The Hitman's Guide to Tying the Knot Without Getting Shot - Alice Winters Page 0,24
pictures. When you talk to her, show her the picture of the man and child and see if she recognizes either. I’m betting she doesn’t.”
“Okay. Of course. Yeah, send them over.”
“Thank you.”
“Please keep me up to date.”
My grip on my phone tightens. “I will. I just… I need this.”
“Okay.”
After I hang up, I text the picture of the man and child to Mason, and then Tucker, in case he can find anything.
“Leland, when you find something, you’re going to hand it over to the police,” Henry says. “Okay?” He’s watching me closely, hoping for an answer I’m not sure I can give him.
I nod even though I know I can’t promise him anything. I know he just wants me to be good and do what is best, but sometimes, I’m not even sure what that is. “Of course.”
“You promise me?”
That’s when the door opens, saving me from making a promise I don’t intend to keep, and the nurse peeks into the waiting room that is empty but for us. My stomach seizes when I see her. It’s like without her ever returning I can pretend everything will be fine whether it is or not.
She gives us a small smile. “Mr. Stein is out of surgery. He’s still not fully stable, but he’s doing well. The doctor will be by shortly to talk to you.”
He lived through surgery. He’s still alive. He has to be okay.
Please let him be okay.
“Thank you,” Lewis says.
We anxiously wait for what feels like an hour but the clock says it’s only been fifteen minutes before the doctor calls back only family members into a room, leaving Henry behind. He talks to us about how critical the situation is and I can’t even focus. It just sounds like bad thing after bad thing and I wanted to walk in and have him tell us he’ll be fine, that he’ll wake up and we were foolish for worrying. I didn’t want to hear about the negatives, and they’re all I can focus on.
“Can we see him?” I ask.
“Not yet, but someone will be out to get you the moment you can,” the doctor says. “Any other questions?”
None of us really know what to say, so he leaves us there in the room where the heaviness of the situation seems to be crushing me.
“I’m… going to go… do something,” I say, which sounds like the biggest lie known to mankind. It’s clear that “something” isn’t what I should be doing. “If he wakes up while I’m gone… please tell him I love him.”
“Where are you going?” Ava asks.
“I’m going to go find the man who shot him, and I’m going to kill him,” I say, deciding that maybe lying isn’t best.
She barely seems surprised. “You should stay here. Henry said the police would handle it.”
I stare at her and the look on my face must tell her how determined I am. “Someone… someone has the balls to hurt the man I love, and I will destroy them. I will ruin them and then I will kill them and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop me,” I say, no longer even caring what they think of me or what I plan to do. “So please… watch him closely and keep me up to date. I have to do this so that when he wakes up, there’s no one out there planning to hurt him.”
I’m hurrying toward the door when I hear Ava say, “Leland.”
I glance back at her as she stands next to her husband and daughter. “You’re not keeping me from going. You don’t really even like me, remember?”
“I do like you. And you’d better not get hurt. Jackson would never forgive us if you did.”
“I won’t,” I say as I head out and rush past the waiting room before Henry notices I’m leaving and can catch me. He’ll try a whole lot harder to get me to stay. I think Jackson’s family still aren’t very sure about me and my unorthodox ways and don’t realize how honest I was truly being.
I rush out to the car and immediately head for the bank since cash is the only thing I need right now that I don’t already have.
As I’m withdrawing two thousand dollars, Mason calls me. “Hey, so I stopped and talked to the lady, and she said that her husband is David Parker and she has a daughter named Kaia but neither of them are the people in the picture. She’s never seen either