A man wearing a DEA vest comes to us, handing me a bag. “I believe this belongs to you.” His eyes take in my appearance, then meet mine. “Good job, Detective. Damn good job,” he praises before walking away.
I dump the contents out and find my badge, gun, cuffs, and two dead cell phones. “Do you have a phone?”
He reaches in his pocket at the same time Captain Cornelius’s voice booms through the air, yelling my name. He and Oliver jog through the crowd until they get to me.
“You okay?” He does a full body scan.
“Never better.”
“I need to get your shirt off, sir.” The paramedic helps lift my shirt over my head. The second his hands touch my sensitive skin, I hiss.
“You look like shit,” Captain assesses.
“Nothing a shower won’t cure.”
“Bullshit,” he chokes back a laugh.
“I need a phone.”
“And I need a briefing.”
“Let me call Emi, and you can have all the answers you need.”
He and Oliver exchange a look that gives me an unsettling feeling. “What’s going on?”
“Son, that’s exactly why we need to talk right now. Emi’s about twenty miles away from storming into this town. My guess is, once she sees you, she’s not going anywhere.”
“How?”
“The details are sketchy. Even I don’t fully understand, but the gist of it is, she saved the day. Something about her watch having a GPS tracker. Without her, we would still be in a war room in Charleston scratching our asses.”
The fucking watch… I forgot all about it in my pocket.
“Do I want to know why you have a GPS on her watch?” He raises an eyebrow.
?
??Remember, this is Emi we’re talking about.”
“Forget I asked. I’ll never understand that girl, but if she was mine, I’d probably have a tracker on her, too.”
“It’s a Maren thing,” is the only explanation I give him.
“Regardless, she’s on her way, and she’s not alone.”
I glance down at myself and see the purple and black bruises covering my ribcage and the dried blood all over my pants that are now torn almost all the way. She can’t see me like this.
“Okay, hop in. I’ll brief you on the way to the hospital.” I dip my chin to the inside of the paramedic truck then focus on the man working on my ribs. “You need to get us to the hospital and get me cleaned up.”
“Sir, you’re going to need to see a doctor.”
“And I will, but there are seven other men here that need to see a doctor, too. If you get me to the hospital, I’ll take care of the rest.”
He wants to object; I can see the hesitation in his gaze, but he grudgingly agrees, yelling to the driver to get ready to go. Oliver and Captain climb in the back as I’m loaded in, and we take off.
The whole drive, I fill them in on every detail, starting at the docks and ending with being blindfolded and led into the building before being restrained to the chair.
When we get to the hospital, there’s a nurse and a doctor waiting to wheel me to a room. They refuse to allow the two men to accompany me until I’ve been given an exam. Once my leg is cleaned and stitched, the doctor approves me taking a shower before my ribs are taped.