Her eyelids drooped in weariness, but she forced herself to stay awake as she mumbled words she couldn’t even understand. Somewhere, a long time ago, she’d read that if you held the hand of a patient who was in a coma and spoke to him, he could hear you in the dark hole he was in. Because she wanted to believe that was true, it was exactly what she’d been doing since she arrived. She was hoarse from talking about the very first picnic they’d gone on, but she forced herself to keep speaking, leaning in closer to the patient so he could hear when her voice threatened to give out, believing the patient could still hear her whispered words. How many times had she recounted the picnic—a hundred, a thousand, more? She didn’t know. They were familiar words, and they came easily to her parched throat because it had been such a happy time in their lives. But when the words wouldn’t come anymore, she switched to their son, whose goal it was to become an Olympic swimmer.

The room was quiet as a tomb except for the beeping of the ventilator. For some reason, she was able to block those sounds from her mind and concentrate on her own voice and the otherwise absolute quiet that surrounded her and the patient in the bed.

Suddenly, her head jerked upright. What was that noise? Something different. Something . . . some noise . . . was invading the tomblike quiet. She stood up on wobbly legs, the paper gown making its own strange noise, and walked to the door. She looked around, panic and terror on her beautiful face. What was that sound? She reached out for something to hold her upright. Somehow she managed to get to the door and open it. She squinted in the bright overhead lighting, wondering if she was seeing a hallucination.

She thought she shouted “Jack!” but it came out in a bare whisper as her weary gaze took in Jack and the rest of the guys all standing outside her husband’s door. She said his name again, and this time her voice was full of pain as she saw Harry Wong move to be closer to Jack Emery so they could both catch her when she toppled into their arms.

“Lizzie!” the gang said in unison, their voices holding as much pain as her own.

The men of BOLO, which stood for Be on the Look Out, had come immediately upon hearing the news. They had formed the group after years of working together, undertaking dangerous missions on behalf of those incapable of helping themselves. The group of friends never hesitated to help someone in need, and that went double when one of their own was in need. And they most definitely counted Lizzie as part of their surrogate family.

Jack scooped her up into his arms, Harry at his side just as an ugly, fussy little man with a stethoscope around his neck and too much facial hair tried to shoulder the boys out of the way.