A doctor in surgical scrubs walked into the waiting room. “Mrs. Ferguson?” he asked Kelly. He had very tired eyes.
“That’s me. How is he?”
“He’ll make it,” the doctor answered, and a great stone of fear tumbled off Kelly’s chest. The doctor went on, “He lost a lot of blood, but we’ve got that stabilized. I’m afraid he will lose some function in his left arm. I don’t know how much yet. Part of it will depend on how he heals. He may need some additional procedures after he recovers from the initial trauma here.”
More operations. Kelly translated that from doctorspeak into English. More pain. More recovery. She didn’t know what she could do about that, except be there for Colin and take care of him when they happened. For now… “Can I see him?”
The doctor frowned. “He’s still pretty dopey. He’s in the recovery room.” Then he took another look at her face. “Well, for a little while. Come on with me.”
They gave her scrubs, too, and a mask. Colin lay on his back on an electronic bed. He was alarmingly pale—almost gray. He had an oxygen cannula under his nose and an IV running into the back of his right hand. His left shoulder was a mound of bandages.
Hesitantly, Kelly went up to him. Even more hesitantly, she said, “Colin? Honey?” When he didn’t respond, she said his name again, louder this time.
If he’d stayed out, she would have drawn back and waited. But his eyelids fluttered. As if it took a lot of work—and odds were it did—his eyes opened. For a second, she didn’t think anybody was home even so. His lips moved. Not much in the way of noise came out, but she lip-read “Hey, babe.”
“How are you?” she asked: your basic foolish question.
He considered. This time, she could hear him when he answered, “I was born to hang.” She yipped startled laughter. Behind her, the doctor snorted. Colin ignored them both. He forced out a question: “Did we catch the guy?”
“They told me he was dead,” Kelly answered.
“Okay.” Colin managed a small nod. Then he said, “I don’t feel so real good.”
“I bet you don’t. But you’ll get better,” Kelly said.
“That’s about enough.” The doctor touched her arm. “We’ll give him some rest now, and you can see him again when he’s a little more with it.”
“Thanks for letting me in.” When the doctor guided her out of the recovery room, she shed the scrubs and the mask. Gabe and Chief Williams still stood in the waiting room. She gave her report: “He was sort of awake. He talked and made sense. He asked about the robber, and I told him the guy was dead.”
“That all sounds good,” Malik Williams said. “He was still doped to the eyebrows, I bet.”
“Oh, yeah.” Kelly nodded.
“All right. Do you want that car to take you home?” the chief asked. “I know you’ve got your little girl at the neighbors’.”
“Yes, please,” Kelly said. “If the power’s back on outside, I have to call his son and his daughter—his ex, too, I guess. If I can’t call, I’ll drive over to Marshall’s and get him to watch Deborah for a bit while I came back here.”
“That sounds like it ought to work.” Chief Williams spoke with the air of a man who was used to putting plans together on the fly.
“I’m glad he’s gonna pull through.” Gabe Sanchez hugged Kelly again. “I’m gladder’n I know how to tell you—he owes me fifty bucks.” She poked him in the ribs. They both laughed, more in relief than at the quality of the joke.
Before Kelly could get back to the police car, she had to run the media gauntlet. The local TV outlets had got word of the shootout. News crews thrust mikes in her face and asked her how Colin was doing, what she was feeling, and about the gun battle (of which she knew as little as they did, maybe less). “I don’t have anything to tell you. Please excuse me,” she said, and she kept saying it till she pushed her way to the car, got inside, and slammed the door. Then—and only then—she added, “Stupid assholes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the cop behind the wheel. “Take you home now? How’s Captain Ferguson doing?”
“He’s out of surgery. They think he’ll be okay,” Kelly answered. “And yes, take me home, please.”
“You got it, ma’am. That’s good news.”
She retrieved Deborah from Wes and Ida Jones, who made horrified noises when she told them Colin had been shot. Ida said she would pray for him. Kelly didn’t know a lot of people who took their religion seriously. She knew even fewer who took it seriously and were still nice. Ida qualified on both counts.
“Daddy got hurt?” Deborah asked.
“Daddy… got hurt,” Kelly agreed. “But he’s going to get better. He’ll be in the hospital for a while, and then he’ll finish getting better at home. He’ll be home all the time till he’s well enough to go back to work.”
They went across the street. The power was still out. Kelly was as sure as made no difference that her ancient Honda wouldn’t start. Keeping two cars alive these days felt like insane ostentation. She had to look up Marshall’s new address before she stuck Deborah in the Taurus’ car seat and drove over there.
When she knocked on the door, Marshall looked amazed. “What are you doing here? You and the artichoke?”
“I’m not an artichoke!” Deborah said, laughing—it was a game they played.
“Your dad got shot,” Kelly said baldly.
“Oh, shit.” He sounded less surprised at that than he did at finding Kelly and Deborah on his doorstep. A cop’s kid knew it was possible even if it wasn’t likely. “What happened?”
She told him what she knew, finishing, “Will you come back with me and babysit while I go to the hospital again? That’d help a lot.”
“Sure. Lemme write a note for Janine—she’s over at her folks’. And I’ll throw my bike in the car so you don’t have to drive me back here. Do Vanessa and my mom know?”
“Not unless they’re listening to a radio with batteries. Power’s been out all day. I’ll call ’em as soon as I can.”
“Gotcha. Yeah, the power’s down, all right—I’ve been pounding on the tripewriter all day. Be right back.”
Kelly took him and Deborah to the house where he’d grown up. Then she drove to San Atanasio Memorial again. She was almost there when she realized her license had been expired for a couple of years—one more thing she hadn’t worried about. Back in the day, the DMV had renewed it pretty much automatically as long as your record stayed good. It stopped bothering after the eruption. She wasn’t likely to hit another car. She did have to be careful not to take out anyone on two or three wheels.
She had to get through the TV crews on her way in this time. She said “Please excuse me” over and over, in a tone that couldn’t mean anything but Get the fuck out of my way.
They’d moved Colin to a regular room by then. He looked pinker than he had when he first came out of surgery. He looked more alert, too. “Some hero you married, huh?” he said.
“I married the guy I love,” Kelly said. “How do you feel?”
“Like an angry alligator found me at the snack bar,” he answered. “But you told me the other guy is talking with his mortician, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh. I wasn’t sure you remembered.”
“Oh, yeah.” Now Colin could nod better. “What did they say about the arm?”
“That you may have some damage.” Since he was able to remember, Kelly wouldn’t lie to him. “They don’t know how much yet. That’ll depend on how it heals.”
He nodded again. “All right. But I’m still here, and I guess I’m gonna stick around and annoy you a while longer.”