First wave, p.23
First Wave, page 23
Was she right? Could the hotel come crashing down on top of them?
Dakota said, “Another task from whoever you’re working for?”
Good question. Was Clare acting alone now or still under orders?
“He has the money to provide all kinds of toys,” Clare said. “Now, the two of you are going to back up and let me walk out of here, or we all die.”
The minute she was gone she would detonate the bomb—with them still inside. There was no way to give the order to evacuate and have everyone leave in time to save lives. And if he found a fire alarm—and pulled it—would she let go of that switch?
“Kill me, and the hotel falls on all of us,” she said. “I’m walking out of here. No one is going to stop me. You’re going to make sure of that. But either way, I will make my mark. In life, or in death.”
They weren’t going to dissuade her on the basis of ideology. They would never be able to convince her that what she believed was wrong.
Austin had been different. A young man would have doubts about the worldview he’d been taught, just like every other young man. Learning the world. Figuring out for himself what he believed, apart from what he’d been taught.
Josh had hit a point in his life where it’d been necessary for him to choose whether or not he agreed with his parent’s faith. He’d had to decide to take it on board for himself.
With Clare he tried a different tactic instead. “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll give you more. Name your price. We can guarantee you’ll get out of here alive to collect what you earned.”
They could catch her later, when she was comfortable in her riches, leaving a trail of spending behind her. Not that he had a pile of money or anything, but he could hopefully get her to comply anyway.
Maybe Victoria could use her government contacts to help him out.
While he spoke, Dakota moved closer to Clare, picking something up off a dryer as she went. What was her plan? The woman’s attention was fixated on him, and he kept it by moving slightly to the left. Enough to make Clare twist around toward him, determined to keep him in her sights.
Clare laughed. “Good one. Like feds have money.” She shot him an incredulous look, full of mirth. “You guys don’t make that much.”
“I have an inheritance. But if you don’t want it…” She could decide whether he was telling the truth.
Clare narrowed her eyes. She spun around, and the realization that she’d been distracted flashed upon her face before she turned away. Toward Dakota.
But it was too late.
Dakota lunged at Clare and grabbed the hand holding the dead man’s switch. In her other hand she held a roll of duct tape she’d swiped from the table.
Dakota held the end of the tape and wound it around their clenched hands so fast his brain had to catch up with what was happening.
Clare moved. He saw her hand reach for Dakota’s gun. What was about to happen played out in his mind. She would pull the trigger and Dakota would die.
Josh didn’t hesitate.
He aimed, tugged on the trigger and put a bullet in her thigh.
She turned the gun on him and fired.
Dakota screamed his name.
Sparks of light set off like fireworks at the edges of his vision. He fell back and hit the ground.
Everything went black.
Chapter 27
Dakota caught Clare’s gun hand before she got off another shot. Her other hand was useless, taped around Clare’s grip on the dead man’s switch. She shoved the older, heavier woman back and then kept going. Their momentum shoved Clare’s head against the breezeblock wall and knocked her out.
She slumped in front of Dakota and tugged her down so Dakota fell to her knees with the woman.
“Josh!” His name was a wail. A scream that seemed to split her head open it was so loud. So painful.
Hot tears ran down her face.
She’d seen him fall. That close, his vest would work. But there were so many other things that could go wrong. Was he okay? She clambered to her feet and ran to him.
Got two steps, then felt the pull of the unconscious woman.
Dakota fell to her knees again, one hand still attached to Clare’s body.
Sal appeared in front of her.
She tried to speak. All that came from her mouth was a whimper. A wordless cry.
He sank to his knees. “Oh-kay.” He ran his hands down her arm to the tape that was wrapped around two hands and a switch that would level the building on top of them. “Oh-kay.”
He spoke the way she would’ve done to Neema, hurt and wanting to know where Josh was. When the pain would stop.
Victoria called out, “Ambulance is on its way,” her voice strained.
Dakota didn’t see her.
“We need the bomb squad, too!” Sal called back. Looking down at Dakota, he said, “She’s with Josh. But don’t worry about him. Our job is to worry about you.” He answered the question she hadn’t asked yet.
“Bomb.”
“Yes, the bomb.” He slid out his phone and called the local police for SWAT. Past that, her ears just quit working.
