Page 39 of Guarding the Doctor
“Attack?” Lois asked. I could hear her moving around, getting ready for action.
“They blew it up,” Darla answered. “Those bastards ruined all my Target housewares!”
Darla
In retrospect, losing my belongings wasn’t what I should have focused on, but it was easier to focus on losing my purchases than thinking about the fact that if Kathryn and I had lingered another two minutes in the house we would have been blown to bits along with my pillows and whimsical dish set.
“Do you want us to head in, boss?”
“We can’t skip our shift,” my mate protested. She was remarkably calm about all this. “Wait times are long enough already. I’m not going to let these assholes scare me away from my patients.”
“I’ll send more agents to the hospital then,” Lois said, her tone resigned. “Just watch your six, okay?”
“Got it.”
I hung up with Lois, then shot Kathryn a look. “The safest option would be to not go to the hospital.”
“Well it can’t be any less safe than your so-called safe house,” she said. “I’m sick of people trying to blow me up.”
“I’m not sure if they know you were there. I think they were after Yuri,” I said. “It looked like the explosion happened on the side of the house where Yuri’s bedroom was, that’s where the fire was.”
“How did they find where he was staying?” she asked.
“They may have followed him or put a tracker on his car. But my guess is that they slipped a detonator into his bag, and he didn’t notice. It would be easy enough for them to have accessed his car or locker to hide something in his bag. Remember he said he was leaving it in the bedroom before he left for work?”
Kathryn paled. “That means if he’d taken that bag to the hospital a lot of people would have been hurt. But are you sure they’re after him?”
“Yeah. When I spoke to Lois for a sitrep earlier she said that the mics picked up a conversation about Yuri. Xi and the man who was with her that night we broke into the lab were speculating about why Yuri was down there and if he was really a janitor. Apparently they talked to the janitorial supervisor, and he toldthem that not only did he not assign Yuri to clean that area, he wasn’t even on shift when they saw him.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. We left a loose end there. I’m guessing Yuri is going to get his ass chewed out by his boss at the hospital today.”
“Better chewed out than blown up.” My mate took a deep breath,
“Agreed. Now eat your breakfast, it’s going to be a long day.”
With an aggrieved sigh she unwrapped her sandwich, peeking between the sides of the English muffin to see what was in it before taking a big bite.
“Damn, this is good.”
“Told you.”
We were both quiet as we continued our ride to the hospital. I couldn’t really get a read on Kathryn’s mood, even with the burgeoning mate bond. It was like she’d put a shield around her. Finally I realized it was probably the way she protected herself from the horrible things she saw in her job – she’d pull inside herself and focus on her work. I’d done it myself when I was treating people during deployments.
I just wished she didn’t feel like she needed to withdraw when she was with me.
When we got to the hospital, there was no sign of Yuri anywhere. I had no idea if he knew about the bomb yet. Usually he was cleaning around the Emergency Department when we started our shift, but he wasn’t there. As the day went on and there was no sign of him, I started to get concerned. Unfortunately the Emergency Department was chaos, even busier than usual, and my mate and I scarcely had time to breathe let alone think about the bear.
“Hey, have you guys seen Yuri today?” Stacy stuck her head into the room where Kathryn and I were treating a guy who appeared to have a ruptured spleen from a serious car accident. It had been raining heavily most of the day, and we’d seen our fair share of car accidents despite the fact that it rained in Seattle pretty much every day this time of the year.
Kathryn’s eyes flew to mine, a flash of concern showing until she looked back down at the patient and neutralized her expression.
“I haven’t seen him since he gave us all the baked goods this morning,” she said carefully.
“It’s weird, he’s usually hanging out here all day flirting with me while he’s cleaning, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since I got here this morning,” Stacy said. “No other janitor has been down here either. And Yuri’s not answering any of my texts, which isn’t like him.”
My muscles tensed, ready for action. If Yuri wasn’t responding to his mate, something was definitely wrong.
