Ray’s death was bringing up what she had long suppressed. No surprise.
Death always had a way of bringing back all hurts.
Her Ray had been such a confused little boy. A broken man trying to mend himself, but failing.
Now, he was gone. All that was left of him was memories and the casseroles people had dropped off for her and Wallace and…Reggie.
Just Reggie now. Her son. Her greatest accomplishment would always be her son.
But now…she couldn’t keep living like this. This lie with Wallace.
It was time.
She was going to box up the past and move on. Now. Today.
She pulled the first photograph off the wall and deliberately put the memories of her daughter away once again.
She had finished with the first box, when her cell rang. Kyle. Her assistant. “Yes? What is it?”
He’d wanted to stay with her today, but she’d forced him away. Now…she’d needed to do this alone. This decision was hers.
“Turn on the news. Something is happening near the hospital. I think it involves Wallace.”
Jennifer turned on the news immediately. Then watched in horror as her world imploded once again.
15
Izzie felt so damned small in his arms. She was slightly below average height, he thought, but…that felt so small right now. Allen placed her on the gurney inside the ER as people swarmed them both, yelling for the help he needed.
People came running.
Wanda was there, terror on her face. She loved her third-shift nurses. Everyone knew that.
“I’ve got her!” Wanda helped guide Izzie’s legs onto the gurney. Izzie was limp now, not moving, completely unresponsive. “It’s ok, baby. It’s going to be ok. Izzie, baby girl, can you hear me? Allen, who did this to her?”
Allen doubted Izzie could hear. She looked gone. He’d seen enough deceased patients in his time.
He shoved back the panic. He’d been trained not to panic. “Get her upstairs. He shot her at least three times that I know of. Looked like a .38, felt like a damned cannon. I don’t know if the bullets are still inside her body.”
Every gunshot victim he’d ever treated rushed through his head. He’d seen quite a few, from hunting accidents and even some gang activity from Boethe Street.
Some, he’d saved; so many, he’d lost.
It didn’t look good.
“Who did this to her?” Cherise demanded, already cutting through the bloody scrubs. The fear in her eyes was something he’d never forget.
“Wallace Henedy. Get prepared,” Allen said harshly. “He still has Nikkie Jean across the street. I don’t know what’s happening now. He shot Izzie and kept Nikkie Jean.”
Everyone knew what that could mean.
“We’ll get our Izzie upstairs to Virat,” Wanda said determinedly. She pulled in a harsh breath and pulled herself together. Wanda had a habit of mothering the younger nurses and doctors. Especially the ones on second and third shifts. Cherise was almost as bad. “We’ll be ready for our Nikkie Jean. Someone needs to take care of your arm, too, Allen. Everyone, pull yourselves together right now and let’s do what needs to be done. If you don’t think you can do it, then step aside and let someone else in who can.”
Allen had almost forgotten his own wound. It burned like the blazes, but he’d live. There was no such guarantee for the woman on the gurney. “Just take care of her, Wanda.”
“Will do.”
They had her prepped within heartbeats. They worked fast at the Finley Creek Gen ER.
His last sight of Izzie was two of the male nurses wheeling her toward the elevators. Allen was damned convinced he’d never see the woman alive again. Allen bit back the fear—for her and for Nikkie Jean.
Layla Kaur, an obstetrician who seemed to always be around the hospital of the evenings, treated his shoulder. The bullet had passed straight through, nicking his collarbone. He’d live.
All it required was a handful of stitches and maybe a few days in a sling.
It was going to take more than a few stitches for Izzie.
It would be a miracle if she pulled through. He knew all of the ways something could go wrong.
Allen couldn’t stand it any longer. As soon as Layla was finished, he nodded. He saw the fear in her brown eyes, too.
They were too much like Izzie’s. Like Jess’s. He’d always loved brown eyes. Far too many women were being hurt in this damned hospital. Women he cared about.
Nikkie Jean…was still over there.
He couldn’t help her now. Allen stood and pulled his shirt off. Right there on the light-blue cloth was a brick-red stain.
Fingers. A small handprint.
Izzie’s handprint in her own damned blood. Right over where Allen’s heart had been. Allen covered it with his own, much larger hand. “I’m going upstairs. I’ll be there when they get Nikkie Jean out.”
16
Wallace coughed, struggling to pull in his breath as the TSP detective slapped icy-cold, hard cuffs around his wrists.
Damn them all.
He damned himself for what he had done.
Tears rushed down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. Is Elizabeth ok?”
Her name wasn’t Elizabeth. He knew that. It was Izzie. Izzie, it had to stand for something. Dark eyes were seared into his soul.
The detective yanked him to his feet. “Yeah, you didn’t. You’d better hope to hell that woman lives, pal.” He read Wallace his rights, his voice full of hostility. When he finished, he led Wallace to a waiting patrol car.
Wallace looked into the man’s hazel eyes.
Hazel. Nikkie Jean had hazel eyes like that, too.
Her friend had dark eyes. Like Jennifer’s.
Wallace shook that thought from his head. He was being stupid.
Elizabeth had died at three hours and four minutes old.
