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threatened. Holding her breath, she watched as they carried Michael off the boat and lowered him onto the stretcher. His clothes were ripped and singed. They had stripped away his life vest and shirt on the Coast Guard boat and already an IV line was in place. There were gashes on his forehead and arms and his complexion was far too pale, but she could detect the steady rise and fall of his chest. The paramedics didn’t fight her as she knelt beside him and clung to his icy, lifeless hand.
    “Damn you, Michael O’Hara, you’d better not die on me,” she whispered furiously.
    Either her words or the tears that spilled onto his bare chest apparently got through to him. His eyelids flickered and his lips tried to curve into a smile. “I’m not going to die,
querida,”
he murmured. “Too much unfinished business.”
    “The explosion,” she said with an air of resignation. “And Tío Miguel.”
    He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “You and me.”
    •   •   •
    They tried to admit Michael at county-run Jackson Memorial Hospital so they could watch him overnight and through the following day. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough doctors and nurses in the entire University of Miami-affiliated trauma center to hold him down once he’d made up his mind to go.
    “Michael, I will go to see your family,” Molly promised in what she guessed was probably a vain attempt to get him to listen to reason. “I will tell them everything that’s happened. I’ve already told them most of it on the phone and convinced them they don’t need to rush over here in the middle of the night.”
    She didn’t mention that it had taken all of her persuasive skills to accomplish that. Tío Pedro had been ready to pack the entire family into the car, along with a priest, when she finally got through to him that Michael would more than likely be released first thing in the morning anyway. That might be only a couple of hours away, but she figured those hours were best spent in a hospital bed, not chasing down clues in his uncle’s disappearance and the bombing of the fishing boat. She tried one more time to make him see reason.
    “You’ll think much more clearly after a couple of hours of rest. You won’t get that at home with everyone hovering over you. Besides, you have no business leaving the hospital. You’ve just been through a major trauma.”
    “A couple of scratches,” he argued.
    “And a knock on the head that’s obviously addled your brain,” she countered.
    He sat up, wincing with the effort. “This is something I have to do,
amiga
. Will you help me or not?”
    Molly glanced at the harried resident trauma surgeon, who shrugged. “If he goes, it’s against medical advice, but I can’t stop him. If he’s not staying, I’ve got two gunshot wounds out there who are in far greater need of my help.”
    “By all means, treat your other patients,” Michael said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He winced in pain, but remained stubbornly determined. “Molly, find my clothes.”
    “Your clothes are a little the worse for wear,” she reminded him. “They’re ripped and soaking wet. I could bring clothes from home in the morning.”
    “I’ll walk out of here stark naked if I have to,” he warned.
    So much for that. “An interesting possibility,” she commented. “That ought to guarantee catching the attention of the nurses. Maybe one of them will convince you to stay.”
    He scowled at her.
    “Okay. Okay,” Molly muttered, giving up. “I think I saw some jeans and a T-shirt wadded up in the back of your wagon, along with all the soccer gear. I’ll go get ‘em. Meantime, sit still, please. This could be the last rest you get for a while, if you can call it that.”
    “Are Felipe and Ken out there?”
    “Half the Metro-Dade police force is out there. The rest of them are on the Bay picking up debris, hoping to piece together some decent evidence. You created quite a commotion,