He jostled her so she could lie down.
Someone walked close to her face. Dakota tried to focus. She was shifted into someone’s arms and then lifted. The world spun.
“Clare…”
“She’s cuffed. They’re dealing with the bomb.” He walked.
Dakota blinked some more but couldn’t see clearly. “Josh.” He would know what she meant.
Sal walked past a bustle of people. She opened her eyes to see them crouched over something. Moving. Talking.
They all sat back.
“Clear.”
The man between them lifted off the ground, then flopped back down.
An electronic voice said, “Pulse detected.”
“Let’s get him out of here.”
“See.” Sal spoke close to her ear. “He’s going to be fine.”
Dakota shook her head. Pain reverberated through her skull, threatening unconsciousness at the edge of her vision.
“Does she need a doctor?” She thought maybe that was Victoria.
“She needs to get out of here.”
He kept moving. Being in motion wasn’t helping. Sal needed to put her down, but she was pretty sure her legs would simply collapse under her.
She knew what she needed. “Josh.”
He’d been too close. Those people. Clear. The bullet’s impact into his vest must have stopped his heart. It would’ve kept the bullet from cutting straight through the middle of that all-important organ, but it also would’ve impacted with such force…
Enough it had stopped his heart.
“Josh.” His name was a moan from her lips.
“Seems like you have a soft spot for him.”
Maybe. That was the word she’d said to Josh. “Yes.”
Sal knew and that was enough for now. Would she get the chance to tell Josh her answer? God, I don’t want him to die. I want life. With him. And yet, just yesterday she had murdered someone.
No, not murder.
She’d killed an escaped prisoner who had been about to kill her. It was justified, no matter who the parties were.
She had pulled the trigger. Part of her screaming, wanting it all to end. The rest of her burning in rage at what he’d done. I killed someone.
Would she ever be free of it? He was gone from this world now. Her father was answering for his life. The same way she would have to answer for hers.
What counted in the end was what she did with the time she had left.
Time she wanted to spend with Josh.
More tears ran down her face. Had she stopped crying? “Doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Not going to call me Cupcake?” Did she want him to? She hardly knew what she was saying right now.
“Don’t joke.” He said, “Just tell me what doesn’t make sense.”
Had she been joking?
“Dakota.” He stepped out of the elevator, still carrying her. “Tell me what doesn’t make sense.”
Josh. “Met him on Friday.” How could there possibly already be so much between them? It had been only a weekend. Three days, given it was Monday now. “Monday,” she said. “Right?”
“Payday.”
Dakota shook her head. Like she cared about that? All her bills were automated. If she needed something, she used the cash she kept in an envelope in her sock drawer. The rest of it was for a rainy day.
“Your sock drawer?” He jostled her, but got the door open.
“Put me—”
Talia wailed. “Is she okay? I heard about Josh. Did he seriously die?”
Dakota sucked in a breath. Coughed. Gasped.
Sal lowered her to the couch in the suite she shared with Talia. “Easy. Catch your breath. Big inhale.”
It was choppy and ended too soon, but she got air in.
“Blow it out like you’re blowing through a straw.”
She frowned but gave it a try.
“Good. Keep going.” Sal’s frown started to smooth out. “Suck in, like through a straw. Then blow out.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Talia asked him.
Dakota kept quiet because she wanted to know the answer to that as well.
“My little brother had asthma.”
Had?
Sal got up and strode across the room. He came back with a cup of tepid water from the bathroom sink. “Sip it.”
Dakota held the cup with both hands. It wasn’t much, but she managed to get more water in her mouth than on the hotel carpet, her hands were shaking so badly. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“Good idea.” Talia nodded. “Get yourself checked out. Who knows what’s wrong with you under the surface that we don’t see.” Then she made a face and ruined all the compassion that had been in her tone.
“I’ll throw this water at you.” Her voice cracked in the middle, but she got all the words out. Most of the communication happened in her facial expression though. She thought.
“Ah, yes. And check on Josh. Of course.” She said his name with a tone.
“I have to get back for English class so I can turn in my late homework.”
Sal actually laughed.
Dakota pushed out a breath. All her energy dissipated like the plug being pulled out of a drain. Enough of the jokes. Besides, there had been nothing funny about middle school.
