Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker

 

 

Chapter 6

 

11:02 PM…

 

Mia hated hospitals.

The bright lights, the smell of bleach, the sense of urgency and fear that hung over everything like an ominous black cloud. It was horrible. A stark contrast to the sweet scents of suntan lotion and fresh-falling rain that permeated the warm air outside.

She had the overwhelming urge to flee. To leap out of the hard plastic chair and run through the emergency room doors into the wet night.

But that would be crazy, right? Not to mention selfish.

She didn’t know Christina Szarek well. But in the month since she’d been working with Deep Six Salvage, she’d grown to appreciate the blonde’s dauntless nerve and acerbic way with words. She’d come to think of Chrissy as…well, maybe not a friend, but at least a friendly acquaintance. And to leave now? Before she knew if Chrissy was okay?

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

Which meant there was no more outrunning the old memory that lived rent-free inside her head. The one that’d been scratching at the back of her brain ever since she sat down.

Time to give in and let it replay itself. Get the whole horrid experience over and done with so she could—

She was seven.

Her nanny had taken her to see A Bug’s Life, and that was the last thing she remembered before blinking open her eyes to find a stark white ceiling staring back at her. Her head felt like it was stuffed with rocks when she turned it to the side, only to discover the walls were the same unforgiving color as the ceiling.

This wasn’t her room.

Her room was painted a soft purple, and it didn’t smell like harsh chemicals and sickness. It smelled like crayons and the flowery powder the housekeeper sprinkled on her rug before running the vacuum over it.

Mia’s heart hammered against her ribs until her bones ached. She tried to call out, but choked on the effort. Something was shoved down her throat. Something that made her feel like she was drowning.

“Nurse!”

Her father’s voice! Where was he? Why wasn’t he helping her?

She clawed at the thing taped over her mouth. Her stomach rolled, and she felt the urge to retch like the time she’d eaten too much Halloween candy.

“Nurse! She’s trying to rip out her breathing tube!”

There. There was her father, leaning over her, his hair sticking up in every direction like he’d been running his fingers through it. He grabbed her hands, forcing them away from her face.

“Daddy!” she tried to say, but only managed a strangled gag.

A woman in an outfit similar to the one worn by the doctor who had treated Mia for strep throat stood beside the bed. She whispered something in a soothing voice, but Mia couldn’t make herself stop struggling long enough to listen to the words.

She couldn’t breathe. She was dying. Hot tears spilled from the corners of her eyes to burn trails down her temples into her hair.

The woman pulled on the plastic thing in Mia’s mouth, and Mia felt movement deep inside her throat. Whatever was in there burned like fire on the way out. Once it was gone, she dissolved into a spasm of coughing that made her curl into a miserable ball on her side.

Everything hurt. Her chest. Her head. Her throat.

“Pumpkin?” Daddy brushed her hair back from her brow. His voice sounded funny. When she blinked at him, she saw his eyes swimming with tears.

Her father never cried. If he was crying now, it meant something was very wrong. She must be really, really sick.

This room looked like the one her grandmother had stayed in after she broke her hip. Which meant Mia was in a hospital. Only sick people went to hospitals, right?

“I’m so sorry.” Daddy’s words broke over a hard sob as he bent to kiss her temple. His breath was hot and smelled bitter, like old coffee.

Mia tried to wrap an arm around his neck, but a loud beeping came from the hallway. Daddy stood up before she could pull him close.

“Code blue!” shouted a disembodied voice from somewhere outside the room. “Room thirty-six!”

“Thirty-six?” Daddy stared wild-eyed at the woman who gently patted Mia’s shoulder. “That’s Andy’s room!”

Before Mia could blink, Daddy ran around the end of the bed and disappeared through the open door.

Andy? Was her baby brother sick too?

Mia desperately wanted to follow her father. But when she tried to get up, the pretty woman held her firmly against the mattress.

“Shhh, sweetheart,” the lady crooned. “You rest and relax. Everything is going to be okay.”

