Page 2 of Mason’s Mark (Man Down #6)

Mason opened his eyes, stared around the hospital room until almost his full view was filled with Tesla’s face. He smiled up at her. “Hey,” he muttered groggily.

“Hey,” she murmured, as she stroked a finger down his cheek. “Am I glad to see you.”

He smiled. “Feels like I’ve been in a fog for a long time.”

“In many ways you have,” she noted. “You’ve surfaced. You’ve gone back under. Sometimes you’ve surfaced and talked, and what you mentioned made absolutely no sense.”

He blinked several times. “Ah, not quite there, was I?”

“No, not quite there,” she agreed, with a sad smile.

“What happened? Or have you already told me?”

“I’ve told you,” she noted, “but you need to hear it again.” Then she went over it, starting with his stepping off the airplane on the tarmac at the base, only to be taken down by a sniper. This time she saw the comprehension in his gaze, as if he fully understood what she shared.

“Right on the base? A sniper? What distance is that?” he murmured, and she watched as the wheels of his brain churned.

“I’m pretty sure that, while you were out lollygagging around, doing nothing,” she teased, “everybody else went to bat to solve this.”

“Did they find the shooter?” he asked, his eyes opening again to face her.

“They did,” she confirmed, with a smile, “and it’s a pretty convoluted story.”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “How badly hurt am I?”

“The worst of it was the head injury. The bullet burned into your scalp but bounced off a bone and came out the side of your head,” she described, trying to keep her tone casual, but her voice faltered a bit. “So we had to shave off all that beautiful hair.”

He gently touched his head and winced. “Still feels like I’ve got a drummer inside there.”

“And you probably will for quite a while,” she stated, with a nod, “but you’re awake. You’re on the mend, and, after what we’ve been through, I’m very happy to hear you talking again.”

“I was talking before, wasn’t I?” he asked. His voice sounded like it came from afar. “I seem to remember conversations.”

“Yeah, you had conversations and forgot them. You heard a few people talking, but then you would disappear again. We never knew how much you were taking back into the dream state with you.”

He studied her face, absolutely loving the full range of emotions in her gaze. “I’m so sorry,” he began. “I wouldn’t have done that to you by choice.”

“I know that,” she replied, her smile so full of caring and warmth.

It felt like a hug, just this energy that swept over him. “How long have I been out?”

“Weeks,” she stated bluntly.

His eyes flew open at that. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Yes, weeks, but you’re back again now,” she declared, with a deep sigh. “So I will let all those weeks go by and not begrudge them one bit.”

He studied her face, realizing the trauma she had been through. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured again.

She shook her head. “It’s fine, Mason. After everything we’ve been through together?… This is nothing. As long as you’re here, and you will stay here, I don’t care about any of the rest. I just need you here with me.”

He placed his hand gently on her rounded belly. “How’s the baby?”

“Baby’s doing just fine,” she said, smiling, holding his hand against her belly.

“How’s Sebastian?”

“He misses us, but his grandfather is keeping him busy and entertained. Everybody is waiting for you to wake up and to be back to your old self.”

“I guess that’s two separate things, isn’t it?”

“It has been, but”—she smiled again—“from the looks of you right now, I would say all that appears to be over with.”

“I don’t want to say it’s over with,” he clarified, deep in thought, closing his eyes again. “Yet I am feeling a whole lot more like myself. I’m awake, aware, and may be back to the land of whatever this is,” he stated.

“Good,” she whispered. “I’ll take it.”

His lips slipped into a smile again. “Will you tell me who shot me?”

Just then the door opened, and Evan walked in. He looked at Mason, and his face cracked into a huge beaming smile. “Now that’s what we want to see,” he announced, walking closer. He looked over at Tesla. “Did he just wake up again?”

“Not only just woke up again,” she explained, with her face lit up like a Christmas tree, “but this time it appears that he’s here to stay.”

Evan snorted at that. “Man, did you ever put this gal through it,” he muttered. “How could you do such a thing?”

Mason gave him half a smile. “You want to fill me in?”

“Not sure I should,” he noted, shaking his head. “The last thing I want is for you to have a relapse.”

