Page 18

For the third time, Hez read the opening paragraph of the paper he was grading—and he still didn’t understand it. Ordinarily, that meant a low grade, but today he wasn’t at all sure whether the problem was on the page in front of his eyes or with the brain behind them. He’d been up too long, had too much coffee, and had too many balls in the air. And if he was honest with himself, he was too old for this sort of thing. Thirty-seven felt a lot different than twenty-seven after pulling an all-nighter.

He leaned back and rubbed gritty eyes. His joints creaked, and he could feel a migraine knocking on the back door of his skull. Maybe Savannah was right that he needed to go home and take a nap.

Savannah. His mind went back to his visit to her office this morning. He hadn’t exactly been at his best. His old workaholism came back with a vengeance after his humiliation at last night’s roadblock. He hadn’t been able to think about anything except what had gone wrong. He’d needed to figure it out immediately. Sleep was out of the question, of course, so he had headed to TGU, started the coffee maker in the Justice Chamber, and begun hunting for the bug he was certain the smugglers had planted.

Seven hours and a pot and a half of coffee later, he was pacing in front of Savannah’s office. What did she see when she walked in? A man who had really changed? Or the guy whose obsessive streak helped ruin their marriage the first time? Why should she trust her heart to someone who turned into a brittle monomaniac the instant something went wrong?

He sighed and pushed himself out of his chair. Time to go home, take Cody for an easy jog along the beach, and get to bed early. Tomorrow he’d prioritize her, no matter how much he wanted to hunt clever smugglers. Maybe he could take Savannah out for a relaxed dinner, or maybe they could spend a day hiking this weekend. Maybe both.

His phone buzzed as he walked out of the building. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was local. He hesitated for a couple of rings. He wasn’t expecting a call, but maybe it was related to last night, and he could always hang up if it was a spammer. “Hello?”

“Professor Webster, it’s Toni.”

Her voice shook. “Someone broke into my car and stole my phone. Another law student had your number and let me call you on his phone.”

A jolt of adrenaline pierced his fog of fatigue. “You think this might be related to the Justice Chamber?”

“Maybe. I was at the gym. When I came out, my window was smashed. They didn’t take my wallet or laptop—just the phone.”

Hez’s tired brain whirred. “The smugglers knew about the roadblock. They might also know that our tip came through the Justice Chamber.”

“I tried calling Ed and Dominga. They didn’t answer, but there’s no reception at that old track where they run this time of day.”

“On my way there now.”

Hez ended the call and ran past Connor Hall, an old brick-and-limestone edifice that moldered among banks of azaleas and rhododendrons about two hundred yards from the law school.

He rounded the corner of the last building and took in the scene at the old track in an instant. Ed lay prone on the crumbling asphalt, pinned down by two big men in ski masks. Dominga shrank back against a tree, her eyes wide with terror as a third masked man yanked her purse off her shoulder.

Hez launched himself at one of the guys on top of Ed. The force of the impact knocked the guy off, and he and Hez wrestled on the asphalt.

Hez’s opponent was bigger and managed to force him onto his back. Thick fingers wrapped around Hez’s neck and started to squeeze. Black spots danced in his vision, and he knew he had only a few seconds of consciousness left. He flailed around for a weapon, and his hand closed on a rock. He smashed it on the guy’s head with all his strength. The grip loosened and Hez broke free. He staggered to his feet, looking around for another weapon.

“Look out!”

Dominga shouted.

Something crashed into the left side of Hez’s skull and blackness took him.

* * *

The loan consolidation was everything Jess had been working for, but Savannah fiddled with her pen as she read it in the afternoon sunshine streaming through her office window. “This legalese makes my head hurt. I’m forwarding it to Hez before I sign it.”

She clicked the forward button and sent it off. His teaching day would be mostly over, and he should get to it quickly.

Jess had one elegant leg crossed over the other, and her taupe heel swinging back and forth was a sure sign of her exasperation. “Savannah, this is a great deal.”

She leaned forward in her chair to touch a manicured nail to the interest rate percentage. “We should finalize it while we can. I worked hard on getting this put together. Not only does it consolidate all our debt where we can concentrate on paying it down, but it will save us money. With our precarious financial situation, we need every penny.”

Savannah wasn’t going to let herself be bullied. “Hez won’t take long to get back to me.”

Sirens screamed past outside, and she went to the window. Several police cars and an ambulance tore past her building and vanished toward the edge of campus.

