Page 120 of One Last Stand

What?Shep gripped the sides of the gurney, held himself up, but—“Never came . . . Oh.” And now his chest burned.Sheesh,maybe he was hurt worse than he thought. He leaned back. “Okay. Maybe . . . I get that. Maybe her mother needed her.”

“I don’t think so.” Axel said. “She was . . . different.”

Different. Like she’d been at the fortress. A kind of different he didn’t want to accept.

Axel tossed the can into a nearby garbage. “What happened back there? Because when I said, ‘Hey, London, want to ride to the hospital with us?’ her response was, ‘Take care of Shep.’ And I got a definite heave-ho kind of feeling from her. You two have a fight?”

A fight might have been less of a bomb to their relationship. “I had no choice.”

Silence.

More silence.

“No choice about what?” Moose finally asked, his voice low.

“Tomas had her on the ground, the gun to her head—all he wanted was the seed code. So . . . I told him.”

Moose didn’t move.

“Do you mean the password to her supersecret crypto wallet with the billions of dollars in it that she risked her life—and Ziggy’s—to protect?” Axel said.

“Yes,” Shep snapped. “That one.”

Axel held up a hand. “Just so we’re clear.”

“Did I mention the gun—to herhead?”

Moose nodded. Blew out a breath.

Axel ran a hand behind his neck, but also nodded.

“Listen. He was going to kill her?—”

“Not as long as they didn’t have the seed code,” Axel said.

Shep looked at him. “Really? And that’s how you felt when the Midnight Sun Killer had a gun on Flynn? ‘Hey, pal, let’snegotiatefor the life of the woman I love. Maybe share a beer?—’”

Moose held up a hand. “Shep, calm down. No one is blaming you?—”

“Are you kidding?Londonis blaming me.” He reached for the IV port on his arm. “Get me a cotton swab.”

Boo walked in right then. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

He must have worn something lethal in his expression, because she stopped cold.

Axel brushed past her, grabbed a cotton swab, and handed it to him.

Shep untaped his IV line.

“For Pete’s sake, let me help,” Boo said, and took over, pulling out his line, pressing the swab over the wound. “It’ll bleed, so hold it there a minute.”

He didn’t have a minute. “She’s going to do something stupid. Like go after the money.”

Moose cocked his head. “C’mon. She’s not that?—”

“Impulsive? Brave? Determined?”

Moose held up his hands.