by Jamie Begley
“Of course, it’s a full moon. Plus, half the staff is off and at the motorcycle rally. It’ll calm down when it’s bedtime.” Julia laid two charts in front of her. “Your new patient is causing a ruckus. He’s been setting off some of the other patients in the ward. I can see why they contacted you for help. Have you decided which medications you want to start him on?”
“Not yet. I want to observe him for a few more days. If he gives you too much trouble, have Linc deal with him. He seems to be able to keep him calm,” Mika said as she opened the folder on top, seeing an addressed envelope inside.
Julia saw her staring at the letter. “Winston had a new volunteer today. He wrote another letter.”
“So I see.” Mika neatly spaced the letter out, with Adrienne Graciene Brown printed on the front with the address. I don’t know how he convinces them to write them for him. They know they’ll be searched by the guard at the main entrance.
“He just won’t give it up.” Julia shuddered at the sight of the letter. “Thank God I’m not her. I’ve lost three nurses because he freaks them out so badly. He watches every move they make, and you can just see how scary as hell he was before his neck was broken. He still is.
“I have to take valium when I am on duty at his end of the hall. I hope he does get moved to a prison hospital ward. It’ll be nice when I don’t have to listen to the nurses beg me not to have them take their turn.”
“His hearing is next week; you might get your wish.” Mika closed the folder, laying it back down.
“Does Dr. Butler think Winston will be successful?”
“I haven’t asked. Dr. Butler and I haven’t conferred on his case. Like you, I’ll have to wait and see.”
“If he is, I’ll have to plan a party to celebrate.” Julia twirled an ink pen in her hand. “I can always invite Linc. I haven’t dated any of the male aides before, but with him, I’m willing to make an exception. Have you heard if he’s married?” she asked, lowering her voice when the new aide came out of room down the opposite end of the hall from the nurses’ station.
“Yes, he’s married,” Mika answered as the new aide went behind the nurses’ station to take a chair, waiting for the next call.
With brown hair that was neatly cut and a body that looked well-built, despite the ugly scrubs he was required to wear, he had garnered the interest of several female staff members.
To disguise the fact that they had been talking about him, Julia told Linc apologetically, “I was just mentioning to Dr. Foster that the nurses and aides complain when they have to go to Winston’s room. I gave you a couple of days becoming more familiar with the other patients before making you take a turn. Tomorrow night, though, you get his end of the hall.”
“I don’t mind.” He shrugged. “Are Liz and Patty still on break? And where’s Corbin?”
“Yes, and Corbin is in room twelve. He’s giving a shower. If you need him to show you anything, he should be finishing up any minute.”
“It’s nothing important. I was just going to ask him if he wanted to take his dinner break with me when Liz and Patty get back.”
“If he doesn’t, I can ask Molly, the floating nurse, to switch with me. We switch dinner times all the time.”
Mika gave her friend an admonishing glance for flirting with a married coworker.
“I can wait for Corbin.”
Mika felt bad that Julia was unsuccessful in her pursuit. Then again, she really wasn’t.
Opening the other file that Julia gave her, she was reading it over when Corbin exited a patient’s room from across the nurses’ station.
“You want to—
A buzzer went off, interrupting Linc.
“Dammit… that’s Harvey.” Corbin turned, walking down the long hallway.
“I guess that’s going to be a no.” Linc pulled a clipboard from off the desk and started making notations.
Julia frowned. “It’s time for Winston’s catheter and colostomy bag to be emptied.”
“I can do it,” Linc said, setting the clipboard down then getting up to head toward the opposite end of the hall.
“Corbin can when he come—” Julia frowned, reaching for a lighted button on the intercom.
“I got it. See what Corbin needs,” Linc said.
“Julia, Harvey said he’s having chest pains. I’m trying to take his blood pressure, but he’s fighting me.” Corbin’s raised voice had Julia immediately standing up, but then she jerked to a stop when the red alert light came on the board for Winston’s room.