Her door flew open and the old security guard, Oscar Pickwick, burst in. His cap was askew and his face pale. “The police just called! There was an attack at the old track—it’s Professor Webster! There’s an ambulance on the way.”

Professor Webster.

Savannah ran past Jess and dashed out the building. She raced toward the old track, and her labored lungs screamed for oxygen as she pushed herself to go faster.

A cluster of officers and bystanders thronged the edge of the cracked and weedy asphalt oval, and fear clutched her by the throat.

Augusta Richards grabbed her arm as Savannah forced herself through the crowd. Augusta, with her tall, lanky figure, exuded confidence in her role as a Pelican Harbor detective. Her brown eyes held sympathy. “You can’t go in there, Savannah. It’s a crime scene.”

Crime scene.

Savannah’s terror ramped up a hundredfold, and she shook off Augusta’s restraining grip. “Let me go—I have to see Hez.”

She reached the track. Dominga stood by a tree talking to a police officer. Savannah’s gaze skipped to Ed, who sat on the cracked asphalt. She could smell a coppery scent in the air. Blood trickled down his cheek, and an EMT was working on a cut on his head while another officer stood talking to him and jotting down notes.

Where was Hez? He had to be here. Then she spotted him on the grass beside the track. His breathing didn’t look right, and he was pale and sweaty. Paramedics positioned a gurney into place and began to lift him onto it.

“Hez!”

She started forward, and Augusta put a hand on her arm.

“The paramedics need to be able to help him,”

Augusta said.

The attendants got him situated on the gurney, and Savannah caught a glimpse of his open eyes. The blankness in his face sent ice down her spine. His pupils were enormous, and very little of the blue in his eyes could be seen. He grunted and his arms twitched, then his legs. He was having a seizure.

“Help him!”

Sobs shook Savannah. “I have to be with him.”

What if he died? What if the harshness between them this morning was their last spoken exchange?

Augusta tugged her back. “Stay calm. The paramedics know what they’re doing.”

The seizure ended, and the two paramedics rushed with the gurney toward the waiting ambulance. Savannah stood out of the way and touched his arm as they passed. “Is he going to be okay? I’m his wife. Can I ride to the hospital with him?”

The paramedic in front, a blonde woman in her twenties, gave Savannah a sharp glance before giving a reluctant nod. “You’ll have to stay out of our way.”

“I will.”

Savannah followed them to the ambulance and climbed into the back behind Hez and the paramedics. She tucked herself into a corner by the door where she could see his face. They secured him, and the driver headed toward the hospital with sirens blaring. The strident sound added to the nightmarish fog surrounding her. “He—he has a hematoma. Could it be bleeding again?”

Before the paramedics could respond, Hez stiffened and started grunting.

“He’s seizing again,”

the female paramedic announced. Another crew member nodded and helped her keep Hez secure.

Savannah wanted to cover her eyes and not watch him twitch and groan again, but if watching and praying for him while he went through it was the only way she could be with him, she’d do it. It seemed to go on forever, and by the time it was over, her jaw hurt from clenching. They reached the hospital, and she hopped down and went to stand out of the way while they got him out of the ambulance and into the ER.

“Wait here,”

the nurse told her. “We’re taking him straight in for a CT scan. I’ll come get you when he’s in a room.”

Savannah nodded and found a seat by the window. The receptionist handed her a form to fill out his medical history. Her eyes blurred as she answered the questions, and when she was finished, she couldn’t remember exactly what she put in the boxes. Hopefully it was accurate.

The time ticked by painfully slowly, and an hour after they took him back, the nurse finally came out. Savannah leaped to her feet to go with her, but she shook her head. “He’s in surgery, Mrs. Webster.”

Savannah’s stomach bottomed out. “Surgery?”

“He’s undergoing an emergency craniotomy to relieve the pressure on the brain. The doctor will speak to you when it’s over.”

“What’s happened?”

“The doctor will explain it all.”

“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

The nurse hesitated. “Dr. Moore is doing everything he can, and he’s an excellent surgeon so your husband is in good hands.”

Savannah recognized the woman’s cautious tone, and her vision blurred. Hez might die. Had he been shot? What had caused the seizures? The lack of information added to her fear. She got a cup of coffee from the coffee station, but it was so burnt that it was nearly undrinkable. She forced it down anyway to have something in her hands.

All she could do was pray and hope.