Page 98 of Born for Starlight

Last night. Groveling. In a hotel room. To get back into her bed.

No. Back into her heart, where I found my home. And for some reason I can’t fathom, where she thinks I belong.

I closed my eyes.

"Okay," I said.

Costa wanted us gone. He'd come to the door twice. Both times Vargas told him she was resting. Both times he went away sweating harder.

"He'll offer to move her," Simon said. "Somewhere nicer. Farther from the yard."

"He can't call an ambulance," Bruno said. "Think about it. Paramedics, forms, a hospital, maybe the same hospital as Luzia. Strangers with clipboards walking into this compound tonight. He'd rather chew glass."

"So, we need a reason she can't move, that isn't a reason he calls a doctor," I said. "A real reason. Something medical that buys two hours and then she walks out on her own feet."

Silence on the net. Nine professionals and not one of us had gone to medical school.

"My phone," Angelica said.

"What?"

"Give me my phone. ChatGPT knows all."

"Please God, tell me you are not one of those who buys into A.I. to that degree," I begged.

"Watch and learn, my man. Watch and learn."

I hated how smug she looked.

Deke dug her phone out of the clutch Pinto had carried in from the corridor. She took it with hands that were almost steady and typed with her thumbs. fast. The whole net waited on a movie star and her phone.

"I've got it." She looked up. "I had a vasovagal episode."

"A what?"

"Vasovagal. It's a fainting thing. Blood pressure drops, heat, stress, standing too long, boom. Totally benign, totally common, and the number one instruction," she turned the phone toward me, "is do not move the patient. Lie flat. Rest. It comes right back if you get up too soon." She smiled, and it was the press-steps smile, and I'd never been so glad to see a lie in my life. "And my doctor will back every word of it."

"Your doctor is in Los Angeles."

"Don’t be literal. My pretend doctor will say lie flat, fluids, two hours minimum." She lifted her chin at me. "Costa doesn't need a doctor in the room. He needs doctor's orders he's too scared to argue with."

"She still shouldn't be alone in there with just the detail," Bruno said. "She needs family at that bedside."

I didn't like where this was going.

"Nobody in that building knows my face," Bruno went on. "That slimy podcaster's been telling the whole world her family came out to support her. A famous woman collapses and her big brother comes running. Costa can't say no to that. There's no scenario on earth where he says no to that."

"You'd sit in a room for two hours," I said. "You've never sat still for two hours in your life."

"A worried brother can't sit still. He goes looking for coffee. He goes looking for a bathroom. He gets turned around in a hallway and asks the wrong staff for directions, twice. Nobody blinks at a brother. Beto can have me at the gate in ten minutes with her medication from the hotel."

"Absolutely not," I said.

"Matthew." Simon, the boss voice. "It puts a man inside the walls tonight with a reason to be there. It's just what you wanted."

I looked at Angelica.

"Bruno doesn't do worried," I said.