“Talk. Then hospital.” She was fading fast. They needed to just hurry up and say it.
“I can’t find any trace of the person who sold Clare Norton the contagion.”
“And a bomb.”
Talia’s head jerked. “Wha…”
Sal said, “Continue.”
Talia complied. “The server I was in on the dark web is gone now. It’s not just missing; it’s like it was never there in the first place. There’s nothing to find. Like whoever it was simply doesn’t exist.”
Dakota frowned and started to get up. “That doesn’t—”
Her eyes rolled back in her head.
Sal caught her before she hit the floor.
. . .
Josh watched the door until it opened. Blond hair swayed as the woman entered. He didn’t want to be disappointed, but…
“Don’t look so sad to see me, okay?” Victoria didn’t smile. There was something in her eyes. He didn’t know what it meant. Something she had to say that he wasn’t going to like.
“Where’s Dakota?”
She shifted the chair, even though it was in a perfectly fine position, angled toward his hospital bed. Then she sat. Knees together, purse on her lap. She smiled.
He didn’t like it. “Vic—”
She lifted a hand. “She’s here.”
“She’s okay?”
“Not exactly.” A frown drew her brows together.
Her phone rang. He heard it vibrate. But she didn’t reach for it. She kept all of her attention on him. “She’s unconscious. They said there might be a bleed on her brain. Possibly from the concussion.” She pushed out a slow breath. “They said if the swelling doesn’t go down soon they might have to do surgery. Right now she’s in a medically induced coma.”
She held her hands on her lap again. Josh noticed a white line on her finger. Tan, and the lighter skin where a ring had been. A mark of her history. Of a life lived, loved ones she’d shared that life with. However it had ended, good or bad, Victoria had lived.
Josh shut his eyes. He’d been shot—again. They’d patched up the first, and helped him recover from the impact of the other one. He’d woken up hours ago. Had anyone been able to tell him where Dakota was, and what happened to Clare? No.
Until he’d demanded to see Victoria.
He hadn’t stopped thanking God that Clare had been captured and everyone else was all right. When she got out of the hospital, Clare would be headed to prison. And Dakota? God help her heal.
He needed her to be all right.
He needed her.
“Your boss at the DEA called me. He was asking after you.”
Josh said, “Yeah?”
She gave him a small smile. “I told him you’ll make a full recovery. He said you have promise. That whatever was going on here that you’d gotten involved in, I should seriously consider you for my open position.”
“He said that?”
“Guess he figured if I’d come fishing he shouldn’t stand in my way.” Her smile widened. “Smart man.”
“What does that mean?” He wanted to know about Dakota. Josh wasn’t interested in a riddle that would, on any other day, have been just another conversation.
“When you get out of here, we’ll talk. Okay?”
And he was supposed to know what that meant? “If you get me in to see Dakota.”
Victoria smiled. “I have an orderly bringing a wheelchair right now.”
“Thank you.”
“No, Josh. Thank you.” She leaned her hip against the side of the bed. “I’ve seen a difference in Dakota the past few days. Something I’ve never seen in all the years I’ve known her. Even back when I only knew her from afar and admired the direction her career was going.” She paused. “Thank you for that.”
Something good?
She smiled, “I was aware of you as well, back when you were in J-bad. The work you and Neema did in Afghanistan was exemplary. Those are the kind of team members I need. You might not always work inside the lines, but you’re the ones who sit out in the woods on a Friday night just to save your teammates the hassle of having to show up in a dinky little town to follow some chatter Talia picked up.”
“Dakota?”
She nodded. “The past few days…it’s like she opened. I don’t know any other way to put it than that. She opened. To you.” She placed a hand on his arm. “So when you’re out of here, I’ll expect you to call in.”
It sounded like she was asking him to report for duty. Which he was entirely fine with.
The orderly came in before he could say anything. Victoria squeezed his arm and quietly left. This exchange with Victoria was nothing like he’d experienced with his boss at the DEA. He decided then that even after working for her for years, he’d probably still be surprised by her.
That thought distracted him from the extremely difficult task of getting from the bed to the wheelchair, without crying a little bit at least. His chest was on fire, and he didn’t know what hurt worse.
But he needed to see Dakota. He needed to hold her hand while he prayed for her.
