Keith nodded again and then winced. “Chief Powell and 911.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Shooting,” Keith explained. “Bang.” He paused. “I forgot to mention the snakes.”
“That’s okay.” She patted him on the shoulder. She guessed that for him, the visual distortion must have looked like squirmy bits of light and color, things his concussed brain could only process as snakes.
Gretchen hated snakes. Give her guys with guns any day.
“They’ll triangulate the cell phone location anyway,” Cooper said, and to Gretchen’s surprise, he had an appealingly roguish grin on his face. He must have been enjoying the adrenaline high. “He didn’t have to say much more than ‘bang’ to get people interested.”
“I’m definitely interested,” Gretchen said. She still had the gas pedal pressed all the way into the floor, but she could no longer see the car in her rearview mirror. All she could see were snowflakes. It almost looked peaceful.
Cooper followed her gaze. “I think they took the exit. The roads are so deserted right now that maybe someone will catch them, but—”
But they had a magical color-changing car, so Gretchen didn’t think it was too likely.
Whatever they’d encountered today, they’d never be able to explain to local law enforcement. She could bring in her team, who would believe her, but that was it.
They were on their own.
8
Gretchen couldn’t stop shaking.
“I’m freezing,” she said.
“It’s the aftermath of all the adrenaline,” Cooper said quietly. He stretched out his hands, showing her the way his own fingers were trembling. “I’ve got it too.”
His hands were still cuffed together. More and more, that fact appalled her.
The hospital had cleared out a break room for them to sit in while they waited for the update on Keith. The ER was overcrowded at the moment, and the most they’d been able to spare for him was a bed in an open hallway, which hadn’t left Gretchen and Cooper with much room to stand around.
The administration’s biggest concern had apparently then become getting Cooper out of sight: a tall, strong-looking federal prisoner in chains didn’t have a good effect on the patients’ blood pressure numbers. It was nice to have the privacy, but the lack of distractions left Gretchen with nothing to think about but the stressful, frightening carousel of worries currently turning around and around inside her head.
Cooper. Keith. The men who had shot at them. The unexplained magical powers of the men who had shot at them.
There was a knock at the door, and then Keith’s nurse entered to give them another update on Keith’s progress.
The nurse was a big, burly guy who looked like he could have played in the NFL and bent Gretchen’s gun into a pretzel with his bare hands, but even he hung back against the wall like he was afraid to come too close to them.
Prisoners had that effect on people. She’d noticed that before, of course, but she’d never felt it like this.
Now it was impossible for her to miss the way Cooper stiffened when the people around him suddenly started cutting him a wide berth. He didn’t like people being afraid of him, and, she realized, he did everything he could to avoid it. The second the nurse had come in, Cooper had slumped his shoulders, as if he could make himself smaller and less threatening, and he had turned his attention to the speckled linoleum of the floor.
Gretchen thought about how completely exhausting it must be to live every day knowing people were afraid of you.
And what it must be like to know those fears were unjustified—and that you could never explain that. That no one would ever believe you.
During Cooper’s trial, whatever expression he wore had been scrutinized and analyzed within an inch of its life. If he smiled, it was because he had no sympathy for the victims. If he looked sad, he was either marinating himself in self-pity or putting on an act that everyone resented. If he looked angry, he was a monster. If he looked serious or just plain blank, he was hiding something, and his lawyers had probably coached him.
From the moment of his arrest, he’d never been able to relax.
“—hold for further observation,” the nurse was saying.
She owed Keith’s status her full attention, dammit. With a surge of guilt, she refocused herself.
“I’m sorry. I’m still a little shaken up.” That was true, even if it wasn’t exactly accurate in terms of why she’d been distracted just then. “Would you mind repeating that?”