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Tears arrived and I let them leak onto my face silently.
Chapter 25
After the doctor left, I took a minute to check out the neat bandage on my finger stump. Having him chewing away bits of the sticking-out bone while I watched had been a little too personal. He hadn’t been keen on doing his surgery here, in Glass’s dining room, but the young doctor had adapted, laid out instruments like the big bone crunchers he’d used, injected the base of my finger with local anesthetic, then he’d gone to town cleaning up the debris and stitching me. Even without the X-ray he’d muttered about needing, he’d done a great job.
So now I had nine and a bit fingers and the woman upstairs I’d sacrificed it for was unhappy with us...with me, for keeping her locked in her room.
I went up the stairs two at a time, knocked after yelling, it’s me, Pieter, then unlocked the door. No protests were sung at me so I walked in. She was standing at the tall window, breeze blowing the lace curtains around her, looking out at the distant sea, over the tops of the houses. At least Glass had taste and had put in antique-style bars on his house.
Her little yellow-and-blue summer dress clung to her in all the right sexy places. I imagined one of Glass’s girlfriends was supposed to get it as a present. No shoes, but I liked her feet bare, and her calves too. I remembered running my hands up those while studying her body higher up, and her looking down at me, eyes bright, lips parted.
Damn. My hard-on had appeared as if to say, get to it. I wished.
“Hi.” I kicked shut the door.
There were six houses in this secured compound, and all of them belonged to Glass and people working for him and Jurgen. I knew some of the ways they earned money but had never dug too deeply. It wasn’t legal, that part I knew. I’d done some jobs for him, but I had a feeling he shifted drugs into Australia, as well as people circumventing the immigration laws.
“How did it go?” Jaz grimaced as she caught sight of the bandage then her brow furrowed as if she was wondering what lay underneath.
“He did a good job.” I shrugged. “It’s fine. I have antibiotics. I thought you might like to ask me questions?”
I had ones for her. Though we were still waiting on the IT expert to decrypt the hard drive from Gregor’s computer, I needed to hear it from her. I needed to know, firsthand, she was being honest with me, or why she wasn’t.
“I do have some, but I need the right answers.”
“The right answers? If you’re lucky, I might have those. Lie on the bed with me. After all the hacking at my flesh and the drugs he injected, I’m feeling a bit woozy.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” I half-climbed on the bed then flipped myself down on the mattress, full length. “Here.” I shifted over and patted beside myself.
When she looked dubious, I grinned and patted the bed again. “I won’t bite. Promise I won’t touch you unless you say so.”
One eyebrow arched in skepticism but she sat on the edge of the bed.
“That’s it?” I was tempted to drag her down.
“Best you’ll get.”
I propped myself up on an elbow, hissing as the finger tangled in the quilt for a second. The anesthetic didn’t stop the pain that throbbed into my hand. “My head is on a level with your ass if you sit like that. Which...I’m okay with.”
Her sigh was exasperated.
“I bet you are. Fine! You win.” She slid down and ended up lying next to me, grumpy yet amused, while I was still up on my elbow. Her hair fell over my hand.
The view was even better with the top of the dress askew but I pretended I didn’t see that.
“The doctor. What did he say?” He’d checked her out first, when I insisted.
For a second, Jaz turned down her mouth. “Nothing. I have scratches, abrasions. He told me to get some blood tests done, as soon as I can, just to be certain of things like hepatitis and so on.”
“That’s it?” Her summary struck me as too fast.
“Yes.”
When I studied her for a while, she only looked annoyed. I smiled. “Good. Next. Remember what I said about a lot of people potentially getting hurt if anyone finds out you’re in Papua New Guinea?”
“Yes.”
