She felt gentle hands grabbing her shoulders to turn her onto her back.
“Mia.”
A dark shadow fell over her. Lucas. But his face remained obscured by a darkening mist.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
She tried to swallow. “Tongue,” she managed to slur.
His hands moved to smooth her tangled hair from her face, his touch unbearably tender.
“You hurt your tongue?”
She released a sigh. It was too hard to explain. In fact, it was too hard to even keep her eyes open, so she let them slide shut.
Lucas was here now. He would take care of her.
She trusted that knowledge with every fiber of her being.
“Tired,” she breathed. “So tired.”
“Shit, Mia.” He gave her a small shake. “Stay with me.”
She moaned. Why wouldn’t he let her sleep? “I . . . can’t.”
He gave her another shake, this one even more rough. “Look at me,” he snapped. “Mia, look at me.”
Damn. He wasn’t going to leave her alone until she obeyed his command.
Fiercely concentrating, she managed to force her eyes open a small slit.
“Lucas.”
He leaned down until they were nose to nose. “Did you eat something?”
Had she? It seemed a ridiculous question, but she tried to remember.
She’d gotten out of bed. She felt a pang of regret. That’d been her first bad decision. If she’d simply stayed in Lucas’s arms they might be making glorious love instead of her being near comatose on her ugly carpet. Then what had she done? Oh yeah, she’d gone into the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker, but she hadn’t eaten anything, had she? No. She’d gone into the bathroom and locked the door. Her second bad decision. She should have left the door open so Lucas could join her in the soapy spray of the shower....
“Mia.” He sharply intruded into her ambling thoughts. “Did you eat?”
“No.” The word was so low it was a miracle he heard her.
“What about something to drink?” he insisted. “Water? Juice? Coffee?”
Ah. This question was easy. “Coffee.”
There was the sound of another male voice as the door slammed. “I lost the damned—” Footsteps pounded across the carpet. “What happened?”
Mia felt strong arms scooping her off the floor.
“Call Detective Cooper and get him over here,” Lucas commanded as he straightened, keeping Mia cradled close to his chest.
“What about you?” the other male voice asked.
Who was it? Max? Yes, that was his name. Max.
“I’ll take her to the hospital,” Lucas said even as Mia felt herself being carried across the room.
“You should call for an ambulance,” Max said, walking beside them.
There was the squeak of the door opening.
“I’ll be faster,” Lucas said, his voice not quite steady.
He sounded so . . . worried. Strange. No one ever worried about her. Certainly not her father.
Mia tried to tell him that she was going to be fine. How could anything bad happen when she was in Lucas’s arms?
But her mouth refused to open. She was going under. She could feel the darkness rising like a tidal wave. And this time there would be no fighting.
She must have made some small sound of distress. His arms tightened and she felt the brush of his lips against her forehead.
“Shh. I’ve got you, Mia,” he murmured in a soft voice. “And I’m not letting go.”
* * *
Lucas would have sworn that there could be nothing worse than his days in the Taliban prison.
The heat. The stench. The pain. The relentless, gnawing fear.
But pacing outside the doors of the emergency room had taught him that there was more than one sort of torture.
At least it hadn’t taken long for them to cleanse her of the toxins that were making her sick. Within an hour she was in a private room with a nurse whom Lucas had hired to watch over her 24/7.
Nothing was going to happen to her on his watch.
Not again.
Seated beside the bed, Lucas did his best to ignore the various machines that were hooked into her fragile body and concentrated on the steady rise and fall of her chest.
There was no point in brooding on the knowledge that he’d failed her.
She was alive. And the doctors assured him she would be fine. And eventually he would track down the person responsible and rip them into tiny, painful shreds.
Later he would worry about the nightmares that were sure to haunt him.
Almost on cue Mia stirred and slowly opened her eyes. Lucas leaned forward, the invisible bands around his chest easing as he met her sleepy gaze.
She was still dazed, but her color was good and she instantly recognized him.
“Lucas,” she breathed.
“I’m here,” he assured her. “How do you feel?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Thirsty.”
The nurse bustled forward to pour a glass of water, but before she could reach the bed, Lucas was taking it from her.
He needed to be the one giving Mia comfort.
“Here,” he murmured, sliding an arm beneath her shoulder to lift her off the mattress as he pressed the cup to her lips.
Taking several small sips, she pulled back her head to indicate she was done. Lucas handed the cup to the nurse and gently settled Mia back on the narrow mattress. Then, perching on the edge of his seat, he studied her with a worried frown.
“Better?”
She reached to grasp his hand, clinging to him as if he were a lifeline. Savage pleasure jolted through him at the feel of her tight grip.
Was she aware of what she was doing?
Or was it sheer instinct?
Both possibilities pleased him.
“Where am I?” she asked, her voice husky but strong.
“The hospital.”
She was silent for a long moment, her brow furrowed.
“Did I have a seizure?” she at last demanded.
Lucas hesitated. His first instinct was to protect her from the truth. She was weak, and the last thing he wanted was to frighten her. But he logically understood that was only putting her in more danger.
