Treachery Rising (MidKnight Blue Book 4)

by Sherryl Hancock

“You’re not listening to me.” Midnight made a cutting gesture with her hand. “I said no more, and that’s final.” She saw Rick watching her worriedly and turned to him. “Don’t you start with me too.”

  Rick held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, you’re the boss.”

  Midnight nodded triumphantly, and after making a note on Midnight’s chart, the nurse turned and left.

  An hour later, Joe walked into the room. Midnight smiled at him.

  “Hey,” he said, returning the smile. “You look a lot better.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Joe looked around. “Where’s Rick?”

  “His parents dragged him off to dinner.” Midnight remembered his reluctance to leave her. She’d almost gotten out of bed to help them drag him out of the room—that was when he gave up and went willingly.

  “Good,” Joe said, sitting down on the side of the bed. “We need to talk.”

  Midnight looked at him for a long moment, sure she knew what he meant. “Okay.”

  “What’re you gonna do when they release you from here?” Joe narrowed his eyes at her slightly, as if looking for some sort of deception forming in her mind.

  “I don’t know just yet,” she said, shrugging. Her eyes took on a humorous glint. “I was thinking about going back to work, busting bad guys, making the streets safe for women and children, all that.”

  Joe shook his head, knowing she had thrown the last in to try and deflect his questions. “Night,” he said warningly, “you know what I mean.”

  Midnight sighed. “Yes, I do.” She looked directly into his eyes. “You want to know if I’m going to need you.”

  Joe gave her a lopsided grin. “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Well, the answer is no and yes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, Joseph Sinclair, that no, I won’t need you, and yes, I want you and Randy to get back together.”

  Joe gave her a measured look, pursing his lips as if trying to decide if he wanted to be offended by her rebuff. “I see,” he said finally. “And you’ll be taken care of by whom?”

  Again Midnight sighed. “I don’t know yet, Joe, but it doesn’t matter. I won’t let it be you.” Her voice held conviction.

  “And what if I don’t give you a choice?” he said, equally sure of himself.

  “Then I’ll have to shoot you,” she said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him.

  “Cute.” Joe grinned, but his eyes were still somber. “Seriously, Midnight, how are you going to manage? With Mikeyla and all, I think you should consider—”

  “I know what you think, Joseph Michael Sinclair, and neither that thought nor the one that will certainly follow is going to cut it right now.”

  “But, Night—”

  “No, Joe,” Midnight said harshly. “I won’t take Rick back just because I had the unfortunate luck to have a miscarriage, and I certainly won’t interfere with you and Randy getting back together. You got it?”

  Joe looked at her for a long moment. “I got it, but I don’t have to like it.”

  Midnight shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “You really piss me off sometimes, ya know.”

  “Well, sweetheart,” Midnight said, patting his hand, “rest assured in the knowledge that your sentiment is reciprocated thoroughly.”

  Joe stayed a little while longer, still not happy with her obstinacy but giving up the battle for now. Midnight fell asleep shortly after he left. She woke less than an hour later, writhing in pain. She moaned quietly and heard someone in the room move toward her in response. She assumed it would be Rick, but when she looked up, she saw her mother’s face.

  “What’re you doing here?” Midnight said, her voice strained.

  Carrie shook her head. “Are you in pain?” she asked, though she already knew the answer from the way Midnight was holding her stomach.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Midnight nodded miserably. “It’s my own fault,” she said, her voice cracking as she drew in deep breaths. “I told them not to give me anything.” She was shaking her head now, as if trying to will the pain away.

  Carrie reached over and pushed the button for the nurse. When the nurse didn’t respond quickly enough, Carrie went out into the hallway. “Excuse me,” she called out authoritatively. “My daughter needs some medication.”

  The nurse looked up at her. “It’ll be a few minutes, ma’am.”

  Carrie walked over to the woman, her eyes narrowed. “No, you’re not listening to me. She needs medication now.”

