by Cari Hunter
She nodded, assuming that at some point Alex or Quinn had mentioned her name. She moved to the opposite side of the bed, giving him room to tuck a sterile sheet beneath Alex’s arm.
“The X-rays were clear, no fractures,” he said. “Can you just…” Alex obligingly raised her arm so that he could unwind the bandage. “Thanks. Yes, given the swelling, I expected worse.”
The final piece of gauze fell onto the sheet with a wet slap, and he cleaned away the blood to expose the injury. Sarah stepped closer to see the damage and immediately wished she hadn’t. The knife wound extended from the underside of Alex’s wrist to the middle of her forearm. In the stark light of the cubicle, it gaped and glistened like a sick smile.
“Nasty,” the doctor said with considerable understatement. As he started to perform a series of tests to assess circulation and sensation, Sarah watched Alex trying to concentrate even though the pain was making sweat break out on her forehead. When he was finished, he patted the back of Alex’s hand.
“That’s all fine. You take it easy now while I get everything set up here.”
Sarah soaked a handful of paper napkins at the small sink and used them to wipe Alex’s face. “Better?”
“Mmm.” Alex nodded gratefully.
“Have you home and tucked up in bed in no time.”
“Sounds lovely.”
The doctor held up a syringe and squirted a small amount of clear liquid from a needle that was anything but small. “Okay, Alex, this is going to sting a little.”
His warning made her roll her eyes, and Sarah stifled a giggle; they had both lost count of the number of sutures they had needed in the last three years.
“Hey, at least you’re getting an anesthetic,” Sarah said drily.
Alex snorted, but composed herself when she noticed the doctor’s curious expression.
“Long story, doc,” she said, and clamped down on Sarah’s hand as he dug in with the needle.
*
The voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way off. At first, it was patient and cajoling, but became gradually more insistent, with just a hint of amused exasperation. It took another long minute for Alex to work out that the voice belonged to Sarah and that she was trying to persuade her to get out of the Jeep.
Alex opened her eyes and groaned as hot light seemed to pierce her retinas and lodge right at the point where her head was pounding. Drool had stuck her cheek to the warm leather seat, and moving any part of her body made her feel sick. The cardboard bowl on her lap, along with the small pile of them in the footwell and the disgusting taste in her mouth, suggested it had been a very long journey home for Sarah. Alex, however, could barely remember leaving the hospital.
Apparently deciding that she had given Alex enough time to regain her equilibrium, Sarah took hold of Alex’s good arm and slung it across her shoulders.
“You’ve got to help me out here, love. You go all Bambi-legged and we’ll both end up on the floor.”
“I’m good,” Alex muttered with as much indignation as she could muster. “Been walking since I was ten months old.”
To prove her point, she swung around out of the passenger seat and managed to stand by clinging on to Sarah and the doorjamb.
“Okay, go,” she said urgently. It felt like the world was tilting on its axis, and she was no longer quite so confident in her ability to remain upright. Her feet clomped clumsily as she took a step; someone had put her work boots back on and not tied them tightly enough. Meanwhile, there was a strange draft around her thighs.
“What the fuck?” She looked down at the pink, flowery hospital gown she was still wearing, and brought Sarah to a halt at the foot of the porch steps. “Is my ass hanging out?” she asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.
Sarah took her time, glancing behind Alex to check. “Yes, it is,” she finally confirmed. Her eyes glinted with amusement; she wasn’t taking Alex’s discomfiture at all seriously. “No one’s looking. Not even the chickens.”
“Did they steal my underwear?”
“Who? The chickens?”
“No, the doctors!”
“Oh. No. No, your underwear is present and correct.”
Slightly mollified, Alex allowed Sarah to lead her up the steps. By the time they reached the kitchen, she was so dizzy that she had to grab onto the table for support.
“I think I might throw up,” she whispered, shocked by how awful she felt.
“Almost there, hang on,” Sarah said and continued to guide her slowly toward the bedroom.
*
Sarah closed her book and rested both hands on its tattered cover. The instant she moved, pins and needles raced down her left leg and prickled heat into her big toe. She shuffled awkwardly on the chair, uncurling herself and stretching each limb in turn. Something in her spine popped and cracked in protest, but that was nothing new, and it hadn’t been loud enough to disturb Alex. She smiled at the soft snores; it wasn’t like Alex to sleep flat on her back, but she appeared to be comfortable enough. In the past seven hours, she had managed to sleep through Bandit chasing a frog around the kitchen, three phone calls, and a mass chicken brawl. After the noise of the second phone call provoked no meaningful response, Sarah had decided to switch a small reading lamp on, and Alex hadn’t seemed bothered by that either. Every two hours, Sarah carefully shook her awake. She dutifully stated her name and date of birth, told Sarah how tired she looked, and fell back to sleep. According to the doctor, she had a mild concussion; sleep, pain relief, and a responsible caregiver were the only management required.
Running a hand through her hair, Sarah tried hard to stifle a yawn. A quick check of her watch told her she had another forty minutes before she needed to disturb Alex again, so she headed to the kitchen in search of food and caffeine. She fed the animals, slung the local paper on the table to browse through later, and set the kettle to boil. By the time she returned with a tray of toast and tea, Alex was awake and attempting to sit up.
