Jeb intercepted them at the back door.
“I’ll explain on the way. Get the car,” Wade told Jeb.
He left Trina on the driveway long enough to grab his wallet and a coat, and when he returned, she was already in the car, with Jeb at the wheel. Instead of jumping in the front seat, Wade took the back with her.
Trina was on her phone. “How long?”
Jeb took off. It appeared that Trina had already told him they were going to the airport.
“Okay. Do we know anything else about the person who did this?”
Wade started to draw a picture in his head.
Trina hung her head and sniffed. “I knew we should have had Reed bring in a bodyguard. She was taking stuff to the auction houses . . . No, watches and pens. I don’t know, Sam. Expensive crap. Nothing worth hurting Avery over.”
Wade placed his hand on Trina’s thigh in an effort to comfort her.
“Of course this is my fault. She wouldn’t have been there if I had just walked away from that house and let someone else deal with it.”
Trina looked up and out the window, unshed tears in her eyes. “How long until we get to the airport?” she asked Jeb.
“Thirty minutes.”
Trina told the person on the phone her timeline. “I’ll be there.”
She hung up the phone and punched the seat beside her.
Wade didn’t ask, he just waited for her to talk.
“She was found in a parking garage, dragged between two cars. They beat her up, Wade.” Trina started to cry.
He pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay, honey. We’re getting there as fast as we can.”
She cried on his shoulder. “Sam is sending a plane. Just get me to the airport. You don’t have to—”
“We’re not having this conversation. I’m going. Jeb?” he asked, even though it was understood that where Wade went, Jeb went, unless otherwise arranged.
Jeb caught his eyes in the rearview mirror with a look of Are you kidding?
“You don’t—”
Best way to get a woman to stop arguing was to get her talking about something else. “Tell me everything you know.”
She sucked back a breath and started at the beginning.
Chapter Eighteen
A car waited for them at LaGuardia. She tucked into the back of the limousine with Wade while Jeb took the front seat, next to the driver. It was late and traffic was light. They arrived at the hospital well after visiting hours, but that never mattered when you knew someone in the ICU. Trina walked into the waiting room to find Lori and Reed.
Trina fell into Lori’s embrace. “My fault.”
“Stop.”
“She was there because of me.” Guilt would sit in Trina’s soul for eternity.
“Avery has never done anything she didn’t want to do. So stop!”
Trina pushed back the darkness inside. “How is she?”
“She woke up.”
The fact that she hadn’t been awake all this time wasn’t lost on Trina.
“And she’s talking . . .”
Chills. God, please.
“She’s going to be okay, Trina.”
Trina shook as she broke down.
Lori embraced her until the sobs ebbed.
Slowly . . . ever so slowly, the room came into focus.
Reed and Wade stood side by side.
“Can I see her?”
“For ten minutes at the top of the hour. Hospital rules.”
Trina looked at the clock on the wall. They had half an hour to wait.
The door to the waiting room opened and Jeb walked in.
Wade turned to Reed and extended his hand. “I’m Wade.”
“I’m sorry,” Trina said.
“It’s okay, Trina,” Lori told her.
Trina sat beside Lori, and Wade made himself comfortable opposite the two of them. Jeb hovered by the door and watched the other people in the waiting room.
“Do the police have any leads?” Wade asked quietly, once they were sitting down.
Reed answered, “No. They’re getting the surveillance tapes of the garage as we speak. Hopefully by morning we’ll have some information.”
“Has Avery said anything about her attacker?”
Lori placed her hand over Trina’s. “They’re able to wake her, but she’s sedated now.”
Reed sat forward. “Do you know where exactly she was going?”
“Christie’s, I think. The other one I don’t know. Avery had found Fedor’s pens after I’d left for Texas, the expensive kind. She was all excited about them, said they were worth a ton of money.” Trina swallowed hard. “I was going to give her a percentage of what was sold at auction.” She turned to Lori. “Avery’s burned through a lot of money this year and wanted a job. I thought, perfect. She knows all about high-end stuff that I’m clueless about. She was excited.”
“Did she take the stuff to New York with her?” Lori asked.
“Yeah.”
“At least we have a motive,” Reed said with relief.
“What do you mean?” Trina asked.
“Burglary. Her purse was dumped out, but whoever did this didn’t bother to take her wallet. There weren’t any watches or pens on her either, so they must have taken those.”
Trina shook her head and brought her purse to her lap. “I don’t think she had any of it on her. Here, this text came through before all of yours. I didn’t notice it until we were on the plane.”
Trina turned the phone over to Reed, and he read it out loud. I know you’re in the middle of the big party, just dropping a note to say that everything in NY went well. Fedor liked really expensive things. En route to the house so call if you need to talk. Texting and driving in NY is just asking for trouble.
Reed ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“We need to find out what she had on her, if anything.”
“I don’t care about the stuff—”
“This is about motive. Someone mugging her for a purse, a wallet, a fifty-thousand-dollar watch . . . that makes sense. Someone beating her up for nothing . . . and then dragging her behind a car so she wasn’t quickly found by the first person to walk by . . . that feels too calculated for me. Or worse, they wanted her dead and were interrupted before finishing the job.”
“You don’t think this was random?” Wade asked.
“I used to be a cop. So no. I never think anything is random. But the motive of a thief is a hell of a lot easier to sleep on than a motive of someone wanting to harm Avery just to see her battered and bruised.”
“Who would want to hurt Avery? She makes friends, not enemies.” Trina looked at Lori.
“Someone wasn’t happy with her.”
The door leading into the patient rooms opened and a nurse peeked into the waiting room. Trina sat taller and gave the woman her full attention.
“Ms. Cumberland?”
Lori and Trina both stood at the same time.
“She’s asking for you.” The nurse looked around the room. “Three visitors at a time,” she said to all of them.
Trina looked over her shoulder at Wade.
“Go, I’ll stay out here.”
Reed, Lori, and Trina followed the nurse back. In complete contrast to the waiting room, the ICU was lit up like it was one in the afternoon and not one in the morning. Nurses walked in different directions, the machines beeped and moaned, and the smell of human suffering oozed from the walls. The scent was unique to a place that saw the body in all stages of decay and trauma but was kept sanitary by antiseptic soaps and cleaning solutions. Trina hated it.
Lori squeezed Trina’s hand. “She looks really bad. Try not to react with her watching.”
The nurse led them into Avery’s room and pulled back the curtain.
Trina bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Avery’s head was completely bandaged, her face covered in gauze with the exception of her eyes, mouth, and chin. All of which were swollen and bruised to the point that Trina wouldn’t have recognized Avery if she didn’t know it was her. Her right arm was in a splint and her right leg was sitting outside the blanket and elevated on a pillow. It, too, was covered in some kind of wrap.
“Hey . . . ,” Lori said softly, and Avery opened her eyes.
Avery licked her lips like it took serious effort to do so.
Trina stood at the end of the bed, not trusting herself to speak.
Lori took the chair on the side and pulled it closer to the bed.
“W-what happened?” Avery asked.
Lori looked at the nurse.
“You don’t remember?”
Avery moaned.
The nurse spoke up. “She’s amnesic to the event. The concussion isn’t letting her remember anything you tell her. She’ll ask the same questions over and over.”
Trina squeezed her hands into fists. “Is that going to go away?”
Reed placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Most of the time it does. It’s early. Try not to worry. Just answer her questions.”
“Trina?” Avery pulled her drugged gaze toward her.
“Hey, honey.”
“Weren’t you gone?” Avery asked slowly.
The fact that she remembered gave Trina hope. “Yes, I was.”
Avery closed her eyes and asked again, “What happened?”