Page 38 of Dangerous Command
Since I had known her, Maddie’s hair had always been red, though I had seen her dark roots grow once or twice before. Maddie hung up the phone and whipped around to face us.
“I have to go,” Maddie said. “Can I take the car? No.” She started swiping through her phone. “I’ll order a rideshare.”
“What?” I asked. “I’ll drive you. Where are you going?”
“It’s a personal emergency,” she said. “I don’t need any company.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“I don’twantyou to come, Derek.”
I took a deep breath, then stepped closer to her. “What are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding anything. I have a personal emergency.”
“Then it’s my business too.”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“A rideshare will take ten minutes to get here,orwe can take my car right now.”
A sedan pulled around the corner, slowing down as it saw us.
“Or I could go now,” Maddie said.
The car pulled up. “Ms. Vela?” the driver asked. Maddie raised her hand, heading for the backseat.
“I’m not budging on this,” I said, grabbing her arm. “This city isn’t safe for anyone. I’m coming.”
Maddie jumped into the backseat. “Do whatever you want,” she sighed. “I don’t have time to argue right now.”
I slid in next to her, and she leaned forward in the seat.
“It said one passenger,” the driver said.
“I’ll change it,” Maddie muttered.
We took the freeway from Brackston to Pebble Garden. Maddie leaned forward, then hit the back of the driver’s headrest.
“Can you drive any faster?” she asked.
“I could lose my qualifications,” the driver said.
“If I had driven, we could have gone as fast as you want,” I said.
It must have been a man. Maddie was hiding a lover that she had back home and had kept him tucked away so she could use my interest in her against me. Why was I still going?
I clenched my fists. I wanted to see him for myself. To see who earned Maddie’s willingness to drop everything, including me.
About an hour later, we pulled into the Pebble Garden General Hospital’s parking lot. The rideshare dropped us off near the entrance. Maddie raced through the automatic entrance. So her lover was hurt. The condition of the sonofabitch didn’t matter; he was still target practice.
“Maddie,” I said calmly, “Who’s in the hospital?”
“Derek,” Maddie said in a matter-of-fact voice. Her fingers twitched against her side. Her eyes flinched toward me, then faced forward again. She had heard the question but chose to ignore it. Fine. We went through the hospital, Maddie walking so fast she was practically running. Finally, we came to a desk with a waiting room full of families with balloons and bouquets. The desk clerk checked us into the system, then buzzed us into the back. Another nurse gestured at the correct room.
Inside of the room, the white speckled tiles and textured walls were the same as everywhere else in the hospital, except in this room, there was a bed. A small head of dark hair lay on a pillow, much smaller than I expected. Dark brown eyes. A thin, gangly body. Pink gauze wrapped around his splinted arm. And young. So young.
A boy.
