Necessary Detour

by Hornsby, Kim

  “Of course.” He leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the couch and listened to the rest of the CNN account of the afternoon’s events. Nothing was said about her dog. Pete just hoped and prayed that Elvis was with her.

  ****

  Everything was fucked. But salvageable. The thought of Goldy dying of a bullet wound was unthinkable. She needed to know why she was dying, what she did, and the only way to save two years of careful work was to act soon. In case she died. Two chances had come and gone, the second when her location at Louisa Lake was revealed. This new twist of events had to be thought of as the next opportunity. The culmination of this would happen in Seattle, not Los Angeles. That was clear. Goldy would finally pay for her selfishness. Her audacious entitlement. The wrong would be set right.

  The hospital was almost within view from the hotel. How ironic. Hiding in Seattle, waiting for the moment to capture the prey and there she was cornered. Unable to run. Injured. Offered up like a Thanksgiving turkey with Seattle Medical Center as the platter. How lovely and perfect. Come to think of it, this couldn’t have worked out better. The cell phone stayed charged, waiting for the call.

  ****

  Quinn slept in a vinyl chair beside her mother. Machines beeped softly in the room as Nikki shifted her head to get a better view of her daughter. It was dark outside, and the room was dimly lit, not illuminated by the fluorescents on the ceiling. It looked like a hospital room and was probably a VIP suite. They were usually spacious and nicely decorated with more amenities for those who could afford to pay well above what insurance provided. And those who needed ultimate privacy.

  Nikki tried to lift her head and a searing pain shot through her upper chest and down her arm. Her eyes widened, and she must have made a sound, because Quinn bolted upright in her chair.

  “Mom?” In one quick move, Quinn was beside her laying a hand very carefully on Nikki’s thigh. “You’re in the hospital.”

  “Hmmm.” Was this a dream? A memory? At what point in her life had she dropped in, just now? What questions needed asking? She didn’t try opening her mouth, in case that caused another shot of pain.

  “The baby is safe.” Quinn had fat tears in her eyes, ready to drop. “You were shot in the upper chest. It didn’t affect Princess.”

  Nikki managed a smile. She’d forgotten she was pregnant. Thank God the baby was fine. She’d been at the lake. She and Quinn had gone swimming. Then Quinn left and what happened next? She’d been with Elvis. There’d been a strange family in the log house. “Elvis?”

  “He’s fine.” Quinn said. “You need to rest Mom. They told me to call the nurse when you woke up.” Quinn grabbed the button and pushed.

  I was shot? “Shakespeare?”

  “What?”

  Oh. Quinn didn’t know about him.

  The nurse flew through the door like she’d been waiting. A guard stood watch outside the door. Was it Dwayne?

  The nurse smiled. “Well, well, look who decided to join us.” She checked the monitors. “How are you doin’, Goldy?”

  “Sore.”

  “That’s to be expected. The doctor is on his way.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “You had quite a time of it. You were shot. The bullet hit your left lung and you lost a lot of blood. The best thing you can do right now is rest, and tomorrow we’ll start you eating and drinking. You’ve been in and out for twelve hours.”

  Nikki watched her daughter’s face to confirm the nurse was telling the truth and there would be no hidden surprises. The baby was still there. Quinn was not a good liar, especially with her mother. “And the baby wasn’t affected.” Nikki reassured herself.

  “He’s just fine.”

  “He?”

  “I don’t know. We can ultrasound you tomorrow to see, if you want.” The nurse looked flustered.

  Nikki smiled to think that the baby was safe.

  “The press?”

  “Oh, the goddamned press can wait.” Quinn snapped.

  “Who shot me?”

  “They got him. Some low life. It was meant for Cathy Vanelli.” Quinn’s lips were white.

  “Who’s Cathy Vanelli?”

  “The woman you knew as Connie Bayer.” Quinn stared at her mother’s reaction.

  “Connie Bayer?” Nikki whispered.

  “Don’t worry about that right now.” Quinn’s smile looked forced. “Just rest.”

  When Nikki woke, hours later, Quinn was still in the chair, talking on the phone.

