The Devil's Triangle (A Brit in the FBI 4)

His heart wouldn’t slow. “Tell me, swear to me, she’s okay. She’s going to be herself again?”

“Your wife has cardiac arrhythmia, and she is confused, though as I mentioned, she is awake. I believe the confusion is from the concussion, but it

could be from the near-drowning. She will be here for a few days while she heals, but I think she will make a full recovery.”

“A few days? We—I—” He dragged in a breath, and she patted his arm again.

“It is hard, sometimes, with near-drowning, for the diagnosis to be known right away. We must keep an eye on her to make sure there isn’t a secondary event. Her lungs were full of water, so she could get pneumonia if they don’t drain properly. She was lucky you were there and knew how to perform CPR. You saved her. Now, how did you get into Lake Trasimeno?”

“We drove off the cliff. It was an accident.”

“Yes, of course it had to be an accident. You do not strike me as the suicidal type.” She smiled, then said, “You need some dry clothes and some warm food. I will send someone when your wife is moved to a room.”

She stood, and Nicholas did, too. “Forgive me, Dr. Sienza. I will be honest with you. Mike is not my wife. She is my partner. We’re American FBI. We’re here on a case, and she is in danger. Especially now, when she’s not able to defend herself. I need to be with her.”

The young doctor stared up at him, her head cocked to the side. “You have proof of this?”

It took him a second to get the waterlogged leather out of his jeans, but finally he was able to pull his credentials from his pocket and hand them over. “Special Agent Nicholas Drummond. You’re treating Special Agent Michaela Caine. And I need to see her, right away.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Nicholas stood in the door to the hospital room, heart pounding hard and fast. Why wouldn’t his heart believe the news that Mike would be all right?

Her hair was a mass of damp tangles all over her head. She was still slightly blue around the lips, but she had some color in her cheeks. She looked at him come into her room. She reached out a hand, and smiled.

“Nicholas.”

Relief poured through him. He sat on the side of her bed, leaned down, and lightly stroked his fingers over her pale cheeks. Her flesh was warm. He brushed the hair back from her forehead, pulling out tangles. He leaned down and kissed her cold mouth, then laid his forehead against hers. “To have you whole again, here with me, smiling at me—I’ve promised more good works than I can do in a lifetime. But I’m going to try.”

He felt her hand stroking through his hair, felt her warm breath whisper against his face. “We’re okay.” Her voice was lower than usual, her speech slightly slurred. He leaned down, kissed her again, looked into her eyes.

“You and I are a pair.”

She whispered, “I can still picture you firing your magazine into that old wall, wood splinters flying, and then we were the ones flying. Do you see the stitches in my head?”

He looked at the small square bandage over her right temple, and it made his heart stumble again. “You hit something solid when you landed on the water.”

“I don’t know what. The water was so dark, Nicholas. How did you find me?”

She sounded like she was barely hanging on. He said quietly, “It took me too long.”

“You lamebrain, you saved me. They told me if you’d given up, I would have died. Completely. Thank you for my life.” She leaned against him, her face against his, and closed her eyes.

She felt the wet of his tears on her face. Mike knew she couldn’t stay awake much longer, the meds they’d given her were too strong. He was so valiant, she wanted to tell him, but the words floated out of her brain.

Her head hurt, the wound was starting to throb despite the pain medications. She reached up, rubbed her forehead. “I can’t remember hitting the water, I can’t remember anything. And then I woke up here.”

He was glad of it.

He regained control, straightened over her now. “Your doctor Sienza says you should stay for a few days.”

“No. I can’t stay here. Nicholas, help me get up and get dressed. We have too much to do.”

He gently pushed her back down. “You very nearly drowned. There’s a danger you could get pneumonia. You have a concussion. At least until tomorrow, let the doctor have her way. Besides, you don’t have any clothes. Rest, okay?”

She tried to struggle up again. This time Nicholas took her shoulders in his hands and pressed her down. “Lie still, and that’s an order from your partner. Kitsune and Grant are alive, we have the tracker inside her, so we’ll know where she is. I’ll call Adam, make sure he’s watching for it. I’ll call Zachery and Savich, warn them about the storm coming to D.C. We both lost our mobiles and our comms in the lake.

“I’m going to have someone give me a ride back to the car. I’ll get our go-bags. Thankfully, I have another mobile stashed in there.”