by Dave Daren
I brought my hands up to my face to rub at my aching eyes before I remembered the blood. I dropped them again and looked at my paralegal as I waited for her response.
Evelyn seemed to flounder for a moment. If it hadn’t been because I looked like I’d been through the wringer, I’d almost have enjoyed her lack of preparedness for once.
“He did,” she finally said before she cleared her throat. “And I think I have news that will cheer you up.”
Chapter 12
“News?” I questioned and dropped my hands from my face. I couldn’t help the small current of hope that quickly wound its way through me.
Evelyn’s face was still caught somewhere between concern and what I interpreted as the need to smack me around for my own idiocy.
I supposed it was better than her explicitly saying that she’d told me so.
“Yes, but first, you’re going to let me fix that hand of yours before you give yourself a damn infection,” she announced and then pursed her lips.
I wasn’t able to stop the groan that slipped out of my mouth.
“I don’t need to be babied, Evelyn,” I protested. “I’m fine. It’s just a cut.”And it was just a cut, and I didn’t intend on telling her just how badly said cut still hurt.
“I didn’t ask for your permission, Archer,” she replied and clicked her tongue. Her tone left no room for question.
And so, I just sighed and spun in my chair so that she could reach my hand if she moved to the side of my desk.
But, she didn’t come straight to my hand. Instead, she briskly walked over to her massive purse and dragged the whole thing over to unceremoniously plop onto my desk. It looked like I’d be able to fit my entire wardrobe in the damn thing. But, I didn’t share that thought aloud.
I watched as Evelyn rifled through her bag of mysteries for whatever it was she needed to look for. In the end, it turned out she had been looking for a little plastic first-aid kit.
She popped the plastic tabs on the case and set out the contents of the little box.
The kit hadn’t held much, just a few bandages, a tiny tube of antibacterial cream, a couple of packaged isopropyl alcohol swabs, and a tiny case of what I assumed were painkillers.
It was less severe than I’d been expecting, I had to admit. Evelyn seemed the type to carry needles and floss to stitch up bullet wounds in the field, like I’d seen in a few old spy movies, and a bottle of alcohol to disinfect the wounds. But, well, a normal first-aid kit made significantly more sense.
Evelyn didn’t speak as she grabbed hold of my wrist. I felt like my skin was still coated in a fine layer of dirt and grime from where I’d hidden at the dump site, and I suddenly ached for a shower and something to eat.
I watched as Evelyn looked over the nasty cut. She clucked with her tongue in what I assumed to be disdain before tearing open one of the alcohol swabs. If I hadn’t been watching, I wouldn’t have known to brace for the pain.
I gave a soft hiss as the alcohol burned at the cut, but Evelyn’s gruff touch didn’t lighten in the slightest as she continued to scrub the coated blood from my skin.
It took her three swabs before she’d managed to clean the area enough to even get a good look at the cut.
I was relieved to see that it wasn’t nearly as deep as I’d assumed under the layers of dried blood, but it still wasn’t too pretty to look at.
The cut ran parallel around the knobs of my lower knuckles in a surprisingly thick slash. Dirt had made its way into the wet, ruddy pink separation of skin that even the alcohol swabs hadn’t been able to clean away.
I’d need to see a real doctor if I didn’t want to get an infection, but this would do for now. But before I could thank her for the help, Evelyn frowned, and I knew there was more coming.
“There’s a pair of tweezers near the bottom of my purse,” she muttered. “Grab them for me. I think a small piece of glass is stuck in the cut.”
She spoke like she knew what she was talking about, even though I couldn’t see any glass in the injury.
So with my uninjured hand, I reached across my body to blindly rifle through Evelyn’s bag. My hand brushed against all sorts of things I couldn’t discern, but nothing felt like a pair of tweezers.
I did, however, feel the familiar velvet and embroidery of a Crown Royal bag. I nearly had to laugh, because well, it did seem like Evelyn carried a bottle of booze with her. That was, until I felt the shape in the bag which felt awfully more like a gun than a bottle of whisky. I apparently blanched because Evelyn scoffed.
“Don’t be a child, Archer,” she scolded. “I’ve got to protect myself somehow, because Lord knows, you aren’t up to the task.”
I didn’t point out that I hadn’t actually been shot, because I wasn’t looking to change that any time soon. Instead, I just fumbled around faster for the pair of tweezers before finally presenting them to Evelyn with a flourish.
She did not say thank you before she bent closer to my hand. With one wrist still clamped tight around mine, she used the tweezers in her free hand to root around in the aching skin.
I gave another sharp, pained inhale and clamped my eyes closed as she continued to poke around in the injury.
It reminded me of the time I’d gone to donate blood and the nurse had scrapped the needle around the inside of my arm to find the vein. The memory still made my stomach roil.
But, before I could upend the meager contents of my stomach onto the floor of the office and Evelyn’s shoes, she held a thin, narrow sliver of glass up to the light.
Huh, apparently she’d been right about the glass. I gritted out a soft “thank you” as she hummed in response.
Evelyn didn’t take much longer to patch me up with a quick smear of antibacterial cream and all four bandaids from her kit. She dumped the rest back into her purse before she straightened up.
