by Rich Bullock
Skyy reluctantly gave up the support of the steering wheel, leaned back in her seat, and opened her Show Ideas file on her phone. How do you know if he’s a nice guy? Then, just to keep all things equal: Or if she’s a nice girl? What questions do you ask? What do you need to know? She could begin with what characteristics were important, then talk about which questions revealed those. No doubt someone would call with a horror story about—
“So…am I driving?”
Skyy shot Ember a glance, then turned the key in the ignition. “After you get your license.”
A minute later, she merged the Jeep and little teardrop onto the Interstate. If only dating were as simple as learning to drive.
It took Canon several tries before he struggled to a sitting position on the side of his bed, sweating and groaning from the effort. He picked up his buzzing cell phone from the nightstand.
“Yeah?”
“Happy Monday, bro,” Mart said.
He sat breathing heavily, contemplating whether to talk to his brother or toss the phone and make for the bathroom. Mart’s chipper tone had the bathroom winning on points.
“Shoulder still bad?” Mart asked when Canon didn’t answer.
Friday night, a joint task force raided a warehouse a mile north of the border. He had tackled a wiry Hispanic male and was putting zip ties on his wrists when a dozen men poured in from a room leading to a hidden underground tunnel. Things went south from there, and the ensuing brawl left Canon with bruised ribs and a egg-sized knot on the back of his head. But the worst was the searing pain in his right shoulder.
“Bad doesn’t begin to describe it.”
The emergency room doc said ice it, and that he’d probably need physical therapy. Captain Olenski hadn’t been happy about that at all. He suggested Canon do the ice for a few days and wait and see on the P.T. As soon as Canon arrived at his home in L.A., he crawled into bed with ice packs. But now was day three, and there wasn’t enough ice in the world to fix this.
“I’ve got two days off,” Mart said. “Want me to come down?”
He tentatively lifted his right arm across his chest, wincing as pain radiated across his back like a burning electric current. Sweat dotted his forehead as he eased his arm back to its resting position.
“I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour. That’s if I can get some clothes on. I’ll call you with the results.”
Five hours and an MRI later, he was on the department’s disabled list and scheduled for shoulder surgery Tuesday afternoon.
Chapter 11
“Yikes, it’s freezing out here.” Ember swung her legs over the picnic table bench and sat opposite Skyy. The girl had been reading in the Cherokee. It probably wasn’t much warmer, but at least the interior wasn’t breezy.
“It was so nice yesterday,” Skyy said, pulling a blanket tighter around her shoulders. At nearly 4,000 feet elevation, Pine Valley, California had been a blessed reprieve from the heat that dogged them all the way from Gila Bend. The private campground of forty spaces had fewer than a dozen occupants. With no specific destination in mind—and with decent Wi-Fi here—the camp seemed like a good location to spend a couple of days. Skyy could plan out her shows, manage her online stores, and figure out her next move.
Last night was great. They washed a load of clothes in the laundry room, cooked dinner, and showered in the serviceable camp bathroom before the evening grew too cold.
Today was a different story. It was only 3:30, but high clouds began scurrying overhead at noon and were darkening by the minute. The camp proprietor said rain would come before midnight. Leaves swirled around the picnic table legs, propelled by a breeze scented with pine and hints of ozone. Ozone meant lightning. And they were in a metal trailer.
“Who would have thought the temperature could drop so fast?” Ember said as she lit the burner on the camp stove and arranged the folding metal shield as a reflector. It worked slightly better than nothing at all, and they both rubbed their hands in front of the hissing blue flame.
It sounded warmer than the reality. As often as not, the wind blew the heat away before it got to them. Even with the blanket, Skyy’s shoulders were shaking.
“How can you even type?” Ember said.
Big Jerry had tonight’s show notes and song list, and the laptop screen was dark from inactivity. It wasn’t typing or planning the show that had kept her rooted to the frozen boards so long her butt went numb. No, something else triggered a deep unease.
