Charlie
Some bitch of a nurse shoved me back into a bed before the cops arrived. I heard them, though, talking right outside my room as the sadistic nurse plugged another IV into my tortured veins and started pumping me full of fluid.
“You need to stay in bed this time,” she chastised me. “If you get up and start walking around again, we’ll be forced to sedate you.”
I groaned. “I need to see Nicolette,” I growled. “She’s been gone for hours! Did she give birth? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” the nurse replied. “I’ll find out as soon as I can. But you need to stay here and rest.”
When the cops walked in the door five minutes later, I almost jumped out of bed again. There were two of them – one short and fat, the other tall and skinny. It was just like the movies.
“Y’all in a buddy cop movie together?” I raised my eyebrows. “This don’t seem like the best place to film.”
The shorter cop rolled his eyes. “You Charlie Waters?”
I nodded. “Last time I checked, anyway.”
“I’m Officer Lloyd, and this is Officer Wells.”
“Pleased.” I rolled my eyes. “So, you here about Jack Duncan or what?”
Lloyd nodded. “Right,” he said. He pulled out a little notepad from his pocket and started flipping through the pages. “Johnson Duncan. Twenty-seven years old. That right?”
I burst out laughing. It hurt my ribs and jarred my leg, but I didn’t care. It felt fucking good to laugh after being through something so goddamned harrowing. “His real name is Johnson? You’re shitting me.”
Lloyd didn’t laugh. “But he goes by Jack, that right?”
I nodded. “I’ve only known him as Jack,” I replied. “Never even knew he had a real name.”
“And you are?”
“You already know who I am,” I said uneasily. “Charlie Waters. Y’all said my name when you walked through the door.”
Lloyd and Wells exchanged a glance. “Yeah, we just wanna know if you have any other aliases,” Lloyd said. “You know. Like nicknames.”
Of course they would think I was a fucking crook, too.
“Just Charlie,” I said. “Some people call me Waters. But that’s my real last name. You can look on my birth certificate and everything.”
“You’re a real smartass,” Lloyd snapped. “Especially for someone laid up like that.” He whistled. “What the fuck did you do, anyway?”
My hands balled themselves into fists and I had to remind myself that it was a felony to assault an officer. “I helped his girlfriend escape,” I said. “Nicolette McDonald. She’s in the hospital, too. She’s giving birth.” I raised my eyebrows. “To my baby.”
Lloyd looked down at his notes. “But she was Johnson’s girlfriend, correct?”
I snorted. “Shit, not for a long time now. She ran away about eight months ago,” I said, fudging the date slightly in my head. “He used to beat the shit out of her. He was really abusive, a real monster.”
“And why did you let him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why’d you let him beat her?” Lloyd stepped forward, tapping the notepad with the tip of his pen. “Why didn’t you step in, be a real white knight about it?”
“I didn’t know for a long time. Jack was the president of this motorcycle club, the Steel Gods. I was involved with them. He took me in, so I didn’t really like to question his judgment about his personal life. I always thought things weren’t as bad as that.”
Lloyd nodded slowly. “And you’re still involved with that club?”
“No, sir. Quit a few weeks back. And I haven’t ridden with them in seven or so months.”
Lloyd nodded. “Anything else you can tell me about Johnson?”
“He pushes drugs. Heroin, coke, tons of pot. Pretty much everything. There’s a warehouse back in Carlsbad that’s full of that shit. You might want to write that down.”
Lloyd snorted. “And this your way of trying to get that asshole off the streets?”
I shrugged. “Does it have to be that obvious?” I pointed to my wounded wrist and leg. “He’s the fuckin’ reason why I’m like this, Lloyd. He’s the one who put me here. And if he’d gotten his hands on Nicolette before you showed up, he would have killed her.” I sniffed. “He’s been bragging about doing that shit since she first left.”
Lloyd nodded. He looked over at Wells, then sat down heavily in the plastic chair that was next to my hospital bed. “I think we got enough here,” he said drily. “Look, there’s one more thing. How’d you and Nicolette wind up together?”
“She ran off, and he told me to go get her,” I said flatly. “I didn’t know what he was thinkin’ about doing. He just told me his girlfriend had left and he wanted her back. She moved out to Durango, Colorado, and tried to start a new life there. I ran into her and we hit it off. That’s how we hooked up. After I fell in love with her, I quit the Gods.” I looked into Lloyd’s flat eyes, hoping my embellishments were enough to make up for the obvious lack of truth there. I knew there was no way he’d believe me if I told him everything: how I’d tried to drag Nicolette back to California, how she’d basically seduced me to change my mind, and – worst of all – how long it had taken me to fall in love with her.
