Ink grinned like a little boy who’d just gotten away with something. “I’ve seen Keegan and Gabby do that so many times, and I’ve always wanted to try it. I can’t believe how easy it was.”
“Wait,” I said. “You weren’t just smooth-talking her?”
Ink laughed. “No. For one thing, she’s wearing a wedding ring. That’s not my style.”
“Well?” I asked impatiently. “What did you do?”
“I casually let her know we were flown here by our friend Jacob Marks,” he said.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “The only thing I got from that is that Shaker’s name is Jacob.”
“Shaker is rich as fuck. And his mom’s even richer. She’s also on several hospital boards and donates a lot of money to hospitals in Kentucky and Tennessee. That’s how he gets to land his personal helicopter on helipads at hospitals. Since he was able to land at this one, somebody here knows who his family is. And I guarantee that word trickled down through the grapevine that the Marks have friends or family in this facility.”
“They’re that rich?” I asked.
Ink chuckled. “When Byte was shot, they wouldn’t let Gabby back to see him because they were still working on him. She told Shaker to call his mom and have her buy the hospital so theywould have to let her see Byte. And she was serious. So, yeah, they’re that rich.”
“They won’t mind that you used their name?” I asked.
“Not at all. And if Dr. Allegrini runs into any problems getting Dice a room, Shaker’s mom will happily take care of it. She’s a very kind woman, but she gets the job done.”
A few minutes later, someone came to take Dice for his CT scan. He was still so out of it I don’t think he had a clue what was going on.
He’d only been gone for a few minutes when Badger knocked on the door. “Our phones don’t get great reception upstairs, so I thought I’d come down to check on things. How is he?”
“They just took him for a scan. They think he has appendicitis,” I said. “How’s Tawny?”
“She’s refusing to have visitors, so they’ll only tell us she’s doing okay,” he said. “Dice is the only one who can get information.”
“Not necessarily,” Ink said. “I’ve been with him when he’s called to check on her before. He tells them who he is and gives them a numerical passcode. If we can get the number from him, I’ll call and pretend to be him.”
“Sounds good,” Badger said. “Do you guys need anything?”
“I think we’re okay right now,” I said and explained our tentative plan.
“All right. I’m going to head back upstairs. If I haven’t heard from you in the next hour or so, I’ll come back down to check in.”
When they brought Dice back to the room, he was a little more alert, but he looked awful. Ink was barely able to get the passcode from him before he started throwing up again.
“The money,” he groaned once the vomiting stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“The money. Byte. Transfer,” he said.
“I’ll take care of it,” Ink said knowingly.
“Knock, knock,” Dr. Allegrini said and entered the room. “How are we doing in here?”
“He just finished throwing up again, and he seems to be in a lot of pain,” I told her.
“The CT scan showed a very angry appendix, which will need to be removed. Since he’ll be going to surgery soon, I don’t want to give him another round of pain and nausea medicine, but I’ll see if we can give him a small dose of something to help. The surgeon will be in to talk to you soon.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m going to step outside and call Byte,” Ink said.
“Can I ask why?”