Was it she hadn’t heard from Canon Truax? No comment after his call-in to last Tuesday’s show. Wednesday and Thursday passed with nothing. Then Friday’s show came and went. Still no contact.
Had she misread the caller? Maybe it wasn’t Canon after all. She shook her head. No, it was him. She was sure of it. So was Ember, who encouraged Skyy every hour to check her phone for messages.
But no message came, and she’d been sitting out here hoping he was just busy chasing bad guys. Her nose was running, and she’d spent much of the last hour with her fingers tucked in her armpits. All the while, her internal sensors flared and sputtered about a cop in California.
Ember pushed the laptop screen closed and slid it aside so she could scoot the camp stove closer between them. “Think we’ll be warm enough in the trailer tonight?” A shiver shook her small body.
Skyy sighed. Their combined breathing last night had the metal walls dripping with condensation in no time, and that was with warmer temperatures. Cracking two of the windows helped, but they let in cold air. Tonight, they would indeed freeze—if they weren’t struck by lightning.
Ember was looking to Skyy for answers, and not only about staying warm. Unfortunately, Skyy had only lots of questions. Planning for the future had never been a strong suit, and women’s intuition about knowing what to do was a myth for her.
The best advice she’d ever gotten from her aunt was “One step at a time.”
Maybe that was enough for now. One thing for sure, she was tired of freezing. She grabbed Ember’s hands and rubbed them with her own.
“Okay, here’s the plan: we drive to the store and buy an electric heater, a pizza, and one of those giant brownies. That way we don’t have to cook outside.”
“We could just light the camp stove a few times during the night to warm things up,” Ember suggested.
“And wake up dead from carbon monoxide poisoning?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ember said, appearing mildly chagrined. “Guess I should have paid more attention in science class.”
“Ya think?”
“Although…” she said, a smirk taking hold on one corner of her mouth, “technically you can’t wake up dead.”
“Smart-ass.” Skyy forced her frozen knees to bend and stood.
“Can I drive?” Ember asked as she shut down the stove.
“Write me a two-page paper on the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and I’ll think about it.”
Canon stirred to beeps, buzzing, and an annoying someone who kept urging him to wake up. Gradually, his eyes focused on the curved ceiling track for the privacy curtain in the surgery center. He recognized the nurse bending over him as the one who checked him in earlier.
“Your surgery is all done, and you’re in recovery.” She raised the head of his bed several inches. “You did great. Would you like some apple or orange juice?”
Canon croaked an answer. By the time he sank back into the pillow, he wasn’t sure which flavor he’d picked. It seemed like only minutes ago that his shoulder was being swabbed with disinfectant, the surgeon saying, “We’ll take good care of you today, Canon. Just relax.”
Real-life medical shows on TV fascinated him, so today he’d watched the operating room personnel with interest. Then the anesthesiologist asked Canon to count backward from one hundred. He might have made it to ninety-five.
Going from full awareness in the operating room to waking up in the bed was…well, disconcerting. He rubbed his forehead to get his brain firing. It wasn’t at a
ll like sleeping. In sleep, there is still an awareness of the bed, the sheets, sounds on the street—all things which give a sense of time passing. But anesthesia was as if a section of his memory had been snipped out and the ends spliced together like an old movie film. There was nothing in between.
The nurse returned, and Canon slowly drained the juice box while she checked his vitals. Outside his thin curtain, staff efficiently stowed supplies and talked about plans after work. His was the last surgery for the day, so by the time he finished the juice, the surgery center was mostly empty.
His doctor stopped in. “It was a badly torn muscle, Canon, but no damage to the rotator cuff. I was a little afraid going in that we’d find something worse, but it’s all good news.”
The bad news was Canon would have to wear a sling for two weeks, then physical therapy for a minimum of two months. He could go back to work on desk duty, but active duty required the doctor’s release and re-qualifying at the shooting range since he was right-handed.