The orderly wheeled him to her room. Josh’s heart sank. She was so pale. The orderly hit the brake on the wheelchair, locking the wheels in place, and then he was alone with her.
Hooked up to machines while her body healed.
Was she on a knife’s edge?
He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for her. When he opened them, a tear rolled down his face. There was so much he wanted to tell her. So much he wanted to say.
“I love you.”
The words were a whisper from his lips. Josh lifted her hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.
He wanted to know the answer to his question. To know if she could handle them being more than friends and working together on the same team. It wouldn’t be easy but no relationship was. He couldn’t think of anything that could be better than working so closely with the person who would be his best friend.
If she agreed.
Epilogue
Six months later
“You’ve got that look in your eye, Weber.”
Josh held the door for an FBI agent escorting one of the suspects outside. Wind blew the trees, sending the smell of smoke for miles. Thankfully they’d gotten inside and taken down every suspect in time for the local fire department to come in and put the blaze out.
He trotted to catch up with Dakota, shifting his shoulders to try and ease the tension in his muscles. All it did was remind him how gritty he was with sweat. They’d been running hard for days, working on the takedown for this case.
“What look?”
She stopped in the middle of a sea of people. Flashing blue and red lights. Fire hoses. Mud. But despite the smile, she didn’t look at him. She leaned to the side and said, “Neema, heir!” In the low tone he’d taught her to use. One full of command.
His dog trotted up and sat beside her, leaning her weight against Dakota’s leg. Taking the pressure off her hip.
Josh bit his lip.
Dakota grinned. “The one that means you’re going to make me talk about my feelings.”
“Would I do that?”
She’d at least given him the chance to tell her he was falling in love with her, back when she’d first woken up at the hospital. They’d fallen into a rhythm since then. Friendship and…more.
But he was ready to turn that “more” into something that would be a gift from God. The full experience of what a relationship between them would mean, instead of going home at the end of the day to his empty apartment.
“Out with it.”
Josh shook his head. She’d learned to read him. He had to give her credit for that.
“Now.”
He laughed and reached into his jeans pocket. He should have known she would do this. That she would call him out, and he’d have to ditch all his plans.
Dakota said, “Another task from whoever you’re working for?”
Good question. Was Clare acting alone now or still under orders?
“He has the money to provide all kinds of toys,” Clare said. “Now, the two of you are going to back up and let me walk out of here, or we all die.”
The minute she was gone she would detonate the bomb—with them still inside. There was no way to give the order to evacuate and have everyone leave in time to save lives. And if he found a fire alarm—and pulled it—would she let go of that switch?
“Kill me, and the hotel falls on all of us,” she said. “I’m walking out of here. No one is going to stop me. You’re going to make sure of that. But either way, I will make my mark. In life, or in death.”
They weren’t going to dissuade her on the basis of ideology. They would never be able to convince her that what she believed was wrong.
Austin had been different. A young man would have doubts about the worldview he’d been taught, just like every other young man. Learning the world. Figuring out for himself what he believed, apart from what he’d been taught.
Josh had hit a point in his life where it’d been necessary for him to choose whether or not he agreed with his parent’s faith. He’d had to decide to take it on board for himself.
With Clare he tried a different tactic instead. “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll give you more. Name your price. We can guarantee you’ll get out of here alive to collect what you earned.”
They could catch her later, when she was comfortable in her riches, leaving a trail of spending behind her. Not that he had a pile of money or anything, but he could hopefully get her to comply anyway.
Maybe Victoria could use her government contacts to help him out.
While he spoke, Dakota moved closer to Clare, picking something up off a dryer as she went. What was her plan? The woman’s attention was fixated on him, and he kept it by moving slightly to the left. Enough to make Clare twist around toward him, determined to keep him in her sights.
Clare laughed. “Good one. Like feds have money.” She shot him an incredulous look, full of mirth. “You guys don’t make that much.”
“I have an inheritance. But if you don’t want it…” She could decide whether he was telling the truth.
Clare narrowed her eyes. She spun around, and the realization that she’d been distracted flashed upon her face before she turned away. Toward Dakota.
But it was too late.
Dakota lunged at Clare and grabbed the hand holding the dead man’s switch. In her other hand she held a roll of duct tape she’d swiped from the table.