He’d almost killed a nurse today, not his daughter. A full-grown, snippy little pixyish nurse named Izzie.
Wallace probably had killed her. She was such a young thing. Asthmatic, and a pretty bad case of it. He’d seen for himself once in the ER when Cherise had sent her home after a particularly nasty attack because of a patient’s perfume. Girl had been covered in hives and wheezing at the same time.
Had he hit her lungs? What would a bullet do to a severe asthma patient? He tried to remember how many times he had pulled the trigger. How many times her body had jerked as the bullets had struck her.
He didn’t remember. He should remember. That was a detail he should remember.
“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything.”
“Yeah, right. Like that’s not something I’ve heard before.” The detective shut the door right in his face.
Wallace bowed his head.
What in the hell had he done now?
Jennifer and Reggie would never forgive him for this. He had so many sins on his soul. Why did he keep doing this to himself?
17
The TSP major crimes detectives caught Allen in the surgical waiting room, moments after he changed into clean scrubs. He was going in to observe. Allen had to.
“Jacobson?” Daniel McKellen said. “What the hell happened over there?”
“I’m not entirely certain.” He didn’t have time for this. Questions could wait. He needed to be in there with Izzie. Allen summed it up as fast as he could. “I was in my office, ready to leave. I heard gunshots. I knew I was the only one in the building—except for the women at W4HAV. I figured there was trouble and that I most likely knew who was involved as I work with many of them. I headed down to them. When I looked through the door, I saw Wallace Henedy holding the gun. Izzie was bleeding on the floor. Nikkie Jean was also there. Wallace yanked Izzie up, opened the door, and shoved Izzie at me before shooting one more time. That bullet struck her, passed through before going through my shoulder as well. I carried her here after passing Dr. Alvaro and another man in the parking lot.
I can’t really help much more than that. I’m going into surgery with Izzie now. Any more questions will have to wait.”
He’d dealt with McKellen before. After Jess’s death. The man had interviewed him twice. Back when Allen had been a major suspect in Jess’s death that first day. Only when Dr. Campbell and Nikkie Jean had insisted he had been in surgery with them at the time Jess had been killed had McKellen’s men left him alone. The same thing had happened when Lacy had been shot by Logan.
He’d been interrogated numerous times about Logan’s actions leading up to that day. He’d been Logan’s closest friend. They’d thought he should have known what was going on with him.
With what had happened to Shelby because of the TSP years ago, it had left him a bit hostile, and he knew it. That hostility hadn’t gone away. It probably never would.
Allen had been numb then, too. He didn’t have a problem with McKellen specifically, but he wasn’t certain the man, or his cop buddies, didn’t have a problem with him.
Allen couldn’t find it in himself to give a flying rat’s ass right now. “You have more questions—I’ll answer once she’s out of surgery. I’m going to be there with her now.”
No matter what happened.
He wasn’t going to let Izzie be in there alone.
And…he was going to be in there for the people who held her life in their hands now.
18
Allen wasn’t allowed to treat her himself. Not considering how close he was to the situation. He watched every move Virat and Cage—two men he’d trust with his own life in a heartbeat—made.
Izzie held on, though it got so close that he was holding his own breath. Allen kept his eyes trained on the O2 monitor as Virat worked to extract the last fragment of the final bullet. It had lodged in her liver. She was bleeding just too damned much.
He’d never forget the sight of her blood.
“Got it,” Virat said finally. “That’s the last fragment.”
“Let’s get our girl stitched back up,” Cage added. “I need her snapping at my ass in the ER every chance she gets. She…helps keep me motivated.”
The usually joking Cage was stone-cold serious now.
Allen stepped back and let the two men and the three nurses, including Wanda, work.
“Stats are stable,” Wanda said. “O2 is better. Our girl is hanging on. Thank God, she’s my little fighter.”
Allen knew better than to hope. Not yet. Things could still go so horribly wrong.
“Prognosis is good,” Virat said. “Better than I thought it would be.”
“She’ll still have a long road to go,” Cage added. “But we’ll get her through. She’ll pull through.”
Cage’s tone was tight. Worried. They were friends, Allen thought. Cage was attracted to her. Strongly. He’d seen them eating lunch together in the cafeteria and laughing two days ago. He knew Cage well enough to know when a woman appealed to the younger man.
He remembered exactly how he’d felt when Lacy had been injured. It had been the first time a real friend of his had been on their table. It had terrified them all.
He hadn’t learned about Logan’s involvement until right after.
This…this kind of thing shouldn’t be happening here at FCGH again. It didn’t make sense. Something seemed broken at FCGH, in ways Allen didn’t understand. Something darker than even before.
He couldn’t put his finger on why, but it was there. Strange as it sounded, it was almost as if it hung over the entire city at times.
Or maybe it was all in his head; maybe it was him.
Hell, maybe it had been broken since Dr. Daniels was the chief of medicine. It was now bubbling up to the surface because Rafe refused to let the darkness stay hidden.
Allen didn’t understand anything anymore. Nothing about the world made sense to him tonight.
Izzie had made it through surgery. He hadn’t been convinced she would.