  The nurse looked at her for a moment and shook her head. “You don’t understand, ma’am. Ms. Chevalier turned her medication down two hours ago. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Carrie said, trying to keep her voice even. “My daughter is a police officer, and she needs to keep her wits about her to do her job properly. It is her propensity to stick to that on a normal basis. However, if you know that she is in unbearable pain, it is your responsibility to override her decision if it is an uneducated one.”

  The nurse looked at Carrie for a long moment, obviously trying to decide if she did have some modicum of fault in all of this. She must have come to the decision that Carrie was right, because she told her she’d be right in.

  Carrie walked back into Midnight’s room, proud of herself for being able to think quickly enough to make the nurse feel guilty. She had no idea if what she had said had been totally true, but she’d gone by what she’d seen of Midnight and her friends so far.

  She looked down at Midnight. There were tears in her daughter’s eyes. Midnight refused to look at her mother; she didn’t want to show the woman any weakness.

  Carrie turned as the nurse walked in and administered the medication to Midnight’s IV. She told Carrie that it would take approximately twenty to thirty minutes to take effect.

  Carrie moved to stand next to the bed. She reached down and brushed a lock of hair away from Midnight’s face. “You know, when you were about seven you had this thing for cherry chip ice cream. You’d eat it morning, noon, and night if I’d let you.” She realized that Midnight was watching her and actually listening. “One time when your father was out of town, I foolishly let you eat all the ice cream you wanted.” She made a face. “You proceeded to throw up all over the place. I felt so bad for letting you overindulge. You were so sick.”

  “I remember that,” Midnight said, surprising Carrie. “I didn’t until just now. Didn’t we have an avocado-colored couch?”

  Carrie laughed. “Yes, we did. Cherry chip didn’t match it very well, I’m afraid.”

  “I guess now I know why I can’t stand the smell of cherries,” Midnight said slowly. She was obviously still in pain, but Carrie could see that the distraction was helping.

  “I was so afraid that your father would find out, I spent the whole next day cleaning it up. I had it spotless, and your father would never have known except that Thomas found it necessary to tell him the minute he walked in the door. ‘Sister threw up, she ate too much ice cream!’ was the first thing he said.” Carrie was immediately sorry she had mentioned Thomas; she saw the look on Midnight’s face change.

  “Don’t,” Midnight said, holding up a hand to fend her mother off and shaking her head. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “But Midnight, that’s the reason that we’ve—”

  “That you’ve hated me for so long, I know.”

  “No, Midnight, that’s not it. We never hated you…” But Carrie trailed off as she saw the look in her daughter’s eyes, and she knew that they had let Midnight think that all along. She saw now the effect it had had on her. “Midnight…” Carrie breathed. “This is so difficult.”

  “Difficult how, Mother?” Midnight said sarcastically. “Difficult to understand how your own daughter could kill your son, difficult to understand why your daughter didn’t die instead? What’s so difficult to understand—he was my brother and I
let him into my gang and he got killed, so by definition I killed him, right?” There were tears in Midnight’s eyes. “The thing is, you never gave a shit, neither of you. Not about me, not about Thomas, until he was dead. Suddenly you were parents again—his parents, not mine though.”

  “We have always been your parents,” Carrie said feebly.

  “Bullshit!” Midnight yelled, her eyes flashing in anger. “The last time I remember having parents was around the age of nine. After that you two didn’t exist, not for me or for Thomas. I took care of him, and I watched him die. I guess it’s only fair.”

  Carrie nodded slowly. “You’re right, we weren’t parents to either of you for a long time. We were caught up in so much. Midnight, there’s no excuse for it, but you should know that your father and I are trying to come back from the self-induced hell we’ve put ourselves in. I guess a lot of it did start when you were nine. We decided that we were young and we should have some fun. We were stupid, we got into drugs and drinking, and it caught us up in a whirlwind.”

  Again, Midnight was shaking her head, as if telling Carrie that her excuses weren’t good enough.