  “Phyllis, I’ll talk to them later,” she said. “I’ll ask Mom when she wakes up what she wants me to say. Merilee’s on her way to help with all this. Her plane comes in this morning.” Long pause. “The trial is over and they’re gone.” Quinn looked like she might be beyond her capabilities. Nikki made a sound that did not exactly resemble good morning.

  “Mom!” Quinn stood. “Phyllis, I’ll call you back.”

  “Sweetie.” Nikki’s voice was crackly and dry.

  “How are you doing? Do you want a sip of water?” Quinn held the straw to her mother’s mouth.

  “My head hurts.” She sipped.

  “Your head hit the pavement.”

  “Tell Phyllis to say I’m recovering, the baby is fine, and I’ll offer more later.”

  Quinn smiled. “You must be getting better, Mom. Handling the press from your hospital bed.”

  A nurse entered the room silently, and began her routine of checking the machines.

  “Last night, I’m sure a nurse told me that I could see the baby on ultrasound today.” She knew she could get preferential treatment in a VIP suite and for once she really wanted to cash in on that privilege.

  “You can. I’ll get the machine in a few minutes.” The nurse pushed some buttons and disappeared from the room.

  “Who is Cathy?” Nikki had to ask. So many things were fuzzy.

  “Cathy is the woman you knew at the lake—Connie Bayer.”

  That sparked a memory. Not a perfectly clear one, but something.

  “Connie, Pete, and the boy Tony were renting the Dickerson’s log house.” Quinn waited. “Connie had to testify in a trial.” Quinn searched her mother’s face. “Does any of this sound familiar, Mom?”

  “Kind of. They were weird.” She remembered having them for dinner. “Pete was a bad husband.”

  “Turns out he’s not anyone’s husband.” Quinn spat the last two words. “When they drove to the courthouse, he had you jump out of the van to distract the press while he took the others into the building. The bullet you took was meant for Cathy Vanelli.”

  Nikki remembered something about a sailboat and coming to Seattle.

  The nurse returned and pulled back Nikki’s covers to reveal her slightly rounded tummy. Nikki smiled and tried not to jiggle her aching head as the nurse rubbed the jelly on her abdomen.

  “Let’s take a look.” The wand remained in the air as Nurse Beverly checked the dials. When the wand made contact, Nikki watched the screen, waiting.

  “There’s your baby.”

  Nikki’s heart jumped for joy. With eyes fixed on the screen, she tried to make sense of what she saw. There was a fetus and in the center of it was a little hop. A jiggle. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, she lifted her head and watched her baby’s heartbeat jump. “Does she look healthy?” Nikki held her breath.

  “Yes, HE does.” The nurse zeroed in on the baby’s legs.” And this is how we know it’s a boy.” She aimed her pointer at a little mark on the screen.

  “A boy?” Nikki looked at Quinn and smiled. “I’m having a boy?” She was touched beyond belief to be carrying a son and tears came to her eyes. Studying the screen, she watched the baby that was growing inside of her, his heart beating so quickly.

  “Aren’t you supposed to ask the patient if she wants to know the sex?” Quinn stared at the nurse, eyes squinted, hands on her hips.

  “It’s okay, Quinn, I do.” Nikki grinned at her daughter to think she was getting protective, assertive.r />
  The nurse seemed oblivious to her medical faux pas, and Nikki was so elated to see her baby’s heartbeat, she had no quibble with anyone at that moment.

  “Mom, the press knows you’re pregnant.”

  “How?” Nikki asked. “Never mind, I don’t care.” She stared at the screen, memorizing every aspect of her baby boy. The bullet hole in her chest would heal quickly, she’d get stronger, and then she’d give birth to a blessed little boy.

  The nurse took the wand off Nikki’s abdomen. “And he’s right around eighteen, nineteen weeks.” She turned off the machine, wiped Nikki’s tummy, and replaced the gown.

  Wasn’t he sixteen weeks?

  “Is that what you thought, Mom?” Quinn searched at her mother’s face for confirmation.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I’m going to call Phyllis back now.” Quinn plunked down in the chair with her phone.

