Chapter Nineteen
“Officer Johnston? Ma’am?” The voice barely penetrated Lusinda’s consciousness. “Excuse me. Are you with Detective Easterling?”
“Rick? Yes.” She forced the haze of sleep away and sat up. Her back was stiff and one leg was trying to cramp. The Surgery waiting room chairs were not very comfortable. “Yes, sorry. Yes. I’m with him.” When she rubbed her face, her fingers dragged over the tape residue around her mouth. She stood up gingerly. “Is there news?”
“He’s being taken to a room. Fourth floor. Four North, room 468.”
“468,” Lusinda repeated. “Can I go now?”
“It will take them a while to get him settled. It’s a little after seven. You could get some breakfast downstairs in the cafeteria, or freshen up if you like.”
Lusinda’s hand went to her hair, then to her mouth. “Duct tape residue,” she said a little sheepishly. “It’s been a long night.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, Officer. I hope the detective does well.”
“Thank you,” Lusinda said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a towel would you? And a toothbrush?”
The woman smiled. “Normally we tell family and friends they can buy items they failed to bring with them in the gift shop, but I’ll see what I can do.”
A half-hour later, Lusinda felt much better. Her face was red from scrubbing and she’d dampened and finger-combed her hair. A couple of swipes around her eyes took care of any makeup that had survived her tears.
She still had tape residue on her wrists and ankles but she didn’t care. She just wanted to see Rick. She walked down the gray and white halls and slipped inside the softly lit room. The heart monitor was beeping quietly.
Rick’s face looked pale against the dark stubble on his cheeks. He was bare-chested, except for the bandage she saw peeking out from the sheets. His right arm was captive to an IV tube. There was a blood pressure cuff around his left arm and a clip on his middle finger. Above his head was the monitor that kept a running account of his vital signs.
She walked over to stand by his bed and studied his face. His cheeks looked sunken and his eyes had dark purple circles underneath them. Tears filled her eyes and she blotted them with her fingertips.
“Your hair’s more of a mess than mine,” she whispered, her voice breaking. She didn’t have a brush, so she lightly finger-combed the front.
He made a small sound and his head moved slightly. She pulled her hand back. She didn’t want to wake him. She picked up a straight chair that sat against the curtained window and moved it closer so she could sit beside him. She wanted to touch him—the place where the IV tubing pierced his skin, the scrape on his forearm, the blue veins that were visible underneath his smooth, tan flesh.
He turned his head. She looked up in time to see his eyes open and blink. “Hi,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Hi,” she said, smiling, doing her best not to cry at how weak he was. “How are you feeling?”
He licked his dry lips. “Water?” he whispered.
She got the plastic jug that was sitting on the tray table and held the straw to his mouth. “They said you should take small sips, so you don’t get nauseated.”
He drank a little, then grimaced.
“Are you hurting?”
“It’s okay.” He studied her, his sleepy gaze roaming over her face.
“What is it?” she asked with a little smile.
“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“No. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Go back to sleep.” She took a couple of tissues and wet them and blotted his dry lips with them.
“Mmm,” he said as his eyes drifted closed.
“Good. Go back to sleep,” she whispered, swallowing the need for him to look at her, to talk to her, to be with her. Seeing him so hurt and helpless was ripping her apart. Rationally, she knew he was under the influence of the anesthesia and until he slept it off, what he said or heard might not make much sense. She had to be content to sit with him.
“Sin? You okay?”
She smiled at him although his eyes were still closed. “I’m fine. Just worried about you.”
“What happened?”
She knew what he meant. “They sent a SWAT team. Do you remember them breaking down the door?”
His tongue licked his dry lips, so she held the water for him. “Tell me.”
“The nurses said you won’t remember.”
He made a noise that could have been a chuckle. “I don’t remember now.”
“Somehow you got into the building.”
He nodded. “Jumped on that first guy. Got him with a screwdriver.” He looked at her. “The other one, the one with the nose. He’s one of Beau’s men.”
She nodded. “You struggled for his gun. You were shot. They had to go in and get the bullet out.”
“My back?” he asked, moving his shoulder gingerly.
“It hit a rib.”
He nodded and sank back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
Lusinda watched him. He was getting a little color back into his face, but despite the lean, toned muscles of his bare arms and torso, he looked too frail, too human in the hospital bed, surrounded by the tubes and wires and beeping monitors. Her eyes stung and she blinked away the tears that wanted to fall. She was not going to cry. She realized his eyes were open and he was studying her again.
“What were you doing there?”
Lusinda shook her head in exasperation. “That’s too long a story for tonight. You need to sleep.” She stood up and made a pretense of straightening his covers, which were already straight. “Want another sip of water?”
“Talk to me. Tell me.”
“You are a stubborn man. Beau called me to meet him at his office. He runs background checks on everybody, so he knew I was a cop. He sent me to T-Gros’s club. They were going to kill me and frame T-Gros for it. They’d already made sure there was contaminated heroin in some of his warehouses.”
“Beau did it.”