Mia needed to know what had happened so she could protect herself.
Or better yet, let him protect her.
“You were poisoned,” Lucas at last admitted.
She looked confused. “Food poisoning?”
“No, it was deliberate.”
The monitors beeped as she struggled to sit upright. “Are you serious?”
The nurse hurried forward, pressing the button on the controller that lifted the top of the bed so Mia could lean back and still hold Lucas’s steady gaze.
He squeezed Mia’s fingers, wondering how long it was going to take before the doctor released her. He needed to have her home so he could hold her tight in his arms. And more importantly, he wanted her somewhere he could control the environment.
She was way too exposed in this hospital room.
“Trust me, I would never joke about you being hurt,” he rasped.
She gave a slow, disbelieving shake of her head. “How?”
“I’m assuming it was the coffee,” he said. “You said that was the only thing you’d had this morning.”
“It was the coffee,” Max said as he stepped into the room. Although the younger man was immaculately dressed in gray slacks and a cashmere sweater, his blond hair was ruffled as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and his expression was grim. “Or at least that’s the preliminary report.”
Lucas rose to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he assured Mia.
She tightened her grip on his fingers.
“No. Someone tried to hurt me,” she reminded him. “I need to know what’s going on.”
She was right. Lucas might not like it, but she needed to be included in the investigation.
&n
bsp; “Have you talked to the detective?” he asked Max.
“Briefly.” Max looked disgusted. “He’s not giving much away.”
No big surprise. The authorities didn’t like people butting in to their cases. Even people who clearly had the talent and the resources to help.
“But you’re sure it was the coffee?” Lucas pressed.
Max nodded. “I took a few specimens before the cops arrived. I tried to make sure I swabbed most of the obvious things she might have eaten or drank.”
“I didn’t have anything but the coffee,” Mia insisted.
“Some poisons can take several hours to work,” Max pointed out in quiet tones.
Mia shuddered. “Oh.”
Standing close to the bed, Lucas laid a protective hand on her tense shoulder. Her attention, however, was focused on Max.
“And you already have the results?”
“I used my contacts to find a local lab,” he said, sending Lucas a wry glance. “And dropped your name to make sure they understood it was a priority.”
Which meant that he would be expected to repay the favor at some point. Not that he cared. He’d give every penny in his trust fund to discover who was trying to hurt Mia.
“What did they find?” he asked. The emergency room doctor had refused to discuss Mia’s medical condition, claiming that Lucas wasn’t family.
Of course, he’d given Lucas a long lecture on how Mia would physically recover in a matter of hours since she was treated so quickly after swallowing the pills, but that her mental stability would be delicate for weeks, so he’d already concluded that she’d overdosed on prescription drugs.
He didn’t try to correct the doctor. Detective Cooper would eventually arrive and everyone would know that someone had tried to kill her.
Until then Lucas didn’t want to attract unwanted attention.
“A concoction of painkillers and antidepressants,” Max revealed, giving a shake of his head as Lucas parted his lips to demand if there was a way to trace them to a source. “All of them are easily prescribed and could have been bought on the streets or a hundred other places.”
It was more or less what Lucas had expected, but that didn’t keep him from muttering a curse of frustration. It was Mia who asked the obvious question.
“But how did they get into the coffee?”
Lucas frowned, trying to picture her kitchen. “I didn’t notice—do you have a coffeemaker with a timer?” he demanded.
She gave a careful shake of her head. “No, it’s just a cheap one I picked up at the thrift store,” she answered. “Usually I wait to have coffee once I get to the office. I only make it at home on the weekends.”
Max leaned against the doorjamb, studying Mia with a focused intensity. “Walk me through your morning,” he commanded.
“I got up . . .” Her words briefly faltered, a blush staining her cheeks as she no doubt realized that Max was well aware she’d shared her bed with Lucas. She cleared her throat. “And then I took a shower.”
Max offered an astonishingly gentle smile and Lucas realized his friend wasn’t just doing this for him. Max was determined to find the killer because he genuinely liked Mia.
The knowledge warmed his heart.
The men of ARES had become his family. It was important that they accept the woman he intended to keep in his life.
“Did you make the coffee before or after your shower?” he pressed.
Mia hesitated, as if trying to remember her movements during the morning.
“I started it and then went into the bathroom,” she at last said.
Max glanced toward Lucas. “The coffee was already brewing when you left the house?”
Lucas gave a decisive nod. He distinctly recalled the scent of coffee filling the air as he walked out the front door.
“Yeah.”
“So.” Max studied Lucas. “The time that someone could have put the pills into the pot was after you left the house, until Mia got out of the shower.” He folded his arms over his chest. “That’s a short window of opportunity.”
Lucas frowned. Unless the intruder managed to sneak in while he was still in bed, he would have had less than ten minutes to get in the house, poison the coffee, and get away.
He glanced toward Mia. “Was the back door locked?”
“Yes . . .” Mia’s words trailed away as she suddenly bit her bottom lip.