“Oh, hey. Here, let me…” Sarah plumped the pillows and arranged them behind Alex. “How’s that?”
Alex didn’t answer straight away. She had closed her eyes and seemed to be deciding whether being upright really was an improvement. After a few seconds, she cracked one eye open and relaxed her white-knuckle grip on the sheets.
“That toast smells amazing,” she said.
Sarah made a skeptical noise. “How about we see if you can keep water down first?”
“Have I not been doing that?”
“Not as such, no.”
“Oh.” Alex looked disappointed and then noticed she was lying on a towel. “Oh,” she repeated, with greater understanding. “Shit, sorry.”
Sarah perched on the mattress. “You look a bit better.”
“Feel a bit better.” Alex tentatively flexed her bandaged arm and then appeared to remember something vitally important. Her face lit up with a grin. “So what’s this I hear about you being some kind of baby-delivering all-round heroine?”
Sarah put her head in her hands. “How the hell did you find out about that?”
“Esther managed to keep it a secret until they got me to the hospital. Then she told Quinn, who told me and the doc and just about anyone else within earshot.”
The Avery grapevine was legendary; Sarah should have known that that piece of gossip would spread around the town in a heartbeat.
“It wasn’t really a big deal.” She laughed as Alex arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “Honestly, I didn’t have to do all that much.”
“Yeah, well, Syd Bair is telling a different story. He thinks you’re amazing.”
“The birth was amazing. It gave me goose bumps.”
Undeterred, Alex continued her original theme. “Your undisputed amazingness calls for a celebration,” she said. She shifted over to make more space in the bed. “Come on, and bring that tray. We can share.”
Relief at Alex’s recovery made Sarah compliant. She pressed closer, positioning the tray
so they could both reach it.
“One piece.” She handed Alex the toast. “And you eat it slowly. Then you can take your pain meds.”
“I’m very proud of you, and I love you,” Alex said, nibbling on a corner.
“You love toast.”
“I do also love toast.”
In spite of herself, Sarah started to laugh. “Alex, if you’re going to wink at me, try doing it with the eye that isn’t swollen shut.”
The phone rang, cutting off Alex’s comeback. Recognizing the number on the caller ID, Sarah passed it straight to her with a muttered “Quinn.”
Only privy to one side of the conversation, Sarah watched her slowly put her toast down as Quinn spoke. When she hung up, her face was pale, with no trace of humor left.
“Emerson’s been suspended, pending an investigation,” she said. “He pretty much admitted to only opening the doors of the first two offices. He told us they were clear, but he hadn’t gone inside and searched them properly.”
“Jesus.” Sarah shook her head. “Where was the guy who assaulted you?”
“Came out of the second office.”
“What the fuck was Emerson thinking?” The crockery on the tray rattled as she spoke, and it was only then that she realized she was shaking.
“I’m not sure.” Unlike Sarah, who felt ready to throttle Emerson with her bare hands, Alex sounded more bewildered than angry. “He was scared. Maybe that made him sloppy.”
“He could have got you killed.”
“I know.” She was staring blankly into the darkened bedroom.
For a terrifying moment, paranoia gripped Sarah. “Do you think he meant to?”
“No.” Alex answered quickly, but when she turned to Sarah, she looked uncertain and very tired. “I don’t know,” she said.
The admission hung between them, its implications too deep for Sarah to fathom after so little sleep and so much stress. Hand in hand, they sat in silence. It was Alex who eventually spoke.
“Maybe we should call Castillo.”
Chapter Five
Alex eyed the small pink pills with disdain.
“Come on. Down the hatch,” Sarah said. Her hand was cool from the water, her touch light against Alex’s aching head, and Alex took the first pill just to prolong the moment. It didn’t make anything worse so she chased the second down with a gulp of water.
“Oh bugger,” Sarah muttered. The advice leaflet from the medication was on the bed, spread out in front of her.
“What? Am I allergic?” Alex might have felt alarmed, had she not been so damn tired.
“No. Well, I don’t think so.” Sarah studied her, her expression quizzical as she tried to remember. “I thought beetroot was the only thing you were allergic to.”
“Those pills were awful pink.”
The worry on Sarah’s face softened as she smiled. “Unlikely to be beetroot flavored, though.” Her finger rested on a section of the leaflet. “It’s this warning: ‘may cause drowsiness.’”
She must have had a point to make, but Alex couldn’t discern it. Blinking at her, she tried not to yawn. “That gonna be a problem?”
“We need to phone Castillo.” Sarah sounded as if she were speaking to a child: slow, careful, ensuring that Alex could follow her. “That means I need to know what happened last night, and everything you have on Emerson, because I don’t think you’re going to be in a fit state to speak to anyone in an official capacity.”
Alex nodded in a manner she hoped was serious, but found she had concerns of a far more pressing nature. “Can I have your toast?”
Sarah swore beneath her breath, but passed the spare piece of toast over before taking a notepad and pen from the bedside table.
