Page 44 of No Quarter

“Valerie! Thank God you’re awake,” he said breathlessly. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live,” she said, rubbing the back of her head. She could feel a huge tender lump there.

Looking across the room, she saw Charlie standing, his expression equally worried. His arms were folded in a way that Valerie knew meant that he was mad. His trousers were covered in mud.

“Did you ...”

“Track you out into the woods?” he said with a frustrated tone. “Yes. And good thing too. You never should have gone alone.”

Valerie pulled herself up and moved her legs to the side of the bed. Trying to stand up, she lost her balance and sat back down again.

“Okay, so maybe I’m not quite ready to go chasing down killers just yet,” she said with a wry smile. “Give me an assist.”

Charlie reached out to help her, and Valerie took his hand gratefully. As they stood up together, she looked at him and saw the worry in his eyes.

“Valerie, you mustn’t be so reckless,” Will said, gently. “If Charlie hadn’t followed you out into the woods, you’d be dead.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “He was going to get away.”

“He got away in any case,” came Charlie’s solemn reply. “I couldn’t get a clear shot at him when he was standing over you.”

“Why didn’t you chase him?” Valerie asked.

“Because, you idiot,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head. “I didn’t know how badly you were hurt. I had to bring you back here and get Doctor Whitmore to check you over.”

“He wants you to see him so he can evaluate your head injury,” Will explained. “They actually have a CT machine here, apparently it was used for a research program a couple of years ago.”

Valerie sighed. She knew neither Will nor Charlie would let her avoid being looked over. Her head ached, and she only had some brain fog, but they would insist regardless.

Valerie heard her phone ping. She looked at it.Six messages and three missed calls.

She realized there and then how much she had been neglecting Tom. But the case had been moving so thick and fast. The text messages appeared to get more annoyed as they progressed. The last simply said: “I guess I’ll hear from you when I hear from you.”

She quickly typed out a message saying that she was fine, and that not much had been happening. That they had been buried in paperwork and she would call him tomorrow. Then she put the phone away.

“Was that Tom?” Will asked.

“Yes,” said Valerie.

“We phoned him and let him know that you’d been hurt, but that you’d be okay. He’s probably worried sick, though,” Charlie said.

Valerie’s stomach lurched. She’d been caught in a lie. A lie to stop him from worrying, but a lie, nonetheless. She had just told him nothing eventful had happened, and yet her partners had already told him about the attack.

Her phone pinged. She took it out and looked at it. “I’m glad you’re okay,” the message read from Tom. “But please don’t ever lie to me when you’re hurt. Come home, and I’ll look after you.”

She knew he would be livid that she’d kept things from him, but she also felt annoyed at how old fashioned he could be. She didn’t want anyone looking after her. That was partly why she had reservations about the engagement. She never wanted him to have to look after her if her mind declined.

But then there was no sure thing in life. In sickness and in health and all that. She blocked out the thoughts.

Doctor Whitmore entered the room. “Oh thank goodness you’re awake, Agent Law. Let me look you over.”

Valerie sat on the bed and Doctor Whitmore looked at her pupils, her neck movement, and her responses to different stimuli.

“You seem okay, but I still think it’s worth doing a scan, just to be careful.”

“Thank you, Doctor Whitmore,” she said. “We’ll do that, but first ...” A horrible thought came to her. “Did you find the body?”

“Yeah,” Charlie answered. “Some local PD are here now while we wait on forensics.”

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