Dakota held the end of the tape and wound it around their clenched hands so fast his brain had to catch up with what was happening.
Clare moved. He saw her hand reach for Dakota’s gun. What was about to happen played out in his mind. She would pull the trigger and Dakota would die.
Josh didn’t hesitate.
He aimed, tugged on the trigger and put a bullet in her thigh.
She turned the gun on him and fired.
Dakota screamed his name.
Sparks of light set off like fireworks at the edges of his vision. He fell back and hit the ground.
Everything went black.
Chapter 27
Dakota caught Clare’s gun hand before she got off another shot. Her other hand was useless, taped around Clare’s grip on the dead man’s switch. She shoved the older, heavier woman back and then kept going. Their momentum shoved Clare’s head against the breezeblock wall and knocked her out.
She slumped in front of Dakota and tugged her down so Dakota fell to her knees with the woman.
“Josh!” His name was a wail. A scream that seemed to split her head open it was so loud. So painful.
Hot tears ran down her face.
She’d seen him fall. That close, his vest would work. But there were so many other things that could go wrong. Was he okay? She clambered to her feet and ran to him.
Got two steps, then felt the pull of the unconscious woman.
Dakota fell to her knees again, one hand still attached to Clare’s body.
Sal appeared in front of her.
She tried to speak. All that came from her mouth was a whimper. A wordless cry.
He sank to his knees. “Oh-kay.” He ran his hands down her arm to the tape that was wrapped around two hands and a switch that would level the building on top of them. “Oh-kay.”
He spoke the way she would’ve done to Neema, hurt and wanting to know where Josh was. When the pain would stop.
Victoria called out, “Ambulance is on its way,” her voice strained.
Dakota didn’t see her.
“We need the bomb squad, too!” Sal called back. Looking down at Dakota, he said, “She’s with Josh. But don’t worry about him. Our job is to worry about you.” He answered the question she hadn’t asked yet.
“Bomb.”
“Yes, the bomb.” He slid out his phone and called the local police for SWAT. Past that, her ears just quit working.
He jostled her so she could lie down.
Someone walked close to her face. Dakota tried to focus. She was shifted into someone’s arms and then lifted. The world spun.
“Clare…”
“She’s cuffed. They’re dealing with the bomb.” He walked.
Dakota blinked some more but couldn’t see clearly. “Josh.” He would know what she meant.
Sal walked past a bustle of people. She opened her eyes to see them crouched over something. Moving. Talking.
They all sat back.
“Clear.”
The man between them lifted off the ground, then flopped back down.
An electronic voice said, “Pulse detected.”
“Let’s get him out of here.”
“See.” Sal spoke close to her ear. “He’s going to be fine.”
Dakota shook her head. Pain reverberated through her skull, threatening unconsciousness at the edge of her vision.
“Does she need a doctor?” She thought maybe that was Victoria.
“She needs to get out of here.”
He kept moving. Being in motion wasn’t helping. Sal needed to put her down, but she was pretty sure her legs would simply collapse under her.
She knew what she needed. “Josh.”
He’d been too close. Those people. Clear. The bullet’s impact into his vest must have stopped his heart. It would’ve kept the bullet from cutting straight through the middle of that all-important organ, but it also would’ve impacted with such force…
Enough it had stopped his heart.
“Josh.” His name was a moan from her lips.
“Seems like you have a soft spot for him.”
Maybe. That was the word she’d said to Josh. “Yes.”
Sal knew and that was enough for now. Would she get the chance to tell Josh her answer? God, I don’t want him to die. I want life. With him. And yet, just yesterday she had murdered someone.
No, not murder.
She’d killed an escaped prisoner who had been about to kill her. It was justified, no matter who the parties were.
She had pulled the trigger. Part of her screaming, wanting it all to end. The rest of her burning in rage at what he’d done. I killed someone.
Would she ever be free of it? He was gone from this world now. Her father was answering for his life. The same way she would have to answer for hers.
What counted in the end was what she did with the time she had left.
Time she wanted to spend with Josh.
More tears ran down her face. Had she stopped crying? “Doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Not going to call me Cupcake?” Did she want him to? She hardly knew what she was saying right now.
“Don’t joke.” He said, “Just tell me what doesn’t make sense.”