“Hey, Truax, ready to go workout at the gym?” Jimmy Rodrìguez stepped around the curtain and recoiled in mock horror. “Whoa, they said you’d look bad after surgery, but I didn’t expect this.”
Canon laughed. “This is the improved me. Should have seen me five minutes ago.”
“Too bad they didn’t slip in some plastic surgery, bro.” He held his hands up palms out. “I’m just sayin’.”
J-Rod—as everyone in the division called him because he hated it—gave Canon a ride home, first swinging by the pharmacy for pain meds he hoped he wouldn’t need.
“I’ll buzz you tomorrow—make sure you’re still alive,” Jimmy promised as he left.
Canon sank into his easy chair, but then realized he couldn’t work the reclining lever on the right side. With a sigh, he struggled to his feet and paced across the room and back, wondering again if the anesthesiologist had juiced him with a stimulant to wake him after the surgery. Other than a dull ache, his shoulder didn’t hurt at all, and mentally it was like he’d had the best sleep of his life and a drip line of high-octane caffeine.
He itched to do something and pulled the window curtains aside. The greenbelt of plants and shrubs didn’t hide the building several yards across the narrow divider. The view never improved, not even in the dark.
His apartment, with its off-white walls, white appliances, beige carpeting, and perpetually musty odor was probably identical to its eighty or so twins in the complex. For Canon, it was primarily sleeping quarters, and not even that while he was cross-training in San Diego where he’d been bunking with one of the single deputies.
Work was his stimulation, and that was off the table for a few weeks. When he’d been down with the flu last spring, he made the mistake of watching daytime television. Please, God, never again.
Looking around at the sparse furniture, he realized he hadn’t planned his recovery very well. He’d go nuts if he stayed here for more than a day.
Jimmy had put the pain medication on the kitchen bar. If Canon took half of a pain pill tonight to ensure a good night’s sleep, then tomorrow…
He picked up his phone and pulled up his brother’s contact.
Canon: Survived the surgery. Home 10 mins & already bored out of my mind.
Mart: :-) Glad to hear. Sorry 4 not being there. Can come in a couple days if u want.
Canon: No need. Driving to the cabin tomorrow.
Mart: Cleared to drive already?
Canon: I’m a law enforcement professional.
Mart: Doesn’t make u smart, but OK. No drugs and driving.
Canon fielded Mart’s questions about the surgeon’s repair and assured him again he wouldn’t make the drive if he wasn’t up to it. Then Mart said they had a call at the fire station and had to go.
Mart: Meet u there Thurs nite if I can. Say hi to radio chick for me.
Canon checked the time. Still hours until the Night Thoughts show. Should he stay up? What with work, the injury, and the surgery, he hadn’t communicated with Skyy in days. But there were no messages from her, either. He was probably one of many listeners with whom she occasionally traded messages.
His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since last night. An apple juice box didn’t count. One good thing about this apartment, it was within walking distance of Ms. Mimi’s Thai.
He was struggling to get his coat around his shoulders when the first drops of rain peppered the apartment window. The weather forecasters were predicting widespread rain from a monster front pushing out of the northwest. Evidently, it had arrived, and walking a quarter mile in the rain and wind didn’t sound fun. He sloughed off the jacket and rummaged through a stack of menus on the kitchen bar.
Good thing Ms. Mimi’s Thai delivered.
Chapter 12
An hour before show time, Skyy tore open a new box of tissues. Her nose was draining like Niagara Falls, and her throat felt like a hand was squeezing it shut. It might have been the pine pollen or the cold, but it was nasty. A few drops of that icy date shake would feel so good.
“My voice is a mess,” she whispered to Ember. “I might have to resort to a lot of music tonight. Let’s get set up.”
The camp’s Wi-Fi was as strong as advertised, and they set up her compact operation in the trailer. Although their new electric heater whirred quietly and filled the space with warm air, the aluminum walls radiated cold as the outside temperature continued to plummet. She massaged her tender throat. Sleeping tonight would be a challenge.
