Acceptable Risks (31 page)

“We can’t do CPR if his sternum is fractured. Get the AED. Other end of the hall.”

Lark jumped up and sped to the other end. The defibrillator hung in a box next to the elevator. She wrenched at it fruitlessly until she realized it lifted off its bracket. The run back seemed endless, her legs heavy as if she were running through water. At the far end of the hall, Isaac still worked to get away, apparently not considering Gabby and Lark a threat since Jason was incapacitated. And dammit, he was right.

“Here.” Lark finally reached Jason and Gabby and dropped to the floor again.

“You have to do it. Open the cover.”

Lark pressed the button and flipped off the plastic cover. Underneath were flat adhesive pads connected to a cable. She automatically checked that the cable was plugged in, and pressed the “on” button. A computerized voice told her to place the pads as illustrated.

For a moment nothing made sense to Lark. Panic made it impossible for her to act. The realization that Jason was dying should have galvanized her, but instead it paralyzed. She stared at the diagram, helpless.

She was going to be alone.

Then Gabby slapped her.

Everything snapped into place, and a deep calm descended over her. Later, she’d be embarrassed and filled with self-loathing. Right now, she was going to save the man she loved.

“God, I hope.” She quickly peeled the backing off the negative pad and pressed it to the upper right side of Jason’s chest, and put the positive pad on the lower left side. “The ambulance and paramedics should be upstairs,” she told Gabby. “Go get them.”

The doctor was smarter than Lark had been. She went without a word. The uneven click of her shoes on the linoleum told Lark of her slow progress, and she had to fight the urge to go instead. Gabby had only one arm—she couldn’t help Jason by herself.

Lark pressed the “analyze” button and waited, ignoring the continued bangs and curses coming from Isaac’s end of the hall. “Come on, come on.” She was about to scream with frustration when the display flashed “shock” and she hit the button, tears running down her face at the effect on Jason’s body.

“Administer CPR,” the machine told her, and Lark actually wrung her hands. She couldn’t compress a broken chest, probably shouldn’t have used the AED on him, since the inside of the cover had a warning label with the line, “Do Not Use On Trauma Patients” screaming up at her in red letters. Uncertain what else to do, she pressed the “analyze” button again. It came back “no shock.” She pressed her fingers to Jason’s neck. He had a pulse. But he didn’t seem to be breathing. She adjusted his head, pinched his nose, and lifted his jaw to begin rescue breathing.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been doing that, lost in the rhythm and desperation, when all hell broke loose. The elevator dinged, shouting voices and rumbling wheels coming toward her. At the same time the stairwell door burst open. Lark jerked upright in time to see her father come roaring out of the stairwell, the most foolhardy move she’d ever seen him make. He had no weapon, no position, no awareness of his enemy’s position—and he paid for it. Isaac made some kind of martial arts move and her father crumpled.

Urgent hands dragged her away from Jason. She was surrounded by navy blue uniforms, but they were all rescue personnel. No cops. Jason lay at her feet, her father ten yards away. And Isaac was escaping.

No, he’s not!
Lark retrieved the Taser and followed him. She was ending this.

Now.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Isaac had a discouraging head start. By the time Lark got through the stairwell door—adding a precious few seconds hesitating over her father’s inert body—the asshole’s footsteps echoed two or three floors ahead of her. Lark didn’t allow herself to think of the difference as insurmountable. She told herself Isaac was lazy, that he was heavier and slower. And that his motivation was no match for hers.

Tight turns. Fast feet. Use your arms
. She coached herself up three flights, hauling against the metal rail, staying on the inside, landing on her toes and immediately pushing harder. Isaac couldn’t get out of the stairwell without a keycard on any level but the main lobby.

She was pushing herself so hard she didn’t realize at first that the footsteps had stopped. Her subconscious made her stumble on the last steps to the lobby landing, so Isaac’s grab for her gave him mostly air. He cursed and whirled for the door. Lark lunged and hit the button on the Taser when he was halfway through. Isaac’s momentum carried him out onto the shining tile floor, and into chaos.

