Page 282 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Sixteen
Peyton pushed off the exam table and walked to the swinging door of the room. They’d taken Gabe away as soon as they got into the hospital, dragged her in another direction to inspect the injury to her head, but had left her in this exam room alone, and with no word of Gabe’s condition.
The sharp smell of hospital antiseptic pierced the smell of smoke clinging to her, bringing with it a pain sharper than the one in her head.
She’d been back by the mobile command unit, out of sight of the warehouse, her one concession to Dan’s concern that she was on the scene. Her heart had thundered as she listened to the terse voices of the commanders, communicating with the snipers, with the entry team. Dan’s team. She could hear the tension, the underlying excitement in his voice as he said the last words she’d ever hear him say.
“We’re going in.”
And all hell had broken loose. Gunfire, shouting, the strangled cry of Dan’s best friend Robert screaming, “Officer down! Officer down!”
She’d started running when she didn’t hear Dan’s voice in the cacophony, felt hands pulling at her, pulling back, but she twisted free and reached the warehouse.
Saw Dan’s feet outside the door, sprawled awkwardly. Lifelessly.
She’d made it to his side, dropped to her knees and gathered him to her before she looked down at his face that was—gone, then across his body at Robert before she collapsed.
She pushed the door open to peer into the hall, only to be ushered back by a harried nurse in colorful scrubs. “You have to wait inside there. The doctor will be in to release you in a minute.”
“Gabe Cooper, the firefighter.” She struggled to steady her voice. “How is he?”
The woman shook her head, her stern expression at odds with her playful clothing. “I can’t divulge that information right now. You have to get back in there.”
What the hell did that mean, she couldn’t divulge the information? What was wrong with him? Damn it—
“Miss Michaels.”
She turned toward the voice, expecting a doctor, ready to light into him, but the man who approached wore an ill-fitting sports jacket and nondescript tie, and the face above the tie was round and florid. The fluorescent lights glinted off the federal badge on his waist.
Ah.
“I’m Agent Devlin with the FBI. Are you up to talking?” He looked past her to the nurse, who opened her mouth to deny him but Peyton seized on the opportunity.
“Can you find out how Gabe Cooper is for me?”
“Sure, I can—”
“She should be resting,” the nurse said. “She had quite a blow to the head.”
“That’s what I want to talk to her about, but if she’s not up to it—”
Peyton shook her head, fought the wave of dizziness. “I’m fine.” But she had to walk back to the exam table with her hand in front of her. She hated that the nurse needed to help her back on the exam table.
Gathering her wits, she lifted her chin to address the agent. “Have you heard anything about Kim?”
“Not yet. Her brother either. Hard as hell to imagine firefighters were capable of this.”
Peyton rubbed the bandage on the back of her head. “She might have died in her own fire.”
“Maybe. But then how would her brother have known to disappear?” He dragged a plastic chair over from the corner of the room and settled his bulk on it, his notepad on the leg he crossed over his knee. “Tell me what happened up there.”
*****
Gabe hated the sweaty, suffocating feeling of the plastic mask on his face. Without opening his eyes, he shoved it off. Gentle fingers slipped it back in place.
“That’s at least the twentieth time you’ve done that.”
He opened his eyes a slit. Peyton leaned over him.
