Fallen (32 page)

Mateo and Evie had been here for him before. Darkness washed over Ryan as he flashed on the day of Tyler’s drowning, the déjà vu squeezing his chest. But this time it was images of Adam—in his military and police uniforms, in basketball clothes, as a dark-haired kid who followed his big brother everywhere—that tore at him. His stomach clenched, the hospital’s antiseptic smells and blue corridor walls a sudden assault to his senses.

Once they were in the elevator alone and headed up to the waiting room, Ryan bowed his head and rubbed a hand over his burning eyes. Mateo leaned in awkwardly, one hand on his back.

“
Be strong
, man,” he urged. “Adam’s tough, not to mention stubborn as hell. He’s going to pull through.”

Ryan prayed that was true.

As the elevator doors slid open and they began walking, he realized they were headed to the same small, private waiting room where Kristen Weisz and her family had gathered as they awaited news on Nate. Entering, seeing the upholstered chairs and stacks of magazines fanned out on low tables, he felt physically ill.

“Tell me what you know,” he said in a frayed voice.

“Task force members are on the scene—Chin and Hoyt, too. They’re keeping me updated by phone. They talked to the civilian who called 9-1-1. The guy was using the alley as a cut-through when he found him. He didn’t hear anything or see anyone else around. We’ve got men canvassing the area, talking to people and checking for security cameras that might’ve caught something.” Mateo peered at him worriedly. “Ryan, you ought to sit. You’re not looking too good.”

His limbs still trembled, but he was too restless. The helplessness was suffocating. It felt better to stand and pace. Mateo went to a water dispenser in the room’s corner and returned with a filled paper cup, handing it to him. Ryan accepted it, drinking down the cool liquid to ease the dryness in his throat.

“Adam was going to McCrosky’s?” he asked, crumpling the empty cup.

“He’d just come from there. He had a receipt in his wallet. He was there a little under an hour, based on the time stamp. Our guys are there now, too, asking around.”

“The casing’s a match,” Ryan said knowingly.

Mateo gave a somber nod. “Ballistics will have to confirm it, but it’s our shooter. Ryan’s Jeep was keyed.”

His jaw ached from being clenched. He thought of his brother, wounded, lying in an alley alone.

“The shot came from about twenty feet away based on the location of the recovered casing. But what we don’t know is why—”

“He didn’t get a chance to finish. There’re a lot of people out for the Fourth,” Ryan said, the grim scenario already formed in his mind. “The shooter fired from a distance, then came in for the kill. But he got spooked by someone approaching on one of the streets and had to take off. Did Adam still have his shield?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

The fireworks in the park would have most likely masked the already muted discharge of a silencer. Whatever it was that had scared this guy off, Ryan wanted to feel gratitude, but all he felt was a growing need for vengeance. He closed his eyes and took a breath, swallowing hard. He wondered if Adam had gotten a look at the perpetrator, if he hadn’t lost consciousness immediately.

“There were some kids hanging out in front of a closed-down building nearby. One of the girls remembered Adam from an ID photo,” Mateo said. “But she didn’t recall anyone following him, at least no one who stood out enough to notice. Maybe our guy was already in the alley, waiting for him?”

Ryan didn’t answer. He passed a hand over his face and then took several slow steps, his lips pressed tightly together. This hit seemed less planned, even impulsive. Watterson had also been in an alley, but the location had been remote, with a cinderblock wall and trees providing a shield. It had also been late at night and in a much less populated part of town. Taking Adam down in a location like that—in a downtown cut-through where he could be visible from either direction, on a holiday when the streets were busy—had been an enormous risk, suggesting the shooter was either beginning to think himself invincible …

Or he was spiraling out of control.

Mateo came closer, concern knitting his brow. “Ryan, have you reached your mom?”

Melanie Winter had moved to the Georgia coast several years earlier, to an active lifestyle retirement community where her sister and brother-in-law also lived. All of them were currently on a cruise in the Caribbean.

“Not yet.” Dread pooled in his gut. He thought of the night his father had been killed on the job. Ryan had been only thirteen, Adam eight. “I’m going to wait until we know something.”