“Yes. To frame T-Gros. Beau tried to buy him out but that didn’t work. So T-Gros has told the police he’ll give them anything they want, but he’d never dealt in contaminated heroin. He’s confessed to distribution and will go to prison.”
“What about Beau? Is Wayne going to flip?”
“From what I understand, he got his instructions at a post office box that’s registered to his name. He’s swearing he has no idea who was behind Carlos’s or Johnny’s deaths.”
Rick met her gaze. “So Beau put the bad dope on the streets?”
She wanted to refuse to tell him anything more. Wanted to tell him to rest, but there was an intensity, a hunger in him that she understood. He had started this determined to stop the person who had killed his brother.
“Beau did it after all,” he whispered. “He killed all those people. He killed Johnny.”
“You stopped the bad dope, Rick. It’s already disappearing from the streets.”
He closed his eyes and she saw his jaw muscles working. “They can’t touch Beau, can they? They can’t tie the contaminated heroin to him.”
“You don’t need to think about all that right now. You need to rest. You’ve talked too much.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I’ll call the nurse to give you another dose of pain medicine.”
He looked toward the window, then down at his hand, where the IV tubing was taped. “I dreamed about Johnny.”
Lusinda’s eyes began to sting again. She swallowed. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “He was a good man. I was too proud, too selfish.”
“Don’t.” Lusinda put her hand on top of his. “He loved you. He was proud of you. You’re a good man too.”
He shook his head. “No. You…” His eyes drifted shut. After a few seconds, he was breathing evenly and the heart monitor’s beep slowed down.
Lusinda watched him for a long time. She cried a little. She even dozed for a while. When she woke, he was still sleeping and someone had been in, because there was a new plastic container filled with ice. They must have given him another dose of pain medicine.
She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry, Rick for being so wrong. I thought I was so smart. I thought I had you all figured out, but I didn’t.” She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from starting up again. “I didn’t know—nobody knew the demons you were battling, or why you were so desperate to work this assignment. Nobody knew why you risked your life to chase that armed drug dealer. I was prejudiced when I took the job. I was too willing to believe all the bad. But you are nothing but good. Your determination tells me that. No one could ever make me believe otherwise. I love you, Rick. I wish I had the nerve to tell you when you’re awake, but at least I can say it out loud while you’re asleep. I love you, I love you, I love—” Her voice broke. She took a breath. “If you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. It really is—” Her voice broke again. “But you need to let someone love you. And you need to love them back, because every knight in shining armor needs a damsel to rescue. Thank you for rescuing me.”
She pulled her hand away and stood. There were tissues on the tray table. She took one and wiped her wet eyes and face.
“Hey, Lusinda,” Rick whispered.
She turned to find him smiling at her. “Hey, yourself,” she said, smiling back at him. “You look like you feel better.”
He nodded. “I feel better except for this damn thing.” He looked down at the bandage.
“Want something to drink? Orange juice?”
He shook his head. “I need to tell you something.” His voice sounded hoarse and strained.
“Are you sure? Because you sound tired. Why don’t you take another nap and—”
“Hey,” he muttered. “Stop it.”
Lusinda’s pulse skittered. “Okay,” she said as lightly as she could. Be strong. No matter what he said, she could handle it. She could.
“I don’t want a damsel in distress,” he muttered.
He’d heard her. “Rick, I—”
He held up his hand. “Let me finish. Damsels are so whiny. Always wanting you to step in and save them. It gets annoying. I need you.”
Lusinda’s heart thumped so loudly she was sure he could hear it. She put her hand over her mouth to stop the sob that was about to escape.
“You make me better. You expect way too much of me but you make me want to be the person you think I am.” He laid his head back against the pillows and closed his eyes. “Come here.”
“What?” Lusinda asked, too stunned by his words to think.
“Come closer.”
She stood and leaned over the bed.
“Closer.”
She started to put her ear near his lips, but he turned his head and caught her mouth with his.
“I’m going to need somebody to help me. Shh, don’t say anything.” He took a deep breath. “I need somebody who can put up with me.”
“But—”
“How long do you think you could last?”
“Last?”
He nodded. “Putting up with me. How long?”
“I—oh, a while,” she said, a smile beginning to curve her lips.
“A while as in days or a while as in weeks?”
She looked at him and saw a sparkle in his dark gaze. She smiled. “You’re not going to remember this. You’re still under the effects of the anesthesia.”
“Trust me, I’ll remember, I promise.”
Then Lusinda did the hardest thing she’d ever done. She opened her heart to the man who’d had the courage to open his to her first. “Okay, if you’re sure, then I’d say a while as in years. Years and years and years.”
“Good,” he said. “Because that’s how long I’m going to need you. For years and years and years.”
Lusinda felt the tears start and spill over and run down her cheeks and yet she couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m holding you to it,” she said. “No claiming you were not of sound mind because of the anesthesia.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to drive me crazy, aren’t you?”
“No,” she said. “You’ll be just fine. After all, you’re a saint.”