“Why would telling me what happened cause a relapse?” he asked curiously. “Obviously somebody hates me.”

“We thought it would be connected to the military. We thought it would all be some nasty-ass mission gone bad.”

“So, it wasn’t?” Mason asked, surprise rippling through him. “Just from the little bit that she’s told me, a sniper took me out.… I’ve been trying to figure out who the hell, what terrorist would I have missed on any op?”

Evan nodded, knowing and understanding what Mason was going through. “I’m glad you took it that way because the person who shot you was blackmailed into doing so. Then—to try to get out of it—he made sure he didn’t get a good shot.”

“Ah, and who was that?”

“Drew Honeycutt.”

“Drew,” he repeated, frowning at Evan. “I’m not even sure I know any Drew.”

“You probably did at one point. I’m not sure if you had much of a relationship. All I can tell you is, he was the sniper.”

“Was?”

“Yes, was .” Evan looked over at Tesla. “How are you doing?”

“I’m perfect now,” she stated, beaming a smile at him.

Mason watched the looks they shared, going back and forth between them. The exchange between them had not gone unnoticed at all by Mason.

Tesla added, “Thanks for asking, Evan.”

“Obviously I need to hear an awful lot more about this,” Mason pointed out, shifting around in his hospital bed.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she argued, moving closer. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re not standing up, and you’re not getting out of that bed.”

He groaned. “Will you be a bully about this?”

“I absolutely will, if that’s what it takes,” she stated forcefully. “No way I am letting you get out of bed and into trouble.”

“Now, what makes you think I will get into trouble?” he asked, a gentle smile on his face, as she rolled her eyes at him.

“It’s you we’re talking about here,” she replied. “If anybody on this planet can find trouble, it’s you.”

“I usually get out of the trouble just fine.”

“Yeah, until a sniper takes you out,” she said, not holding anything back, “and, in this case, somebody who knew you.”

“Somebody who chose to miss,” he added.

“Well, he didn’t choose to miss well enough,” she snapped.

He squeezed her hand and looked over at Evan. “So, they brought you in on it?”

“Oh, you should see how many of us are in on it,” he responded, with a booming laugh. “Yet, for now, just know that it’s more than me.”

He nodded toward Tesla, who hesitated before she spoke. “I brought Jasper in.”

Mason studied her for a long moment. “And he came?”

“Yeah, he was here already, of course. I think he’s taken over the investigative department,” she shared, with a rueful smile.

“I’m impressed, if you brought him in,” Mason noted. “Somehow you convinced him, and… he ended up taking over because that’s what he does.”

“He does his job very well,” she agreed, “and that’s what I needed—somebody who could see everyone here with fresh eyes, somebody who could step in and could handle this nightmare.”

“Sounds like you got the answers that you needed,” Mason said, an odd look on his face. He turned to Evan and smiled. “Thank you for that.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Evan confirmed. “We think… We think we have all the answers, but…” Evan turned to Tesla, and she nodded her approval. “Janelle seems to think we haven’t tied up one last connection.”

Tesla shook her head. “There can’t be,” she countered briskly, sounding a bit too harsh. “How can there be so many people out there affected by this?” she muttered, staring at him in shock.

“She wouldn’t tell me. Just told me to get my ass over here.”

Tesla chuckled. “What the hell?… And you listened?”

“I did. She was screaming into the phone, so she got my attention. They’re also on their way here.”

“So, she’s expecting what? Another attack?” Tesla asked. “Haven’t we gotten to the end of this mess yet?”

“I don’t know.” Evan rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t given much of a choice. I think she was channeling you in a way.”

Tesla winced at that and then burst out laughing. “The fact that Janelle and Guilliam will be back together again is huge. You didn’t know them back then,” she added, looking from one man to the other, “but they were perfect together.”

Mason, his voice soft, whispered, “Are they back together?”

She looked over at him and nodded. “We have lots to fill you in on, but one thing you need to know is that Janelle’s mother passed away yesterday.”

Mason closed his eyes as he processed that. “Which is why Guilliam is back in her life.”

“Exactly, and what nobody knew is that Janelle’s mother has been in contact with him from the very beginning,… asking him to just hold on so that she could have her daughter for a little bit longer, until she got through the worst of her chemo. What nobody realized at the time was that there was no getting over it.”

