Page 31 of One Last Storm
Echo had said that the team hit trouble on the way back.
Radio contact had been lost hours ago.
What if she lost them both in one night?
“Detective?” A nurse came into the bathroom, spotted her in the stall. “Are you okay?”
Clearly, yes, by the way she sat on the floor, sweaty, her clothing still splotched with blood. “Yeah.” She got up. “Any word yet?”
“No, ma’am.”
She went back to the sink, splashed water on her face, dried it with a paper towel and then glanced at the nurse. “How long has he been in surgery?”
“Four hours. Dr. Peterson is one of our best trauma surgeons. If anyone can save the leg, it’s him.”
If.
The word hung there, and Flynn fled to the hallway.
If.
Her phone rang. She lunged for it. “Flynn.”
“Flynn, thank goodness.” Echo’s voice crackled through static. “I finally heard from Jericho Bowie. He’s got your team. They’re maybe twenty minutes out.”
Relief flooded through her chest—so intense it made her knees weak. “All of them?”
“All accounted for. Cold and tired, but whole.”
Whole.
Axel was alive. Coming home. Flynn pressed her hand against the wall to steady herself as the terrible heat inside finally began to ebb.
“I need to check on Tillie,” she said, ending the call.
Room 314 was quiet except for the steady beep of monitors and the soft sound of sleeping children. Hazel was curled in the visitor’s recliner, wrapped in a hospital blanket, her dark hair spilling across the pillow someone had tucked behind her head. Caspian lay at Hazel’s feet—Flynn had to pull some strings, ask for a temporary care-dog pass.
It helped that most of the staff knew Moose and the Air One team.
She startled to see Tillie awake. The woman stared at the ceiling with the hollow expression of someone who’d been fighting her own battle while everyone else focused on bigger emergencies. The hospital gown turned her look fragile, and the IV line snaking from her arm suggested she’d needed meds.
Flynn just…just couldn’t ask. Didn’t know, really, what to say. When she’d left the hospital, Tillie had returned from her ultrasound—no news—and they’d decided to admit her for the night and keep an eye on Hazel.
“Hey,” Flynn said softly. “How are you feeling?”
Tillie sighed. “I don’t know. How’s Dawson?”
“Still in surgery.”
They sat in silence. Listening to the monitors and Hazel’s even breathing. Outside the window, dawn was breaking over Anchorage, painting the snow-covered cityscape in shades of pink and gold that looked like hope.
“I should have told Moose,” she said. “I shouldn’t have hidden it.”
Flynn didn’t know what she meant, really, but she took her hand.
A knock came at the door, and a doctor came in, with a nurse, probably on early morning rounds.
“Mrs. Mulligan.” He held out his hand. “How are you feeling this morning.”