Mia didn’t believe her and she fought with everything she had against the hands restraining her until her head began to throb like she’d hung upside down on the jungle gym for too long. Bright lights, like fireflies, blinked in front of her eyes. And then…darkness.

Blessed, cool, painless darkness.

“Breathe.”

Mia came out of her uncomfortable reverie with a start, only to discover Romeo had planted himself in the plastic chair next to hers.

“I thought I was,” she whispered.

“Mmm-mmm.” He shook his head, and she dragged in a rattling breath that blew the last of the cobwebs from her brain. “That’s good,” he praised. Then he added, “She’s going to be okay, you know.”

For a second Mia wasn’t sure which “she” he was referring to. Then she remembered. Chrissy! And berated herself for having fallen into the dark depths of her past when there was a real crisis in her present.

Chrissy had been shot. Shot! That wasn’t supposed to happen in real life.

“How can you be sure?” she asked.

Romeo lifted a shoulder and let it fall. The move drew her eye to the tattoo on the inside of his forearm. Those black, stylized words all the owners of Deep Six Salvage sported. For RL.

One night after a hard day diving down on the wreck, she and the rest of the crew had been relaxing around a beach bonfire. When Alex noticed Mia staring at Romeo’s tattoo, the diminutive historian had explained about the ink. About how the Deep Six guys had lost a SEAL brother, and about how that loss had precipitated all of them leaving the Navy and starting the salvage company.

Strange to think the men Mia had come to know, the ones who donned scuba tanks and swim fins, who ran around in sunglasses and flip-flops, had once been counted among the best of the best, the very tip of Uncle Sam’s spear. They seemed so…normal.

Then again, what did she know about normal?

“I’ve witnessed my fair share of gunshot wounds, and hers isn’t bad,” Romeo explained. “It’s not much more than a flesh wound, eh?”

“Okay, Monty Python.” As soon as the words left Mia’s mouth, she wanted to suck them back in.

Peeking over at Romeo, she expected to find him insulted. Quite the contrary, his head was cocked at an angle. “Did you just make a joke?”

“Sorry.” Shame stained her cheeks. “Now’s not the time, I know. Blame it on my hatred of hospitals. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”

She fanned her face, unsure if she was sweating due to anxiety or because she could feel Romeo’s immense body heat wrapping around her. The man was literally and figuratively H.O.T.

“I wasn’t sure you knew how to make a joke,” he said and she frowned. “Shit,” he added quickly. “That didn’t come out right.”

“It’s fine.” She waved a hand. “You’re not the first person to assume I lack a sense of humor.”

People often confused her saturninity for an absence of whimsy, but she enjoyed sarcasm and the occasional bout of witty banter as much as the next person.

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I stopped caring what people think of me a long time ago.”

His glittering, black eyes tracked to her new haircut, and she automatically touched her freshly highlighted roots.

“I can see how you’d be skeptical,” she murmured. “But I don’t do this for anyone but me. I like to keep myself put together. I always have.”

It was a coping mechanism left over from her childhood. Back then, her mother had been drunk as much as she’d been sober. Her father had been absent as much as he’d been present. Every nanny or housekeeper Mia ever loved had eventually left, unable to stomach the poisonous atmosphere of the Ennis household. And Mia had lacked control over all of it. The one thing she’d had agency over was herself. Her skin, her hair, her clothes.

“I guess it’s true what they say,” Romeo murmured. “Still waters run deep.”

“You think I’m still?” She hadn’t stopped squirming since she sat down. Even now, her knee bounced.

“Maybe still is the wrong word. Quiet is probably more apt.”

“You know, when people comment on how quiet I am, it always catches me unawares.”

“Really?” He looked shocked.

“My brain makes so much noise inside my head, I forget other people can’t hear it.”

“And what are you thinking about right now?”

When he stared at her like that, gazing so deeply into her eyes, she got the unsettling impression he could see into the very heart of her.

Heaven help her, she hoped not. Then he’d know she had a crush on him. Like, a silly, schoolgirl, write-his-name-on-the-cover-of-her-binder crush.

How pathetic am I?

Romeo was way, way out of her league.