The lobby teemed with Hummingbird agents and cops. Voices and radio static echoed against the ceiling and walls, a bombardment of movement and noise. Lark took in the big picture for only a few seconds before it disoriented her and almost sent her sprawling after Isaac. She managed to grab on to the crash bar of the stairwell’s fire door.

Isaac belly-crawled a few feet away. Lark didn’t know what he thought he was going to do. She took three steps forward and hit the Taser again, this time on the back of his shoulder, and holding the button until the safety shut off the stream.

“Hey!” Two uniformed cops lumbered over, one with his hand on his weapon, the other with his already drawn.

Lark dropped the Taser and threw her hands in the air. “I’m Lark Madrassa, the owner’s daughter!” she shouted. “My father and other people are downstairs, hurt, and this man is responsible!”

The officers didn’t hesitate. One cuffed Isaac while his partner ordered Lark down to her knees and did the same to her. She didn’t fight or protest, knowing they were just doing their jobs, but it about killed her to go along, to let herself be dragged out to a patrol vehicle without knowing her father’s or Jason’s condition.

They let her stand outside, at least, while a female officer patted her down and started questioning her. Lark answered as patiently as she could, but when uncountable minutes had passed, she couldn’t help herself.

“What’s going on in there? That’s my father. My…friends. Please at least tell me the paramedics are working on them.”

Just then the front doors opened and two gurneys were wheeled out, followed by her father walking under his own power but holding an ice pack to his head. As soon as he saw Lark he strode over, gathering her into his arms despite the cuffs holding her arms behind her back.

“Is he alive?” she choked out, her gaze locked on Jason’s pale, still face.

“He is. You saved him.”

This time
, a voice said. It was inevitable that there would be a next time. Lark knew this. She knew if she stayed with Jason, something—either another enemy or a simple virus—would take him down again. He had great strength, but also great vulnerability. But it didn’t matter.

It was already too late.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The first things Jason became aware of were the comforting beep of a heart monitor and the alarming swish of a respirator. He didn’t know why he had those reactions to them. He felt floaty, but couldn’t open his eyes to see why.

I’m back in the tank
. But that couldn’t be right. His body was heavy, only his mind floated. A couple of voices murmured nearby, but there was something in his throat. He couldn’t ask them what was going on.

Lark
.

Then he went back to the black.

When he awoke again, the respirator was gone. His mind was much clearer, already telling him that the steady beeping was receiving signals from the clip on his finger, and his raw throat was a welcome sensation because it meant he was breathing on his own. But halfway through a full indrawn breath, he stopped, registering, finally, the pain.

He groaned and opened his eyes, the brightness of the room hurting almost as much as his chest. But after he’d blinked a few times, he realized it wasn’t that bright at all. The overhead lights were off and the curtains at the window pulled, only a soft yellow glow from behind him lighting the room.

Wait a minute. Curtains? The lab didn’t have curtains.

Jason turned to the right and found Gabby grinning at him. Her arm was in a sling and she didn’t have a lab coat on, but she propped a clipboard against her hip with her free hand and skimmed it through new glasses before beaming at him again.

“Well, mister, I hope you realize you’ve now used your quota of miracles and three other people’s.”

“What happened?” he croaked.

Gabby winced and held a small pitcher of water so he could drink through the bent straw. “Sorry about the throat. You were on the respirator for only two days, but it’ll take a while for that to ease.”

“I remember.” Jason shifted in the bed. Nothing seemed to hurt but his torso. “I got hit in the chest.”

“Yeah, exactly what I told you
not
to do.” Gabby sat in a plastic chair at the side of his bed. “You also got sick. We’ve been pumping you with antibiotics and fluids, but we didn’t want to use anti-inflammatories because the fever is supposed to help your body fight the infection. It seems to have worked.” She held her hand to his forehead, even though he knew the monitor above his head told her his temperature as well as pulse and heart rate.

