Fast Track (Buchanan-Renard #12)

Fast Track (Buchanan-Renard #12) Page 21

“Andrew Kane is dead?”

“Yes.”

“When did he die?” There was no emotion behind the question.

“Not long ago. There isn’t a headstone yet. I’ll find out.”

“What about the attorneys?”

“They’re estate lawyers. Her father left her money, a lot of money.”

“How much?”

“Millions.”

“That’s not possible. He was a mechanic.”

“Do you want me—”

“I’ll look into her financials. I should have done that already. I had hoped to control her with money. Perhaps I still can.”

“She doesn’t need money.”

“It’s not a matter of need. No one can have enough. You know that. Is she talking to anyone about me, about the family? I want to get ahead of this. I need to know what she’s planning. It’s making me very . . . anxious. There’s a lot to lose here.”

He didn’t agree, but he didn’t dare argue. It wasn’t his place to express an opinion. “You don’t think she will let it go and move on?”

“No, of course she won’t. She’s planning now. I’m sure of it. That’s what I would do. I’d carefully plan. Is there anything else to report?”

“She has two close women friends.”

“Yes, you mentioned them last phone call.”

“I’m sure they know.”

“She could destroy this family, destroy me.”

“There’s something more I’ve discovered,” he said. He’d been holding this information, waiting for the right moment.

“The two women friends . . .”

“What about them?”

“They’re married to FBI agents.”

A long minute of silence followed. Then a hiss. “Something has to be done before she ruins me. I don’t want to worry that one day I’ll turn on the television and see her giving an interview . . . telling everyone who she is.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes. I understand.”

EIGHTEEN

She’d had little time for her friends, and she was glad to hear from Regan, who called on Friday morning just to chat. She told Cordie that Sophie and Jack were going up north to a friend’s lake house for the weekend. They would be back late Sunday. She also told her that there was a sale at Neiman Marcus. They talked for quite a while, and Regan happened to mention that Aiden was on his way home from the airport—he should be landing any time now—and she expected fireworks when he confronted Walker, who had made a deal with some congressman to build a new hotel. Regan continued with her news, but all Cordie heard was that Aiden was back in Chicago, and her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t want to run into him, didn’t want to chance seeing him with another woman. As long as she stayed away from the hotel, she figured, she would be okay.

After she ended the call with Regan, she was determined to avoid thinking about Aiden. Focusing on a few chores around her house wasn’t working, so she decided to do some shopping. The weather was hot but bearable. She changed into a pale blue cotton sundress. The humidity was climbing, and her hair was reacting with its usual curl, so she went with her go-to hairstyle and pulled it back into a ponytail. By the time she reached the shops on Michigan Avenue, she was wilting and wondering why in God’s name she’d thought it was a good idea to wear heels. She stood at the curb with a crowd of men and women around her waiting for the light to change. Cars were zooming past. She spotted two former students, Sean Corrigan and Jayden Martin, across the street waiting for the light. She hadn’t seen them since the funeral, when Jayden surprised everyone by giving his rather ambiguous testament to her father’s kindness in the matter of a stolen car. Both were decent boys who struggled with authority. Jayden, especially, had big trust issues. Sean saw her and waved. Jayden gave her an abrupt nod, which made her smile. He still liked to act the tough guy, she thought.

What happened next defied logic. She had just glanced up at the light. One second she was watching for the signal to turn, and the next she was standing in front of a car barreling toward her. In a crazy attempt to ward off the inevitable, she put her hand out to try to stop it from happening and jumped back. The driver hit the brakes, but it was too late, and the vehicle, brakes screeching, slammed into her.

The impact threw her into the air. The left side of her body was struck first, and she was tossed onto the hood. Her shoulder and head hit the windshield, and as the car skidded to a stop, she was thrown again and ended up on the ground. She had never experienced such horrific pain. The world began to swirl above her, and she heard people screaming as everything faded to black. She was barely conscious, but she could make out the sounds of worried voices and blaring sirens before she drifted into oblivion.