For just a moment, I was able to see the concern she’d held for me on her face, but maybe it had just been a trick of the light, because it was gone just as soon as I thought it had come.
I cleared my throat and flexed my bandaged hand.
“So, you said something about news?” I asked with a bit of hope creeping into my tone.
Evelyn set her purse back down by her desk and nodded her head.
“News,” she repeated. “Brody’s been gone most of the morning. He called me at the crack of dawn after you called him to let me know he was going on the hunt for a medical specialist.”
She paused and fixed her gaze onto me as a small smile danced across her lips. I felt my own sense of hope start to rise in response, but I simply nodded instead.
“And he found one,” Evelyn said. “He should be back soon, so long as he doesn’t drive like an old woman on the way back from Dallas.”
I pursed my lips in thought.
“Dallas,” I said. “Wasn’t that where one of the Piney Crest residents was seeing a specialist?”
“The very same,” she confirmed with a little smile. “Lucky for us, Dr. Gupta had no idea who Knox was and confirmed that something had made her client very, very sick .”
Her words lifted an invisible sort of weight off of my chest. Yes, things had gone very, very sideways from what we’d planned, but at least we finally had a doctor on our side.
“Has Brody had any luck with any other medical professionals?” I asked and tried to hide the hopeful edge from creeping into my tone. “There were a few specialists at Cook, too.”
The look on Evelyn’s face told me that she hadn’t forgotten about the experts at Cook any more than I had. She huffed and gave a stern roll of her eyes in my direction.
“Yes, Archer, we are able to function without your presence,” she said with another little huff. “But the last time we spoke, he was planning on coming back to the office after leaving Dallas. I doubt he’ll go galavanting off to Fort Worth. Not everyone likes to drive like you.”
I couldn’t tell if her statement was a joke or not, but I gave a snort in response anywa
y. I hadn’t even liked driving to begin with, but after the eight hour drive followed by the eight hour car chase, I figured I had developed some sort of complex surrounding cars and would break into hives if I got back behind the wheel again any time soon.
But my hypothetical complex didn’t stop me from pushing myself up to my feet. For a single, terrifying moment, the world swayed around me, and my vision bobbed like a dinghy set out to sea until I managed to lock onto a point on the wall. To punctuate the moment, my stomach let out a distressed growl.
Evelyn’s thin eyebrows shot up, and she stared daggers in my direction.
“When was the last time you ate?” she scolded more than she asked.
I cleared my throat, scratched at my stubbled cheek, and found that spot on the wall suddenly much more interesting than Evelyn’s knowing gaze.
“Uh, I had an energy drink this morning?” I tried with a small shrug of my shoulders.
The spot on the wall held my focus as I debated the merits of painting the office to brighten things up a little. It had always felt a little too dark and gloomy in the space.
Evelyn snapped her fingers to force my attention on to her, despite my foot dragging about it.
“Food, Archer,” she clarified with a sharpness in her voice. “An energy drink barely counts as anything at all.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I was a little preoccupied all of yesterday, so maybe the day before?”
As I thought about how long it had been since I’d eaten, I realized exactly how hungry I really was. As if in response to my epiphany, my stomach gave another unappealing gurgle.
Evelyn looked like she wanted to whip her little gun out of that Crown Royal bag and finish the job Knox’s men had started the night before.
I held my hands up in a show of good faith and surrender.
“I’ll find something to eat,” I said. “I think I have some granola bars around here.”
Evelyn groaned and raised her thin hands up to massage her temples.
“Go to that damn diner down the street and pick something up to eat,” she ordered without leaving any sort of room for argument.
She looked like she wanted to say something else, something mean if I had to guess, but instead, Evelyn just pointed a finger at the door like she was barking an order.
I nearly laughed, and if I’d wanted to cause a scene, I would have pointed out that if my blood sugar was dropping, I shouldn’t be walking, but I couldn’t shake the memory that she had a gun and a short fuse.
“Would you like anything, Evelyn?” I asked in my kindliest voice.
The tightness in her shoulders dropped, just barely, and the ghost of a smile dared to cross her lips for a second.
“A coffee would be nice,” she muttered. “Your damn machine isn’t worth the money you could sell it for.”
I laughed and nodded my head once again as I patted my back pocket to make sure I still had my wallet.
“One coffee, coming up,” I said in lieu of a goodbye as I walked out of the office and onto the sidewalk that would guide me to the diner.
The diner wasn’t far, just a few storefronts down the street, and it had been one of the selling points of my office space. Well, admittedly, the main selling point had been “cheap,” but having a good diner with long hours within walking distance had certainly helped.
I kept my bandaged hand in my pocket as I shouldered into Bertie’s. The diner was the sort of place that hadn’t changed along with the world around it. The floors were that classic 1950s black-and-white checker pattern, and the booths were a cherry-red vinyl that always stuck to any exposed skin they came into contact with. The jukebox in the corner hadn’t worked for as long as I’d been in the area, but music still drifted over the small speakers mounted to the walls.
