn’t see him as anything more than a friend.”
“I’m assuming he wasn’t happy about that?” Dylan asks.
“Not at first, but he got it.” She narrows her gaze. “Is this my story or your interrogation?”
“Both. Continue,” I tell her as I withdraw my small notepad and pen from my front pocket.
“Anyway, Ramiro called me out of the blue and told me that he needed to talk to me right then. He said we had to meet and it couldn’t wait until Monday morning. It was Saturday,” she adds. “I was on a date, but it wasn’t going well, so I told him I got called into work and asked that he drive me home. He did, and Ramiro was sitting on the steps when he dropped me off.”
“I’m assuming he didn’t care to see you get out of another man’s car,” Dylan says dryly.
“To be honest, I don’t think he even saw me get dropped off. It wasn’t until I was right in front of him and I’d said his name twice that he even looked up. And even then, he seemed surprised I was back.”
“Did he appear to be visibly upset too? Or just distracted?”
“Both? He seemed upset and super distracted by whatever it was.”
I make a note on my notepad.
“What did he want to talk about?”
She starts to cross her arms but hisses in pain when she moves her injured arm. I note the way she favors it. She was shot, I remember, mentally kicking myself for that not being the first thing I did when we got here.
“Let me look at your arm,” I tell her, pushing up from my seat and setting my notepad down on the table.
“It’s fine. I just rewrapped it.”
I eye her. “I’m good with injuries in the field.” My gaze nearly shifts to Dylan, but I keep it trained forward. Many of the wounds I’ve dealt with were his. My stomach still churns when it slips into the forefront of my memory. Even after we’d rescued him, he’d been a man with a death wish, running into situations without thinking them through.
“Fine. But you’re wasting your time.” She pushes off the door and heads into the kitchen, taking a seat on one of the barstools.
“Noted. So what did Ramiro want to talk about?” I wash my hands then head back over and start unwrapping her arm.
“He said he believed someone in the company was using their access to remove certain protections.” She speaks through gritted teeth, clearly in pain with every slight movement.
I remove the wrapping then gently pull the gauze pad away.
The skin surrounding the bullet wound is an angry shade of crimson. The edges are swollen, and upon closer inspection, I see a glint of glass buried in the injury. No bullet though. And from the angle, I’d say it just grazed her. My guess is the glass is what’s causing the infection. The wound can’t heal.
“Have any run-ins with a pane of glass?” I question, momentarily shifting the direction of our conversation.
“Maybe. Why?”
“There’s a chunk of glass buried in your arm. It needs to be dug out before the injury can heal properly.” I raise my gaze to her pale one and note that her face has paled even more. “Dylan can hold you, so you don’t move.”
“Not necessary,” she retorts. “Do what you need to do.”
“It’s going to hurt.”
“I’ll survive. Probably. But if I pass out, you do not have my permission to take me to a hospital or anywhere outside of this cabin, capisce?”
“Capisce,” I reply with a smile. “Though, I guess you wouldn’t really know, would you?”
She glares at me. “You’ll regret it if you do.” She takes a deep breath and faces forward. “Do it.”
After reaching into my field pack, which has an excellent arrangement of first aid supplies, thanks to my little sister, Doctor Lani, I retrieve a pair of gloves and a pair of pointed tweezers.
Dylan moves closer, likely to steady Alice in case she starts having issues once I’ve started trying to remove the glass. Depending on how deeply it’s embedded, it could be just as painful as removing a bullet.