He stepped out of surgical with Virat. They would talk to Izzie’s next of kin, deliver the news that she might make it after all.
Annie; it would be Annie they told. Annie, who had gotten released from the hospital after her injuries in the storm that very afternoon.
Allen tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order. He knew he was most likely still dealing with the shock of what had happened. The questions. The adrenalin crash and the fear. Pain in his own injury. All of it combined to make him more than off-centered.
When he stepped inside the waiting room, he stopped short.
Nikkie Jean stood there, staring at him. Battered and bruised, but there. Whole.
Safe. Safe and alive and terrified.
He hugged her quickly, and she tolerated it longer than she normally would have. Allen had been so afraid she’d end up on their operating table next. Or that she would never make it that far.
She was ok.
He listened as Virat gave the official report to Annie and Nikkie Jean. They hadn’t been able to find Izzie’s only relative, her uncle, yet. Nikkie Jean and Annie were crying. Nurses everywhere were crying. People were everywhere, in every chair, leaning against the walls, sitting on the floor and tables. Just waiting for word.
Allen stayed out of the way.
Izzie had people she belonged to, people who loved her. Now was their time.
He had his sister and a few other work friends. Everyone he’d mattered to in his adult life was gone now, with the exception of his sister.
He stood and watched them all, feeling so damned alone.
Forty minutes later, Allen slipped into the private room where Izzie had been taken to recover. Wanda sat at her side. Her shift had ended a few minutes earlier, but Wanda had insisted she’d stay next to Izzie for a few moments.
Allen pulled up a chair. He wasn’t going anywhere, either. Wanda was crying. He pulled her close and hugged her for a moment until she settled a little. He didn’t know who needed the comfort more. “She’ll be ok, Wanda. She’s got some of the best in the nation taking care of her.”
He’d made a promise to Nikkie Jean not to leave her best friend alone even for a moment. In exchange, Nikkie Jean had agreed to go to her own hospital room—Layla had admitted her as a precaution because of the possible trauma from the beating she’d taken at Henedy’s hands—and get some actual rest.
There would be time enough tomorrow to figure out why Wallace Henedy had done this.
There had to be a damned why.
Everyone was safe now. Allen sat by the bed for a long time, long after Wanda left, and he’d promised to stay right there. He silently sat listening to the sounds of the monitors around them.
He wasn’t going to let Izzie wake alone.
19
Jennifer was struggling to breathe, even twenty-four hours after she’d watched in horror as her husband was arrested on the damned national news.
Wallace had ruined everything. Everything.
Jennifer had spent most of the night on her phone and laptop, cleaning up every record she could of anything she didn’t want found.
Her friend on the city council, Dennis Lee Arnold, had made it clear when she’d called him in a panic as she watched that the police would be coming to search Wallace’s home soon. Unless Wallace confessed everything.
If her husband gave away information that he shouldn’t, that he didn’t know he actually had, that would be horrible. Especially for her.
So much of what she had done to get their family to where they were—no one would say it was ethical. Some of it was outright illegal.
That would destroy everything she’d ever accomplished.
That was her greatest fear. If he got started, there was no guarantee that he would stop. She’d hidden what had happened for fifteen years. She didn’t want to lose that now.
Not now that her plans were finally bearing fruit.
Dennis Lee had told her exactly what to do to protect herself. She was doing that now. Jennifer pulled in a breath. Dennis Lee had enough peop
le on the inside at the TSP that if something slipped through he could make it better.
She had faithfully recorded the names of those TSP officers in case she ever…needed…them.
Dennis Lee always said to watch her flanks. Well, she had learned well.
At this point, Jennifer trusted no one. Not fully. Except for Kyle.
She forced herself not to panic. Cold logic.
She had to be logical about all of this. That was the best way. She could get through this as long as she didn’t do anything to mess this up publicly.
Reggie was upstairs. He’d spent the night in the guestroom of the condo she’d moved into yesterday. After she’d told Wallace she wanted a separation.
She’d originally intended to divorce him, but her soft heart had had her agreeing to a trial separation first. Wallace had looked so heartbroken at her words she’d given in against her better judgment.
Then the dumbass had gone and shot a woman. On camera. In front of witnesses.
What was she supposed to do now?
“Mom?” Reggie asked from behind her. She hadn’t heard him come in. “I’m going to order some takeout. You want anything in particular?”
He had refused to go home, and she hadn’t pushed the issue. Reggie thought he was protecting her. Supporting her in her time of need.
What she really needed was for her son to go home. So she could get with Dennis Lee and figure out what she needed to do to protect herself in whatever storm was coming. She needed a strategy meeting and access to Dennis Lee’s massive connections throughout the city and region. It was her only hope.
She’d wait until Reggie was asleep, and then call Dennis Lee. No matter what the hour.
“I’m ok. Why don’t you call a friend and go out for dinner?” He had that girlfriend of his. Jennifer wasn’t overly fond of her, but she wasn’t a hovering mother. Reggie was old enough to know what he needed out of life without her interfering too much. She’d raised him to be as independent as she possibly could.
We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek Book 11) Page 5