In the Shadow of the Shield (Secret Lives Series Book 2)

by Carolyn LaRoche

  “Sorry, Mom. They are keeping you overnight. Observation. You took a nasty whack to the skull.”

  She sat up, ignoring the waves of dizziness and nausea. “No way. Hospitals kill people. Get me out of here.” She started pulling at the tubes attached to her arm, suddenly frantic to be free of them.

  “Diana.” The warm yet firm voice penetrated the fog of panic. She looked up to find Carter standing beside her bed, his hand clasping her wrist. Even in her current state, Carter’s touch made her heart race in a different way. How hard had she hit her head, anyway?

  “What?”

  “You need to stay the night and let them watch over you. It won’t do Donnie—I mean, Jackson here—any good if you go home with a concussion and slip in the shower or something.”

  I won’t slip if you hold me up.

  The thought came out of nowhere. She felt the heat rise in her face, and hoped Carter attributed it to her injuries.

  She relaxed against the bed. “Okay. Fine. But only because I don’t want my son to have to worry about seeing his poor mother naked when she passes out, and he has to call for help.”

  “Mom! Eeeww!”

  “I know. Exactly.” Carter smiled.

  Jackson stood up. “I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You gonna be okay, Mom?” He eyed Carter with suspicion as his gaze dropped to her wrist and the large hand still wrapped around it. Carter made no move to let her go.

  “I’m fine, honey. Go on. A growing boy’s gotta eat.”

  Jackson hesitated. “If you’re sure…? I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

  “I’m sure. I’ll be fine.”

  Her son left with a quick glare at Carter.

  “Is he always so protective of you?”

  “I guess since Donnie died he feels like it’s his job.”

  “He thinks I want to take his father’s place.” Carter slid his hand down from her wrist and into her palm, giving it a light squeeze before letting go and sitting in the chair Jackson had vacated.

  “That’s ridiculous. We just met.”

  “And he doesn’t know the reason for that meeting.”

  She tried to sit upright so she could face Carter, but the nausea quickly moved in again. Bright lights shone behind her eyes, and blood pulsed against her eardrums. Carter was at her side in a split second, his arm behind her as he assisted her back down to the mattress.

  “Will you stop doing that? You need to be careful, you have a concussion.” He looked so concerned, she almost laughed. All her years married to Donnie, and she had never seen him look like that.

  “I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy.”

  “Stay right there. I’ll stand so you can see me. I wanted to tell you, while we are alone, that I don’t think your accident was really an accident.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I may be paranoid, but I think someone knew we were together.”

  “Yeah, that cop we saw in the diner.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it was someone else.”

  “What do we do, then? I don’t want to spend all my time worrying about someone trying to kill me.”

  “If they wanted you dead, you would be. I think they were trying to send a message. To me.”

  “So, the plot thickens?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Diana. This means I am on to something about Massey’s death.”

  “You okay, Mom?” Jackson walked into the room, eyeballing Carter’s proximity to her once again.

  “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me so much, okay? I’m tough. I managed to stay married to your dad all those years, right?” She meant it as a joke, but Jackson didn’t take it that way.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” her son demanded.

  “Watch your tone with me, young man! You may be taller than me, and I might be stuck in this bed, but I am still your mother!”

  “You need to leave,” Jackson said to Carter. “This has nothing to do with you.”

  Carter glanced at her. “Will you be okay?”

  “Of course she will be okay! I’m her son! Who the hell are you?”

  “Jackson! Calm down!” Diana yelled, but her son ignored her.

  “Get out.” He glared at Carter.

  “All right.” Carter held his hands up in surrender. “I’m leaving. Diana, I’ll be in touch.”

  She nodded and he left the room. When they were alone, she turned to her son. “What has gotten into you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Jackson.”

  “Dad’s barely been gone a year, and you are getting all giddy with some guy barely older than me. Seriously, Mom!” He started pacing the room. “Why were you with him today?”

  “I told you, we ran into each other at the cemetery.”

  “Why was he even there?”

  “I don’t know, Jackson, maybe he wanted to pay his respects like I said before. I am pretty sure that I am the parent here, and I really don’t have to explain myself to you. Weren’t you telling me not long ago that it was time for me to move on?” she replied. She couldn’t tell him the real reason they were together, so she tried the subject-change tactic. After someone had tried to hurt her, the less Jackson knew, the better.

  Her son was angry. His eyes did that bug-out thing Donnie’s had always done. She was torn between laughing and crying as he stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m the man of the house now. Dad would want me to take care of you.”

  “Oh, Jack, you do take good care of me. But I am a grown woman, and you can’t be responsible for me.”

  “You could have died.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “Does the accident have anything to do with that guy?”

  “You mean Officer Ryan?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” A twinge of guilt fluttered around her heart as she lied to her son.

  You don’t know if it’s a lie. The accident could have been just that—an accident.

  Lying to herself was almost as bad. That van had intentionally tried to harm her. She knew it, Carter knew it, and Jackson suspected it. Her son was too smart for his own good sometimes.