“So my sternum broke, huh?” He shifted again and tightened his mouth around a moan. Sonofabitch, that hurt.

“Yes, and your heart stopped. Lark saved you.”

Jason relaxed against the pillows, and he hadn’t even been aware of how tense he was, fearing that Gabby was avoiding mentioning Lark because something had happened to her. Her tone was normal, though, so he was free to ask, “Is she okay?”

“Oh, yes. After she saved your life and Matthew was clocked in the head with that same fire extinguisher—he had a concussion, but he’ll be okay—she went after Isaac. You’ll have to ask her what went down.” She held the pitcher out for him again, and he drank, savoring the coolness against his throat.

The door opened and Matt came in. He smiled when he saw that Jason was awake but stopped to kiss Gabby before settling gingerly in the chair.

“I’ll be outside.” Gabby wrapped her arm around him and held his head to her chest for a moment, her eyes closed while she pressed her face to his hair. “Don’t forget to tell him our news,” she murmured before leaving.

“What news?” Jason asked, but Matt shook his head. Slowly. “I hear you got clocked pretty good. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll live. Man, JT, you have got to stop doing this.”

Jason couldn’t help smiling. “I know. Everyone’s okay?”

“Yeah. Isaac is in custody. He had some big story but no one believes him, there are too many conflicting reports from other people.”

“Who?”

“Kolanko.” Matt leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. The lines on his face seemed deeper, the skin sagging just a little, and Jason had a feeling he knew what was coming at the end of this catch-up session.

“He agreed to come forward, then?”

“Yeah, after we raced off and the cops and stretcher came in, he realized it was more than words on paper. He’ll testify if he has to. Nils and Caitlyn are talking, too. They’re not willing to go down silently for Kemmerling.”

“I don’t get that.” Jason tried not to frown because his head had started to ache sometime in the last few minutes. “Nils makes sense. He’s one of those guys who will do anything if he gets the right kind of attention. But Caitlyn’s been your assistant for seven years. What could Kemmerling offer her that would turn her against you?”

Matt shrugged and looked even more desolate. “I don’t know. Power, money, love?”

“None of those seem enough.”

“Whatever Isaac promised her was, but if she revealed it, no one told me.” He leaned back and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs.

Here it comes
. Jason braced himself.

“I’m closing Hummingbird.”

Whoa.
That wasn’t what he’d expected, and the words knocked him off his moorings.

“What about the lab?” It wasn’t the right question, but Matt understood, anyway.

“All the data is gone. Gabby wasn’t trying to unencrypt it for Isaac, she was destroying it. She even did your medical file. You didn’t need surgery, so the docs here don’t know what happened to you. You know, before. But we did fake your death, so there will be some repercussions for that.”

Jason wasn’t worried. They could connect it to everything that had happened over the last week, and without proof, no one could act on whatever accusations Isaac made. “What’s happening to Kemmerling?”

If Matt realized—and he surely did—that Jason was ignoring his pronouncement, he allowed it. “The charges are complicated, but abduction is in there, as is conspiracy, slander, fraud—enough to put him away for a long time. They’re telling me he’ll plead guilty—he won’t have much choice, with John and Kolanko and Ella added to the witness list.”

“They’ll all testify?”

Matt nodded and sighed. “Jason.”

“I heard you. I’m trying to decide whether or not I should argue.” If there was any point.

“It’s too big. Too much damage, no matter how we come out of this.” Matt sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I’m going to do private consulting, no government work.”

Jason nodded, his throat raw again, but the water pitcher out of his reach. “I think that’s a good idea.”

“I want you to join me. Be my partner.”

It was something Jason had always wanted, something they’d had in reality if not officially. And he was ready for smaller, too. But as much as he yearned to say yes, he wanted something else more.

“I’ll think about it,” he told his boss, his best friend. “But I don’t think I can. As soon as I’m out of here, I’m moving to Boston.”