  “I’ll just rest.” Nikki was confused. Sex with the movie star was not that long ago. If the fetus was eighteen weeks old, then the movie star could not be the father. Nikki closed her eyes and thought about Las Vegas, two weeks before the movie star liaison. The band had just finished back-to-back concerts in Vegas. Burn walked her to the limo. She’d asked him to ride with her to the airport so they could have a glass of champagne. Both were feeling a little happy, and a lot strange about hearing the divorce was finalized that day.

  “Oh, Goldy Girl, I can’t believe you divorced me.” Burn thought he was joking as he pulled his new ex-wife in to an embrace.

  Tears trickled down Nikki’s cheeks onto Burn’s leather vest. They ducked into the limo and Burn found a box of tissues to dry her tears.

  “I thought you wanted this divorce.” He looked confused.

  “I do, but it’s the end of us…and it’s going to take some getting used to.” Nikki blew her nose and smiled at Burn. This was the man who’d pushed her to be Goldy, the man who’d stood beside her talent for twenty years. He’d probably sacrificed his dream life of being a single rock guitarist when Nikki had insisted that if they were going to take this band to the limits, she wanted to be married to him. He’d probably seen his fantasy slipping away but knew he could figure out a way to get what he wanted and keep Nikki happy. And now, she was setting him free. Probably herself too.

  Burn took her face in his hands. “I’ll always love you the best, the most, and the deepest.” He brushed his lips with hers.

  He thought it to be true, and she kissed him back, lightly at first and then deeper, thinking that she’d never kiss these lips again. He followed her lead. It was so familiar.

  Instead of pulling back, she kissed him again. When his tongue found hers, she pressed herself into him. They’d had years of making love. Limo sex was more familiar to them than conventional locations and, as Burn lifted Nikki onto his lap, he tore open her shirt and kissed along her throat and chest. Time limitations always intensified things. A private plane waited for only Goldy only a few miles down the road on the McCarron tarmac. Burn would stay in Vegas for another night, and they had to make this quick.

  Two weeks later she’d gotten a light period. She hadn’t thought anything of it. Stress was enough to screw up anyone’s schedule. Shortly after that, she’d had sex with her movie star-crush, missing her next period and assumed that night was the conception.

  The baby was Burn’s. They hadn’t used a condom, and Burn assured her that he always used one with everyone else. That was his idea of being loyal to her. She was not pregnant by some strange act of misplaced lust in a hotel room on tour. Strangely, she felt less sleazy and now free to lose the movie-star memory. Nikki erased the line that would have tied her forever to Roger Freemantle and smiled.

  She knew how to have Burn’s child. And it was a boy. The baby inside her was a sweet little boy, who’d grow up to look a little like Burn, maybe have talent playing the guitar, and possibly even have a knack for design, like Burn. She hoped he wouldn’t have the propensity to cheat on his wife. Boys were influenced greatly by their fathers. Tears came to her eyes at the thought.

  Quinn’s voice broke through Nikki’s day dream. “Hi, Dad!” Her face lit up as she talked on her phone. “Oh! Thank you, Dad! Thank you!”

  What had Burn done to make Quinn so grateful? “Tell him I’m fine,” she said.

  “Mom says to tell you she’s fine.” Quinn said it like it wasn’t true, and Nikki reached to take the phone.

  “Hi, Burn.”

  “Baby, you had me scared. I was frantic when I got the news. Don’t do that to me, you hear?”

  Ha. This was about him. “I feel fine.”

  The door opened and Burn walked into her room with a trail of nurses following.

  “Surprise!” Burn clicked his cell phone shut and opened his arms to Quinn.

  He looked good. Like a rock star. “You didn’t have to come all this way.” Nikki meant it. In the last weeks, she’d trimmed her hair at the lake and even darkened it to honey blonde, had ignored her makeup bag and begun this transformation, while her ex-husband remained the same.

  Burn’s hair was wild, past his shoulders now, and moussed to the nth degree. He wore tight jeans, a shirt that said “Rock the Vote,” and his signature leather jacket and boots. Nikki could see that he’d worn eyeliner for the hospital performance, and she almost laughed. He crossed the room to her bed, doing “the walk” for the nurses.

  “Hi, baby.” He’d always called her that in the tender moments. When she’d met Burn, he’d been twenty-six to her eighteen, and she’d melted into the pet name.

