“My parents are here?” My head fell back against the pillow. “I’m going to get an earful from my mother.”
“You should just worry about getting better right now. I’m sure they’re going to be happy to see that you’re still alive. Trust me, that wasn’t a certainty last night. You’ve made an incredible recovery.” The nurse patted my hand again.
“Nurse Grant is right.” An older man with a white coat walked into my room. “I’m Dr. Stevenson. Let me check a few of your vitals and if everything checks out, I’ll send you to a regular room.”
“When can I go home?” I lifted my head slightly to look at him.
“We’re going to keep you for a couple of days.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and took my wrist in his hand.
I lay there in the bed as Dr. Stevenson checked my vitals and prayed that he would clear me. The oxygen chamber had been horrible, and I felt like I was in a bubble the whole time when I was awake. I didn’t want to have to spend another minute in there if I didn’t have to. I was happy when he said everything was fine and told the nurse to prepare a regular room for me. The events of the previous night were still rather foggy. It felt like I had plowed through more liquor in one evening than I had ever seen in my life, and somehow lived to wake up the next morning. Memories came back in patches, and each one was terrifying. My lungs hurt and my head was heavy, but they had
given me some medicine that took away most of the pain.
A couple of hours later
My reunion with my parents was rather bittersweet. After a few hugs, my mother insisted that I move back to Cedar Grove and for once, my father was on her side. I tried to explain what happened, but my voice was hoarse and it didn’t feel good to talk for long periods of time. I definitely couldn’t talk long enough to relay everything, but they seemed to already know a lot of it thanks to Jett and Rand. My parents told me that Jett and Rand were the ones who pulled me out of the fire. I should have known it would be them, and hearing that made me even more anxious to see the two firefighters that literally saved my life. My parents finally agreed to give me a few minutes with them but promised they would be back in a few minutes. They walked out of my room and a few minutes later, Jett and Rand arrived.
“You gave us such a fucking scare.” Jett walked over and took my hand.
“I’m sorry.” I lifted up and hugged him. “I didn’t know my boss was a psychopath.”
“We’ll have to fill you in on a few details after you get some of your strength back.” Rand hugged me as soon as Jett let go.
“I’d like a few details to.” A gruff sounding voice echoed from the doorway and I looked past Jett and Rand to see a tall black-haired man that was wearing a badge on his belt.
“Detective West.” Jett turned towards the man. “I know you’re just doing your job, but I don’t think she’s in any condition to answer questions right now.”
“She won’t have to answer many questions.” He walked over to the bed. “A simple nod will do for most of this. We already know what happened—we just need your help in establishing a motive.”
“Have you caught the guy?” Rand raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes.” Detective West nodded quickly. “We were already checking surveillance footage near the warehouse, and when one of the license plates came back to a car registered to John Dunkirk, it wasn’t hard to put together the pieces after the fire last night.”
“You guys work fast.” I forced a smile. “That’s my boss—well, he was my boss—before he tried to kill me.”
“He’s in jail.” Detective West sat down next to my bed and smiled. “We arrested him as he was trying to board his private jet this morning.”
“Thank god.” I nodded and sighed.
“He’s lucky he’s behind bars right now,” Jett growled and his face twisted into a scowl. “I can’t tell you what I would do if I could get my hands on him.”
“You and me both.” Rand patted his twin brother’s shoulder.
Detective West asked a few questions that I was able to answer with a nod, just like he said. I was horrified to find out what happened to Dana, even more so when I realized that I almost met the same fate. Jett and Rand were able to fill the detective in on what I had previously told them about Dana. The pieces seemed to come together perfectly once they linked their stories together. Detective West excused himself for a few minutes once I told him about Paul, and when he returned, he said that Paul’s passport was scanned for a flight to Russia the previous day. It appeared he fled the country, which meant he likely did take some sort of bribe. We theorized that Dana was probably offered the same deal, but ultimately refused it.
“Paul probably told Mr. Dunkirk that I knew…” I looked up at the ceiling and shook my head. “What an asshole.”
“Yeah, I think John Dunkirk was tying up loose ends as fast as possible so he could get out of the country.” Detective West nodded slowly. “I’m sure the SEC and the IRS will have a field day with his clients, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of them roll on him as soon as they realize they could be considered accessories to murder. He might have destroyed the servers, but that’s only a temporary setback for the investigators. They’ll be able to recover most of the data, and figure out which clients have accounts that don’t match their tax returns.”
“Something they probably wouldn’t have even bothered to look into if there was nobody to tell them it was an issue.” Rand squeezed my hand. “The accounts would have looked normal once they were recovered unless someone told them to dig deeper.”
“Right.” Detective West put his hands on his hips. “What a fucking mess. All of this for money.”
“People never cease to amaze me when it comes to greed.” Jett exhaled sharply.
Detective West finished up his questions and seemed to believe it would be fairly easy to convict Mr. Dunkirk with the evidence they had. He might even take a plea deal and never go to trial. I was happy knowing that the only plea deal he would be able to cut was life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. He deserved the latter for what he did to Dana, but the attempt on my life would be enough to make sure those were his only options. Jett and Rand stayed with me for a couple of hours until my parents insisted on coming back. The hospital staff didn’t want me to have more than two visitors at a time, and while they made an exception for Detective West, they couldn’t let four people stay in my room for the entire night.
Chapter Twenty-Three