  “Midnight, I know that this doesn’t excuse anything, but when Angela Theland called me and said that you might die, I had to come. I had to see you.”

  “Why?” Midnight asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for so long, to tell you how sorry I am about everything that we’ve done. But I was afraid.”

  Midnight raised an eyebrow, indicating that she didn’t believe her.

  “I was, Midnight. I was afraid of what you’d say, even of what you’d do. When that boy died four years ago, when we saw the pictures of you, you looked so devastated, it reminded me of Thomas’ funeral, and I wanted to call you.” She shrugged. “But your father told me he would call, because he didn’t want you to scream at me. And I know he handled it badly, bringing up Thomas again. I was so angry at him for so long after that. But I just couldn’t face you.”

  Midnight looked as if she was considering the things that Carrie was saying. She remembered now that she had been a good mother for the first nine years. She had been attentive and fun. That had made it all the more difficult when Carrie seemed to change overnight and was constantly pushing her away. Midnight remembered all the nights she had lain in her bed crying, wondering what she had done to make her mother stop loving her. Thomas had felt the same way, and Midnight had nursed her own wounds by taking care of him and giving him the love that her parents didn’t seem to want anymore.

  “When I came here, to see you at the hospital, and I saw all the people that you had touched, I was astounded. I talked to some of the members of your unit, and they just talked on and on about all the things you had done, and how you’d turned them around and made them respectable people again. And then the men in your life, they seem to care so much for you, it’s incredible, and I began to realize what a special person it took to be able to be so much to so many people. To be loved by so many people.”

  “Except my own parents,” Midnight said darkly.

  “Midnight—” Carrie began, tears in her eyes now.

  “You can’t change who I am, Carrie. It was your rejection that made me who I am. It was the idea that my own parents didn’t want me that made me take in everyone else. But it made me cautious too, sometimes too cautious. But that’s me, a product of my environment and a will to survive.”

  Carrie studied her daughter for a long moment. “So I guess that degree in psychology I heard about is true, huh?”

  Midnight heard the note of pride in her mother’s voice, and it warmed her just a little bit as she nodded.

  “And a law degree too, I understand,” Carrie said, and Midnight nodded again.

  “So why don’t you practice law instead of getting shot at?” Carrie asked, no degradation in her voice.

  “I’m not into being a lawyer. I just wanted the law degree so I’d know who to bust and why. It comes in handy when I write warrants and the like.”

  “I see.” Carrie pulled a chair over to Midnight’s bed. She wanted to get to know her daughter. She was happy to have the chance to have an actual conversation with her. She reached over, touching Midnight’s wedding ring.

  “That is a beautiful ring,” she said. Her own wedding ring was a mere chip. When she and Jack had rebelled against their parents and run off to get married, they certainly couldn’t afford much, and they’d never thought to change the ring.

  Midnight looked down at her hand, smiling as she remembered the night Rick had given it to her. “It was Rick’s grandmother’s. She had wanted him to give it to someone very special to him.”

  “Well, obviously you were that someone.” Carrie saw a look cross Midnight’s face. “What?”

  “Yeah, I’m special alright,” Midnight said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “So special that after a little over three years of marriage he’s cheating on me already.”

  Carrie stared openmouthed. “No way!”

  “Way.” Midnight nodded.

  “Are you sure, or do you just think he’s cheating on you?” Carrie’s voice indicated that she still didn’t believe it.

  “Mother,” Midnight said, for the first time without any sort of anger attached to it—Midnight didn’t realize that, but Carrie noted it and clung to it hopefully. “The woman that called you, Angela Theland.” Carrie nodded. “She’s Rick’s girlfriend’s mother.”

  Carrie just stared at her daughter, totally confused now. “Why was she making the phone calls then?”

  Midnight shrugged. “Maybe she was so happy about it, she wanted everyone to know. How do I know?”

  “No,” Carrie said, shaking her head. “She actually sounded upset about the idea of you dying.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Well, I don’t. It seems that your demise would be devastating for an awful lot of people around here.”