Lucas studied her tense face. “What is it, Mia?”
“I lost my keys a few weeks ago,” she admitted, tilting her head to meet his worried gaze. “Or at least I assumed that I lost them.”
“Someone could have stolen them?”
“Yes.”
There was a sudden movement near the door. Lucas stiffened even as Max subtly shifted to block the man’s path into the room.
Neither man had been allowed to carry a gun into the hospital, but that didn’t mean they weren’t without weapons. Both of them were fully trained to kill with their hands.
The tall man in a white coat came to a startled halt, his expression wary even as he pointed toward Mia.
“I need to check on my patient.”
Lucas gave a jerk of his head, and with a slow step Max moved out of the way. As the doctor approached, however, Lucas glanced toward the nurse he’d hired and she moved to stand next to the bed. He wasn’t leaving Mia alone with anyone he hadn’t fully vetted.
Once assured the woman would keep a careful eye on the doctor, Lucas turned his attention to Mia.
“I’ll be back,” he assured her in low tones. Fear flashed through her eyes. He bent down to brush his lips over her forehead. “Trust me,” he murmured.
He waited for her small nod before he turned and forced himself to leave the room with Max.
God. The sight of Mia’s fragile vulnerability made his gut twist with fury.
It was one thing for her to be told someone might want her dead. It was another to actually know someone snuck into her house and filled her coffee with pills that were intended to kill her.
The intruder stole something precious from her....
A sense of comfort in her own home.
The mystery person was going to pay for that. Hopefully in blood.
Moving across the hall, Lucas leaned against the wall where he could still see into the room, although the doctor had pulled a curtain around the bed.
“Are you okay?” Max demanded, standing close enough that no one could overhear their conversation.
Lucas shuddered. “No,” he admitted with blunt honesty. “Christ, if I hadn’t gone back inside . . .” He allowed his words to trail away, unable to allow the image of Mia lying dead on the floor to stain his mind.
It was unthinkable.
“I’m more worried about what would have happened if you hadn’t been with me,” Max said, his expression grim. “The poison was clearly intended for both of you.”
Lucas frowned. The killer might have been willing to poison both of them, but he was no more than collateral damage. It was Mia the mysterious stalker wanted dead.
And the bastard was obviously willing to go to crazy lengths to get the job done.
“It was bold,” he muttered, wondering how many people had the nerve to break into a house in broad daylight.
“And sloppy,” Max added.
Lucas glanced at his friend in confusion. “What do you mean ‘sloppy’?”
Max folded his arms over his chest. “If you wanted to kill someone, would you crush up a bunch of pills and hope you could find something to toss them into?” he asked, his tone edged with disgust. “There was no way whoever did this could be certain that Mia or you would drink enough to do any serious damage.”
“If I hadn’t been there Mia might have died,” he snapped.
Max shrugged. “Luck.”
“Luck?” Lucas clenched his hands. He would never forget the feeling of helpless terror as he watched Mia tumble to the floor.
Max grimaced, no doubt sensing Lucas’s distress
, but he refused to back down.
“Think about it for a minute, Lucas.”
“Think about what?”
Max held up one finger. “Tony was shot at close range in the middle of the street where the killer might easily have been caught on camera.” He raised another finger. “If you’re right about the first attempt on Mia’s life, it was a bungled attempt to run her off the road. Something that had only a small chance of actually killing her.” He raised a third finger. “And now a crazy scheme to poison her. It all seems so”—he gave a frustrated shake of his head—“amateurish.”
Lucas made a sound of impatience. “Most murders are done by amateurs,” he said.
Max shrugged aside his logic. “But this isn’t the usual pissed-off neighbor, or gangbanger, or a botched robbery. If you want someone dead you usually take a little time to make a plan.” He paused, as if debating his words. “This seems impulsive.”
Lucas considered a long minute, forcing himself to put aside his anger and fear to actually contemplate the facts.
Max was right. Killing Tony on the street was either outrageously daring or downright rash. And the attempts on Mia’s life spoke of a person who was frantic enough to risk being spotted.
So what could cause someone to be so desperate?
He stiffened as the answer came to him. “Or rushed,” he breathed.
Max arched his brows before he gave a slow nod of his head. “Yes. A time limit. That makes sense.”
The two men stared at each other, both silently shuffling through the various reasons Mia would have to be dead by a certain date. At last Lucas gave a shake of his head.
Dammit. They needed more information. Right now they were making wild assumptions that had no basis in fact.
“It still comes back to a connection between Tony and Mia,” he said. It was the only thing they knew for certain.
Max hesitated, then, heaving a sigh, he shoved his fingers through his short hair. “You’re not going to be happy with this question, but do you know if Mia has a will?”
Lucas clenched his teeth, holding back his urge to punch his friend in the face. Max was right. They needed to know if anyone benefited directly from Mia’s death.
“No.”
Max reached out to lay his hand on his shoulder. “You should find out.”
Lucas parted his lips to agree, abruptly distracted by a flash of movement as someone stepped into the hallway, only to turn and walk in the opposite direction.