Chloe might already be dead. And if she wasn't, if they found her in time, Fin knew he wouldn’t get her back in one piece.
If his prayers were answered and Chloe was rescued, he knew he would be sitting beside her hospital bed just as he was sitting beside Savannah’s.
“She’s in and out,” he finally replied. “When she’s awake, she’s pretty out of it; they have her pumped up on a lot of drugs.”
“She’s stable, though?”
“Yes.”
“And her leg? How did her surgery go?”
“It went as well as can be expected, considering the extent of the damage,” he replied vaguely.
“What does that mean? Will she be able to walk?”
“There’s no way to know yet. We’ll have to wait to see when she’s stronger and she can get up and to physical therapy.”
“Fin.” Tom looked exasperated.
He looked up to meet his eye. “There’s a chance she’ll be able to walk again with a lot of hard work and therapy. But there’s a good chance the damage is too extreme. I’m not an orthopedic surgeon, but from what I saw of her injury, and from talking to her doctor, I’d say there’s about a thirty percent chance she’ll walk.”
“Does she know yet?” Tom asked grimly.
“No. Her brother wanted to wait until she was stronger before she’s told, and she hasn’t been awake long enough to really talk to her.”
“Do you think she’ll wake up soon? I need to know what she saw.”
Tom had been trying to talk to Savannah ever since he’d arrived at Taylor’s parents’ house, shortly after the local cops and EMTs. But even when she was awake, she had been in too much pain to be able to say much of anything. Then the medics had dosed her up with morphine and sedatives and rushed her to the hospital. In the emergency room, she had continued to hover in and out but wasn't lucid enough to give a statement.
Fin knew that it wasn't Tom being cold. He cared about Savannah. They all did. But she was the only one who had seen the killer. At least, they hoped she had. She was the one who had fired the shot that he’d heard, so the chances were that she had seen whoever attacked her and kidnapped Chloe and Taylor before he hurt her.
“Did you seeanything?” Tom asked.
Although he’d already answered the agent’s questions, he complied again. Anything to help Chloe. And who knew, maybe he would remember something else the more times he told his story. “When I went in, all I saw was Chloe and Savannah on the floor. Neither of them was moving. I knew something was wrong. I went to check on them, and something sharp pricked me. I got dizzy and numb. I managed to get to Chloe before I passed out, but I didn't see anyone else. When I woke up, it was just me and Savannah.”
“Did you see a car parked out front? In the driveway?”
“I wasn't paying attention. I didn't even know whose house it was. I was just there to follow Chloe and keep an eye on her. As far as I remember, there were no cars in the driveway.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Fin thought about that. “Footsteps maybe just before I passed out.”
“Did you smell anything?”
His brow furrowed as he thought. Something came back to him. “A musty smell. Like mothballs, maybe.” He wished he could give Tom more than that. He wished a lot of things. Most notably, he wished he had done things differently this morning. “I'm sorry, Tom. I shouldn’t have gone in. I should have called. I wasn't thinking. If I had called and watched the house until help arrived, then Chloe and Taylor would still be here, and you’d have your man.”
“You couldn’t have known what was going on in there,” Tom consoled him.
Savannah moaned, and Fin immediately snapped his attention to her. Levering himself out of his chair, he went to the bed and picked up her wrist to check her pulse. “Savannah? You with me?”
Her eyes opened almost impossibly slowly, as though it was an enormous feat for her to lift her lids.
Although he wanted to rip out whatever answers she had in her head, Fin forced himself to be gentle with her. Savannah might be the only one who could tell them what they needed to get Chloe back. “How’s your pain?”
“Okay,” her voice was slurred, and her pupils were dilated. The medications dripping from the IV into the back of her hand had her so spaced out, he wasn't sure she’d be able to tell them anything.
“Do you think you can answer a couple of questions?”