  Midnight didn’t reply. She just looked at her mother for a long moment, then shook her head. She couldn’t believe that it was her mother saying these things to her. She had to admit, it did feel good to have someone to talk to about this who wasn’t directly involved.

  ****

  Randy’s trip to the apartment that she and Sarah shared took a lot longer than she had expected. She didn’t know what she was going to say, or how she was going to act. She ended up driving around for two hours, trying to decide. It never occurred to her that Dick would be at the apartment, but when she drove up to the front, she saw his truck.

  She sat in her car taking slow deep breaths for a few minutes, knowing that she was going to have to face Dick eventually. Now was as good a time as any. When she walked into the apartment, the first thing she saw was Dick sitting on the couch, watching TV. He looked up, and Randy tried to smile.

  “Hi,” she said weakly.

  “Hi,” he said, eyeing her. “Where’ve you been? Sarah said you haven’t been home since Friday.”

  Randy shrugged, not wanting to answer him. She was taken aback when Dick stood up and walked over to her. She realized at that moment that she didn’t know what she’d seen in him. He was so far away from what Joe was that she couldn’t believe she had even been attracted to him. When he drew close to her, she found herself becoming afraid.

  “Sarah tells me that you received a summons from Lieutenant Chevalier. That true?” His voice indicated that he knew it was.

  Randy nodded.

  “So what’d she say?”

  Randy didn’t answer; she moved around him and headed for the bedroom. She reached into the closet and pulled out her suitcase. She turned to see that Dick had followed her and was watching her expectantly from the doorway. His eyes followed the suitcase to the bed. “What did she say, Randy?” he repeated, this time a little more ominously.

  “She said that she wasn’t going to turn us in,” Randy said simply as she began to pull her clothes out of dresser drawers.

  “But you have
to leave town by sundown?” Dick started to laugh. “Is that the deal you made with her? She’ll let you keep your freedom if you leave?”

  Randy just looked at him for a minute, finding it hard to believe that he was taking this so lightly. “After what you did, it’s a wonder she isn’t going to press charges,” she said angrily. She turned back to the closet.

  Dick strode over and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her side. “What I did?” he said, his voice grating in her ears. “I don’t think you’re remembering it quite right. Don’t you remember, you threw the first punch.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Randy said shakily. “I missed her totally.”

  “Now see, that’s not how I remember it, Your Honor. Randy Curtis-Sinclair even held Lieutenant Chevalier for me when I hit her. Randy Curtis-Sinclair wanted to get the lieutenant back for trying to ruin her career. She talked me into going over to the house—I didn’t realize what she had in mind at the time. Things just got out of control, Your Honor, and I’m so sorry, but Randy Sinclair instigated the whole thing.” Dick sounded innocent and honest, and Randy wanted to scream. Instead, she elbowed him roughly in the stomach. Dick doubled over, coughing, but recovered quickly. He grabbed Randy and threw her on the bed. Randy used her academy training, taking advantage of the momentum of Dick’s strength to roll off the other side of the bed and get to her feet. Looking around quickly as Dick started to come around the bed, she grabbed the bat that Sarah kept in the room. She brandished it at Dick and eyed him threateningly.

  “You won’t use it,” Dick said confidently.

  “You wanna bet?” Randy replied. She sounded a lot like Midnight.

  Dick nodded, his face a mask of superiority. “Oh yeah, I’ll bet on it, because if you do hit me with it, I’ll kill you.” He sounded deadly serious, and that made Randy hesitate momentarily. She lowered the bat just slightly. Dick took advantage of the opportunity and lunged at her. Randy brought the bat up, striking him on the shoulder. Dick fell to the floor, and Randy ran out of the room, careful to avoid his arms as he reached out and tried to grab her legs. She dashed through the living room, dropping the bat as she ran out the door and down the stairs. She headed toward the front of the apartment complex, looking back to see if Dick was following her. She ran right into someone. She screamed, imagining that Dick had somehow managed to get ahead of her.