Chapter Twenty-Six
Shauna slapped a piece of paper on Gill’s desk and did a little happy dance.
“What’s this?”
“My divorce will be final on the twenty-first.”
“Congratulations?” he asked, a little surprised at her enthusiasm.
“Hell, yeah. That bastard tried to go after half my retirement. Like he earned it by snoring in my bed for three years.”
Gill had seen the full cycle of Shauna’s turmoil. First there were tears, then anger . . . now this. “I’m happy for you.”
“Me, too. We need to celebrate.”
Gill glanced at the paper again, the date ringing in his head. “I’ll be in River Bend on the twenty-first. Promised Jo I’d be around for the class reunion.”
“I’ll be celebrating for a month. After?”
“Of course.”
Shauna swiped the paper from his desk. “Marriage is overrated.”
“Is it?”
She paused, curbed her excitement. “Except for Jo. I mean, Jo’s perfect for you. I knew that long before I sent her to Marly’s.”
“Sent her?”
Shauna batted her eyelashes in fake innocence. “You didn’t think that was on accident, do you? If I told Jo I knew a guy that would be perfect for her, she would have never given you a chance . . . meet her on accident . . . and boom!” She patted his head and bounced off like a woman half her age.
He’d been played . . . by his own partner. Gill smiled, happy with the outcome.
When he couldn’t get Jo out of his head, he left his desk and found a quiet bench outside the building and dialed her number.
The fuzzy connection told him she was driving.
“Hey, good-looking.”
“A friendly voice,” Jo said.
“I thought everyone in River Bend was friendly.”
“Not hardly. How are you?”
“Perplexed.”
“Oh?”
He told her of Shauna and her divorce. “It’s strange to see someone waving sparklers around after a marriage falls apart.”
“Shauna was really unhappy. Best they figured it out before they had kids. Mel’s parents split the day she graduated high school, and that was devastating.”
“My parents are still together,” he told her.
“Yeah, well . . . mine died, so who knows if they would have worked out.”
“Were they unhappy?”
“How would I know? I was finger painting and counting to ten when my mom died.”
Jo’s voice told him she’d gotten over this loss long before now. “Where are you?”
“On my way to Waterville. Squad—recall—waited long enough.”
“You’re going out on me, say that again.”
Jo yelled into the phone as if that would make the connection better. “My squad car has a recall. I need to get it in.”
“Got it.”
“How is your case?”
“We’re getting close. Found the girl at the pizza parlor. Definitely hooked. Second-level seller.”
“You’re looking for her connection.”
“Exactly.”
“Let me—I can—hello—shit—” The line went dead.
Gill tried calling her again. Her phone went to voice mail. On his third attempt, he left a message. “Lost you. Call me when you get to Waterville. Miss you.”
Gill was perched in a car, a high-powered lens of his camera aimed at the Eugene High School senior parking lot. Rachel, the girl from the pizza joint, was easy to spot. Her profile on Instagram had pictures of her at a party, red cup in hand. Like the other girls her age, her long hair went halfway down her back, her eyes heavy with makeup. Chances were the makeup was an attempt to add color to her washed-out skin.
He snapped a picture of her and the girl she was walking with.
The girls separated when Rachel’s attention diverted to a low-riding Subaru. The car had been modded to the point where it probably wasn’t street legal.
Gill zoomed in on the license plate, took a picture.
She leaned into the car like a hooker, ass in the air.
Not her dealer, Gill decided. Someone dealing wouldn’t drive around in a car easily pulled over by the local police. Not if they carried any stash.
Gill waited, was fairly sure a deal had just gone down in front of him. Busting her now would do no good. And it would alert her higher-up that she’d been tapped.
Rachel moved to another car as the parking lot started to empty out. This car was a modern variety import. Nothing fancy, nothing that stood out. He zoomed in on the license plate, then the driver’s side. Looked like a mom . . . maybe Rachel’s, Gill didn’t know.
