Page 18 of Risky Obsession

“Yeah. Like her,” Watts said. “Anyway, I gotta get some shut-eye. I’m going to be up to my elbows on the reports for this mess.”

“Sorry,” I said, hoping my eyes conveyed my genuine remorse.

Watts heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s not your fault. I’m serious about you being grounded. You better not take a step into the station until your bones are healed.”

“What?” I blurted. “But, sir, that could be weeks.”

“Exactly.” He nodded at Kingsley. “You have the lead on this mess. Keep me in the loop.”

Kingsley nodded. “I’ll have a report on your desk in the morning.”

Frowning, Watts shook his head. “When is it going to end?”

“It’s going to end when every one of those bastards is in jail or dead. I promise you that.” The conviction in Aria’s eyes was terrifying.

“Good.” As Watts strode away, he waved over his shoulder. “Catch you on the flip side.”

I expected Aria to follow him out. Instead, she stepped closer to the bed.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I asked Whisper. “It was in my bag.”

Whisper frowned. “The bag you had over your shoulder?”

I nodded.

“That must be still on the boat. I took it off you before I gave you CPR.”

“That’s good. I took photos and videos of the contents of that secret room. Hopefully, you can still salvage the images off my phone.”

“I’ll get Cobra onto it,” Aria said.

My shoulders sagged. “There was so much evidence down there. One of the boxes had Marc Kinkaid’s name on it.”

Kingsley clicked his fingers. “AKA Mason Kingsman, deputy prime minister. Right?”

“That’s right,” Aria said. “No surprise that Chui’s accountant was involved with him. There was probably evidence on my father down there, too.”

“I also found a gold bar with the lion emblem,” I said. “Damn it, that would have fallen into the ocean when I fell.”

“Ha!” Whisper’s eyes lit up. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find that then. The remains of that glass helipad are like a giant X marks the spot.”

“Do you think you can get it?” I asked her.

“Of course. I’ve been dying to see one of those gold bars in real life.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That may be the only proof we have left connecting Hughes to Chui.”

“That bar could have come from Chui or Frank,” Aria said, “or even those bastard mercenaries who stole the gold from that submarine that was found in the ice in Antarctica. So no, unfortunately, it’s not definitive evidence.”

I scowled. The web of crime around Grant Hughes was massive and itpissed me off even more that he got away. I turned to Kingsley. “Tyler, you have to let me in on this case.”

He flipped his notebook closed. “You heard the captain. You need to rest.”

“I can rest and still work. Come on, I need this.”

“It’s going to take us weeks just to sift through the rubble that’s left at the top of Amber Island. You’ll probably be back at work by then.”

“This was my hunch. I found it.” I moaned.