  “Hi, Tommy.” Nikki used his real name rarely, and only in private.

  The three nurses pretended to be fluffing pillows, reading the chart and moving around Nikki’s IV.

  “How do you feel?” Burn was distracted by the nurses, his eyes darting around the room.

  “Like I need more pain meds, but thankful I’m alive.” Had he heard she was pregnant?

  “Mom’s such a trooper, Dad.” Quinn snuggled into her father’s side and he put his arm around her.

  The shape of their eyes was similar, but that was about it.

  “That guy who let her jump out of the van should be shot,” Quinn said.

  Nikki was surprised at her daughter’s stern words. What did she mean?

  Burn moved to grab Nikki’s hand and Quinn intercepted.

  “That’s her bad side, Dad. Don’t touch her.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He glanced at the prettiest nurse who had moved to the far side of the bed to take Nikki’s blood pressure. “Baby” —he looked back— “what do you want me to say to the press?”

  Nothing had changed. Burn was still asking for Nikki’s advice. “Just say I’m doing as well as expected. They got the bullet out, and I’ll be another week in the hospital.”

  He looked uncomfortable and glanced sideways at the young nurse who couldn’t find anything to do but fiddle with the sheet. “They’re asking about your pregnancy.”

  Nikki shot him a look to alert him to the need for privacy. “That’s all, Nancy.” She waited for Nurse Nancy to get out of earshot. “Tell them it’s none of their business.”

  Burn’s eyes followed the young nurse across the room. Sensing her ex was moments from flirting, Nikki felt herself turning a corner and closing a door. She made her decision. She’d never tell him, or anyone, the truth. “Tell the press that you don’t know about the pregnancy, because you are not the father.”

  Burn looked so relieved that Nikki almost laughed out loud. “I will.” Burn leaned in. “Honey, I’m really happy for you and the guy. I was hoping you’d find someone to make you happy.” Along with recently having the paternity case dropped, Burn had obviously been worrying about Nikki’s pregnancy.

  She smiled. Was it the painkillers that made this situation so funny, or had she really moved on? “Thanks. It’s good to be happy.” They grinned at each other.

  Burn was overjoyed, because he was off the hook now, not the baby daddy,
and because he was going to get that young nurse’s phone number. After dinner, he and Nurse Nancy would fuck their brains out in his hotel suite, and the trip would be worthwhile. Nikki settled her head against the pillow and closed her eyes. The last thing she heard as she drifted off to sleep was Burn asking the nurse if she liked sushi.

  Chapter 23

  God dammit! Pete couldn’t get in to see Nikki. After Connie finished her testimony, and the agents took the Vanellis away, he knew he had to get over to the hospital with his marshal’s badge and try to find Nikki.

  He stepped off the elevator and, approaching the double doors in the VIP wing, saw the usual security associated with a celebrity visit. He tried anyhow. Even his badge got him nowhere. They radioed ahead to check with someone and, in the end, Pete was not allowed in.

  “Look, man, I was with her when she got shot. I’ve been with her for months. She will want to see me.”

  “Sorry, we have to clear visitors with her daughter who’s in charge of this, and she said no.” The guard didn’t look very sorry. “They’re not letting anyone in, if that makes you feel better.” He motioned for him to leave.

  Pete glanced through the window, across the VIP lobby and saw the burly bodyguard he’d tackled at Louisa Lake, standing outside a door with his arms folded across his chest. The fact that Pete had left Dwayne Capleoni sitting in the muddy driveway in the rain didn’t bode well. Scratching his two day growth, Pete considered the situation. Should he storm these guys and make a run for Nikki?

  Just then Quinn exited the hospital room, followed by Burn Burnside, the world-famous guitar player. Burn looked all Hollywood rock scene and ridiculous with his black leather and wild hair.

  Through the square window in the door, Pete watched Quinn and Burn walk to a gathering of chairs at the end of the hall. He felt a pang of jealousy. Nikki wasn’t even married to Burn anymore and he’d been allowed in. Pete probably knew more about Nikki and Burn’s marriage than anyone, including Burn. She’d told him that she’d never felt truly loved by Burn and was trying to accept her feelings of being used by him to have the life he wanted.