  She patted the bed beside her. “Come here, son.”

  Jackson scowled, but did as she asked. “What?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

  He shifted his weight and uncrossed his arms. “I can’t lose you too, Mom. I am not ready to be an orphan.”

  She couldn’t stop her laughter. “I am not ready to die, so I think you are safe!”

  “Dad wasn’t ready, either.”

  “No, son, he wasn’t. But his death was different. You know that.”

  “I wish he hadn’t been a cop. If he had worked somewhere else, somewhere safe, he never would have gone into that house, and he would still be alive.”

  “Don’t you ever talk like that! Your father loved his job, and it was who he was. It’s downright disrespectful of you to say things like that.”

  Jackson turned his back on her. His shoulders quivered the slightest bit. He was crying, but he didn’t want her to know it. Diana waited for her son to pull himself together. Finally, he turned back to face her. “I hate that stupid job, and I hate him for leaving us.”

  She worked herself into a sitting position, ignoring the overwhelming urge to vomit and the sudden, severe shifting of the little curtained room to the left. “Jackson, I understand. I really do. Every day I want to cry, and then I want to punch your father right in the nose for leaving us. But the anger won’t do either of us any good. He’s gone, and we still have to go on living.”

  “That’s what Lily said before we broke up.”

  “Oh?” The break-up had to do with Donnie’s death?

  “Yeah. She said I was living in the past, and I needed to get over Dad. How do you get over your father?” Tears flowed down his cheeks, soaking the front of the white t-shirt he wore. How she wanted to go to hi
m, but when she attempted to stand, the floor and ceiling tried to switch places. She fell back onto the little emergency room bed with a groan.

  “Mom! Are you okay?” Jackson was at her side, fear heavy in his voice.

  “Fine. I’m fine. Damned whack to the head has me a little dizzy, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

  Her son wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and blinked back any lingering tears. “I’m really sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have put all that on you right now.”

  She took his hand in her own and squeezed it. “It’s okay. I wish you would have talked to me about this before, though. Maybe you and Lily…”

  “That would have been over, no matter what. She wanted her freedom so she could party and do what she wants. Dad was just her excuse to ditch me.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey. I really am. Losing someone you care about is never easy, regardless of the circumstances.”

  “Which is why I can’t lose you too. I need my mother.”

  Diana chuckled. “Yes, you do. At least until you get married and some other lucky woman gets to wash your dirty clothes.”

  They both laughed, and she was happy to see her boy looking more like himself. Jackson had grown up right before her eyes, maturing so much in the last year. Her heart ached at the thought of him leaving in a few months for college.

  The curtain pushed to the side, and a short little man in a white coat and blue scrubs stepped into the area. “Well, Mrs. Massey, that was some hit you took to the old noggin. There’s gonna be a knot there for a good long time. Good news is that you will be fine in a day or so; the concussion appears to be relatively mild. We’re gonna keep you overnight for observation, but if all goes well, you will be heading home tomorrow. Get ready to do a little car shopping. The EMTs had to cut yours open like a tuna can to get you out.”

  The car was totaled? She glanced at Jackson, and he nodded. “Sorry, Mom. They had to have it towed to the junkyard.”

  “That was…that was my husband’s car.”

  “Well, I am sure he will be happy to hear you are okay. Cars are replaceable. People, not so much. Where is the detective anyway? I thought for sure he’d be hovering around you like a bee around a flower.”

  “You knew Donnie?” she asked as the doctor examined her head wound.

  “Sure do. He’s been here a time or two with an arrestee. How’s he doing?”

  “He died a year ago.”

  The doctor looked up from the chart. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Massey. I had no idea.”

  “I guess I thought everyone knew. The night he died, he was here.”

  “I probably wasn’t on duty that night. I am very sorry for your loss. Detective Massey was a good man. One of the best.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. We miss him very much.” She nodded toward Jackson, who was standing in a corner.

  “Yes, thank you, Doctor,” Jackson said.

  “As for you, young lady, an orderly will be here in a few minutes to move you. Do you have any questions for me before I go?”

  “How long will the nausea and dizziness last?”

  “It will improve fairly quickly, but might come and go for a few days. You were very lucky that you had your seatbelt on.”

  “Donnie wouldn’t even put the key in the ignition if we weren’t all belted in.”

  “Like I said, he was a great man. Take good care of yourself, Mrs. Massey.”

  He disappeared out of the curtained area, and a young man wearing green scrubs entered. He grinned as he manipulated the hospital bed up next to the smaller bed she was on. “You all set to move? I’ve set aside the presidential suite for you. We just need to swap out your ride, and then you will be movin’ on up.”

  Diana nodded agreement, and the orderly and Jackson helped her move to the other bed. An hour later, she was idly clicking between reruns of Law and Order and the new episode of Wheel of Fortune. Jackson had finally left at her insistence. He looked haggard and exhausted. The gamut of emotions he had experienced had worn him out. She hated to see her baby boy look that way, no matter how tall and how old he got.

