Page 100 of The Pleasure of Panic

“She stepped out for lunch, but she should be back soon. Would you like to try to use the bathroom?”

I would, so I do. She helps me and then turns her back while I pee with the door open because I might fall over and knock myself out on the sink.

After that I shuffle myself and the IV pole the ten steps back to the bed and decide… I’m not really in the mood to go that extra mile today. But I do need to know what the fuck is happening.

“What happened to me?” I ask.

“You were shot in the chest. Bullet passed right through your upper right quadrant, luckily. There was a lot of blood loss, but the internal damage, while bad, could’ve been a lot worse. You got really, really lucky, Miss Grey.”

I sigh and sink back into the pillows, wincing at the pain leaking past the drugs. “Do I still have a phone?”

“Sorry,” she says. “Everything you came in with has already been confiscated as evidence. The FBI is still here. They’ve been waiting for you to be well enough to talk to them.” She eyes me for a moment. “Do you want to talk to them?”

“Do I have a choice?” I ask.

“I can probably buy you another few hours, but after the shift change everyone will know you’re awake and they have a court order, so…” She shrugs.

I don’t like the sound of this. But I’ve spent a lot of years hiding from my past and all I want now is the truth. No matter what it is.

So I say, “Yes. Send them in.”

There’s more to Finn Murphy than he let on. That second phone just confirms the nagging thought in the back of my head the whole time we were together.

The throes of chaos might bring two people closer—the pleasure of panic is real when you’re forced to live through something life-altering with a stranger.

But that doesn’t mean you know each other.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - FINN

“She’s awake,” the man says as I walk into the small room deep underground at FBI headquarters in DC. He’s sitting casually at the solitary table, one foot propped up on one knee, staring at a tablet.

I’m wearing black scrubs, handcuffs, slip-on shoes, and shackles. Before I have a chance to ask anything in return, the man points to the guard—who is built like a tank and towers over my six-foot-three frame by what feels like miles—and says, “Take those off.”

The guard complies and I rub my wrists as he deals with the shackles.

“Issy?” I say.

“Take a seat, Murphy.” The man eyes me as he points to the only other chair in the room. I know he’s FBI, not a lawyer, because he just looks FBI. Dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, dark shoes. He’s maybe a little older than me. Dark hair, eye color indistinguishable from this distance, nice haircut if you like the messy look, and stubble casting a shadow across his jawline.

I walk forward and take a seat. “You said she’s awake. Does that mean she’s out of danger now?” They’ve given me few updates since I was taken into custody back in Colorado. Issy was put into an ambulance, then Life Flighted down to Denver, and I was put into an unmarked federal car and driven to a private airstrip.

I haven’t seen her since. And the last thing I heard she was out of surgery, but that was days ago now.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asks.

“No,” I say. “No fuckin’ clue.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Here, as in in custody?” I snort. “Well, I can take a good guess.”

“Take a guess,” the guy says.

I draw in a deep breath, searching for the words, then let it out and begin. “I shot and killed someone out in Colorado. An exonerated felon who, it turns out, shouldn’t have been exonerated.”

“Close,” the guy says.

He looks familiar but I have no idea why. My head is a cloud of confusion right now. I keep replaying that moment back in my head. When she was shot. The look on her face. The blood, the ambulance… Issy says you don’t get a rewind, but that’s only in real life. Your brain does rewinds quite well, it turns out. “Why don’t you tell me which part I got wrong? And while you’re at it, how about a name?”