Riptide

so
    many times now.
    Thank God the hospital administration had managed to keep
    the media away from this area. The doctors and nurses nodded to
    her. She walked into the huge room with its hissing machines, its
    ever-present mixture of smells that was overlaid with a sharp antiseptic
    odor that reminded her of the dentist's office, and the occasional
    groan from a patient.
    An FBI agent sat by her father's cubicle.
    "Hello, Agent Austin. Everything all right?"
    "No problem," he said and a grin kicked in that was positively evil.
    You'll like this. One enterprising reporter managed to get this far,
    and then I nabbed him. I decked him, stripped him naked, and the
    nurses and doctors tossed him in a laundry cart and wheeled him
    down to the emergency room, where they left him, his hands and feet
    tied with surgical tape, his mouth gagged. Ah, since then, no one else
    has tried it."
    "I just heard about that," she said, rolling her eyes. "One of the
    doctors told me he'd never before been surrounded with such

laughter in the emergency room. Well done, Agent. Remind me to
    stay on your good side."
    He was still chuckling when she eased around the light curtain
    surrounding her father's bed and sat down in the single chair. He
    was asleep, not unexpected, and it didn't matter. He was on powerful
    medications and even when he was awake, his mind couldn't
    focus. "Hello," she said, watching him breathe slowly, in and out
    through the oxygen tubes in his nostrils. "You're looking wonderful,
    very handsome. I might have to give your hair a trim though,
    maybe in a couple of days. Adam will be all right as well, but maybe
    he's not quite as good-looking as you are. He's sleeping right now.
    Oh yes, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that we're going to get
    married. But you won't be surprised, will you?" White bandages
    covered his chest. Tubes stuck out of him, and like Adam, he
    seemed to have a score of needles in his arms. He lay perfectly still,
    but he was breathing evenly, steady and deep.
    "Now, let me tell you again what happened. Mikhail shot you in
    the chest. You have a collapsed lung. They did what's called a thoacotomy.
    They cracked open your chest to stop the bleeding and
    put a chest tube in between your ribs. It's hooked up to suction.
    That thing's called a pleuravac and you'll hear bubbles in the background.
    Now, when you wake up the tube will hurt a bit. There
    are two IV's in place and you'll have this oxygen tube in your nose
    for a while longer. Other than that, you're just fine."
    He was breathing slowly, smoothly. The bubbles sounded in the
    background. "The house is gone and I'm very sorry about that,"
    she said. "They couldn't save anything. I'm sorry, Dad, but we're
    alive, and that's what's really important. I just realized that not
    everything is gone, though. After Mom died, I put all of her things
    in a storage facility in the Bronx. There are photos there, and a lot

of her things. Maybe there are even letters. I don't know, because I
    couldn't take the time to go through her papers. We'll have those.
    It's a start."
    Did his breathing quicken a bit?
    She wasn't sure.
    What was important was that he was alive. He would get well.
    She laid her cheek against his shoulder. She stayed there for a
    very long time, listening to the steady sound of his heart beating
    against her face.
    She got the call at the hospital at eight o'clock that evening.
    She'd just left her father and was going back downstairs to be with
    Adam when a nurse called out, "Ms. Matlock, telephone for you."
    She was surprised. It was the first call she'd gotten, or rather, it
    was the first call they had put through to her.
    It was Tyler and he was talking even before she could say hello.
    "You're all right. Thank God it's all over, Becca. Jesus, I've been
    frantic. They had footage of your father's burning house, for God's
    sake, with this huge safety net in the front yard. They said you'd
    nearly died, up there on that roof with that maniac, that you shot
    him finally. Are you truly all right?"
    "I'm fine, Tyler. Don't worry. I'm spending all my time at the
    hospital. Both my father and Adam Carruthers were shot, but they'll
    both survive. The media is outside, waiting, but it will be a long wait.
    Sherlock is bringing me clothes and stuff so I don't have to try to
    sneak out of here and take the chance the media might nab me.
    How's Sam doing?"
    There was a bit of silence, then, "He misses you dreadfully. He's
    really