Had she been joking?
“Dakota.” He stepped out of the elevator, still carrying her. “Tell me what doesn’t make sense.”
Josh. “Met him on Friday.” How could there possibly already be so much between them? It had been only a weekend. Three days, given it was Monday now. “Monday,” she said. “Right?”
“Payday.”
Dakota shook her head. Like she cared about that? All her bills were automated. If she needed something, she used the cash she kept in an envelope in her sock drawer. The rest of it was for a rainy day.
“Your sock drawer?” He jostled her, but got the door open.
“Put me—”
Talia wailed. “Is she okay? I heard about Josh. Did he seriously die?”
Dakota sucked in a breath. Coughed. Gasped.
Sal lowered her to the couch in the suite she shared with Talia. “Easy. Catch your breath. Big inhale.”
It was choppy and ended too soon, but she got air in.
“Blow it out like you’re blowing through a straw.”
She frowned but gave it a try.
“Good. Keep going.” Sal’s frown started to smooth out. “Suck in, like through a straw. Then blow out.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Talia asked him.
Dakota kept quiet because she wanted to know the answer to that as well.
“My little brother had asthma.”
Had?
Sal got up and strode across the room. He came back with a cup of tepid water from the bathroom sink. “Sip it.”
Dakota held the cup with both hands. It wasn’t much, but she managed to get more water in her mouth than on the hotel carpet, her hands were shaking so badly. “I need to get to the hospital.”
“Good idea.” Talia nodded. “Get yourself checked out. Who knows what’s wrong with you under the surface that we don’t see.” Then she made a face and ruined all the compassion that had been in her tone.
“I’ll throw this water at you.” Her voice cracked in the middle, but she got all the words out. Most of the communication happened in her facial expression though. She thought.
“Ah, yes. And check on Josh. Of course.” She said his name with a tone.
“I have to get back for English class so I can turn in my late homework.”
Sal actually laughed.
Dakota pushed out a breath. All her energy dissipated like the plug being pulled out of a drain. Enough of the jokes. Besides, there had been nothing funny about middle school.
“Talk. Then hospital.” She was fading fast. They needed to just hurry up and say it.
“I can’t find any trace of the person who sold Clare Norton the contagion.”
“And a bomb.”
Talia’s head jerked. “Wha…”
Sal said, “Continue.”
Talia complied. “The server I was in on the dark web is gone now. It’s not just missing; it’s like it was never there in the first place. There’s nothing to find. Like whoever it was simply doesn’t exist.”
Dakota frowned and started to get up. “That doesn’t—”
Her eyes rolled back in her head.
Sal caught her before she hit the floor.
. . .
Josh watched the door until it opened. Blond hair swayed as the woman entered. He didn’t want to be disappointed, but…
“Don’t look so sad to see me, okay?” Victoria didn’t smile. There was something in her eyes. He didn’t know what it meant. Something she had to say that he wasn’t going to like.
“Where’s Dakota?”
She shifted the chair, even though it was in a perfectly fine position, angled toward his hospital bed. Then she sat. Knees together, purse on her lap. She smiled.
He didn’t like it. “Vic—”
She lifted a hand. “She’s here.”
“She’s okay?”
“Not exactly.” A frown drew her brows together.
Her phone rang. He heard it vibrate. But she didn’t reach for it. She kept all of her attention on him. “She’s unconscious. They said there might be a bleed on her brain. Possibly from the concussion.” She pushed out a slow breath. “They said if the swelling doesn’t go down soon they might have to do surgery. Right now she’s in a medically induced coma.”
She held her hands on her lap again. Josh noticed a white line on her finger. Tan, and the lighter skin where a ring had been. A mark of her history. Of a life lived, loved ones she’d shared that life with. However it had ended, good or bad, Victoria had lived.
Josh shut his eyes. He’d been shot—again. They’d patched up the first, and helped him recover from the impact of the other one. He’d woken up hours ago. Had anyone been able to tell him where Dakota was, and what happened to Clare? No.
Until he’d demanded to see Victoria.
He hadn’t stopped thanking God that Clare had been captured and everyone else was all right. When she got out of the hospital, Clare would be headed to prison. And Dakota? God help her heal.
He needed her to be all right.
He needed her.
