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“Or a conspiracy,” Jude quietly said.
Kate and Nikki’s gazes flashed to him.
Folding his arms over his chest, Jude further pontificated, “I’m not a fan of these types of theories—I prefer fact-based evidence. But this is a private hospital.”
“There are still regulations to follow,” Nikki insisted.
“Sure. Any sort of ‘donation,’ however, can make it easier for those outside the hospital’s network to come and go without official documentation.”
“It’s awfully suspicious Nico had no visitors other than a few clients,” Kate added. “Plus, he was only vaguely responsive since the explosion and then suddenly became a missing patient that no one claims is actually missing.”
“No room reassignment, no generated or signed discharge papers, no…nothing.” Nikki raised her hands in the air. “As though he suddenly ceased to exist. As if he were a complete figment of my imagination.”
“Except that we saw him, too,” Kate pointed out.
Nikki nodded. Then cast an imploring look at Jude. “Can you find him? Figure out who the hell he is and where the hell he went?”
There was a distinct twisting low in her belly. Nikki clearly felt an attachment to Nico Valdiviesio, no matter how brief, light, tenuous, whatever. And chances were, she now experienced that similar sense of unexplainable loss as when Conner’s chopper had gone down and there’d been nothing left but ashes following the blaze in a canyon no one could get to in order to rescue him. There’d been nothing to hold after the fact, nothing to solidify or prove he was gone—that he was truly dead.
Kate handed over Sophie to Jude and then crossed to where Nikki stood. She took both of Nikki’s hands in hers and said, “We’ll figure out what happened to him. We’ll find him.”
“Fuck, yeah, we’ll find him,” Nikki averred. “I can’t believe he just got up and walked away. If he was rolled out of here—in a bed or in a wheelchair—someone saw something. And I’m going to find that person.”
Kate glanced at Jude over her shoulder. He gave a brief nod.
Kate returned her attention to Nikki and said, “We’ll help.”
Kate and Nikki spent time with Sophie in the dorm room while Jude made the rounds in the hospital, trying to track down anyone Nico had saved or one of his clients who might be visiting someone from the apartment complex who’d been injured and was laid up. Kate knew he also discreetly quizzed staff to see if he could discern anything Nikki hadn’t been able to with her own inquisition.
Admittedly, Kate’s nerves were a bit jangled. Not only over Sophie’s distress from Kate and Jude’s absence, but also from the intensity exuding from Nikki, along with the probability that Nikki additionally suffered some form of guilt over being so concerned for another man. Like it was a betrayal to Conner’s memory.
Kate would help her dissect that later. When Nikki was calmer.
In the meantime, Kate couldn’t help but mentally grind over whether Nico had anything to do with the explosions—and that was how he’d slipped out of the hospital, away from the public eye—and the press. With help from his network?
His terrorist ne
twork?
Kate groaned inwardly. Her imagination was running away from her because things like this just didn’t happen in everyday life and it was all so surreal.
Perhaps that was also why Nikki was so frantic; maybe her thoughts were reluctantly turning in that direction, too.
Of course, during their training, they’d all been warned of being caught in the crossfire of potential terrorist plots. That made Kate rationalize that she couldn’t discount any possibility where Nico Valdiviesio was concerned.
“This is just so bizarre,” Nikki said as she turned from the window she’d been staring out—and her gaze landed on Kate’s left hand, covering her throat as she contemplated various degrees of what ifs?
“Um, excuse me.” Nikki took several strides toward Kate and grasped her hand. “That’s the ginormous rock Jude selected for your finger? Your very important finger?”
Kate let out an uneasy laugh. Nikki knew they were engaged in theory. And Kate had sent a photo of the ring when she and Jude were on the plane back to the States. But she hadn’t gone so far as to tell Nikki they’d actually held their own, private ceremony while in New York. It would be nowhere near as simple to tell her best friend about her secret marriage as it’d been telling her new sister-in-law.
“Holy Christ, Kate,” Nikki further said, her voice dropping so as to not disturb Sophie. “Could Jude have picked a larger or more gorgeous diamond? It’s stunning! Even more so in person.”
“Thanks,” Kate beamed. “And for the record… I selected it.”
“When have you two had time to get officially engaged, let alone pick out a ring?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly planned… It just sort of happened. On our way to Manhattan. Over champagne and Bloody Mary’s. And, uh…” She gave a nonchalant shrug. “I proposed to him.”
