She stood at the foot of his bed, mouth agape, head swirling. Not because Dwayne was a drug dealer and accused murderer. Truman was located on the city’s violence-prone east side. Many of its patients were victims, perpetrators, or both. And not because his left wrist was handcuffed to the bed rail and two uniformed cops-Evans and Minor, according to their name tags-both black, one on each side of the bed, were standing guard. Criminals, murderers included, bled like everyone else.
But the shock of finding the man who had so frightened Alex lying on a bed in her ER, wounded and shackled, brought her to a standstill, a fantasy flashing through her mind. It would be easy enough to save Alex and the Henderson family, if they needed saving. Direct the cops out of the room. Inject Dwayne with something to stop his heart, something an overworked coroner might miss at autopsy, and never look back. She banished the fantasy as quickly as it had come, angry that she could even have such thoughts, reminding herself that she saved lives. She didn’t judge them.
Dwayne picked up on her reaction.
“What’s the matter wit’ you, bitch? Ain’t you never seen a half-naked black man?”
Officer Evans smacked him on the head. “Mind your manners, asshole.”
“Why you do a brother like that?” Dwayne asked him.
“Not about you being a brother,” Evans said. “It’s about you being an asshole. Sorry, Doc. We’ve been waiting a couple of hours and he’s a little anxious.”
She wasn’t offended. She’d been called worse. It went with the territory. In an odd way, Dwayne’s insult restored her equilibrium, bringing her back to business as usual, ready to give as good as she got.
“Actually, Dwayne, we get a lot of half-naked black men in the ER. Naked ones, too.”
Dwayne rose onto his elbows, dropping his eyelids halfway, giving her a serpentine smile. “You ain’t seen none as fine as me. I get outta these cuffs,” he said, rattling them, “I come back and show you. Give you somethin’ to remember me by. Bet you like it rough. Don’t matter to me if you do, ’cause I give it to you rough. Make you like it.”
Though banged up and bound, he oozed menace. An unnerving shiver raced through Bonnie, their banter too close to the bone, his promise too easy to believe. Evans smacked him again and grabbed him by the shoulders, shoving him into the mattress, his predatory grin unshaken.
“Zip it, asshole, before I zip it for you! Sorry, Doc.”
Bonnie turned away. Taking a steadying breath, she cut through the bandage and peeled back the dressing the paramedics had applied. The gash in his thigh was a jagged five inches long, deep enough to require stitches but not surgery, painful enough to be remembered but not to be incapacitating.
She took a closer look, the tissue pinkish red and bloody. Impulsively, she tugged at his torn skin with one hand, probing deeply and roughly into his wound with the other. She knew she was hurting him, but in that furious and fear-driven instant, she didn’t care. She only wanted to strike back and punish him.
“Shit!” Dwayne said through clenched teeth.
Bonnie looked at him, her face and tone flat, detached and unapologetic, seeking courage in professional distance as she baited him. “It’s just a laceration. I can give you something for the pain if you can’t take it.”
He glared at her. “Give me somethin’ for the pain? Like I can’t handle it? You callin’ me a pussy? Bitch, you is fucked! I gonna look you up, you can count on that shit happenin’ for real. Just sew me up so I can get the fuck outta here.”
His eyes, dark, dead, and certain, melted her bravado. She clenched her jaw to keep from shaking and pointed at the cops.
“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry if I were you.”
“They ain’t got nuthin’ on me. I be home ’fore you, that’s for damn sure. And when you get home, I be waitin’ and then we gonna find out who can take what.”
She looked at the cops, who shook their heads in unison, their reassurance no match for her anxiety and no antidote for the shame she felt for what she’d done. She hated thinking she was better than that only to find that she wasn’t.
She cleaned and stitched Dwayne’s laceration without looking at him. Finished, she nodded at the cops and walked out of the room, her heart racing, and banged into Alex, who was coming her way, head down and texting.
“What the-,” Alex began, looking up and seeing Bonnie. “Well, that’s one way to get ahold of you. You can ignore my text.”
Trembling, Bonnie forced a smile.
“You okay?” Alex asked.
Bonnie dodged the question, embarrassed to tell Alex what she’d done, taking advantage of Alex’s disheveled appearance-hair matted, eyes puffy and red-to change the subject.
“You look hungover. What’s going on?”
Alex let out a long breath, her eyes filling, voice breaking, hands fluttering. “I stopped by the Hendersons’ to check on them. They were all dead. Slaughtered. Mary was strangled and probably raped, the kids beaten to death. Jameer had been shot between the eyes, probably after he was forced to watch his wife and kids die.”
Bonnie covered her heart with both hands. “Oh, my God!” She reached for Alex, pulling her close. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
Alex clung to her, both of them letting loose, their tears mixing together. They stood like that for a moment until their hearts settled, wiping each other’s cheeks and then leaning inward, their foreheads touching.
“I’m sorry you had to find them. Are you okay?” Bonnie asked.
“It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll never forget it. Never.”
“I can only imagine. I’m glad you came to see me.”
Alex stepped back, shaking her head. “Sorry. That’s not why I’m here. I got so caught up in what happened that I forgot you were working today. But I really needed that hug.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Looking for Dwayne Reed. Detective Rossi likes him for the murders and went after him. Dwayne ran, tried to jump a fence but didn’t make it, and tore his leg on the chain-link. Paramedics brought him here.”
Bonnie nodded, swallowing hard. “Did he do it? Did he kill those people?”
“Rossi thinks so. For now, they’re charging him with drug possession. That’s enough to hold him while they see if they can make the murder case against him. Can you find out which room he’s in?”
“This one,” Bonnie said, pointing over her shoulder. “I just sewed him up.”
Alex’s breath caught in her throat. “You?”
“I know,” Bonnie said, her confession tumbling out rapid-fire. “When I saw his name on the chart, I couldn’t believe it. All I could think of was how he’d frightened you and if he’d hurt the Hendersons he might hurt you. Obviously, I didn’t know what had happened, but I had this awful fantasy for a second where I killed him.”
“Get out! You fantasized that you killed Dwayne?”
Bonnie shrugged her shoulders, her face coloring. “Yeah, me. Florence Nightingale, of all people. In the fantasy I injected him with something to give him a heart attack. I was mad at myself for even thinking about doing that. But then he threatened to rape me and I was madder about that.”
Alex grabbed her arm. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. A couple of cops were guarding him and he was cuffed to the bed rail. He said when he got out of jail that he’d come back and give me something to remember him by. I was so scared and pissed that when I examined his laceration, I made sure it hurt.”
“That’s never going to happen,” Alex said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Bonnie wiped her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe I did that to him, but I was so mad, so frightened, I just did it without even thinking. And then I taunted him about taking something for the pain, like I was questioning his manhood. That’s when he threatened me again. He said the police had nothing on him and that he’d be waiting for me when I came home. That’s so not me, and I feel awful, except for one thing.”