Page 66 of When He Plays

“Here.” He reached for a brown pitcher on the tray near him. “It’s still pretty cold. At least, I think it is. You don’t have to wait for her to come back.” Using the pitcher, he poured some water into a white cup for her. Then, gently, he brought the cup to her lips.

She was angled halfway up in bed, with the top of the mattress elevated behind her.

“Drink, sweetheart,” he urged.

“I can hold the cup myself.” A grumpy rasp. She hated being so confused. She also hated her achy throat.

And she hated the way the nurse had been petting Logan.

“Yeah, I know you can hold it. But just drink, would you?” He kept right on holding that cup.

Fine. Whatever. She stared into his eyes, parted her lips, and drank that utterly amazing water. Maybe she gulped it all down until she emptied the cup, and her aching throat felt so much better.

“Good,” he praised her. “You’re probably sore from when I insisted they shove that tube down your throat.” He put down the cup.

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that. It had to be done.”

“A tube had to be shoved down my throat?”

“How else were they going to pump your stomach?”

“Someone pumped my stomach?” Then it was there, a fast flash. Her memory surging back. The study. The spinning room. Fighting with the stupid lock on the study door as she clung with all of her strength to consciousness. She’d needed to get to Logan. She’d known he’d help her. If she could just get to him…

He sat down beside her again. Hauled his chair even closer to the bed, even though it had already been plenty close. “You were drugged. At least, that’s what I think and⁠—”

The door opened again. She expected the pretty nurse to bound back inside, but it wasn’t the nurse.

It was Jezebel. Holding a pitcher of water. The door shut behind her. “If anyone asks,” Jezebel said as she advanced toward the bed, “I’m a detective with the Las Vegas Police Department. That’s what my ID says, and that is who I am.”

“You can’t be here.” Real horror filled Charlotte. She shoved at the sheets. Then realized she was just wearing a thin paper gown, so she yanked those sheets right back up over her body. The IV in her hand stung with her jerky movements. “You know better than to be out in public on a mission! And you can’t come see me. That will make a connection between us. It’s too risky for you!”

“It’s fine. I took precautions.” Utter unconcern.

“Didn’t you hear her?” Logan murmured. “Jezebel’s a Vegas Detective. She’s got this.”

Jezebel put the new pitcher down on the hospital bed’s tall tray. She slanted an assessing glance toward Logan. “I’m a detective, and I hear you’ve moved up to the position of husband. A dramatic development, I believe.”

“Yeah, well, when I arrived at the hospital with her last night, they were asking me all kinds of questions about being next of kin. Said her next of kin had to make medical decisions. Seeing as how Charlotte told me her family members were dead, I figured I needed to step up my game.” A shrug of one shoulder. “I lied. You lied, Jezebel. Let’s just call it even and move to the important part of the conversation.” He sucked in a hard breath. “Is that fucking asshole Ares locked in a cell yet?”

The hard fury in his voice caught Charlotte by surprise. Also, had he said…last night?

“He’s not in a cell,” Jezebel admitted.

Logan lunged out of his chair. He even took two steps, as if he was—what? About to run out of the hospital room and go grab Ares?

But Jezebel stepped into his path. “We don’t know for sure that it was him.”

“His party. His place. His freaking champagne.” Each word from Logan seemed bitten out.

Charlotte vaguely recalled the champagne. “It was opened right in front of me.”

Both Logan and Jezebel glanced toward her.

“Right in front of me,” she repeated as she furrowed her brow. “And I only had like…two sips. Three, max.”

“I recovered the bottle,” Jezebel revealed to her. “Well, technically, the real Vegas police detective, Meredith Reece, recovered it. But I stepped in, pulled some strings, and I have my people running a tox screen on the contents. You know the CIA can work way faster than the locals. If the bottle was drugged, we will know soon enough.” She motioned toward Charlotte. “The docs did a full tox screen on you.”