Page 102 of Fatal Vision
Although she was teasing, she still looked desperately serious. “Is Sabrina…?”
“She’s stable and they’ve moved her here to intensive care. She’s just down the hall.”
Colton glanced around. “Where’s Salisbury?”
“Jaya took him home to her place.”
Poor dog.
He took Shelby’s hand. “Any new info on our bomber?”
“No.”
That was it. Just no.
Her face, her stiff body, her voice. “Are you pissed at me?”
She didn’t say anything but the set of her mouth confirmed it.
“Beatrice told you about the report.”
“You knew about it and didn’t say anything.”
Being grilled about a phantom report wasn’t exactly making him feel better. “A man who wakes up after emergency surgery to find the most beautiful woman in the world at his bedside usually expects some fussin’ over him. Maybe a kiss, a thank-God-you’re-alive. Call me crazy, but I don’t think most men get interrogated before they’re even off their heart monitor.”
She leaned over, planted a kiss on his cheek and sat back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
There were a lot of things he hadn’t. “About what exactly?”
“You know what.” She huffed, exasperated. “About this report. Beatrice claims someone filed this anonymously through the FBI’s system—which is impossible—and then someone else deleted it. She thinks I’m involved.”
You are. “It was either you or Agent Calisto. You were the only two Feds on the rescue mission with my team, and Calisto didn’t see what happened.”
Her eyes narrowed a moment, then fell to the sheets and their intertwined hands. “Why can’t I remember what happened that night?”
As he’d suspected, her memory had more holes in it than she’d been letting on. All those holes seemed tied to him. It was time to come clean, to help her remember the ugly truth.
He struggled to sit up, the pain in his lower right back making him break out in a cold sweat. He released Shelby’s hand and gripped the rail, forcing his body to do as he commanded, regardless of the knifing pain.
“Don’t,” she said, putting her hands on his chest. “You just had major surgery.”
The room spun and his body refused to cooperate. He sunk back down, eyes closed, stomach roiling. “We fought.”
“What?” She leaned close enough for him to smell her soap under the layers of grime from the explosion and hospital odor, so prevalent on his own skin.
“That night,” he said, through gritted teeth. Damn, he needed more morphine. He blinked open his eyes. “The night we rescued Connor.”
She snagged a cup of water from the rolling table nearby and put the straw to his mouth. “Drink. What’s so unusual about us arguing?”
He took a sip, the cool water coating his tongue and throat as he swallowed. “We argued over what you were putting in your report. About who shot Quan.”
He felt her tense. She set the cup on the table and gave him a confused look. “Why would we fight over that? You—”
She straightened slightly. A frown gathered in the corners of her mouth. “What aren’t you telling me, Colton?”
He blew out a sigh. “It was your first time in the field and you’d been working on finding Quan and 12 September for over a year. Your sole mission was to bring him in for questioning.”
“That I remember.”