His cell phone rang. Not recognizing the number, he let it go to voice mail.
A few more pictures of the car and Rachel and her driver were gone.
Gill skimmed his photographs and called them in.
He’d have the name of the legal owners of the cars within an hour . . . maybe less.
His message light blinked, and he listened to the recorded voice.
“Gill, it’s Zoe.”
The hair on his arms went on alert. He glanced at the time. He hadn’t spoken with Jo in a few hours. She was supposed to have called when she reached Waterville.
“It’s Jo. There was an accident.”
He hit “call back” without listening to the rest of the message, his breath short and his head spinning with worry.
“Hello?”
“Zoe, it’s Gill.”
“Oh, good. You got my message.”
“How is she, is she okay?”
“All things considered.”
“What things? Where is she?” He turned over the engine of his car and pulled out of the apartment complex parking lot he was hiding in.
“Waterville Community Hospital. She’s in radiology.”
“Jesus, is she okay?”
“Her car bounced, slammed into the side of the road, and spun. A tree kept her from taking a dive off the cliff. She’s really lucky.”
“I’m on my way. Tell her I’m on my way.” Gill tossed the phone aside, placed a light on the top of his car, and let the siren fill the air.
Son of a bitch . . . her head pounded, her body ached. One minute she was losing her connection to Gill on the phone, the next she was staring down the side of a cliff with a twentysomething search and rescue pulling her out of her mangled squad car.
Lights, ambulance . . . doctors asking questions. And everything hurt.
Her back teeth hurt.
She’d hit the brakes. Nothing happened. Panic and then nothing.
“Sheriff?”
“What?” She thought she was shouting, but only a sigh of a breath asked her question.
“How are you feeling?”
Jo didn’t open her eyes. The woman’s voice an unknown source.
“Like shit.”
A chuckle. “Do you know where you are?”
The smell of antiseptic, the dinging sounds of monitors. “Hospital.”
“Good. Rest.”
Okay . . . rest. Great plan.
“Jo?”
The voice was familiar.
“You’re a mess.”
The second voice was familiar. She tried to open her eyes. Light blinded her. “Screw you.”
A chorus of tiny laughter, the kind that people released when they were nervous, filled her ears. Then there was silence.
She woke slowly. The bed under her was soft, not hard like the one before. That Jo remembered. The noise of the room was quiet. A tiny beep every few seconds was like a reassuring heartbeat, letting the person listening know they were alive.
Someone was holding her hand.
With a dry mouth, she moaned.
The hand in hers squeezed.
“Talk to me.”
“Gill?”
“Oh, baby.”
Jo looked down to see Gill, his forehead rested on their clasped hands. She tried to move, something on her left side stabbed her in the chest.
“What the hell . . .”
“Don’t move, sweetness. Let me get the nurse.”
Every breath was painful. Jo looked around the room. It was small, private. Someone she didn’t know in a uniform stood beyond the door.
Everything flooded back. The call, the brakes . . . the trip in the bumpy ambulance. Even the bouts of nothing. “Mel, Zoe . . . Zoe?” They were there. She knew they were close.
“Sheriff?”
“Yeah?” Jo opened her eyes, barely realized they had closed.
In zoomed a nurse. The stethoscope and caring smile clued her in. “I’m Cathy. How are you feeling?”
“Like I got ran over.”
Cathy laughed. “Not quite. You were in an accident.”
“I figured that out.” Jo tried to move again, felt the stabbing pain in her left side. She looked down. “What’s that?”
“A chest tube.” Cathy punched buttons on the monitor above Jo’s head, spoke on autopilot. The woman had done this many times before. “You arrived to the ER with a collapsed lung. Side impact on the car. I was told a few feet in any direction and you wouldn’t be with us.”
Chest tube? That couldn’t be good. That explained the crazy pain in her side. “It hurts.”