“Your boss at the DEA called me. He was asking after you.”
Josh said, “Yeah?”
She gave him a small smile. “I told him you’ll make a full recovery. He said you have promise. That whatever was going on here that you’d gotten involved in, I should seriously consider you for my open position.”
“He said that?”
“Guess he figured if I’d come fishing he shouldn’t stand in my way.” Her smile widened. “Smart man.”
“What does that mean?” He wanted to know about Dakota. Josh wasn’t interested in a riddle that would, on any other day, have been just another conversation.
“When you get out of here, we’ll talk. Okay?”
And he was supposed to know what that meant? “If you get me in to see Dakota.”
Victoria smiled. “I have an orderly bringing a wheelchair right now.”
“Thank you.”
“No, Josh. Thank you.” She leaned her hip against the side of the bed. “I’ve seen a difference in Dakota the past few days. Something I’ve never seen in all the years I’ve known her. Even back when I only knew her from afar and admired the direction her career was going.” She paused. “Thank you for that.”
Something good?
She smiled, “I was aware of you as well, back when you were in J-bad. The work you and Neema did in Afghanistan was exemplary. Those are the kind of team members I need. You might not always work inside the lines, but you’re the ones who sit out in the woods on a Friday night just to save your teammates the hassle of having to show up in a dinky little town to follow some chatter Talia picked up.”
“Dakota?”
She nodded. “The past few days…it’s like she opened. I don’t know any other way to put it than that. She opened. To you.” She placed a hand on his arm. “So when you’re out of here, I’ll expect you to call in.”
It sounded like she was asking him to report for duty. Which he was entirely fine with.
The orderly came in before he could say anything. Victoria squeezed his arm and quietly left. This exchange with Victoria was nothing like he’d experienced with his boss at the DEA. He decided then that even after working for her for years, he’d probably still be surprised by her.
That thought distracted him from the extremely difficult task of getting from the bed to the wheelchair, without crying a little bit at least. His chest was on fire, and he didn’t know what hurt worse.
But he needed to see Dakota. He needed to hold her hand while he prayed for her.
The orderly wheeled him to her room. Josh’s heart sank. She was so pale. The orderly hit the brake on the wheelchair, locking the wheels in place, and then he was alone with her.
Hooked up to machines while her body healed.
Was she on a knife’s edge?
He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for her. When he opened them, a tear rolled down his face. There was so much he wanted to tell her. So much he wanted to say.
“I love you.”
The words were a whisper from his lips. Josh lifted her hand and placed a kiss on the back of it.
He wanted to know the answer to his question. To know if she could handle them being more than friends and working together on the same team. It wouldn’t be easy but no relationship was. He couldn’t think of anything that could be better than working so closely with the person who would be his best friend.
If she agreed.
Epilogue
Six months later
“You’ve got that look in your eye, Weber.”
Josh held the door for an FBI agent escorting one of the suspects outside. Wind blew the trees, sending the smell of smoke for miles. Thankfully they’d gotten inside and taken down every suspect in time for the local fire department to come in and put the blaze out.
He trotted to catch up with Dakota, shifting his shoulders to try and ease the tension in his muscles. All it did was remind him how gritty he was with sweat. They’d been running hard for days, working on the takedown for this case.
“What look?”
She stopped in the middle of a sea of people. Flashing blue and red lights. Fire hoses. Mud. But despite the smile, she didn’t look at him. She leaned to the side and said, “Neema, heir!” In the low tone he’d taught her to use. One full of command.
His dog trotted up and sat beside her, leaning her weight against Dakota’s leg. Taking the pressure off her hip.
Josh bit his lip.
Dakota grinned. “The one that means you’re going to make me talk about my feelings.”
“Would I do that?”
She’d at least given him the chance to tell her he was falling in love with her, back when she’d first woken up at the hospital. They’d fallen into a rhythm since then. Friendship and…more.
But he was ready to turn that “more” into something that would be a gift from God. The full experience of what a relationship between them would mean, instead of going home at the end of the day to his empty apartment.
“Out with it.”
Josh shook his head. She’d learned to read him. He had to give her credit for that.
“Now.”
He laughed and reached into his jeans pocket. He should have known she would do this. That she would call him out, and he’d have to ditch all his plans.
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