  The phone on the bedside table rang. She was in no mood to talk to anyone, but it might be Jackson, so she reached over and grabbed the receiver. Her concussion must have fogged her thinking, because it never even occurred to her that Jackson would call the cell phone that sat next to her on the bed.

  “Hello?” she said into the receiver.

  “Consider today a warning. You and Officer Do-the-right-thing need to let it go.” The line went dead. The handset fell from her hand and dropped to the floor, pulling the phone base with it. The resulting crash drew a passing nurse into her room.

  “You all right, sugar?”

  “Ye—yes. I knocked the phone off the side table.” She leaned over to reach for it. The floor swam in front of her, and Diana lost her bearings. The nurse grabbed her as she started to tumble over the bed side.

  “Whoa there, young lady—I’ll get that for you. You be a good patient and rest up on those pillows of yours.”

  Diana waited while the nurse straightened the phone and tucked her blankets back in around her. Her heart was racing, and the nausea made her stomach churn, but the nurse didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. Jeopardy started, so Diana pretended to pay attention to the television until the nurse was gone. As soon as the door to her room shut, Diana grabbed her cell phone and dialed Carter’s number.

  “Hello?”

  “Ca—Carter?”

  “Diana?”

  “Yes.” Her voice shook, and the word came out in a squeak.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Someone called me. On the hospital phone. They said today was a warning, and you should let it go.”

  “I’m coming there right now.”

  “No. You don’t have to.” She didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears.

  “Sit tight, and don’t answer that phone again.”

  “Okay.”

  Carter hung up before she could say anything else.

  Twelve hours ago, she had been a grieving widow. Now, she was a hit-and-run victim mixed up in God knows what.

  “What have you gotten me into, Donnie?” she whispered, closing her eyes against the nausea.

  Chapter Six

  Diana tried not to jump out of her skin when a knock sounded at the door. With so many people coming and going from her room, her heart was in a constant state of high-rate panic. The relief that flooded her entire body when Carter entered the room made her want to cry. She was not a weak woman, and she had never fancied herself one who needed a man, but when Donnie was around she had the comfort of knowing a loaded gun wasn’t far. Donnie ran into some very unsavory characters.

  “I need to get my concealed carry permit.” The words even surprised her.

  Carter sat down in the chair beside her bed. “You don’t have one?”

  “No.”

  “What about in the cemetery?”

  “Yeah, about that.” She offered up a sheepish grin. “I held out for years. I was always worried about our son getting hurt, or having some other kind of accident. Besides, Donnie carried everywhere, and I knew he always had my back.”

  “Do you know how to shoot?”

  “Yup. Donnie used to take me to the range with him.” She pushed the button to raise her head in the bed a little. If she moved slowly, maybe the dizziness wouldn’t be so bad.

  “You don’t have to sit up on my account.” He reached over to stop her, but ended up grabbing her hand instead. Without meaning to, she yanked it away. Hurt flashed across Carter’s face, but it was gone in a flash as he offered up a grin.

  “I don’t bite, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just strange, you know? I was with Donnie for over twenty years and…”

  “It’s okay, I understand. I was only trying to help you with the bed so you had nothing to worry about.”

  Nothing to worry about, except the way his touch sent sparks flying th
rough her nervous system and caused her heart to skip several beats. Forget the fact that she was at least a decade older than him and she had a head injury that could very well be clouding her judgment.

  There was no head injury when you were flirting with him in the diner.

  “So, what about that phone call?” she asked, to change the subject.

  “I stopped by the switchboard on my way up and asked a few questions. The caller said he was your son, so they put him through.”

  “It wasn’t Jackson. He would have used my cell anyway.”

  “I know. I wish I knew where to go from here. I haven’t said a word about my suspicions to anyone but you, but someone obviously knows.”

  “And they aren’t very happy about you involving me.”

  “No.” Carter fell silent for a while, watching the muted episode of NCIS on the television. Years of living with Donnie told her Carter wasn’t actually watching anything. His brain was going a mile a minute, trying to process everything going on and making sense of it in lieu of his suspicions. After about five minutes, she spoke.

  “Can I ask a question? There’s something that has been bothering me, and I was hoping you would be able to help me understand.”

  Carter turned back toward her. “I’ll try.”

  She took a deep breath, and gathered her thoughts. This was something she had wondered from the very beginning, but had no idea who to ask. “If the house Donnie went to was a suspected meth lab, why didn’t he smell anything? I mean, he has told me there is a very pungent odor that goes with cooking meth.”

  “I wondered that too, so I went back and checked. The dispatcher told him that there were children playing in the house alone. The transcript says a neighbor had called it in, but I went and interviewed all the neighbors, and no one admitted to it. Still, you know Massey, he wouldn’t think twice. Probably held his breath and ran right in.”

  She nodded. That did sound like Donnie. “I always knew something like that would get him. He was such a pushover for the innocent.”

  “He did the job justice. No matter what he did, he always stuck to his ethics and morals.”