“Right,” Mason muttered. “Cancer, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, breast cancer that had metastasized to her lungs.”

“In that case, how come they are back at it already? Janelle should be home taking care of herself.”

“That’s one hell of a story too. Within minutes of her mother’s passing, Janelle was kidnapped by Greg, cousin to Gabe, the man you killed when he invaded your home and tried to hurt Tesla.”

“I remember him,” Mason growled.

Evan stepped in and continued. “Janelle was bundled up and smuggled out through the laundry, right here at the hospital, and held in a van outside in the parking lot, where Greg used her to try to coerce Guilliam to come in and finish… killing you, in exchange for Janelle’s life.”

Mason’s gaze widened at that. “Good God, you guys have been having fun.”

“I don’t think fun is quite the word I would use,” Guilliam argued from the door, as he stepped forward with Janelle right beside him, both looking like hell. “Obviously,” he added, sauntering in, “I turned down the invitation.”

Mason smiled at him. “You have my thanks for that.”

“No thanks needed.” Guilliam walked over to the hospital bed and closed his hand over Mason’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. “How are you doing?”

“I’m awake and apparently more lucid than I’ve been to date. Yet waking up has caused all kinds of information to float around me, and I’m not sure I’m grasping it all yet.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Not only that, some pretty significant events have happened since you were hit,” he shared. “I think we’ve got, what?” He frowned at Tesla, then Evan, and back to Mason. “Four, five, dead, I believe. With four and counting in custody. We’re here now… because Janelle doesn’t think we’re through.”

Janelle smiled at Mason, then walked over to Tesla and gave her a gentle hug. “Are you okay?”

“I’m doing fine,” she replied. “Now what’s this about you thinking it’s not over?”

Janelle looked like hell and still smelled like she’d come from a campfire. “I just got this incredible panicked feeling that you were in danger, that Mason was in danger.”

Tesla stared at her friend intently, refraining from interrupting her.

“It feels foolish while I’m standing here with you now,” she admitted, “but, all I can tell you is that I thought I saw a connection between… What was his name?” She turned to Guilliam.

He relented and replied, “Steve.”

Jasper entered the room at that moment and looked at the team already gathered around the bed. He went on to greet Tesla and then came over to Mason. “Welcome to the land of the living. You gave us quite a scare.”

“Sorry, but it looks like I’m back… and for real this time.”

“It’s high time, and I’m pretty damn glad, for many reasons.”

“So, I heard the name,… Steve,” Mason repeated, rolling the name around. “I’m not sure I have a Steve coming to mind who would make any sense in this sniper scenario.”

“He mostly worked in the investigative office.”

“Aah, the one that Jasper is now running?” Mason asked.

Guilliam looked at him expectantly. “You heard about that already, huh ? Yes, so I was tracking the grandson, which led to the kidnapping of Janelle, then the fire.”

“Fire? Is that what I smell? What grandson?… I must have missed something.” Mason looked perplexed.

Jasper pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. “Greg is the grandson of Richard, two persons of interest,” he explained. “An awful lot of information is flying around, and it’ll just get more convoluted as the story gets told. So, I don’t expect you to get it all at once. I know you will have a million questions, so I’m thinking the best way to go about it is to sit down and go through all of it, at least the highlights, from the beginning.”

And, with that, Jasper, slowly and as succinctly as he could, gave Mason a summary of everything that had gone on since he’d been hit.

When Jasper finally got through the bulk of it, Mason stared from one to another. “Damn. All because of Gabe invading my home?” His gaze went quickly to Tesla, sitting there with her hand over her mouth. “That little bastard was planning on raping and torturing her right in front of me,” Mason snapped, his voice gaining in volume, “and somebody thinks that we’re to blame for that piece of shit dying?” He shook his head. “Christ.”

*

He shifted uneasily in the bed, clearly unsettled. Looking at the machines tracking his vitals, Tesla moved closer to his side. “If you get upset, I’m kicking them all out.”

He smiled at her. “Soon enough,” he conceded, looking at the others in the room. “I still need more information.”

