Page 25 of Sawyer (The Maddox BRAVO Team #1)

Sawyer

Hospitals are built from two materials: antiseptic and time.

The antiseptic burns your nose; the time gets under your nails.

I take up my station on a plastic chair outside Cam’s room and count the flicker in the fluorescents until I know exactly when the ballast in the fourth light down the hall is going to stutter.

It’s every forty-seven seconds. The pulse lines up with the steady ping of a telemetry monitor two rooms over and the intermittent squeak of a med cart with a bad wheel.

It shouldn’t help. It does. Patterns mean I’m not thinking about the way she said go without saying away , the way her mouth trembled when I told her what her father did, the way I couldn’t bring myself to reach for her when everything in me wanted to.

I’m close enough to the door that if she called my name I’d hear it through a blanket. Far enough that I’m not breaking the last instruction she gave me. That’s the line I’m walking now: the width of a hallway, the height of a vow.

Riggs texts a photo of a whiteboard in our mobile command app—the case board reproduced in markers.

At the center: VALE in red underlined twice.

Radiating spokes: Kestrel Risk (subhead: “front office, Magnolia Ridge P.O. box”), Alder Street Holdings (“shell/ACH funnel”), Red Trace (“South SP units 312/314”), Rourke (“ex-mil, blacklisted, current location unknown”), Perps #1/#2 (“lawyered, giving us crumbs”), Gregory (“cooperating; secured”).

In the corner Rae added a doodle of a little triangle sticker peeling off a van. The caption says: peels like a scab .

I send back: Good. Keep pushing Alder—follow every wire. Then I pocket the phone when a nurse rounds the corner with Cam’s chart. She’s seen me enough times today to stop jumping when she notices the large man with the permanent scowl and the neck mic.

“She’s resting,” she says softly. “Vitals are good. She asked for water. We’re keeping it sips for now.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m five feet away if she needs anything.”

The nurse studies me. The look isn’t romantic or suspicious. It’s the look of someone who’s moved a thousand families through this hallway and can tell when a man’s chain of custody on his own heart is precarious. “We’ll keep the press off this floor,” she says. “Security briefed us.”

“Appreciate it,” I tell her. I mean it.

My satphone buzzes in my pocket. Dean.

“Status?” he asks with no preamble.

“Cam’s cleared medically but they’re holding her for observation.

Her statement will wait until she can breathe without tasting duct tape.

Perps one and two are in a fifth-floor interview at SPPD, lawyers present.

Hartley’s walking them through a plea ladder.

Gregory confessed the controlled-crisis scheme, named Vale and Kestrel, handed over a file thick enough to choke a wood chipper.

We found the Riverfront unit, got Cam back.

Rourke is still dirt we haven’t shaken out of the rug. ”

“I’ve got a fed at Main Justice who owes me,” Dean says.

“SEC, FBI, and USAO are salivating over the market manipulation angle. They’ll squeeze Vale on wire fraud and conspiracy to commit kidnapping even if he never touched a van.

We’re pushing ex parte warrants for Kestrel’s accounts and a Title III on Vale’s current phones. ”

“Timeline?”

“Judge is in chambers now,” Dean says. I can hear boots on concrete behind him—he’s moving. “Ninety minutes for paper we can use. Until then, sit on him without spooking. He’s at a mid-day at his VC pal’s office in SoMa. Orange Team has eyes on the lobby.”

“Rourke?”

“Whispers he was seen around a body shop in Lighthouse Point that doubles as a toy box for mercs. Name’s Hatch Auto watch for flight to no-extradition.

Kestrel Risk — Magnolia Ridge P.O. Box + call center. Subpoena client list; seize CRM; flip low-level staff; show them kidnapping enhancement sentencing guidelines.

Rourke / “Bane” — Hatch Auto & Marine + Fox Hollow co-working. Canvas camera rings. Make it too hot to move. Box him. Choose the arrest space to protect collateral (no civilians, clear backstop).

Inside assist — text spoof + contact knowledge. Gregory’s assistant? PR firm? Caterer assignment editor? Cross-ref who had Cam’s inner circle numbers.

Cam — privacy protocol. Alias on chart. Two Orange at both ends of corridor. Decoy discharge route if press gets frisky.