The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,58
unconscious when she’d left his sight.
“Ma’am! My hands are not the issue here. Where is Jade Wyrick?”
The clerk blinked, then typed in the name and waited for the info to appear on her monitor.
“She’s in exam room six, but—”
“Lady! She was abducted less than an hour ago, and I just tore up a wall to get to her. Don’t make me tear up another one to find her again.”
“Through those doors, straight down and on your left,” she said. “And get someone to look at your hands.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Charlie said, then headed for the doors at a lope, pushed them open with his shoulder and kept moving. He just needed to see her face. Then he heard her before he saw her and sighed. She was conscious enough to argue. He’d never been so happy to hear the sarcasm in her tone.
* * *
Wyrick couldn’t stay conscious, but when she was, she knew she was as vulnerable as she could possibly be, and that wasn’t good. Someone had cut the clothes from her body. She felt the air on her bare skin, and she heard someone talking about her dragon.
The dragon was hers. She was the one who chose when to reveal her, and when to keep her hidden. Some people were afraid of dragons. And people who were afraid of dragons always tried to kill them. Someone was trying to kill her dragon, but she couldn’t remember who.
When she finally came to enough to open her eyes and saw where she was at, and what they’d done to her, she was livid and locked gazes with the man leaning over her.
“Well, hello, Jade. I’m Doctor Julian. You’re in an emergency room. Do you remember what happened?”
Julian was waiting for a response when he realized he was looking into the angriest, darkest eyes he’d ever seen, and the tone of her voice confirmed it.
“Where are my clothes?”
“I’m sorry, but we had to cut them off you to examine—”
The sarcasm in her voice was impossible to miss.
“It had a zipper.”
He grinned. “Yeah, ma’am, but since there was blood all over you, haste seemed to be the obvious solution.”
Wyrick’s heart skipped a beat. “I have a headache, but I don’t have any other pain. Where am I bleeding?”
“You’re okay. It wasn’t yours. Now, can you—”
It wasn’t mine?
The last thing she remembered was Charlie’s voice.
“Where’s Charlie? I need to see Charlie! Was he hurt?” she yelled and reached for the IV, trying to pull it out of her arm, and trying to sit up.
One nurse grabbed her hand, while another was trying to keep her in bed.
“Jade! Lie down. You’re going to hurt yourself! You tell me who Charlie is and I’ll see if I can find out where he is,” she said.
“If I came in bloody and it wasn’t my blood, then somebody better tell me where the hell Charlie is or—”
“I’m here. Calm down, Wyrick. There are sick people here,” Charlie said.
Wyrick took one look at him and burst into tears.
“What happened to you?” she cried.
Now everyone was looking, and they were beginning to make the connection between the two. Her Charlie was Charlie Dodge. And this wasn’t some patient named Jade. This was Wyrick. Charlie Dodge’s Wyrick.
Doctor Julian looked at Charlie’s hands and then pointed to a stool beside Wyrick’s bed.
“Why don’t you sit down there beside her and we’ll all calm down. She doesn’t seem to remember what happened. Maybe you can enlighten us so we can treat her accordingly.”
Charlie sat, then pulled the sheet up over the dragon. “Don’t cry. I’m okay. It’s just cuts and scratches.”
Tears were running down her face as she rolled over and grabbed his hands, turning them palms up.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I couldn’t find the door he took you through, so I made one.”
“You are a crazy man, Charlie Dodge. Thank you for saving my life,” she said.
“I had to. You’re the only one who knows the password to the computer in my office.”
She sighed. “I don’t know what happened. There was a pain in my neck and then everything went black. I remember your voice and then nothing again.”
Charlie glanced up at the doctor.
“That puncture wound in her neck. It’s from a needle. She was drugged. We’re working a missing person’s case, and I think the person we’re after was afraid we were getting too close. He wanted to eliminate his biggest threat, which would have been her.”
Doctor Julian eyed Charlie and smiled. “I would have assumed his biggest threat