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I prompted. “Matt Pennington?”
She nodded. “While you were gone to see Meltdown, I did some searching. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“He’s DEA. Pennington is.” She laughed and winced. “I sound like Yoda. Pennington is deep cover. Nobody but the top echelon of the agency knows.”
I thought about Ed Cartwright.
She struggled to get the words out. “Pennington is close to the cartels and handles diamond shipments. But it’s a cover. He’s active DEA. You’re crying, Dave.”
I had been too transfixed by Lindsey awake and talking to feel the tears running down my cheeks.
“My mouth is so dry.”
“Let me get a nurse,” I said. “I love you more than anything. I promise once we get through this we’ll live a different life. We’ll read books.” I was babbling.
She tried to smile. “Love you, too, Dave. I’m sorry I ruined your dark blue blazer. I know you liked it.”
“Lindsey, don’t worry about…”
Suddenly her words caught up with me. She had already fallen unconscious Saturday night by the time I thought of using the blazer to staunch the bleeding. She was out. I could barely feel a pulse.
I must not have heard her right.
She tightened her grip on my hand.
“I saw you pull it off and roll me to the side…put it under me. I was floating. Sounds crazy, right? And I saw your parents…and Robin and my mother. Dave, I saw our daughter. It was so sweet and I knew things were going to be all right.” She talked faster and faster, then dropped to a whisper. “You think I’m…” She searched for the word. “…hallucinating. I’m not. It was real. But I had to come back to you.”
“Thank you.”
In the next seconds, nurses were hovering.
“We need to control her pain,” one said.
“Dave,” Lindsey stroked my hand. “Find Peralta.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
For the first time, she was able to look around and take in all the tubes, cables, and machines. That sweet, sardonic smile returned. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere. I’ll be here.…”
Then the pain med was flowing into the IV and she went back to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Sharon was waiting when I stepped outside. I told her about Lindsey and she hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“David, this is the best gift. It’s worth more than all the rough in the world.”
Her arms fell away and her face suddenly went slack. My black eye, which had been feeling much better, was the target of thousands of little arrows.
“What did you say?”
But I had heard her fine. A tight circle knew the diamond shipment was valuable, gem-quality rough. There were her husband, Horace Mann, and Strawberry Death. The Russians and Cartwright. Me. Sharon was not among them.
Sharon began crying. “Oh, David. I messed up so bad.”
“What the hell?”