Matt gave him a funny kind of smirk. “We’ll talk about it later. There’s no rush.” He stood and made a move to leave.

Jason couldn’t let him, not without putting it all out on the table. “I love her, Matt.”

Matt stopped, looked down at him. Gave nothing away.

Jason swallowed and winced at the drag on his damaged throat. “Now that this is all over, there’s nothing—well, there’s only you standing in our way.” He hoped. Maybe Lark wasn’t here because she couldn’t handle this. She might be getting a cool brush-off ready. Jason didn’t care. He’d do anything to convince her being together was worth the risk.

“Nope, you were right the first time.” Matt smiled. “There’s nothing standing in your way.”

Intense relief swept away the pain. Well, half of it, anyway. “Thanks.” He lifted his hand, and Matt clasped it tightly before he turned and started for the door. Now all he needed was Lark. But then he remembered.

“Hey,” he called. “What’s the news Gabby mentioned?”

“Oh, yeah.” Matt came back to the bed and looked down at Jason again, his mouth twitching. “Will you be my best man?”

Jason’s wide grin intensified the throbbing in his head as he reached to shake his friend’s hand again. “Damn. Good for you, man. I can’t believe you did it.”

“I’m not rushing into anything. We set a date for six months from now. I told Gabby I want her to have time to change her mind once she gets to know the day-to-day me. The one who’s not struggling to save his best friend and his business or rescuing her from an evil mastermind.” But the lines that Jason had noticed just moments ago had faded. There was a sparkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there since his wife died. Only one thing would make Jason happier than his friend being in love.

And then she was there. Lark peered through a two-inch crack she’d made with the door. Barely enough space for Jason to see through, never mind identify the person on the other side, but he knew it was her, and he craved her with every damaged and repaired fiber of his being.

“Your turn.” Matt gave him a light tap on the shoulder and headed out, holding the door for his daughter and giving her a one-armed hug as he passed. “We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, but his attention was all on Lark, the only one of them who seemed unharmed. “You okay?”

“Fine.” She looked sheepish as she took her turn in the ugly chair. “Not a scratch.”

“But Gabby said you went after Isaac.”

“I did.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and slipped her other hand through the bedrail to touch his. “He tripped. I Tasered him with Nils’ Taser and it was all over. Well, except for convincing the police to arrest him for trespassing and assault. But it was easy.” She drew in a breath and blew it out, her hand tightening around his fingers. “Seeing you go down? Not so easy.”

Jason suspected she was glossing over the details, but let it go for now. Not important. “Gabby says you saved me.” He tightened his fingers in hers, emotion swamping him as he considered what it had to be like, watching him almost die.

She shrugged. “It was a team effort. How are you feeling?”

“Horrible,” he admitted.

She chuckled. “Sorry. Stupid question.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. Gabby says, and she’s the best.”

“Yeah.” Her face lit up. “Did they tell you?”

He nodded. “You okay with that?”

She laughed. “It seems so long ago I hated even the idea of her having a crush on him. Now I’m maid of honor in their wedding.” She sobered. “Did Dad also ask you about the partnership?”

“Yes, but I told him no.”

She looked shocked and started to pull away. “No!”

He held on. “I want to move to Boston, Lark. I’m changing my priorities.”

She glowered. “Well, that would be a stupid way to do it.”

Jason had thought a cracked sternum hurt. The pain of her rejection kept him from speaking for a moment. He almost nodded, almost accepted it. Even if he took heroic precautions to keep from getting sick or injured again, the specter would always loom over them. She’d had to wait two days to be sure he wasn’t going to die like her mother had. The danger wasn’t past, never would be. He’d always be at risk, even if he didn’t partner with her father.

But if he didn’t have Lark, he couldn’t work with Matt. A long, lonely life without his best friend or the woman he loved loomed ahead of him.

Fuck that.
Maybe he’d never be able to convince her, but he had to try. He loved her, and that made all the risks acceptable.