“Scott Emerson,” she said, flipping the pad to a blank page. “Go.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Alex ventured. For some reason, that made her feel incredibly tearful, and chewing the toast was the only thing keeping her bottom lip from quivering. “I don’t know why. He gives me all the crappy jobs to do.”
Sarah made a “carry on” motion with her hand; she hadn’t written anything down yet. “Do you know anything that might help Castillo look into his background?” she said. “His home address? Is he married?”
“He lives out on Pike Road, right up the top end. I think he’s single. There was cake in February.” Something gave a twinge in Alex’s injured wrist and she instantly forgot why her last point had been salient. “There was cake in February.” She looked up at Sarah helplessly. “I can’t…”
“Think his birthday might be in February?” Sarah asked gently.
“I guess. I don’t remember the day, but he’s thirty.”
The notepad page was half-full of scribbles.
“You’re doing fabulously,” Sarah assured her. “Does he have any distinguishing marks? Tattoos?”
“Not that I’ve noticed.” Since being held hostage by Deakin’s gang of racist thugs, they had done their research. Tattoos were a notable feature of many white supremacist groups, but Emerson would have to have been insane to display any such markings, given his choice of profession. “I’ve never heard him say anything out of line, either,” she said. “He seems like a decent officer, metip, meticul…” She stumbled over the word, her teeth and tongue getting in each other’s way.
“Meticulous?”
“Yes. And last night, the look on his face—Sarah, he looked terrible.”
Sarah paused in her writing, the pen hovering over the page. “Terrible because you were hurt or terrible because he was in deep shit and you weren’t actually dead?” She made no attempt to temper her bitterness, and there was a flush creeping upward from her chest to her neck.
Alex closed her eyes, uncertain exactly what she had seen before her head smacked into the wall, or how to interpret it.
“He tried to stop me from bleeding,” she said. She remembered that much, remembered Tobin being useless in the background while Emerson pressed his bare hands against her wound. But that could have been tactical as well; the wound obviously wasn’t going to prove fatal, so he had to be seen to be helping his fallen colleague. Didn’t he?
When she opened her eyes, the tray was gone and Sarah was rearranging the pillows behind her.
“Come on. Lie down,” Sarah said, and her voice was like a balm, kind and lovely.
“Did you get enough to tell Castillo?”
The pillow was soft beneath Alex’s head, urging her deeper into it.
“I got enough.” Sarah pulled up the sheets and tucked her in. “I’m going to call him now. You need anything?”
“’M good, thanks.”
“I’m right next door,” Sarah said, and clicked the room into darkness.
*
Given the late hour, Sarah was surprised to catch Castillo on his office number. He answered by stating his official title, but he sounded as if he were chewing a mouthful of food. The familiarity of his voice, and the sense of security that it evoked, made her feel calmer.
“You eating a load of bloody rubbish again?” she said in as broad a northern English accent as she could muster. She heard him chuckle in recognition and then slurp something that was probably a milkshake.
“Who are you, my mom? Sorry, mum,” he countered cheerfully, before his tone became more serious. “Good to hear from you, Sarah. Everything okay up there?”
He already knew the answer to that because he was always the one who phoned them. They were only supposed to initiate contact in the event of a problem.
“Alex got hurt,” she said, and all of her preparations, her notes, and her carefully constructed arguments were lost in the aftermath of that short statement.
“Is she all right?” He sounded closer somehow, as if concern were making him speak more directly into the phone.
“She will be.” Sarah managed to steady her voice. “Something went wrong on a raid at a warehouse. She got slashed with a knife and ended up with a concussion.”
She could
hear him breathing, but he didn’t interrupt so she continued.
“There’s a sergeant she works with. He…We don’t know. He screwed up, caused Alex’s injuries—”
“And you don’t know if he acted intentionally,” Castillo finished the thought for her.
“Yeah, it crossed our minds,” she said. “He’s been really weird with her since she started. He could just be a homophobic prick…” Castillo snorted at that. “But something about it doesn’t feel right.”
“Yeah, no point being a homophobic prick if your target doesn’t know that’s why you hate her.”
“Exactly.” She found herself smiling. “We’re so bloody eloquent, darling,” she said affecting the clipped tone of a BBC newsreader.
There was a pause, during which he seemed to be blowing bubbles into his milkshake.
“Okay, that’s less eloquent, more disgusting,” she said.
“Helps me think.” She could practically hear him shrugging. “What details do you have on this guy?”
She gave him everything she had gleaned from Alex and extrapolated on the events at the warehouse. He seemed to be typing the information directly onto his computer; keys clacked rapidly as she spoke.
“Two problems with this,” he said once she had finished. “One: there’s not a lot to go on. Two: once I track this guy down, a thorough background check is going to be tricky. I’ll have to disguise the origin and purpose of any file requests, or I’m going to have the Avery PD wondering why the hell I’m investigating one of their men.”
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. They felt gritty and swollen with exhaustion. “Can you do it?”
Castillo’s answer was laden with caution. “Yes. It’ll just take time. We could be talking more than a week before I know anything concrete.”
She tried hard to keep the disappointment from her voice. “Any advice for us until then?”