Lloyd nodded. He closed his notebook with a little slap, then tucked it into his pocket. “All right,” he said. “Wells, come on. We’re going.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you gonna take Jack away?”
Lloyd snorted. “Like we’d let that asshole go free,” he said. “We should have enough to charge him with assault. He beat the shit out of you, kid. You’d be dead if you hadn’t made it to the hospital.”
When the cops were gone, I flopped back against the mattress in frustration. I knew a lot of time had gone by, likely hours. It was starting to get dark outside and I hadn’t heard anything about Nicolette’s condition. I wondered if she was okay – I had no idea how long it took to give birth, but considering the baby wasn’t even fully grown, I couldn’t believe it was that hard.
I started gettin’ real restless by the time the moon and stars were out. The nurses changed shifts and now some girl named Kendall was checking in on me every hour, checking my blood pressure and giving me medicine. I’d resisted at first; I’d always had a weakness for painkillers, and I didn’t wanna be out of it when Nicolette finally showed up with our kid. But after a while, the pain in my leg got too bad to ignore.
“That’s a bad break,” Kendall said. She handed me a little paper cup with pills, then waited for me to swallow before handing me the water. “You’re lucky you got here in time.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That’s the damndest thing. I don’t even remember that.”
Kendall perked up. She was a youngish nurse, with a pile of frizzy red hair piled on top of her pale head. “You know, there was another guy involved,” she said. “Maybe he knows something.”
I sighed. “Yeah, Jack Duncan,” I said. “And he’s an asshole. An asshole who’s probably busy being arrested in the hallway as we speak. I wouldn’t ask him shit, honey. He’s not really known for being nice to the ladies.”
Kendall’s eyebrows went up and she looked surprised.
She darted out into the hallway, as if she couldn’t live another second without witnessing King Asshole himself. When she walked back into the room, she was frowning. “That’s not funny,” she complained. “Trying to trick me like that!”
“What?” I rolled my eyes. “He’s the bad guy, kid. He’s the real deal. And hopefully, he’s going upriver for a long time yet.”
Kendall shook her head. “No,” she said. “I mean, that’s not the guy who was in the truck with you and your wife. This guy’s older, like a dad,” she explained. “He’s in the next room. You want me to talk to him?”
“Hold up,” I said. “There was someone else? You fuckin’ sure about that?”
Kendall nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She swished out of the room, swinging her little arms.
I frowned, shifting on the bed and groaning. The pain medicine was just starting to take hold and I felt myself falling into the familiar opiate haze. It felt good, like being in the arms of an old friend. I closed my eyes and let myself drift away on the ocean of numbing fog. Nicolette, I thought as I slipped away from consciousness. I’ll be waiting for you.
When I woke up, it was fully dark outside. Owls hooted outside of the hospital window. I wasn’t used to seeing clear night skies like that. Even on the old farm where I’d lived outside of Carlsbad had too much light pollution to really see anything properly. And ever since Nicolette and I had hidden out in St. George, I hadn’t spent much time outside at night. She’d always been paranoid that something real bad was gonna happen the second I stepped away.
I didn’t want to tell her I’d been just as worried.
The door to my room swung open, a bright yellow triangle of light appearing on the floor of my room. Kendall sauntered in, carrying a clipboard. “You’re awake,” she said, sounding surprised. “Everything okay? You need more medicine?”
“I really want to see Nicolette,” I said slowly. The words tasted foreign and blocky in my mouth. Talking had always been hard on painkillers. “Can I see her?”
“She’s given birth,” Kendall said. “But she’s resting right now. She had to have an emergency operation. Would you like to see the child?”
I nodded. “Oh, god,” I said. “Is she okay? Please tell me she’s okay.”
Kendall nodded. “She should be fine. But the doctor hasn’t made a final call yet; it’s too early to tell.” I must have looked distraught because the nurse put a hand on my shoulder and patted. “You can wait with your daughter if you’d like.”
I grinned as Kendall helped me into a wheelchair and began to roll me out of the room. “So she had a girl, huh? She was so convinced about that, even though the ultrasound tech told her it would be a boy.”
Kendall laughed. “They get it wrong all the time,” she said. She hipped open the door, then guided me out into the hallway. It was so bright that my eyes ached.
