Slate looked up and met the gaze of the nearest paramedic. Staring him in the eye, he said, “She’s my everything! Please don’t let her die.”
He could’ve sworn he saw a look of determination creep into the other man’s eyes. “I’ve never lost a patient before, and I’m not starting today,” he replied.
Nodding, Slate moved. He lifted his hands and quickly scooted backward, giving up his place by Ashlyn’s side to the two men. They worked fast, cutting off her shirt, getting a quick look at the wound in her chest, then putting pressure on it once again.
“Load and go,” one of the young men said. With the help of his team, they got Ashlyn onto a stretcher and were headed out the front door before two more minutes had passed.
Slate tried to follow but one of the police officers stopped him. “We’re gonna need you to explain what happened.”
Without taking his eyes off the stretcher holding the woman who was his entire world, currently lying motionless, Slate said, “Then you better get your ass in gear, because I’m going to the hospital with my woman.”
Luckily, Aleck stepped in and finessed the situation. Slate was well aware that there was a dead man on the floor behind him, and a good possibility he could be charged with manslaughter, but nothing was going to keep him from being at the hospital with Ashlyn.
“Slate?”
The only thing that could’ve stopped him from following the ambulance right that second was James. Slate turned. Pid had gotten the older man to the couch. He looked at Slate with conviction.
“She’s gonna be all right.”
James didn’t know anything more than Slate did at that point. He wasn’t a psychic. Couldn’t tell the future. But for some reason, those five words settled in Slate’s soul. “I know,” he said, nodding at the man. Then he turned and headed for the door.
Pid was on his heels, keys in hand. “I’m driving.”
Slate nodded again. He was in no condition to drive, and he knew it. The last thing he wanted was to get into an accident and be unable to take care of Ashlyn when she was allowed to come home. And she would be coming home. He wouldn’t accept anything less.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Slate sat in the private waiting room the nurses had unlocked for all of Ashlyn’s supporters. Everyone was there. Elodie, Lexie, Kenna, Monica, Carly, his team and Commander Huttner. Elodie’s friend Kai, from the fishing charter she’d worked for once upon a time. Theo, a regular at Food For All, not to mention several coworkers from the food bank: Jack, Pika, Courtney, Natalie, and Richard. Even Kaleen, one of the bartenders from Duke’s, had heard about what happened and had come to show her support. Then there were the men, women, and children who Ashlyn delivered food to each week…Lori, the handicapped woman’s sister; the Turner family; Jazmin and her baby; and several others who Slate didn’t know.
James was there too. He’d been brought in for tests to make sure he was all right after being drugged by Aiden. He’d refused to go home after he was cleared, and was now sitting amongst Ashlyn’s friends, praying and worrying about her.
It was more than obvious how loved Ashlyn was. She’d touched all these people with her kindness and open spirit. Slate knew he should be talking to everyone, reassuring them, but he couldn’t find it within him to do anything but sit and stare into space, lost in his thoughts.
All the time he and Ashlyn had spent together spun through his head. The times they’d playfully argued. How excited she’d been to show him some of the moves she’d learned at self-defense training. Her frequent laughter. The expression on her face when she was irritated with him. The way her cheeks flushed when she was angry, or upset, or turned on. Her enthusiasm in bed, her willingness to give all of herself even for a casual fling…that wasn’t so casual on either of their parts. He thought about how good she felt in his arms as they slept. How she loved to cuddle. How she could sleep like a freaking rock.
He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t.
Slate had no idea how he’d function without her. The panic he’d felt when he thought she was on a date was nothing compared to the soul-deep dread he was feeling right now.
“Duncan Stone?” a man asked, entering the waiting area.
“That’s me,” Slate said, standing so fast he wavered on his feet. Mustang was immediately on one side to steady him, Pid on the other.
Slate had no idea how much time had passed since he’d arrived at the hospital. But his team had been with him for every second. Pid had convinced him to wash his hands and had bought him a T-shirt at the gift shop so he could throw away the bloody one he had on.
When Aleck had arrived, he’d forced Slate to allow a doctor to look at his arm. As he’d thought, it was simply a graze, and a nurse had cleaned and bandaged it. Then Mustang arrived with two police officers, and Slate had told them everything he knew about what had happened. How Aiden had threatened them with a weapon, how he was looking for money to steal, and was planning on kidnapping Ashlyn. He admitted that he’d tackled Aiden, and that the man had cracked his head open on a shelf.
Slate told the officers about the money James had given Ashlyn, and that she’d deposited it into an account for safekeeping.
He held nothing back, only wanting to get the interview done so he could find out something, anything, about Ashlyn’s condition. Instead, he’d waited anxiously for hours.
Aleck told him a short while ago that everything he’d said matched up with the evidence at the scene, and with what James had told the police. Apparently, Aiden had tried to give James a quadruple dose of sleeping pills, but the older man was suspicious of the way his former aide was pushing him to drink his glass of tea. He told the police that Aiden had drugged him in the past without his consent, and realized too late that he’d probably been doing it for weeks.
James had still ingested some of the drugs when he’d reluctantly sipped the tea, but not enough to kill him or keep him asleep for long. He’d heard Aiden’s yelling in the other room, had attempted to get up, and had fallen against his bedside table, knocking the lamp to the floor. That was the noise that had distracted Aiden long enough for Slate to tackle him.
The entire situation was fucked up. From what they’d gathered from talking to coworkers, his boss, and a couple others who knew him, Aiden used to be a dedicated employee and a hard worker. But he’d been hurt on the job about a year ago, and took painkillers to manage his back pain. When his doctor stopped prescribing them, he’d apparently turned to harder drugs, quickly spiraling into addiction, desperate for more of the dope to manage his pain and to keep from going through withdrawal.
The doctor gestured for Slate to step out of the room with him…and for just a second, he hesitated. If he didn’t go with him, the doctor couldn’t give him bad news about Ashlyn. But then again, he couldn’t tell him good news either. So Slate took a deep breath and followed.
Mustang exited the room with him, and Slate was once again grateful his team leader was there. It had been his idea to tell the hospital staff that Slate was Ashlyn’s husband. Slate didn’t think anyone believed him, but since Ashlyn had no other relatives on the island, the staff didn’t call them on it.