Page 50 of Booked for Kidnapping

Fortunately for me, Bradley opted to drum his fingers on my back, which did a good job of distracting me, which spared me from a fate worse than death due to asking my mother if she’d lost her mind. “Dr. Mansfield looked you over two hours ago, and she brought a bone mender colleague over as well. I paid for their airfare and their hotel rooms. She spent the first twenty minutes cursing at your kidnappers. How dare they go against her plan for your foot? And then she spent the rest of the time cursing them because they had done a really good job with your foot. You have a ridiculous collection of metal bits in your foot, and the bone mender reported that you’ve had a substantial number of your bones in your foot replaced. Some are from a donor, which her friend was able to detect due to inconsistencies in the bone shape and density, and what wasn’t replaced with actual bone was done through pins and other fancy stuff. Honestly, I was more concerned about your foot than the specifics. The short of it is you were given top-notch care. There are a limited number of people capable of doing that sort of work in such a short period of time, so we have some suspects.”

“Who?” I asked.

Bradley switched from drumming to rubbing, something I enjoyed more than I expected. “Ironically, Dr. Marlene Renfold is at the top of our list. She was on your team after the crash, and she was one of the more vocal against Dr. Avers and his opinions regarding your care. She could have done the work, and she has a reputation of abhorring failure. Thanks to Avers, she feels your case was more of a failure than anything, so she has the motivation to do the work. Lauley Rivers is considered to be skilled enough to have done most of the work, or perhaps someone he taught. Essentially, the serial killer group could have done it with the right preparation and enough warning. That you were sedated most of the time would make it easier, especially since they didn’t seem concerned about your need for physical therapy. When you don’t care about patient comfort, it’s feasible to do a lot of work. Dr. Mansfield is very careful to do her work in such a way to be bearable for her patients. She doesn’t think they gave a flying shit about torturing you if it meant a successful treatment. Your frequent sedations would have made it possible to do the surgery. There are four more doctors in the United States or come to the United States often who are capable of handling the work to this skill level. Dr. Mansfield is not one of them, by the way. She’s good, but she’s stated she’s not this good, and you are her toughest case by far. She lacks the magical abilities required to fully heal your foot. But she was what you could afford, and she was good enough. And she confessed she undercharged you to make sure you could get the care you needed; you got the absolute cheapest she could charge.”

“I need to send her another card and more chocolate, apparently. Along with another paycheck.”

“I already took care of the paycheck part,” Bradley confessed. “I knew you’d want to pay more the instant you found out, so I took care of it.”

I stretched, and I wiggled my toes, delighting in how my right foot emerged from my misadventures sore but not in true pain. “We have plenty of potential motives on why someone would want Senator Westonhaus to permanently disappear. Do we have any motives on why someone would want me to not-so-permanently disappear? Also, with a somewhat intact foot? I mean, mostly intact foot. I will probably still use a cane, because it gets sore easily, but I can walk. I really do appreciate that.”

I had held hope for some limited freedom from the boot but little more than that. My reward boots would have been worn rarely, with an expectation of them causing significant pain.

“You’re a badass?” Mickey suggested.

I smiled that my self-professed fanboy didn’t seem to have lost his interest in my magic. “I thought I was pretty badass rescuing myself. Once I wasn’t being drugged stupid, I had a working foot, and I figured out there were some high-grade illusions keeping me contained. I didn’t like having to climb out a third-story window, though. That was not my definition of a good time. Honestly, I liked the part where I went to the library and emailed Bradley. It was right at the beach, and I spent the time gathering shells while waiting.”

“Before you hid in some bushes and ambushed my father,” Bradley added with laughter in his voice.

“I didn’t really ambush him. He spotted me getting up. The bushes had a bunch of rocks between them, and honestly, it hurt like hell getting up. It wasn’t a good ambush. You just hauled ass going to the beach.”

“In my defense, I was really eager to find you, and I thought the beach made a good hiding spot. I didn’t think you’d hide in some bushes.”

“I hadn’t walked too far to find that beach, and I didn’t want to be easily spotted by people I didn’t want spotting me. I am willing to hide in bushes as necessary.” I faked a sniffle. “Their library is right on the beach, Bradley.”

“I’m sorry your branch isn’t on the beach. Don’t mind Janette. She’d convinced herself she would have to find a new job. I had told her she still had her job, but I don’t think she believes me.”

“You still have your job,” my boss said. “We’re going to have a talk about notifying others when you’re working with dangerous individuals, though. As a result of your kidnapping, I have added a new rule. All librarians hunting for donations must report when they have dinner meetings with politicians. They’re dangerous, and you might need backup. Also, you did a wonderful job, even though exactly nobody likes the gentleman you pulled out of the line of fire.”

Oops. I hadn’t realized my boss had been on the call. “Hi, Mr. Tawnlen. I’m sorry I haven’t shown up for work in almost nine months.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, although we’re going to have a long talk about getting into vehicles with strange politicians. We’ve done some staff shuffling, since I had to register your true aptitude rating, and you’re going to like me almost as much as you like your fiancé in a minute.”

“Acquisitions?” I whispered.

“Acquisitions and donations, with floor time as you can. You’re also going to get to handpick our next diversity hires. That’s from the main branch. Beatrice seems to enjoy vexing us whenever possible.”

“She’s the best bitch,” I informed my boss.

Beatrice laughed. “You’re just really good at melding with the lower castes, and my boss, upon hearing you’ll be coming home in a few weeks, wants you to handle hires for the entire library system in our area. That’ll let you work with the public, and if you’re cherry-picking the hires, it’s easier for us to get them in with a higher budget. It’ll work out, and it’ll let you work more from home for a while. You’ll have to go through the potential hires, so it’ll be good practice before you go back to your branch. Before getting on this call, I’d been working on getting your employment records updated with some help from the boss man here. You’re all good, and your official return date is in a month. That’ll give you some time to go through your medical evaluations and see a therapist.”

“Just one?” I asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of my tone.

Bradley snickered, and he held me close. “Normally, it should be you saying you need a therapist and her asking that.”

With a rather wicked giggle, Beatrice replied, “You’re going to need therapy once I’m done inserting my foot in your ass for worrying me so much!”

“That’s going to hurt. Bradley, don’t let her insert her foot up my ass. I don’t think either one of us would be walking away from that one.”

“My momma always warned me about getting between two women in a fight. But I’m willing to nurse you back to health and attend to your every need after you’re done brawling.”

“I did actually teach him that,” Bradley’s mother announced. “You’ll survive, Janette.”

“I don’t know about that. Beatrice has a hard kick and a long reach.”

“I really do!” Beatrice cleared her throat. “Back on track, especially now that Janette has decided to join us. I have a list of important questions we need answers to.”

“Is why they bothered to give my foot medical care at the top of that list? If it’s not, I request it be added to the top of the list. I was aware of a nasty infection I struggled with. But they tried treating that with medications first. I guess the medications didn’t work, because I’m apparently missing a rather lengthy period of time while it was being addressed and they gave me a new foot.”