         • • •

The emergency room physician and three specialists all told her how lucky she was to be alive. She didn’t feel lucky. She felt as though she had just been hit by a car.

Her injuries weren’t all that severe . . . considering. Her left arm was broken, the wrist was fractured, and she was bruised everywhere. She hadn’t suffered a concussion or broken any other bones, which really was miraculous, she supposed. As soon as she was given something for the pain, she became coherent and was able to give the hospital staff the information they needed to fill out the paperwork. A nurse told her that her purse hadn’t made it to the hospital with her. Either it had been left at the accident scene or someone had taken it. Her cell phone was missing, too.

A few minutes later she was given a shot that knocked her out, and the next time she opened her eyes, she was sporting a cast from her fingers to her elbow. And Aiden was standing at the foot of her bed. How was that possible? She closed her eyes, opened them again, and he was still there.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you know? The accident just happened . . . didn’t it?” Had she been asleep for hours . . . or days?

“Alec phoned the hotel looking for Regan. The staff couldn’t locate her. Spencer and I had just walked into the office and heard the news. We turned around and came right over. You gave me quite a scare. Don’t ever do that again.” He was scolding her, but there was worry in his voice. He added, “Alec and Spencer are here. They’re talking to the police right now.”

“But how did Alec know?”

She was struggling to sit up, so Aiden walked to the side of the bed and pushed a button until she was upright.

“I’ll let Alec explain,” he said. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Horrible, she wanted to say. Really horrible. Her entire body was aching. Her arm throbbed. “I’m okay,” she said, and even she could hear how pathetic she sounded.

“You look like hell.” He actually smiled while he insulted her.

“Let me run over you with my car a couple of times, and I’ll bet you’ll look like hell, too.”

“You’re going to have two black eyes.” Spencer made the announcement as he pulled the curtain back. “Put on a cape and you’ll look like Zorro.”

Alec joined them. He winced when he saw her and said what he was thinking. “You look bad.”

Spencer stood beside him at the foot of the bed and nodded in agreement.

“Don’t you people know how to be sympathetic?” she snapped.

All three of them shook their heads. For some inexplicable reason, they made her feel a little better.

“You don’t want us to lie to you, do you?” Spencer asked.

“Yes, I do. I really do.” Turning to Alec she asked, “How did you find out I was in an accident?”

“I called you on your cell phone to ask you a house question, and some kid answered. He wouldn’t tell me his name. He said that Miss Kane was hit by a car and was on her way to the hospital.”

“Sounds like one of your students, calling you Miss Kane,” Spencer said.

She suddenly remembered seeing Sean and Jayden at the stoplight. “Did he say anything else?”

Alec answered. “He took your purse and your phone. He said someone was trying to grab it, so he grabbed it first. I told him where to bring it.”

“It was either Jayden or Sean, and they both know where I live.”

Spencer started to say something, but Aiden shook his head and he stopped. What was that about?

Alec turned her attention. “The kid on the phone said it wasn’t bad, that you only bounced a couple of times before you landed. Let’s hope he doesn’t go into the medical field.”

A young policeman came around the corner and introduced himself as Officer Talbot. “Are you feeling up to answering a couple of questions, Miss Kane?” he asked.

When Cordie nodded, he proceeded to quiz her about the accident. Witnesses reported that there had been a loud bang from a delivery truck backfiring. They were so startled they looked in the direction of the noise, and they didn’t turn back until they heard tires screeching and she was lying on the street. Did she remember the noise? No, she responded, but then everything was a blur from the time she was standing on the curb until she ended up on the pavement. Was it possible she jumped when she heard the explosion? She supposed it was possible, she told him, but she didn’t think it was probable that she would jump so far as to end up in the street. Was there anything else she could report about the incident? She told him she saw her former students across the street, but she assured him she was very aware of the light and the traffic. Other than that, she couldn’t recall what had happened. It was all so sudden.

After making a few notes, he thanked her and turned to leave. “You’re a lucky lady, Miss Kane. You could have been killed.”