Until he learned exactly what Adam was up against. He felt nearly dizzy with fear.

Blue uniforms had begun to have a presence in the hallway outside the room now, having moved up from the ER lobby. Ryan shook hands with Captain Thompson and the chief of police, as well as two others high up enough in rank to feel okay with entering the refuge of the private waiting room. As the men offered support, Ryan nodded his head numbly. Guilt thickened his throat.

He should be the one in there, bleeding, being operated on.

He should have caught this psycho.

Ryan was one of the lead detectives on the case. Had Adam been placed in the shooter’s sights because of their blood relationship?

Overwhelmed, he startled at the PA system paging a doctor to the Oncology ward.

A short time later, Lydia appeared in the room’s threshold as the command filtered out. Seeing her pale, worried face, he felt his heart drop into his stomach. This time, he lowered himself into a chair.

“He’s in surgery now,” she said as she entered. “They’re doing everything they can.”

“Some of the men are giving blood downstairs.” Mateo moved toward the door, no doubt to give them privacy to discuss whatever Lydia had learned. “I’ll be back, all right? We’re all praying, Ryan.”

He made the sign of the cross and closed the door behind him.

Ryan’s stomach hardened as she took a seat beside him, placing her hand on his thigh and turning toward him as she spoke softly. “There’s no spinal damage. But he has a shattered rib, and there’s a serious injury to his right lower lung. A massive hemothorax with blood collected in the pleural cavity. The recommended course is to perform a partial lobectomy.”

Lose part of his lung.

He felt tears sting his eyes. Lydia reached for his hand.

“What does that mean for him, exactly?” he asked.

“He can survive with it. He may have to get off the streets, but he can still have a normal, healthy life. It’ll take some time to get his stamina back
, but Adam’s fitness level and age work in his favor.”

Even as he nodded, he felt the hair on his arms rise. Her hesitant expression told him there was something else.

“The blood loss was … significant. They’re giving transfusions.” She took a tense breath. “There’re also bullet and bone fragments embedded in his heart, Ryan. They have to come out. They’re making his heartbeat erratic and could cause cardiac arrest.”

His throat convulsed.

“Rick’s performing the cardiac aspect of the surgery. I … made sure of it. He’s already on his way in.” She looked at him, clear-eyed and emphatic as she squeezed his fingers. “It’s a complicated procedure, and he’s one of the best cardiac surgeons in the country.”

Ryan shook his head, uncertain. “Varek? I don’t know—”

“Trust
me
, Ryan. I’ve already talked to him by phone. He’ll do his very best, just as he would for any patient.
He’s the best chance Adam’s got.
He needs to be the one.”

“All right,” he said, his voice breaking. Lydia put her arms around him. Ryan was aware of the tears that leaked from his eyes. He felt powerless. Tyler was gone.

Adam had to live.

“I can’t lose him, too,” he whispered.

*

Lydia stood in the threshold of the ICU suite, one shoulder leaned against the doorframe. Her chest ached at the sight of Ryan in a chair beside the bed, absently running one hand over his mouth as he watched his brother. Adam remained unconscious and on a ventilator. Tubes ran in and out of him as a cardiac monitor beeped nearby, accompanying the vent’s mechanical whooshing sound.

She swallowed hard, a similar scene settling over her. An image of Ryan, devastated, grasping Tyler’s small fingers in the shattering quiet after the respirator had been stopped, tore at her heart.

He looked up as she came forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“He survived the surgery,” she reminded, her voice soft. “That’s something.”

He gave a faint nod. Rick had spoken with both Ryan and Lydia early that morning. To his credit, he’d set aside any bruised feelings and had been a consummate professional, carefully explaining that the long surgery had been successful but the next few days were critical.

That conversation had taken place more than eight hours ago.

Adam’s vitals needed to improve, and he needed to regain consciousness. The longer he remained on the vent and immobile, the risk for things like a clot breaking free or pneumonia setting in went up. As a doctor, she understood his life was in a fragile state and things could go either way.