“What happened?” Julia asked calmly after pressing the intercom button.
“I don’t know. I just walked in the door,” Linc answered back on the intercom.
“I’ll check on Winston,” Mika answered, picking up the folders. “Go help Corbin.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Mika quickly walked down the hall, watching Julia’s reflection in the large circle mirror as she ran down the hall and entered Harvey’s room. Then she brought her hand up to the keycard that hung around her neck on a long ribbon. Instead of opening Winston’s door, she swiped her identification card into the card reader. Seeing the red light turn green, she pushed down on the metal lever and opened the emergency exit door, allowing two men from the stairway to enter. Without words, they followed her into Leon Winston’s room.
She looked at the man on the bed dispassionately as his eyes widened in fear when he saw the men coming in behind her. Her sympathy wasn’t for the man on the bed; it was for the man who strode into the room to stand by the bedside, while Mika stayed by the closed door in case Harvey wasn’t able to pull off his fake heart attack and Julia came to check on Winston.
“Hello, Winston. You look like you’ve gone to shit since I last saw you at the courthouse. Time hasn’t treated you well, has it?”
Mika shivered at the cold, emotionless voice that came from her Uncle Dalton. His features spoke for the hatred he felt for the man who had kidnapped his daughter.
Winston’s beady eyes went from Uncle Dalton, to Ice, then to hers, going back to the nursing aide that remained by the myriad of machines that kept him alive, before returning to hers. “Get a guard. They want to hurt me!”
“They don’t want to hurt you. They’re here to kill you,” Mika told him matter-of-factly.
“You’re a doctor. How can you stand there and do nothing!” he yelled.
Mika gave an uncaring shrug. “You’re not my patient. It’s not my fault you destroyed other people’s lives and feel like you have the right to keep tormenting them over and over.” She opened the folder and took out the letter. Raising it, she showed it to him before crushing the threatening letter in her hand like she wished she could him.
Ice moved closer to the bed to stand next to Uncle Dalton. “Just so you know”—fires of hate shone down on Winston from Ice’s eyes—“the only letter she received from you was the first one. I made sure she never got another.”
The revelation angered Winston more than anything else since they entered the room. Mika had to literally swallow down the bile that threatened to come up her throat at the loathing she felt for her friend’s kidnapper.
“As much as I want to kill you with my own hands, this will have to do.” Uncle Dalton went to the machine that was breathing for Leon.
“I told you that one day this was going to happen. I think you deserve a bottle of Drano poured down your throat, but watching Dalton be the one to turn off that machine is almost as good. Enjoy Hell, motherfucker.” With his final words to Winston, Ice stepped away from the bed as if he didn’t trust himself to save Dalton the trouble of flipping the switch.
“Dr. Foster, help me!” Winston cried.
“I’m not going to save you. You were lost long ago. You’re not even human. You’re a cancerous growth.” The memory of Adrienne, Simone, and Avril’s youthful images from that tragic day when she was sixteen numbed her to the compassion that she would normally feel for a patient’s plea to save their life.
“Adrienne survived. She was able to be with her mother before she died, get married, and will be starting a family. Simone and Avril weren’t given that chance. Simone’s mother died alone after she committed suicide last year. Avril’s parents won’t be given a chance to have grandchildren, since she was their only child.
“I can tell from your eyes that you couldn’t care less, and that pretty much sums up my feelings about you. Consider yourself lucky that Oceane passed away before we were ready to pull your plug. She would have voted for the Drano. I would have, too, but you’ve ruined enough lives, and I couldn’t figure out how to accomplish that without me and Uncle Dalton going to jail for the pleasure. I’ll have to settle for the happiness I’ll feel when I sign your death certificate and the satisfaction that your power to hurt anyone again will cease to exist, just like you.”
Mika glanced at her watch, then nodded at the man who had been waiting for this day to come. “I’ll get Ice in position and be right back.”
