Second Honeymoon

Chapter 114

I WANTED TO rush over to her. Hold her. Kiss her. At the very least I wanted to take her hand so I could feel her touch against mine.

All things I couldn’t do.

With Driesen in the room I was merely Sarah’s colleague at the Bureau who was very happy to see that she was going to survive. All smiles and relief—from a proper and platonic distance.

Sarah’s doctor was summoned. As soon as he arrived Driesen waved me over to the corner of the room by the door. There was no more yelling, no more right up in my face. Chalk it up to the overwhelmingly good feeling in the room. Still, as he spoke, there was no mistaking the tone. He was dead serious.

“This is what happens now, whether you like it or not,” he began before detailing what would be my open-ended stay at the Bureau Hotel back in New York until Sinclair was caught. House arrest, for all intents and purposes. “Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” I answered.

The only freedom I had was once again choosing whether or not to pull the boys from camp to join me.

“Think about it for a moment while I make a couple of calls,” said Driesen, reaching for his cell.

He left the room, finally leaving Sarah and me alone. Hospitals are one big revolving door, and there was no telling when a nurse, doctor, or even Driesen would return, so I made it fast. The kiss. The hug. The chance to tell her that she scared the hell out of me. The one thing I didn’t need to tell her was that I hadn’t felt this way about another woman since my wife had died.

But Sarah had figured that out on her own.

“I recognized him,” she said, referring to Sinclair. “But he recognized me first.”

“Only by a fraction of a second,” I said.

She glanced at her shoulder and then her other arm, both heavily bandaged. “That’s all it took.”

I squeezed her hand, smiling. “Lucky shots.”

Sure enough, without so much as a knock on the door, another nurse strolled in. I quickly let go of Sarah’s hand, although this particular nurse was so preoccupied with the bouquet of yellow lilies she was carrying that it hardly seemed to matter. “These just arrived for you,” she announced. She placed them down on the windowsill, but not before burying her nose deep into the bouquet, breathing deeply. “They smell terrific.”

Sarah looked at the flowers and then back at me as the nurse walked out. There had to be at least two dozen lilies, beautifully arranged.

“Don’t look at me; I didn’t send them,” I said.

She laughed. “It sure wasn’t Driesen. Flowers are definitely not in his repertoire.”

“Maybe it’s standing operating procedure from Quantico,” I said jokingly. “One dozen for every bullet you take.”

I walked over to the bouquet, spotting a small envelope attached to the lip of the glass vase. Pulling out the card, I read it silently.

“Who’s it from?” she asked.

I didn’t answer right away. I was reading the card for a second time, thinking. Thinking fast.

Sarah tried again. “John, who are they from?”

I looked up at her, shaking my head. “So much for my Quantico theory,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“They must have screwed up the names. These are for someone named Jessica Baker,” I said. “I’ll go clear it up with the nurse.”

I walked over and gave Sarah a kiss on the forehead. Then I walked out of the room, onto an elevator, and out of the hospital. I didn’t go see the nurse. And I made damn sure that Dan Driesen didn’t see me.

I hated lying to Sarah, but it would have been worse if she had to lie to protect me. I could practically hear Driesen cursing my name and asking Sarah where the hell I was going.

But she wouldn’t be able to tell him. No one would. No one knew where I was going now.

This hunch was all mine.