“That doesn’t make it right. And I’m a shit, don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay, you’re a shit. But if we’re going to work together, we have to trust each other.”
“I trust you. I think the problem is you don’t trust me. And I can’t blame you.”
“I haven’t had a lot of practice, trusting people.” He paused. “But I’m going to have to work on it. Besides, I need your help. Sometimes you see things I don’t. I haven’t found many people who can do that.” He managed to smile weakly at her.
She smiled back, the small thaw in their relationship immediately rekindling her spirits. “I’m going to grab a shower. Get up on the bed while I’m in there. You must be stiff as a board.”
Shaw pulled himself off the floor and slowly eased down on the bed. He listened to the shower come on. The bed was warm from Katie lying there, and then his eyes closed. The next thing he knew he smelled coffee, bacon, and eggs.
He sat up and looked around. Katie was dressed and sitting in front of a room service table. She poured out a cup of coffee and handed it to him.
“What time is it?” he said.
“Eight-thirty.”
He sipped his coffee.
“Hungry?”
He nodded, rose, and sat across from her. “You should’ve gotten me up when you got out of the shower,” he said grumpily.
“It was a lot more convenient this way,” she said. “With you sound asleep I could get dressed in here and not in the tiny bathroom. You know, this marriage arrangement is going to turn out to be awkward,” she said, eyeing him over the rim of her cup.
He stretched out his bad arm gingerly.
“Is that why we’re going to the doctor’s?’
“Yes, but just not for the reason you’re probably thinking.”
“What a surprise.”
They grabbed a taxi to Leona Bartaroma’s cottage, a simple stone structure set off a gravel road. It was about two miles from Malahide Castle where Leona was a tour guide. When they got out and looked around Katie said, “Strange place for a doctor’s office.”
“She’s retired.”
“Oh, that makes perfect sense.”
Leona invited them in, said hello to Katie, and sat them down in her roomy kitchen overlooking the back garden. She said nothing about Shaw’s altered appearance but eyed Katie. “May I speak freely in front of her?”
“I wouldn’t have brought her otherwise.”
“Frank already called.”
“Of course.”
“He said you promised not to visit me.”
“No, I promised not to visit you about this.” He tapped his right side.
“His men are all around here,” she added.
“I know that.”
“How?”
“I smelled them.”
“So you know I can’t do what you want me to do.”
“How do you know what I want you to do? I haven’t told you yet.”
She looked curious while Katie’s gaze darted back and forth between the two.
“Tell me, then.”
He rolled his sleeve up, exposing the metal staples in his wound.
“My God, how did that happen?”
“I guess Frank forgot to tell you about that.”
She looked at the wound more closely. “It looks like it’s healing nicely. The surgeon did a good job.”
“I’m grateful for your expert opinion. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Why, then?”
He took a small metal cylinder from his pocket. “I want you to put this in there,” he said, pointing to the rip in his arm.
“You’re not serious.”
“Shaw!” Katie exclaimed.
“Dead serious.”
“What is it?” Leona said slowly.
“You don’t need to know that,” Shaw said. “It’s stainless steel, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t. There’s the risk of infection,” Leona began.
“Put it in a sterilized bandage. But there’s where I need it. Can you do it?”
“Of course I can do it. The question is, why in the world should I?”
“Because I’m asking you. Politely.”
“How far in?” she said nervously.
“Not too far. Because I may need to get it out in a hurry.”
“This is ridiculous,” Katie snapped.
“Not too far in, Leona,” Shaw said again. “And you owe me.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“But I do.” He pulled out his shirttail and lifted up the front, exposing the sutured tracks of the scar on his right side. “I do.”
Katie looked at the mark and then over at Leona and frowned. “Did you do that to him?”
Leona wet her lips. “I don’t have a surgery here, Shaw. No instruments.”
“Dublin’s a big town. I’m sure you can find what you need.”
“It’ll take a bit of time.”
“This afternoon,” he shot back, a tinge of menace in his voice.
“I can’t. I have to go to Malahide.”
“This afternoon.”
“All right. I’ll call you.”
Shaw rose to leave and Katie quickly stood too.
“I don’t have the means to put you completely under,” Leona said. “Just a local. There’ll be pain.”
He tucked his shirt back in. “There’s always pain, Leona.”
Outside, Katie said, “Okay, who the hell was that, Dr. Frankenstein’s wife? And what is going on?”
“It’s better that you don’t know, Katie. Trust me.”
“Trust you? What about trusting me like we talked about?”
“I said I was going to work on it. I didn’t say I was there yet.”
CHAPTER 74
THE RAIN HAD PASSED and it was a lovely day in Dublin. Skittish birds flitted from tree to tree; colorful flowers in neat beds waved in the slight breeze; people walked and chatted, drank coffee at street cafés; cars drifted down wide streets.
Inside the small, antiseptic room Shaw gritted his teeth and crushed the arm of the chair he was in. Leona, gloved, masked, and dressed in surgical scrubs, had pulled out several of the metal staples holding his ripped skin together while Katie gripped his other arm with her gloved hands.
“That was the easy part,” Leona said pleasantly as she dropped the last of the three staples she’d removed into a pan. There were four left in his arm.
“Glad to hear it,” muttered Shaw.
“Still want to go through with it? It’s going to set back the healing process.”
“Just do it, Leona.”
She used a slender instrument that looked like a miniature crowbar to pry open the wound and blood started to trickle out. Droplets of sweat popped up on Shaw’s brow. Katie tightened her grip on his arm. Leona had given him local anesthesia all around the wound but warned him again there would be pain. And the lady hadn’t been mistaken.
She’d wrapped the small metal device in a layer of sterilized mesh surgical wrap. “You can’t keep this in there long,” she said. “I’ve sterilized it, but there will eventually be infection. It’s unavoidable.”
“Funny, you didn’t say that the last time.”
“The last time was different.”
“Not for me it wasn’t.” He touched his side. “You never said me having this thing in me long-term was a problem.”
“Apples and oranges,” she snapped. “That device is like a pacemaker, designed for long-term use inside the body. But not this thing. So, as a doctor, I am giving you that warning. There will be infection here.”
“Duly noted.” Shaw grunted. “Now stick it in.”
She carefully wedged the device into the wound, her nimble, gloved fingers finding a small cavity where it would fit.
The pain made Shaw’s entire body shake.
“Take my hand, Shaw, squeeze it,” Katie offered.
“No,” he grunted.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll break every damn bone in it.”
A second later, the armrest came away in his hand, the screws sheared off.
Leona withdrew her fingers from the wound and looked with satisfaction at her work.
“I can put new staples back in, or even cauterize it.”