Adam’s dark, spiky lashes formed half-moons against his pale cheeks as his chest rose and fell with the ventilator’s unnatural rhythm. Lydia moved closer to the bed and threaded her fingers through his hair, her throat tight.

Fight, Adam. Don’t leave us.

They stayed until visitation time was up and then walked together from the suite. It would be another forty-five minutes before anyone except medical personnel would be allowed in again. Glass doors that led to a patio adjacent to the ICU nurses’ station revealed a sunny day outside. It was already afternoon.

“Have you eaten?” she asked, concerned. “Tess brought some food by, which I put in the fridge in the lounge. I think she’s just trying to find some way to be helpful, but I’m sure it’s superior to the cafeteria’s—”

“I don’t want anything.” Hands shoved deeply into his pockets, Ryan peered through the suite’s glass window at his brother. “I’m going to the waiting room until I can get back in. There’re still some of us around.”

Although most of the police had left around four that morning after Adam was out of surgery, Lydia was aware a handful remained, most of them uniforms who’d been on duty last night and had stopped by after their shifts, hoping for good news. She had seen them in the waiting room and circulating in the hallways.

“You haven’t had any
sleep
, either,” she pointed out gently. Ryan appeared tense and exhausted, his face pale and jaw stubbled. He still wore what he’d had on when they had gone to dinner last night. Lydia had caught a few hours in the bunk beds that were in an adjoining room of the physician lounge—used by doctors to nap between double shifts, or when a patient was too critical to leave. For a time, she’d coaxed Ryan into lying down in the narrow bed with her between visitations, but when she awoke a short time later, he was gone.

“We’re here again, aren’t we?” he said quietly, his eyes bleary. “Last night … when we were together … I thought maybe everything was finally going to be okay.”

Lydia touched his arm in sympathy.

She spoke to one of the ICU nurses behind the desk as they passed it on their way out a minute later. Lydia wore medical scrubs and a lab coat, items from her locker she had changed into a short time ago. She’d found someone to take her shift that morning since she had been up most of the night.

“I’m on from one to five,” she told him. “We’re short-staffed coming off the long weekend, and I’ve had some sleep. Ryan … I can check on Adam at every break—”

He shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

Lydia halted him. She looked into his eyes. “If
anything
happens, I can be up here in seconds. The nurses know me. They’ll keep me closely in the loop. And as far as visitation goes, Adam’s partner is in the waiting room. He just came back. They’re close, and he wants to help. Please, Ryan. Go home for just a few hours and take a nap, all right? Have a shower and something to eat. Come back when my shift’s over, and then I’ll go home for a while. That way, one of us will always be here.”

“I can’t leave him.”

“You can’t keep going like this.” Her voice softened in understanding. “Adam’s condition could remain unchanged for a while. You have to pace yourself. He’s going to need you
more
once he’s awake.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and released a breath.

“Have you spoken with your mom?”

“Her ship docked this morning in the Cayman Islands. She was going to try to get on the earliest flight here.”

Lydia hoped they would have better news for Melanie by then regarding Adam’s condition. At the thought of her arrival, however, she felt her stomach do a nervous little flip. She didn’t know what her former mother-in-law’s reaction would be to her and Ryan’s reconciliation. Considering things, emotions would already be running high, and she knew her departure had been another hard blow for the family.

They reached the main ICU waiting area where a half-dozen police sat, sipping coffee from foam cups and talking quietly among themselves. Lydia and Ryan stood at the room’s double doors. Beyond the chairs filled with people, a mounted television on the wall broadcasted the midday news. Lydia had seen the footage earlier, but she still felt gooseflesh rise on her skin.

Struggling and handcuffed, Ian Brandt was being taken into FBI custody by a half-dozen federal agents. It appeared dark on the recorded segment, suggesting the arrest had happened under cover of night. The television was on mute, but the caption at the screen’s bottom was visible.

Atlanta businessman arrested on money-laundering, sex-trafficking charges.

“It went down this morning,” Ryan said, peering at the screen where Brandt was being put into the back of a dark SUV. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you once I heard.”