Ten minutes before show time, Skyy opened her mouth to ask Ember to pass her water bottle. No sound came out. Ember’s eyes went wide.
Skyy typed into her show notes window and turned the laptop for Ember to see.
“I have to tell Big Jer I can’t do the show.”
Ember shook her head. “I can do it.” She sat up straighter and cleared her throat.
Skyy raised her brows.
“You do the technical part,” Ember said. “I’ll do the discussion. Where are your notes?”
Skyy scrolled to the top of the show notes and Ember began reading.
Two minutes before the show, Skyy’s phone chimed. A direct message from the Black Owl Radio board.
Can’t stay awake for your show. Pain meds knocking me out. - Canon
Pain meds? Skyy recalled her earlier feeling of unease.
What happened? - Skyy
Surgery. - Canon
r u ok? - Skyy
She stared at the tiny screen, willing a better explanation to appear. Then the music started for the show, and Ember pulled the microphone close.
“Hi, all. You’re listening to Skyy D at Night on Black Owl Radio, and this is Night Thoughts. Hope you’re having a good evening. I’m Ember, sitting in for Skyy D who has a touch of laryngitis. But don’t worry, she’s right here in case I goof up. Thanks for dropping in for our ramblings and to hear some great music from independent artists all over the world.”
Skyy glanced at the girl. She’d nailed the intro word-for-word, and it wasn’t written anywhere on-screen.
“Our first group is Their There out of San Francisco, with their new release, ‘Jail Time.’ That’s appropriate, because our topic tonight is how do you know if he’s a good guy, or if he should be imprisoned for life? We’ve all dated creeps. And yes, for you guys out there, girls can be creepy too. Remember those mean girls in high school? Well, some just grow older, not better. How do you know if you’ve got a keeper to take home to mom, or a Fatal Attraction psycho that will boil up a bunny rabbit in your kitchen? And that movie Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton? Man, that was one sick dude.”
Ember nodded to Skyy, and she clicked the link to signal Big Jerry. The music faded in.
“Sorry, that was kind of a crappy intro to—oops,” she said when she realized the mic was still hot. Then she whispered, “Language, Ember. Language.”
Skyy laughed silently, knowing even Ember’s whisper came through on air.
Ember blew out a b
reath and spoke into the mic. “All righty. Let’s listen to Their There while I get my act together. Then we’ll talk.”
Skyy clicked the mute button.
“Whew.” Ember fanned herself with her hand and switched off the space heater. “It’s kind of intense knowing you’re speaking to millions of listeners.”
Skyy smiled and typed More like thousands, but you did fantastic!
Ember grinned ear to ear. She squirmed on her bottom. “I could get used to this.”
Skyy typed Back off, girl. But she couldn’t hide her own grin. She hadn’t realized what a natural radio voice Ember had. The rest of the show would be her proving ground. A red indicator flashed the end of the song. She clicked the mic button when Ember nodded.
“So, how do you know if the person you’re interested in is a winner or a wacko? BT in Ohio says background checks are cheap and worth it. One girl he met online turned out to be a check forger with a long record. Her MO was to date a guy long enough to get a copy of his signature and a book of blank checks. Then, shopping spree!
“Caitlin in Seattle agrees, and says her friends wouldn’t think of buying a car without checking its accident record, so why shouldn’t dates be investigated?”
Skyy typed Anyone else want to share more experiences using background checks? Ember read the question for the listeners.
Over the next hour, Ember touched on the pros and cons of background checks that Skyy had found. Skyy coached her to slow down when she got excited and began speaking too quickly, and had her relax to mellow out her voice, which wasn’t as naturally deep as Skyy’s. Tone was part of the trademark of Night Thoughts, soothing and calming in contrast to the frenzy of a society bent on fast and noisy.