Troublemaker Read Online Free Page A

in his job description. Killing him had to have been part of a larger plan—the question was what plan, and who was behind it?
    He could think that, but he couldn’t communicate well enough to transmit. His helplessness was so galling he’d have wrecked the place if he’d been capable of moving, but the way he was strapped down, he couldn’t even press the call button for the nurse—if he’d wanted to call, which he didn’t, because whenever they showed up they did stuff he didn’t like.
    One day, though, when he woke up he felt as if he’d turned a corner. He didn’t know which corner, but with it came a sense that his body had decided to live. The medical staff must have come to the same conclusion about his physical state of being. An hour or so later a doctor—he guessed the guy was a doctor, though hell, maybe he was someone they dragged in off the streets because he was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt—came in and cheerfully said, “Let’s get that tube out of your throat, get you talking and drinking and eating. You ready? Cough, that’ll make it easier.”
    One second Morgan was looking forward to having the tube out of his throat, and the next his body was in total rebellion against what was happening to it. Bullshit! The only thing that could have made it easier was if he’d been unconscious. It felt as if his lungs were being dragged out with the tube, and his chest was being hacked in two. His vision blurred and darkened, his body arched involuntarily, and if he’d been able to, he’d have done damage to the son of a bitch, because if that was “easy,” then “hard” would have killed most people.
    Then the tube was out and he was breathing on his own, shaking like a leaf in reaction and soaking wet with sweat, but at least he could talk—sort of. In theory, anyway. His throat felt as if it had been scrubbed with sandpaper, and his mouth wasn’t in any better shape. It took him three tries to get out one raspy, almost inaudible word:
    â€œWater.”
    â€œSure thing.” A smiling woman with salt-and-pepper hair poured some water into a cup and held the drinking straw to his mouth, and he managed to get some water down his raw throat. He could practically feel the membranes of his mouth absorbing the moisture, and he greedily sucked down two more swallows before she moved the cup away.
    He gathered his strength for more words. “No more . . . dope.” He needed his head clear. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but instinct was driving him hard.
    â€œDon’t go too macho on us,” she replied, still smiling. “Pain puts stress on your body and stress will slow down the healing. Let’s reassess every day, okay?”
    Meaning they were going to give him more dope whether he wanted it or not. He was fairly sure in a regular hospital his wishes couldn’t be ignored, but this was obviously not a regular hospital. They were going to do whatever they thought needed doing, and he could just live with it. The pun wasn’t lost on him. But then everything else was because, damn it, he went to sleep again.
    The next time we woke up, Axel MacNamara was there.
    The visit must have been timed to coincide with the downswing of effectiveness of whatever drugs they were giving him, because Morganfelt at least halfway alert. Yeah, MacNamara thought of things like that. The bastard planned everything, probably down to how long he chewed each bite of food.
    Morgan wouldn’t have said he was clearheaded, just that the mental fog wasn’t as thick. He was clear enough to be aware of a vague sense of fear, one he couldn’t analyze—hell, he could barely identify it. He’d trained himself to ignore fear’s existence, settling instead on “alarm” as his fight-or-flight trigger. But now he was afraid, though he couldn’t have said of what. Maybe it was that this