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“Walk me through everything that happened after you reached stateside,” Axel said, leaning back and crossing his arms.
“I debriefed”—he figured that was already known, given that Axel would have all the paperwork—“grabbed a bite to eat at a MacDonald’s, went home, took a shower, and went to sleep. Slept a full twenty-four. Then I worked on my gear, took a run in the dark, came home, went back to sleep.” The simple statements were punctuated by pauses to catch his breath.
“Anything happen at the MacDonald’s? Or during your run? Who did you talk to?”
“No, no, and no one, other than the cashier who handed my order out the drive-through window.”
“Did you recognize the cashier?”
“No. It was some kid.”
“Did you see anything inside the restaurant?”
“No.” He was sure of that because he remembered being a little uneasy by his restricted line of sight. After a mission, it always took a while to decompress and ease out of combat mode.
“Then what?”
Morgan blew out a breath, tried to whip up his rapidly flagging energy—not that he’d had much to begin with. He was so weak he didn’t recognize his own body, which made him feel even more disconnected than maybe was accounted for by the drugs. “When I woke up, I wanted to go fishing. I called Kodak but he was otherwise occupied, so I went alone.”
Axel nodded. Morgan figured he already knew that, just as he’d known about the debriefing. “Did you talk to anyone?”
“Congresswoman Kingsley and her husband. They were on the river.”
“Anyone with them?”
“No, they were by themselves.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not to talk to.” A memory niggled at him. “Brawley—the marina manager—said hello.”
Axel was a master at reading nuances of expression. “And . . . ?”
Until he heard the “and,” Morgan hadn’t been aware there was an “and.” He took a deep breath, cut it short when the pain in his chest cut into him. “Could be coincidence, but he made a call after talking to me.”
“How soon after?”
“Immediately.”
“Cell phone?” If Brawley had used a cell, Axel could use the time and the cell towers to get a bead on the possible call recipients.
“No.” Very clearly, Morgan saw in his mind the old-fashioned corded phone Brawley had used. “Corded land line.”
“Shit.” Frustration was clear in the word. Getting the info wasn’t impossible, but it would require a warrant. Technology would let them bypass that little detail if the call had been made on a cell.
But, regardless of the phone call, Morgan couldn’t think of any way Brawley would know where he lived or, more importantly, why he would need to set up a hit.
The effort to sit up and answer questions was wearing on him hard. He didn’t have much more juice left in him. “No reason,” he muttered, letting his head drop back. His eyes closed automatically, and he fought them open again.
“What?” Axel demanded.
Morgan focused, laboriously reconstructed his thoughts. “No reason for Brawley,” he finally said, or thought he said. Maybe his mouth wasn’t working. His eyes closed again. But he didn’t care because darkness was rising up and swallowing him whole, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
THE NEXT TIME he saw Axel, Morgan was actually sitting up under his own power. It was almost three weeks since he’d been shot; he knew because he’d asked. Sitting up wasn’t all he could do. Twice a day for the last couple of days he’d taken a few steps across the small room, bracketed on each side by nurses so he didn’t face-plant. He was eating halfway-solid food now, and he’d never before in his life been so grateful for mashed potatoes, or oatmeal. He didn’t even like oatmeal. Tomorrow, they’d told him, he could have eggs. He’d requested steak with those eggs, and they’d laughed at him. Hands down they were the meanest nurses he’d ever been around.
Even more disturbing, he was beginning to love them.
He didn’t know how long it had been since Axel had been there, but he figured it was about a week. The only surprising thing was that Axel hadn’t been there every day to badger more details out of him.