I made my way up to the countertop that spanned the helm of the diner and rapped onto the Formica with my good hand. A long row of swivel stools were mounted into the ground in front of the counter where, on a busier day, a few waitresses were always bustling back and forth in the small space and a cook was always reaching an arm out through the rectangular window where meal tickets hung.
But Bertie’s was fairly quiet for it being nine in the morning. They weren’t much of a breakfast place, but it hadn’t stopped a few patrons from taking up residence at the booths and far ends of the counter to nurse their coffees and half-finished plates.
I rapped my knuckles against the counter again with a little less urgency this time and instead kept tempo with the oldies hit floating over the speakers.
It took a minute longer before a waitress in the standard Bertie’s pale-blue uniform came around the corner from the kitchen’s wide, swinging metal doors with a plastic tray of glassware balanced on her hip. Her face broke out in a grin at the sight of me.
“Archer!” she said in surprise. “It’s been a minute since you’ve stopped by in person. I’d started to think you didn’t like me.”
Trish flashed her wide smile at me again and set the tray of glasses down on the countertop. Her mess of dark hair was piled on top of her head in a way I figured customers appreciated more than the health department.
I matched her easy smile and leaned up against the counter while I made sure to keep my injured hand concealed. I didn’t much feel up to answering the stream of questions Trish would undoubtedly throw at me if she saw the bandages.
She pulled a little notepad from the pocket of the apron tightly cinched around her waist and pulled a pen from the mysterious depths of her hair. She clicked the pen, and her cherry-red nails flashed in the diner’s bright lights.
I realized her nails were the same shade of red as the booths, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was on purpose. I figured it had to have been, given it felt like every time I came into Bertie’s, Trish was working. She’d once told me that her grandparents, “Beatrice and Bertram, real unfortunate names,” still owned the place, but she’d taken over most of the day-to-day management.
“I’ve been busy,” I said in my most apologetic tone. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
I raised my hand up to my chest as if to display my sincerity as I joked with her.
Trish gave a dramatic roll of her dark eyes and blew a curl from her face.
“You’re lucky you’re cute, Archer, or I’d have started telling Hank to spit in your food months ago,” she said with a little shake of her head. “What’ll you have, the usual?”
My usual was the country fried steak with a side of mashed potatoes and whatever vegetable they had on special for the day. I pursed my lips and waffled my head side to side in thought as I debated the merits of a healthier option, and then my stomach growled in protest.
“Yeah, that sounds great,” I caved at the behest of my stomach. “And a coffee, to go.”
I had nearly forgotten Evelyn’s coffee, and I’d never have heard the end of it if I showed up empty-handed after she’d taken care of my injured knuckles.
Trish scribbled down the order before ripping the paper off in one clean tear. She passed it through the window that led to the kitchen with a little flourish, and then a disembodied hand reached forward to pluck it from her grasp.
“And put a rush on it, Hank,” she called out to the hand. “Archer’s got some important lawyer business.” She threw a wink over her shoulder at me as she said it.
I gave a good-natured roll of my eyes and brought my hand to my chest as if I was touched. I liked Trish, but not in any sort of romantic sense.
We’d tried that when I’d first moved to Crowley, but a disastrous date later, we had both amicably agreed that we’d be much better off as friends. Though, I don’t think it had quite stopped her from holding out a little hope when she thought I wasn’t looking.
Trish leaned up against the counter as she twirled her pen between her fingers and fixed me with a narrow-eyed look. One of the wings of her eyeliner had smudged to more of a blur than a sharp line.
I raised an eyebrow in questi
on at the discerning look she was giving me.
“Is there something on my face?” I joked, even if I did mean the question, just a little.
She tapped the end of her pen on the countertop as she seemed to hold some sort of internal debate. She glanced toward the kitchen window again, and then took a few steps closer to me.
“I’ve heard some rumors floating around town,” Trish began. “About you getting involved in some stuff with that big oil company.”
She wasn’t asking a question, but she was. I knew this game, and I’d played it plenty of times before. My fondness for Trish aside, she was a well-known gossip. Maybe it would come in handy one day, but right now didn’t seem like the time.
“Petrochemical plant,” I corrected. “But I can’t say much more than that. You’ll have to trust me on that.”
I gave her an apologetic shrug of my shoulder and hoped she let sleeping dogs lie.
But, that wasn’t Trish.
“Oh, come on, Archer,” she said with a pout of her lower lip. “Who could I tell?”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from my mouth at her little act.
“Everyone?” I shot back with a raised eyebrow, though Trish scrunched up her nose and waved her hand at me as if brushing me away.
“One day, I’ll take offense to something you say, Archer,” she threatened with a playful jab of a long, red nail into my arm. “And then where do you plan on getting a country fried steak at nine in the morning?”
Trish pushed herself up from the counter when the bell in the windowsill dinged. A tray laden with a styrofoam container and a matching styrofoam coffee cup slid onto the ledge.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I challenged to her retreating back as she turned to take the tray. “And I guess I’ll just have to learn how to make my own breakfast.”
Trish snorted and set the takeout box and coffee cup in front of me on the counter. She hooked the empty tray up under her arm and gave another shake of her head.
“That’s what they all say,” she kidded with a heavy sigh. “Haven’t seen it happen yet, though.”