Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

notable absence of the lethargic baby and the blood-cougher. I considered that a small victory.
    We took an elevator to Clement’s floor and asked directions twice before finding the right corridor. A guard was outside his room, sitting in a chair between a food cart and an empty I.V. pole. He stood when he saw us.
    “My name’s Emily Locke,” I said, “Could I see Agent Clement?”
    “You a relative?”
    I shook my head. “I have information about the case he was working on when he got shot.”
    “I’d ask him for ya, miss,” the guard said, “but the nurse said he’s sleeping.”
    “It’s important. Could you please check again? Maybe he woke up.”
    A middle-aged nurse stopped to join our little hallway group. Her taut lips and darting eyes gave the impression she was more interested in meddling than helping.
    “Sorry, miss,” the guard said. “Nature of the job. Can’t leave my post.”
    “Is there a problem?” the nurse asked.
    I glanced at nicotine-deprived Jeannie, chewing gum at an inhuman rate, and tried to answer before she went toe-to-toe with the nurse on my behalf.
    Richard spoke first. “Could you please see if Mr. Clement will accept a visitor?”
    She held his gaze a moment, as if establishing her superiority. “Mr. Clement’s resting. You can try back later.”
    Beside me, Jeannie collapsed inexplicably onto the food cart, sending dirty plates, silverware, and cups clanging to the floor. The guard stepped back into the I.V. pole and it hit the wall. A plastic cup bounced several times before rolling to a stop at my feet.
    Jeannie stooped to gather forks and plastic cups from the linoleum floor. Dried kernels of leftover corn and the crusts of a few sandwiches lay scattered at our feet.
    The nurse watched Jeannie toss a handful of silverware onto the cart, and then shifted her annoyed gaze to Richard and me.
    “Maybe you should check again,” Richard said.
    ***
    When the guard began to scan me with his hand-held metal detector, I passed my bag to Jeannie. There was no point slowing my admittance to Clement’s room by answering questions about the money. Richard and Jeannie would wait in the E.R. and ring his room if my name were ever called, assuming it hadn’t been lost in the system or I didn’t bleed out in the interval.
    Any mental fog Clement might have experienced following his rude awakening disappeared when he saw me. He pressed a button on the controller to his bed and raised the head until he was almost sitting. An I.V. was taped to his wrist, and a bedside computer monitor displayed a real-time trace of his heart rhythm. I couldn’t see any bandages. Whatever damage had been done was hidden under the bland pattern of his hospital gown.
    His face was sallow, but I was struck more by its youth than its color. For the first time, I looked at Clement and saw him for what he was: a young professional, in his late-twenties at most. His dark eyes, that once seemed so shifty, were attentive and eager, despite their fatigue.
    He listened with interest as I explained what brought me to Houston.
    “I certainly had my eye on you,” he said. Even his voice seemed tired. “There’s no employment file for you at NASA.” He gave a disapproving look and added, “But you already know that.”
    “You had me checked out?”
    “Had to. You showed up at the drop zone on the heels of a kidnapping, then spent a lot of time in the company of my prime suspect.”
    I imagined my name scribbled in the margins of Clement’s field notes. A mental image of a thick file with notes about his “prime suspect” followed.
    “What’s Vince’s part in this?”
    Clement hesitated. “Officially, we can only talk about
your
part in this. But, off the record, near as I can tell, your friend’s involvement stops at mistaken identity. We’ve been chasing this ring for years. Had a lead in Texas, a pilot named Townsend. FAA records showed only one, Vincent, which is the reason I went undercover at his drop zone. His cousin Trish had become Dalton by the time she got her pilot’s license, so our FAA search on her maiden name never hit on her. Seems our informant had old intel.” He shrugged. “We caught a break. They fly for the same place. In that respect, Vince led us to the pilot we really wanted.”
    I let it sink in. Relinquishing my doubts about Vince felt wonderful until I realized what a jerk he must have thought I was.
    Clement lifted a glass of water from his bedside table and