The nurse laid a hand on Jo’s shoulder—even that hurt—and offered a smile. “I’ll get you pain medication.”
Much as Jo wanted to deny the need, the pain in her entire left side stopped her.
Cathy left the room, leaving Gill standing in the doorway.
“Hey.”
He crossed and took her right hand in his. “What time is it?”
“Ten.”
“At night?” Jesus, she’d been out for hours. How was that possible?
“Jo?” Mel and Zoe stood at the door.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, she felt like shit, but she wouldn’t concede to her pain with her friend looking down at her.
“You’re such a dork,” Mel said.
“You looked better the night after Mike’s graduation party,” Zoe reminded her.
Jo closed her eyes. “That was an epic night.” Followed by a wicked hangover.
Closing her eyes helped the pain.
She felt a hand on her leg, looked up to see Mel attempting to smile.
“That bad?” Jo asked.
“You don’t want to look in the mirror,” Zoe told her.
Cathy returned with medicine, and Jo closed her eyes. When she woke again, it was late in the night, and Gill was at her side, asleep . . . his hand in hers.
Gill joined Jo’s friends in the waiting room while the nurses cleaned Jo up for the day.
“Is that coffee?” he asked, eyeing the box they’d brought in from a local Starbucks.
“Go for it.”
He’d hardly slept, and when he did manage a few winks, one of the staff in the ICU stepped in the room. When he was awake, he watched Jo breathing. The bag hanging at the side of her bed that was connected to her lung glared at him. Without any details of the accident, and only the worry over Jo’s recovery to keep him occupied, he’d aged a year overnight.
“You’re looking a little shot, Gill.” Luke patted him on the back.
“I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed.”
Mel’s hand shook when she reached for the coffee after Gill was finished. “She’s really lucky. Did you see the car?”
“No.”
Mel removed her phone from her purse and opened the pictures.
Gill’s insides froze. The space where Jo had been sitting was smashed into the center of the car. No wonder her lungs didn’t take the impact without protesting. She was lucky to have escaped with a broken clavicle, two ribs, and a dozen stitches in various parts of her body.
“According to Karl, the car was in for a recall on the brakes. It’s safe to say the recall came a little late.” Wyatt removed the coffee from Mel’s hand and encouraged her to sit. Worry clouded this group of friends, even though Jo was officially out of the medical woods; Gill could see the distressed lips, the tight fists.
“Did Jo say the brakes were slipping?” Gill asked any one of them with an answer.
“No. When she told me of the recall, I took a quick look. I didn’t see anything to warrant a tow to Waterville for the fix. Obviously I was wrong.” Zoe placed an arm over Luke’s shoulders. The man blamed himself.
“Recalls are usually bogus. A problem affecting a small percentage of cars. Chances are the issue isn’t something that can be determined until it fails.” Even as Gill said the words, he questioned them. He wanted more details. “Jo’s a hell of a defensive driver. She passed her training at Quantico like a champ.”
“According to the rescue team, she’d aimed for the side of the hill, bounced, and went over.”
It was the second time he’d heard that report.
Jo’s day nurse found them in the lobby. “Two at a time, please. We’re working on a private room to accommodate Miss Ward outside the ICU.”
“Is she stable enough to leave the unit?” Zoe asked.
“She is.”
Zoe and Mel took the first turn, disappeared behind the doors.
Gill sat on the uncomfortable couch, the coffee had yet to penetrate his brain. He needed a change of clothes and a shower. And as soon as he was convinced that Jo was on recovery road, he wanted to set his eyes on her car himself.
He smoothed the sides of his beard before running a hand over his head.
“How are you holding up?” Wyatt asked.
Gill offered a nervous shake of his head. “I hate feeling helpless.”
“Amen to that,” Luke said. “Good thing Jo is durable. She’ll be barking to get out of here before long.”
“Not with that tube in her chest.”
“It won’t slow her down long.”
