“Call the detective,” Bullard said and gave him the name and number of the guy they had just left. “He’ll want to hear from you,” he said. “We’re heading back to the hotel.”
“Good enough,” Kano said. “Watch yourselves.”
“Oh, we’re watching,” he said. “This guy may have run out of people hired to do the job, which should push him into trying himself, and he doesn’t have the skills of his paid assassins.”
At that, she interrupted him, leaning forward and saying, “Of course he does. It’s just that his weapon of choice is a scalpel.”
“Right,” Bullard said, as he hung up the phone. As soon as Fallon pulled up in front of the hotel, Bullard hopped out and reached to help her down and said, “We’re going straight upstairs.”
“Fine,” she said, brushing ahead of him. “But when this is over, you owe me a holiday.” He laughed with great joy, tucked her hand into his elbow, and asked, “Where would you like to go?”
“I think Africa,” she said. “And if you don’t have a place as nice as mine, we’re going back to the island.”
“Hey, anything you want to change, you can change,” he said, “but, before you make any decisions, give it a chance to work its way into your heart.”
“Is it that good?”
“Definitely,” he said. “I have some photos I can show you when we get upstairs.”
She sighed. “You know what? Really, if you’ll be there …”
“Ditto, sweetie,” he said, with a smile.
She groaned. “That doesn’t mean I’ll be a surgeon again.”
“Nope. It sure doesn’t,” he said. “I handle most of the surgeries myself anyway.”
“Ah,” she said, “so you don’t want the competition.”
He burst out laughing at that. “I don’t know if you’ll allow the competition,” he said. “My training was a lot rougher than yours, but I’ve been helping people in my community for a long time. Medical care is too expensive and too far away for most people.”
“You do surgery for free?”
“For free? Hell no. For chicken or for squash. It depends on what they can pay.”
She burst out laughing at that, and then she saw he was serious. “You mean it, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said. “I’ve often thought about expanding it a lot more but haven’t really had the time or the opportunity, but I run clinics on a regular basis.”
“Interesting,” she murmured.
“I’ve been trying to get Dave’s niece, Lindsey, to come on board too,” he said. “Apparently some think maybe she will, now that she and Fallon are an item.”
“Then you don’t need me,” she said. “Isn’t she a surgeon?”
“Yeah, but I’m not exactly sure what specialty she ended up going into,” he admitted. “Besides, the last few months have changed a few things for a lot of us.”
By now they were in the elevator, heading up to their set of rooms. As they walked down the hallway, he checked the door, then unlocked it and let her in.
“What were you checking for?” she asked curiously, as she stepped into the room.
“To see if anybody disturbed it.”
“Well, housekeeping should have been in by now, shouldn’t they?”
“No, I haven’t let them service the rooms yet,” he said, “but the door wasn’t disturbed anyway.”
“But there are connecting doors,” she said, with a laugh. “How can you be sure he didn’t go in that side?”
He looked at her and walked toward the connecting door between the two rooms and checked. “Well, nobody’s come through yet,” he said, but, with that, he put a hard lock on it.
She frowned. “You really think he’s coming?”
“I really hope so,” he said, with a fat smile.
She rubbed her eyes and said, “Do you think we could order up some tea?”
“Sure,” he said. “Do you want something else with it?”
She thought about it, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know, maybe a sweet of some sort.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Let’s have a look at the room service menu, and we’ll get it ordered,” he said, “or I could send someone out for something different.”
“Oh, gosh no, that’s way too much trouble. I’m not nearly that high maintenance.”
He chuckled at that, remembering the simple fare on her island. “What do you want to do with all that money in your briefcase?”
“Well, I need to do something with it,” she said. “It’s a pretty large amount to be packing around.”
“You didn’t want to leave it in that bank, I take it?”
“No, that’s not my normal bank,” she said, “so I didn’t want to have to open a separate account that I would rarely use.”
“So what bank do you want to go to?”
She named the one that she used all the time. He quickly searched for the closest location and said, “One is not too far from here, so we can handle that in a little bit.”
“Good,” she said, and she sank down on the couch. “Will Fallon be okay out there?”
“Yep, they’ll all be okay,” he said. “Let me check in with Dave back at the base.” As she listened, he called Dave back home. It was a quick discussion, just to exchange updates and ascertain that everything was okay.
She said, “Sounds like you run a tight ship.”
“Always have,” he said, with a laugh. “But you never quite know when things can go south on you.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” she said sadly.
“Well, hopefully something will let us get out of here soon enough.” He looked at her, smiled, and said, “We’re leaving in the morning, not to worry.”
“Says you,” she said, “unless they stop us.”
“They’ll have to do more than just stop us,” he said.
She didn’t say anything else. The room service cart arrived not long afterward, and, when the server knocked on the door, Bullard got up, checked through the peephole, and asked for ID. Bullard tipped the delivery person and took the trolley from him, closing and locking the door, before pushing it through the suite. He neared her and said, “The tea is here.”
“Good,” she said, staring at him. “We are safe, aren’t we?”
“For the moment, yes,” he said. And, with that, she had to be satisfied. “Anybody else you want to tell that you’re in town?”
She thought about it, then shook her head. “No,” she said, “I said my goodbyes back then.”
“So, you’re ready for a new start.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I still feel like I have to say goodbye to the island.”
“I’m serious,” he said, “we can go back there on a regular basis. You don’t have to say goodbye.”
“I would like that very much,” she said quietly.
“I would too,” he said. “It’s a very special place, and I don’t want to lose it myself. I have a lot of good memories there.”