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Away in the distance, Amber could see the blue lights of the approaching cops. For now, none of that mattered. All that counted was that they had the killer. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
"I'm fine," Amber insisted as the doctor checked her out.
The woman made an irritated sound. “You are anything but fine, Agent Young. You’ve suffered significant bruising to your throat and muscular damage around your neck. You’ll probably need some degree of physical therapy if you want to avoid an injury that will linger for months or years.”
“But Iwillheal up?” Amber asked. She was eager to get out of the hospital. She seemed to spend far too much time in them these days.
“If you take things easy and you follow medical advice, then everything should be fine,” the doctor said.
Amber hoped that she would get a chance. The way her job had been going recently, it had seemed sometimes like there was barely a chance for Amber to catch her breath.
“All right,” the doctor said. “Your partner is waiting outside. I’ll go and get the papers to release you.”
“Thank you,” Amber said. She was eager to leave, to get home.
For now, though, Simon was there, walking into the hospital room, looking disheveled after the fight with Dr. McCloud but still as good as ever. What was it about him that drew Amber's eye whenever he walked into a room? It wasn't just that he was handsome because Amber wasn't so shallow as to be drawn to simply a pretty face.
Some of it was that Amber knew how brave he could be, how strong, and how willing to risk himself to protect her. Some of it was that he was smart and tough and that he'd helped her to take down some of the worst killers out there. Some of it was what he'd done on the bridge, throwing himself into harm's way, literally leaping down from the bridge to pull away a man who would have killed her otherwise.
“Thank you,” Amber said. “For the bridge.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Amber,” Simon said. “I’m your partner. I’m meant to look out for you. I know you’d do the same for me.”
Amber would, but so often, it seemed to be Simon saving her rather than the other way around. She didn't want to think about what would have happened if Simon hadn't been there. Dr. McCloud had her, could have strangled her easily if Simon hadn't intervened.
“You scared me, going off alone like that,” Simon said. “Putting yourself in danger like that.”
"It's a part of the job," Amber said. She didn't want to have the same argument with Simon that she seemed to have so often with Joseph about how much danger she was putting herself in for the sake of her work when she could be at home working on puzzles instead.
“I know that, Amber,” Simon said. He reached out, his hand touching Amber’s arm. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take risks. Just let me be there to back you up when you do, okay?”
That was very different to the kind of thing that Joseph would have said. For a moment or two, Amber was all too aware of the pressure of Simon’s hand on her arm. There was something almost electric about that touch, something that drew her to him and made her want to move closer.
For a second, Amber actually did start to lean closer to him, drawn in almost magnetically, unable to stop herself. She thought shethoughtthat she saw Simon inch towards her too, and Amber anticipated the moment when the two of them would close that gap between them and…
…and what? Kiss? Amber jerked back at the thought, and it seemed as if Simon did, almost in the same instant. Simon was seeing Detective Angelique, while Amber had a boyfriend. She was with Joseph, and he… he was in the hospital because of Amber. He’d been hurt because of her, yet here she was, so far from DC, very nearly kissing someone else.
Amber cast around for anything that would let her change the mood. There was one thing that she realized she wanted to know. One thing that didn’t quite make sense.
"How did you know that I would be on the sixth bridge when McCloud struck?" Amber asked. "You must have been up there on the bridge waiting because there's no way you could have gotten into that spot without him seeing you coming."
“I climbed up after I left the boat,” Simon said. “I just wish I’d spottedhimclimbing into place. I could have stopped all of this before he had a chance to strangle you.”
“You were in plenty of time,” Amber said. “What I don’t get is why you chose there. The plan was that I’d take the boat and cross the last bridge, try to lure him in by solving his puzzle.”
Simon shrugged then. “I know you, Amber. As I was moving the boat into position, I realized that there was a chance he’d run if you cheated your way to a solution like that. I knew thatyouwould realize the same thing.”
"Not cheating," Amber said. "He just didn't define his terms well enough. Didn't you think that I'd want to complete the problem? I'm a puzzler, after all."
“You’re an FBI agent first,” Simon said. “I guessed that you’d realize the priority was to draw in the suspect, and that meant going back over the bridge.”
Had he backed her to be an agent rather than a puzzler? Amber didn't know whether to be surprised or grateful for that. She was just glad that she had a partner who was prepared to back her up in something like that and who knew her well enough to guess exactly what she would do in a life-or-death situation.
The doctor came back, looking relieved that she would be able to get Amber out of her hair.
“All right, the paperwork is complete. I’ll need a couple of signatures, and then you can go.”