Cracking the door open, she saw a still clear hallway. She slipped out the door with Ice following her, and then swiped her card again, letting Ice go through the door. He would hold the door open for Dalton once he came out of Winston’s room.
Hurrying back inside, she watched as her uncle ended the life of the man she had invested years of her own life in destroying, just to give him the justice he deserved.
The alarm sounded as soon as he turned the light off. Dalton didn’t even look t Winston as he went out the door.
“Mika….” It was the first time she had seen any softness on his face since they entered the room.
She had to blink back tears at the expression on his face. She knew what he wanted to say.
“I did it for me, too. Go!” she urgently hurried him to leave through a tear-clogged throat.
As soon as he cleared the door, she moved closer to the bed, watching as the life drained out of Avril’s and Simone’s killer’s face. Then she waited for several minutes to pass before she turned toward the man who was standing behind her.
“He’s gone.”
Nodding, he opened the compartment that housed the memory card. Taking it out, he then took another one out of another pocket and slid it inside before closing the compartment.
Unable to prevent herself from critiquing his appearance as her eyes traveled over his hair to his feet, she told him, “Black hair suits you better.”
“I prefer it myself.”
“How did Jonas and Hammer find me so fast?”
“Killyama.”
Skeptical, she crossed her arms over her chest. “My room was registered under my mother’s half-sister’s maiden name.”
“They’re bounty hunters. They’re used to tracking people down despite the odds.”
“The only ones in Treepoint who knew my home address were Uncle Dalton and Ice.”
“Then that shows how good they are,” he said noncommittally.
Her mouth quirked at his refusal to admit to his culpability. She wasn’t buying it.
“Maybe so. I’m just interested in which one broke and gave me up?”
“Maybe,” he mocked, “I’m just that good.”
“Could be, but I don’t think so.” Her mind went through the possibilities with rapid-fire probabilities. “It had to be Dalton. How did you convince him?” Mika feigned certainty at her guess. Either way, she had a fifty-fifty chance of being right.
“I explained the principle of the ‘rule of three’ to him.” His clever gaze showed he knew she was bluffing her certainty. He was only giving her the explanation because he wanted to.
“Most people consider relationships with three partners one too many,” she unintentionally voiced her thoughts to a man that she had never spoken to before today, too distracted in thinking about how the obstacles ahead of Jonas, Hammer, and her actually making a relationship work in the long-range future ahead of them loomed dauntingly.
He gave her an understanding smile that didn’t reach his detached gaze. “Don’t worry. Lily tells me all the time that a halo is strong enough to hold more than one.”
“I gave up my right to a halo the day Adrienne, Simone, and Avril were taken,” she said, turning back to the dead body on the bed. “You should go. Tell Harvey that I’ll sign the paperwork to get him released in two days.” The memory of seeing Hammer’s Escalade pulled over by a police officer as she was pulling out of the sheriff’s office still made her feel guilty that she had turned toward Virginia so they wouldn’t see her car pass by them. It had been useless. They had found her anyway.
Moving around the bed, he didn’t spare a glance at the prone body as he told her, “I’ve known Hammer and Jonas for a long time. If anyone can make a halo for three fit, they can. They’re Rangers”—Mika heard the conviction in his voice as he walked toward the door—“they lead the way.”
Ice walked down the flight of steps, side by side with his father-in-law. As they made it to the end of the stairway where the emergency exit was located, they found a brother waiting for them.
Seeing them, the brother slid the visitor’s pass through the card scanner. “I was starting to get worried.”
As they went out the door, Ice came to a dead stop at seeing the enormous group of brothers waiting solemnly outside, all wearing leather jackets. The difference was the patches proclaiming their loyalties. “I thought we’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”
“They are,” Whip spoke before Dalton could. “There’re over two hundred thousand brothers attending this rally. We’re just taking a rest stop before heading home.”