On a good day, she was a six out of ten. Romeo? He was a straight-up twelve.

In fact, when he first came into the emergency room, there’d been a lady in a wide-brim panama hat walking out. One look at Romeo and she’d turned to whisper to her friend, “Ooh-la-la. Now that tall drink of water wasn’t made in Key West.”

“Glad we’re at the hospital,” had been the friend’s reply. “Because he’s stealing my breath away. I might need CPR.”

Romeo had been oblivious to the exchange. Or maybe he was so used to that type of attention, their conversation hadn’t registered. But Mia had heard. And she’d agreed with every word.

Romeo was a bona fide lady-killer, with deep dimples, a loose-hipped swagger, and a face so perfectly symmetrical it belonged on the silver screen.

“I was wondering how you can sit so still for so long,” she told him since she couldn’t very well admit what she’d been thinking about was what it would feel like to have his wide, firm lips pressed tight against her own. “We’ve been here almost two hours and I don’t think I’ve seen you move except when you got up to go get a coffee.”

He’d offered to grab her a cup, but she’d waved him off, not wanting to add caffeine to her already jittery nervous system.

“You learn patience as a Navy SEAL.” His tone was calm, casual. It was a minor balm to her nerves. “Contrary to what people are led to believe, spec ops involves a whole lot of sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. Being part of the Teams is like hanging out at the DMV twenty-four hours a day, seven days week. Except occasionally you get to blow shit up or someone tries to kill you.”

She glanced at the far wall where Wolf was doing his level best to carve a rut into the tile floor with his pacing. “Apparently that lesson didn’t sink in for him.” She hitched her chin toward Wolf.

Romeo tracked his friend’s path from one end of the room to the other. “I think pretty much every life lesson you learn gets thrown out the window when the woman you…” He hesitated and finally finished with, “care about gets shot.”

Mia thought about the times she’d caught Chrissy gazing longingly at Wolf, and the times she’d seen Wolf watching Chrissy with a hot, hungry look in his eyes.

“No one knows what happened between them?” She squeezed her knee in an effort to stop its agitation.

Romeo shook his head. “As my abuela used to say, ‘stubborn as stone.’ The both of them.”

Talk of grandmothers made Mia think of her own. Her hand automatically lifted to fiddle with the diamond stud in her ear.

The move drew Romeo’s eyes to the glint of the hard gem. He gently pinched her earlobe to get a better look, and a soft whistle sounded through his teeth. “These would get you snatched off the streets in East L.A.”

Other than an introductory handshake, and the times they’d inadvertently brushed by each other in the beach house, they’d never actually touched.

Mia supposed now she should be grateful for that. Because the moment his callused fingertips kissed her bare skin, a jolt of awareness shot through her system. In its wake, an eruption of goose bumps that covered her entire body.

She wasn’t aware her jaw had unhinged until Romeo said in a deep, dark voice, “Careful. You’ll get flies in there.” He hooked a finger under her chin to close her mouth. There was a knowing look in his eye.

Well, of course there was. Could she be any more obvious?

Jeez, Mia. Get a grip.

Firming her shoulders, she managed to stutter, “Th-the earrings were a g-gift from my grandmother.”

His grin revealed a set of straight, white teeth that contrasted starkly with the black hair of his goatee. “And here I thought grandmothers only gave gifts of chile rellenos and tres leches.” He pronounced the dishes with a Spanish accent and the sounds swirled inside her ears like a tongue.

She heaved a sigh of relief when his attention was snagged by a guy wearing jeans and a sport coat who walked into the waiting room. Upon closer inspection, she saw what’d caught Romeo’s eye. It was the police badge clipped to the newcomer’s belt.

Before she had time to speculate about the officer’s arrival, the doctor who’d initially come out to tell them Chrissy would need to be put under general anesthesia to flush out the wound and clean it properly pushed through a set of swinging doors. Dressed in scrubs, and with the quick, hurried movement everyone in her field adopted, the doctor ripped off her surgical mask as she glanced around the room.

Mia and Romeo jumped from their seats at the same time Wolf spotted the woman and raced over to her.