Gill gulped his lukewarm coffee and couldn’t sit still. Shauna could bring him clothes. She had a key to his place. “I’ll be right back.” He stepped out of the waiting room, aware the other men watched his exit, and made a call.
“Wow, you look like shit.”
Jo didn’t want to laugh. It hurt. “Always telling the truth, Zoe. Lie to me, will ya?”
“Can’t do it.” Zoe sat at the foot of Jo’s bed.
“The track team wants to visit. We told them to wait,” Mel told her.
“Tell them to run instead.”
“Kids with a cause. Keeping them away won’t happen, we’ll just have to deflect until you don’t look like you had a one-on-one with a grizzly.”
Jo lifted her right hand. Even with the IV sticking out of it, it hurt far less than her left one. “Give me a mirror. It can’t be that bad.”
Zoe produced a pocket mirror from her purse.
“Damn.” She did look like crap. Crude stitches stuck out of her hairline on the left side of her face, bruises around both eyes were spreading out. Her neck was red and her lips were swollen. “I’m guessing the airbag went off.”
“The car was trashed,” Zoe told her.
“You saw it?”
“We all did as we drove past. Karl called us from the scene.”
It was all fuzzy. “I don’t remember.”
“By the time we got there you were already on your way here. Karl was shaky. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man so upset.”
Jo tried to take a deep breath and winced. “Both our cars were recalled. He probably pictured himself in my position.”
“Maybe,” Mel said.
“I need to have his car towed here. Karl can’t drive it.” She pictured the recall notice on her desk, hoped Glynis could find it in her pile.
“I’m sure he’s figured that out.”
“Can’t leave it to chance.” She handed the mirror back to Zoe. “Give me your phone.”
Zoe looked at her like she was crazy. “Woman, stop. You’re in the hospital.”
“Karl’s a father and a husband. He might be an asshole these days, but this can’t happen to both of us.” Jo made grabby motions with her hand.
“I’ll take care of it,” Zoe said.
Jo didn’t fight. “Make sure you do.”
Zoe saluted her. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
She laughed. “Don’t. It hurts.”
Zoe leaned down, tried to find a place to kiss her head. “I’ll send Luke in. Make your phone call.”
“Love you,” Jo said, closing her eyes. She’d only been awake for two hours, but her body felt like it had been running for a week.
“Can I bring anything from your place?” Mel asked.
Jo licked her dry lips. “Chapstick.”
She opened her eyes to a knock on the open door. Luke frowned. “You look like—”
“Crap, I know. Thanks.”
At least they were laughing about it.
Even though laughing hurt like hell.
“I want out.”
Gill protested. “You’ve barely started walking the halls.”
“It’s a prison. Complete with a guard.”
Gill glanced at the door. One of Waterville’s finest had been bedside since Jo arrived. The protocol of police protection 24/7 when one of their own was in the hospital should have come as a comfort. Not for Jo. She hated the attention.
“Prisons don’t have this many flowers.”
The room was a florist’s dream. Every shade and shape of flowers, balloons . . . and even a massive poster handmade by the track team had sentiments and the occasional tongue-in-cheek joke about Jo’s driving, which hung across one wall of the private room.
“Everyone has put their life on hold. The sooner I’m in my own bed, the better.”
“Let the doctors determine when you leave.”
Jo glared. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you were in this bed.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Ha!” She flinched, held her side. The tube had come out, but Gill could tell every time pain reminded her that it had been there. “Break me out of here.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“I’m going to remember this.”
“When we’re eighty, you can repay the favor.”
She smiled. “I’ll leave your sagging ass hanging out of a hospital gown for everyone to see.”
He faked a frown. “Who says it will be saggy?”
“Everyone’s ass is sagging at eighty.”
“I’m going to rock an eighty-year-old butt.”
Jo rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Gill. I’d leave myself if I could drive.”
Gill leaned down, kissed her forehead. “Tomorrow.”