The severity of what had happened to her was beginning to sink in, but she couldn’t concentrate. The nurse had given her pain medicine that was fogging her brain. She lay back and closed her eyes. The urge to sleep was too strong to fight.

A nurse told the men to step outside while she helped Cordie get dressed. The doctor had just signed her discharge papers, and she was free to go, but she could not be alone. There was a long list of what she could and could not do and three prescriptions that needed to be filled.

“She’ll want to go home,” Spencer said.

“Too bad,” Aiden responded. “She’s going to the hotel. She can’t handle steps. With all the meds she’ll be taking, she could fall and break her neck. She’s staying with me.”

“Are you going to tell her, or should I?” Spencer asked.

“No one needs to tell her. She’ll figure it out soon enough.”

As Spencer was leaving to get his car, he said, “It’s a good thing it wasn’t her right hand. She’ll still be able to write . . .”

“Cordelia is left-handed,” Aiden told him.

Alec smiled at his comment and said, “What else have you noticed?”

Aiden ignored him.

By the time Cordie was dressed, she was as white as a sheet, according to the nurse helping her. The doctor had ordered medication for her that would help her sleep and also help control the pain.

“You’ll be a little loopy,” the nurse said, “but since you’re not driving anywhere, that’s all right. You need to rest. I’d suggest tonight you get down on your knees and thank God you’re still alive, but you’d probably topple over, so say your prayers in bed.”

Cordie knew the woman was talking to her, but she couldn’t clear her head enough to make out what she was saying. She felt as though she was at the bottom of a lake, and it was going to take far too much effort to swim to the top. All she could do was give in and sink down into the murky darkness. She was dozing off when she suddenly felt Aiden’s strong arms around her. The way he lifted her was so effortless, he made her feel as light as air. He liked to carry her to his bed, she thought, as she put her head down on his shoulder and went to sleep.

Once they were at the hotel, Aiden helped her get to his suite. Like the hotel suite in Sydney, there were two bedrooms, one on each side of the living room. He guided her to the guest room. Not wanting her to sleep in her clothes, he removed them and got one of his shirts to put on her, carefully slipping her cast through the sleeve. He was pulling the covers up when Spencer came in with the prescriptions and set them on the table next to the bed.

“How’s she doing?” he asked in a whisper.

“You should see her legs and hip. They’re black-and-blue.”

“We should get one of Walker’s nurses in here,” Spencer said. “You won’t hear her if she wakes up and needs help.”

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow. I’ll stay in here tonight.”

“You’re going to sleep with her?”

“Yes.”

“That will freak her out if she wakes up.”

“No, I don’t think it will.”

Cordie slept through their conversation. She woke up in the middle of the night, and, disoriented, she looked around and squinted into the dark. Soft light spilled under the door from the room beyond, but she couldn’t figure out what that room was. A closet? A bathroom? She turned her head and saw Aiden sound asleep beside her. Were they still in Sydney? When she tried to lift her arm, she felt the weight of the cast. She looked around, and on the nightstand next to her she spotted a black-leather folder with the letter H embossed on the cover. Clarity came like a bolt out of the blue. The Hamilton. She was at the Chicago Hamilton with Aiden.

How in the world had that happened?

NINETEEN

Alec laughed when he read the sign Spencer had taped to Cordie’s bedroom door: Warning. Don’t poke the bear.

“I’m assuming Cordie’s the bear,” Alec said.

Spencer nodded. He was sitting at the dining table with his laptop in front of him, trying to get some work done.

“Why aren’t you in your office?” Alec asked him.

“I’m babysitting,” Spencer answered. “Aiden doesn’t want Cordie to be alone.” Smiling, he added, “Those two really got into it. It was something to see. He can’t intimidate her, though God knows he tried.”

“What was the argument about?”

“She wants to go home, and he won’t let her.”

“Regan will be here in a little bit,” Alec said.

Spencer nodded. “The nurse just left. She helped her shower and get dressed. Cordie was very appreciative. She’s only taking her wrath out on Aiden and me.”