“More information can wait,” Jasper stated, studying him. “You need more time to assimilate everything you’ve just been told.”

“Maybe so,” Mason admitted. “This is all just… It sounds so far-fetched.”

“Exactly,” Tesla agreed, “especially to think it wasn’t because of one of your missions. We’ve been cross-checking information left, right, and center. I’ve been searching through op files, looking for anything to give us even a hint or some way to find out who was behind this. Then I find out it was a cousin of Gabe’s, the asshole who broke into our home,” she explained, her bottom lip trembling.

Guilliam nodded slowly, then turned back to Jasper. “Do you think it’s over?”

“We would like to say for sure that it’s over, but, so far, I am not certain we can say that.”

Mason let his eyelids drift slowly closed. “Okay. And do we have any idea who else could possibly be involved?”

“I think we do,” Janelle stated, “but…”

Mason looked over at her and smiled. “Now’s not the time to be shy. If you have any suspicions, then you need to bring it up. Nobody here will judge you if you’re wrong.”

She hesitated, looking over at Guilliam.

He took her hand in his. “You were worried, and we ran over here. You had Evan heading here too. So you had a sense that something was off, that something was still wrong. So never hesitate to speak up to save one of us. Instincts are a huge part of the work we all do, and those instincts frequently make no sense at all, but we’ve been saved by them too. So we all get it. Therefore, if you feel a piece of this is unresolved, let’s hear it.”

She nodded, then began, “All I can tell you is that our arsonist, Steve, looked very familiar to me. I think he looks like somebody on the hospital staff.”

They all just stared. “You think he’s related to a hospital staff member?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

“And you’re thinking that, because of that relationship, Mason’s still in danger?” Tesla asked, now right at her friend’s side.

Janelle turned to her friend and nodded. “Sorry.… I wish I didn’t feel that way, but I do. That’s why I made Evan come straight here.”

Evan nodded. “If you’re right,” he replied, deep in thought, “that would make sense.” He looked over at Jasper. “We have Steve’s last name. Let’s run him against the hospital staff list and see if we get any hits. That’s an easy-enough check.”

Janelle sighed. “I will feel like an absolute idiot if I’m wrong.”

“Her last name may not be a match due to marriage or the paternal line versus the maternal line. All that doesn’t matter,” Guilliam stated. “Half of our business and our process is sorting through information, deciding what we keep, what we get rid of, what fits, and what doesn’t,” he shared, calming her down. “You’ve given us that tidbit. Now just leave it with us. We’ll see if we can find anything else.”

Tesla looked over at her and smiled. “At least you thought of it.” She patted her hand. “You can bet that, from now on, I’ll be extremely wary of all the hospital personnel.”

“Ha. You’ve been extremely wary right from the beginning.”

“Of course,” she admitted, not looking away. “When you have something so precious, you don’t let anybody take it away from you, not without a fight.” Tesla’s gaze went from Janelle to Guilliam and back.

Janelle nodded. “I agree, and I’m not letting him go anytime soon.”

“Not ever,” Guilliam countered, looking at her. “Please tell me not ever .”

She laughed. “Not ever,” she declared.

Tesla smiled. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.” She took another glance at the monitors reading Mason’s vitals. “Guys, he is definitely tiring, so it’s probably best if you step back out of the room. The nurses will be coming in soon, and, once they see he’s awake, the doctors are sure to be ordering all kinds of tests.”

Mason groaned. “All kinds of torture, more like it. Nothing quite like being in a hospital.”

Evan smiled cheerfully. “Which also means there’s nothing quite like getting your ass better, so you can get out of here. And soon too.”

Mason smiled up at him. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will,” Evan noted. “Now we will go off and check out some things. We have two guards outside your door and another pair nearby. So, Mason, you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Got it,” he replied, as his eyes drifted closed.

Evan added, “Plus, Janelle and Guilliam, you two need to stick close by and watch every hospital employee who enters this room.”

Everyone knew what they had to do and shared a nod with each other, then another for Tesla.

She watched everybody leave. Then she got up and closed the door behind them, checking to make sure the guards were there as she did so. She sat down at Mason’s side.

“I’m right here.”