“Chrissy?” There was so much anguish in Wolf’s voice, Mia felt it in her own heart.

“The bullet missed Miss Szarek’s collarbone and most of the muscle,” the doctor said. Her intelligent eyes matched the blue of her scrubs. “Which is good. Soft tissue damage is easier to fix than a shattered bone. In fact, when it comes to a GSW, she’s incredibly lucky. We probably could’ve stitched her up using a local. But I wanted to make sure none of her shirt got stuck inside the trauma site since that can lead to infection. Anyway, once we put her under, we were able to get everything cleaned up. And I’m a perfectionist, so that’s what took so long back there.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the bowels of the hospital. “She’s coming around from the sedation now, and I’d say—”

“Does that mean she’s ready to answer some questions?” The police officer had joined the group.

“And you are?” the doctor asked with an arch look.

“Bill Dixon.” The man shot out a wide-palmed hand. “Detective Dixon.”

“Ah.” The doctor nodded, shaking his hand. “You should give her an hour or so before you start with the questions. She’s going to be groggy for a while yet.”

“We’ve got two gunshot victims.” The detective’s mustache and loosened tie, not to mention the world-weary look in his eyes, epitomized every crime drama dick Mia had ever seen on TV. It was like he’d come straight from central casting. “And only one of them is in any condition to provide us with information on what the hell happened out there tonight. I want answers.”

Wolf slowly turned to the detective. The look in his eyes was enough to make Mia shrink back. She thought he might punch the cop in the mouth. She definitely saw his right hand curl into a fist.

Romeo casually stepped in front of Wolf before pasting on a charming smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And I’d like a house in the Bahamas filled with women in bikinis, Detective,” he said. “But wanting it isn’t going to make it so.”

When Dixon bristled, Romeo softened his tone. “Look, man, our friend has had one hell of a night. I don’t think you giving her an hour to recover is too much to ask. How about I take your number and call you the minute she’s lucid enough to answer questions, eh?”

To anyone looking on, Romeo appeared the picture of friendly poise. But Mia could feel the ominous current running beneath his words. He wasn’t really asking.

The detective proved he was no fool when, with a deep sigh, he passed Romeo a business card. “When a person suffers a trauma, they start forgetting important details quickly. You call me sooner rather than later.”

“You have my word.” Romeo tucked the detective’s card into his hip pocket.

Dixon turned to leave, but stopped in his tracks and swung back. “Did she say anything before they took her back to stitch her up? Anything about the shooter?”

Mia’s gaze was drawn to the two men who’d come into the emergency room not long after she’d arrived with Wolf and Romeo. Originally, they’d snagged her attention because the tall, skinny one reminded her of the Walmart version of Liam Neeson. You know, if she squinted and held her mouth just right—it was the man’s prominent nose and high cheekbones. Now her eyes landed on them because they shifted uncomfortably, sitting forward and eyeing the detective.

Probably carrying weed without the requisite medical marijuana card,she thought, remembering how her own mother got fidgety and restless around law enforcement.

Wolf spoke to the detective for the first time. The impatience in his voice made it obvious all he wanted was to get to Chrissy, and Dixon’s interference was fraying his last nerve. “When I asked her who did this, all she said was, ‘I don’t know.’ Now, if you don’t mind.”

Wolf didn’t have to make a shooing motion with his hand. His tone, not to mention the hard look on his face, made the gesture for him.

Dixon touched a finger to his brow before heading toward the exit.

“Will you be releasing her tonight?” Wolf asked the doctor.

“It’s late.” The surgeon shook her head. “And Miss Szarek’s had quite a shock. I’d like to monitor her overnight.”

“Can we see her?”

“Follow me.” The doctor pushed through the swinging doors and the smell of iodine and blood tunneled up Mia’s nose.

She didn’t realize she’d become living granite until Romeo leaned close and whispered in her ear, “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.” His breath was warm against her earlobe. The comforting hand he placed at the small of her back was warmer still.

Blowing out a deep breath, she fisted her hands and prepared to venture deeper into the belly of the beast.