Ice looked at the massive fence that barred the entrance of the hospital where they had to pass through to the private parking lot. As he studied beyond the gate, he saw bikes lined up on both sides of the road, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Whip saw where he was staring. “Hollywood has a lot of friends who wanted to say goodbye.”
“More than a few.” Throwing a leg over the saddle of his bike, Ice watched the two friends say their own goodbyes.
Dalton raised his hand to grasp Whip’s firmly in his. “Thanks, brother.”
There wasn’t much that touched Ice in life, but the friendship between those two men did. It was a bond that had stood the test of time and spoke of the character of both men.
Dalton swung onto his bike then gave the hospital a last look. “God help me, but I often wondered if Mika had gone with them that day, if it would have turned out any differently.”
Ice’s cold heart twinged at the remorseful expression on his father-in-law’s face.
“You warned me to teach Adrienne how to protect herself better. I failed,” Dalton continued, looking at his long-time friend.
“You didn’t fail. You just protected Adrienne in a different way than I did. With four of them together, they might have been forced to take another cab. Maybe four would have been too many for Winston to have tried to kidnap. Or the ways I taught Mika to protect herself could have made a difference. We’ll never know. We aren’t meant to. If you had raised her differently, maybe she might not have been in the place where she met Ice, or Mika wouldn’t have been in the place where she met the two men that she wants to introduce me to tonight. It is what it is.” Whip waved his gloved hand toward the brothers waiting for them. “We learned that the hard way when we were just snot-nosed kids and joined the Angels. Regrets are for the weak—”
“—and victory is for the strong,” Dalton finished for him.
Whip’s formidable face broke into a grin. “Amen, brother.”
Dalton’s head fell back in laughter before he gave Whip another clasp of his hand.
Ice sat back and watched the two shoulder-hug each other before the Road Slayer smacked Dalton on the back of his leather jacket before getting onto his bike.
He was waiting for Whip to start his bike when his cell phone rang. Taking it out of his jacket, he saw it was Grace.
Sliding the answer button, he put the phone
to his ear, then wished he hadn’t when he heard Grace wail, “Where are you?”
“I told you that I won’t be home until later tonight,” he reminded her.
“But I’m ovulating now!” she cried.
“Well, there isn’t a lot I can do about it right this minute, unless you can figure out a way to transport my dick there.”
“Don’t be gross. Call and see if you can get an earlier flight.”
“Do you know how expensive a ticket like that would cost?”
Her voice went dangerously low. “I’ll buy it.”
“I’ll drive to the airport now.”
“Dépêchez-vous, mon amour.”
His dick went as hard as a stick. Grace hadn’t spoken in French since her mother had died.
“I love you, too.”
Dalton looked at him quizzingly when he disconnected the call. “Was that Grace?”
“Yes, she told me to hurry home,” he told him the partial truth while starting his motorcycle. “You know how you said you regretted not teaching Grace how to protect herself better?”
“Yes. So?”
“Don’t,” he said, gripping his handlebars.
“She giving you hell?” Dalton gave him a sympathetic glance.
“Always. But it isn’t anything I can’t handle.”
“I’m sure you can. You’re not a man who runs from danger.”
“No, I’m not, especially when she talks to me in French.”
Dalton’s gaze became even more empathetic. “Brother,” he said, shaking his head in agreement. “I know what you mean. That’s how Oceane caught me, too.”
Ice cast his father-in-law a covetous stare at his leather jacket. “So you know, when you do bite the dust for good, I want that jacket.”
“Sorry.” Dalton grinned unapologetically. “You have to earn a jacket like this. But if you want to chase that rainbow, go ahead.”
“Already earned it the day I married Grace.” He grinned back. “But if you want me to keep going at it, I’m game.”
Dalton’s expression turned grave. “No, you earned it when you finally told me what was going on between you and Grace. I just wanted to wait until we could be sure there wasn’t any fallout for Mika.”