Marie Force - Fatal Identity

CHAPTER SIX

TIME SLOWED TO a crawl. Sam experienced every minute as if it were an hour. Her heart ached with worry and fear and the agony of being separated from him when he needed her. If the roles had been reversed, he’d be raging at anyone who tried to keep him away from her. She headed to the door to start raging, and nearly ran into Harry.

“How is he?”

“He’s conscious but badly dehydrated and a little confused due to the dehydration. We’re pumping him full of fluid, and he should be much better in a couple of hours.”

The flood of relief was so profound that Sam ended up in Harry’s arms sobbing.

He held her until she got it all out.

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed by her meltdown.

“Don’t be. I was pretty freaked out myself when you said he was unresponsive.”

“Glad it wasn’t just me.”

“It definitely wasn’t just you. You want to see him?”

“Yeah.” The understatement of a lifetime.

“Come on.” He gestured for Angela to join them as they walked through the ER to Nick’s room, where Brant and one of the other agents, whose name escaped her at the moment, were standing watch.

“Good to hear he’s doing better,” Brant said.

Sam nodded in agreement. In the room, a nurse typed on a computer. Nick was asleep, and when she looked extra close, she saw a tad bit more color in his cheeks than he’d had earlier.

Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it to go to him, to run her hand over his face, to brush the hair back from his forehead so she could kiss him there. “How’s his fever?” she asked the nurse.

“It was down to 102.5 the last time we checked it. He’s getting something for that in the IV.”

“Good, that’s really good.”

“He’ll be fine,” the nurse said. “It’s just going to take a day or two.”

Sam’s phone rang again, and since Nick was sound asleep, she looked at the caller ID. Terry O’Connor. She took the call from Nick’s chief of staff. “Hi, Terry.”

“What’s going on? I heard from the Secret Service that he’s in the hospital.”

Sam filled him in on what’d happened.

“Jesus. I was with him when it came on yesterday. Never seen anyone go down that hard or that fast. Scared the shit out of me and everyone else around here.”

“Scared me too. I’ve never seen him with a cold, let alone something like this.”

“The press is going crazy wanting to know what’s wrong with him. What would you like me to tell them?”

“Do we have to say anything?”

“I’d recommend we give them a little something to stop the feeding frenzy. I saw one comment online that people are speculating he was poisoned.”

Sam’s stomach dropped. “For real?”

“Afraid so.”

“Hang on a second.”

To Harry, she said, “Terry wants to say something to the press about what’s going on. How would you describe it?”

“A nasty bout of the flu.”

Sam relayed the information to Terry and gave him the green light to tell the press the vice president had been hospitalized due to the flu.

“Got it,” Terry said. “I’ll take care of it. What else can I do? Anything for you or Scotty?”

“Scotty has it too, and my sister Tracy is with him. I think we’re set, but I’ll let you know later how he is.”

“Please do. Tell him we’re thinking of him.”

“I will.”

“I suppose I probably ought to clear his schedule for the next few days.”

“Make it the next week.”

“Okay, will do.” He paused and then said, “Before I let you go, I should mention I talked to Christina, and she said Tommy isn’t doing well at all. I thought you might like to know.”

Sam closed her eyes and took a deep breath, ashamed to realize she’d forgotten all about Gonzo and getting in touch with him in the madness of the last twenty-four hours. “You’re right. I do want to know. I’ll reach out to him later today.”

“Sounds good. Take care, Sam, and let me know how Nick is.”

“I will.” She stashed the phone in her pocket and took hold of Nick’s overly warm hand, bending her head over his chest when the tears started up again.

Angela squeezed her shoulders.

“You don’t have to stay, Ang,” Sam said. “You must’ve had other plans today.”

“I don’t mind staying. Spence is with the kids, and they’ll make him appreciate and worship me, so it’s all good.”

Sam wouldn’t have thought she could laugh right then, but Angela proved her wrong. Then she was crying again, her head propped on Nick’s hand. Her cell phone rang, and Angela took it from her to answer it. Sam heard her sister talking, but couldn’t bother to care who she was talking to.

“Hey, Sam, Freddie really needs to talk to you. I told him where we are and what’s going on. He said it’s urgent.”

Sam took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and stood to take the phone from her sister. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Angela told me about Nick. I hope he’s okay.”

“He will be. What’s going on?”

“Director Hamilton is calling Josh every fifteen minutes like clockwork.”

“Since when?”

“Early this morning. Josh says he’s called him more today than in the last five years combined.”

“Shit, he’s probably tracking the phone by now so he knows where Josh is.” Sam’s brain was so muddled with worries about Nick that it was hard to think about anything else. “Get him out of there right away. Move to another hotel outside the city and have him power down the phone. Tell him to let work know he’s got an emergency to contend with and won’t be in this week. Don’t let him make any contact with the outside world until we say otherwise.”

“What do I do with him when I have to go to work?”

“Leave him locked in the room and tell him he has to stay off the radar until we know what’s going on. The fact that his father is looking for him has me thinking he knows about the photo. If they had anything to do with taking him, that photo will send them into a panic. If they panic, they may do something stupid that might involve him getting killed. You see where I’m going with this?”

“Yeah, I do, and I don’t like it, Sam. This has the potential to blow up like a nuclear bomb in our faces, and frankly, after recent events, neither of us can afford that.”

He was right. She knew he was right, but what was she supposed to do? As if she’d conjured him, she heard her father’s voice in her head. Go to Farnsworth. Go directly to Farnsworth.

Sam blew out a deep breath. “Listen, if you don’t want to be involved, I understand. Let me know where you stash him, and I’ll take it from there.”

“I didn’t say I don’t want to be involved. I merely mentioned the potential for nuclear-level fallout.”

“I’ll take it to Farnsworth and turn it over to the department.”

“Um, before you do that, you should know that Josh told me last night that if anyone but you—and me by extension of you—is involved, he’s going to disappear. He seems really agitated since his father started calling. So you might want to hold off on involving the department.”

“Rock, meet hard place.” Sam glanced at Nick, who was still sleeping. She rarely found herself at a loss for what to do in any given situation, but this was a tough one. She was torn between what she should do to look out for herself—and now her partner too—and what was best for Josh. “What do we do?”

“My better judgment is saying go to Farnsworth, but if Josh bolts, this could get really complicated, especially when it comes out that we had him in custody.”

“Shit, fuck, damn, hell.”

“What you said.”

Sam was well aware that Freddie would take his lead from her, even if it meant venturing into murky gray area. “Get him settled somewhere else and then punch out of this situation. I’ll take it from here.” As she said the words, she didn’t have a plan beyond getting through the next hour with Nick. She’d figure something out for Josh. She always did.