In the lobby on that floor, I saw Lloyd and Wells. They were reading the Miranda Rights to Jack. His arms were cuffed behind his back and he looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
As Kendall wheeled me by, I made eye contact with my old boss for what I hoped would be the last time in my life. “Have fun in prison,” I said casually. “Don’t let the big queens get you.”
Jack growled and launched towards me, but Lloyd held him back by the shoulders. As Kendall wheeled me by, I stared into Jack’s eyes. You’re a sonuvabitch, I thought. But thanks for Nicolette. I’ll always give her everything that you couldn’t, you asshole.
“So,” Kendall said confidently as she wheeled me down another corridor marked ‘nursery.’ “I talked to the other guy – the guy who was in the crash.”
“Oh yeah?” By now I’d almost forgotten about what Kendall had told me earlier. “What happened? Did he remember?”
“That’s the thing,” Kendall said. She pushed me in front of a big glass window. On the other side, hundreds of newborns squawked and cried in what looked like plastic incubators. “He doesn’t, really. Says he picked up your girl, Nicolette, on the side of the road. And then they got into some wreck.”
I blinked. “Holy shit,” I muttered. “That means…”
“What?” Kendall looked at me curiously. “What does that mean?”
“That means,” I said slowly, “that Nicolette was the one who dragged me out of the truck. She must have somehow pulled me into the rig, and driven to the hospital herself.” I blinked again. “What a woman.”
Kendall nodded. “That’s incredible,” she said. “You sure you didn’t walk yourself?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I had a concussion, and slamming into that truck knocked me out. The last thing I remembered before waking up here was driving in front of what looked like a big train. I guess that was the truck.”
Kendall’s eyes flew open wide. “That’s crazy,” she said. She wiped her hands on the front of her scrubs. “I love working in a hospital, you hear such crazy stories,” she gushed. “And you get to meet babies!”
My heart swelled as I looked through the window, trying to determine which child was mine. I hated to admit it, but most babies look the same. At least, that’s what I’d always thought. But watching them now, each one of them was different in their own way. I could tell by the way they waved their stubby arms and legs in the air that they each had their own little agenda, their own way of thinking about things.
Kendall leaned close to the glass. “Nicolette’s baby was slightly premature, so I’m afraid you can’t hold her for too long. She needs to stay warm and comfortable.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
Kendall nodded. “Oh, yeah. Ninety percent of infants born after the twenty-seventh week survive with no long-term effects. She should be fine. We just like to be cautious, that’s all.”
I nodded.
Kendall bustled inside. I watched eagerly as she traveled down the rows, looking at the babies snug inside their little cribs. When she picked up a pale baby in a pink blanket with a mass of brown hair, my heart swelled inside my chest. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before – a massive burst of paternal pride. I wanted to hold onto that little girl, wrap my arms around her and never let her go.
Kendall carried the baby carefully. When she handed her to me, she moved my hands into position. “You need to hold her head up,” she said softly. “Babies can’t do that on their own for a while. And cradle her securely, like this.” She moved my arm under the baby’s body. A flash of pain shot up my arm but I didn’t move out of fear of hurting my new daughter.
“She’s mine,” I said simply. “She’s my daughter.”
Kendall nodded. “Want me to give you some time?”
I nodded.
“I’ll go and check on Nicolette. She might be able to see you now, if she’s awake. I’ll check with the doctor.”
As Kendall walked away, I gazed down into the face of the most beautiful baby girl I’d ever seen. She had light blue eyes and tons of brown hair with a cute little nose. She was like an exact clone of Nicolette. And while she wasn’t smiling, she had a cute little look on her face like she knew something secretive I didn’t.
“I love you,” I whispered, leaning down to the baby and pressing my lips to her forehead. “You’re my daughter, you know that?” I rocked her gently in my arms. The little baby let out a cry of fear and I shushed her softly, then slowed my rocking motions to the gentlest of gestures. Finally, she quieted back down and I felt another burst of something hot and blissful in my chest.
It didn’t matter that this little girl wasn’t my flesh and blood. She was everything I’d ever wanted – everything I’d never even been able to think about until now. And I knew from the bottom of my heart that no matter what happened, I’d want to protect this little girl for the rest of my life.
“You’re never going to have to grow up like I did,” I whispered into her tiny, perfect ears. “I promise, you’ll always have a family and you’ll always have a home.”