“I brought a present.” I presented the bag of Oreos and loved the sudden, wide pitch of his eyes.
He slid open the drawer on the nightstand beside the bed. “Hide ’em,” he said at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. “Nurse’ll be in here to check in, in a few minutes.”
Sure enough, a nurse peeked in—ponytailed, fresh faced, and wearing blue scrubs.
“You all right, Chuck?”
“Good, Stella. Thanks,” he said, with a little wave.
She smiled and wandered off, and my grandfather sighed.
“She seems nice,” I offered.
“They’re all nice. But they’re nice constantly. Every hour when they check in, every time they open the door in the middle of the night and let the light in. And I’m a cop. Former, maybe, but still a cop. I don’t need to be checked on like a child.” His tone was growly and irritable, and it made me feel infinitely better. Growly and irritable seemed like a stop on the journey toward healing.
“I’m looking forward to a night’s sleep in a dark and quiet room.”
Noise erupted from the television set, drawing our gazes.
“News,” he said. “I was hoping to catch the Blackhawks score.”
I didn’t know much about hockey; the only time I’d been to a game was when Grandpa had gotten tickets from the family of a grateful citizen. He’d been a fan ever since.
“Did they win?” I asked.
He used the bedside remote to turn the volume down. “Not even close. Three to one.”
That seemed close enough for me, but hockey was its own weird world, and I didn’t feel qualified to point out the difference.
“How are you feeling?”
“Today, a little achy.” He shifted uncomfortably.
“Do you need something for the pain? I could call Stella.”
He gestured to the electronic drip at the side of the bed. “Got it,” he said. “But I don’t like to use it. Dulls the mind.”
And a cop, former or otherwise, would not want a dulled mind.
“How long are you going to have to stay here?”
“Doc thinks forty-eight more hours. They want to make sure everything’s in the right place—and going to stay there—before they send me to Oak Park. Your father has hired a slew of nurses and doctors.”
“You sound resigned,” I said with a smile.
“They’re being very generous,” my grandfather said, very diplomatically. He might not have agreed with the decisions my father had made, but he wasn’t much for criticizing.
“Have you thought about where you’ll live when you’re up and running again? Will you stay on the south side?”
Chicago wasn’t a city without problems or violence, and the south side bore much of the weight of those issues. As a cop, Grandpa decided the south side needed him more than the north, so that’s where he and my grandmother had made their home. That was undoubtedly part of the reason for my father’s lifetime quest for money and power.
“I haven’t quite gotten that far,” he said. “Although I’m thinking I’m done with stairs for a bit.” He put a hand on mine. “Catcher told me about Ethan. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
He nodded. “You’ve been dealing with a lot lately. The riots, now the mayor. I didn’t think she’d actually resort to violence. If I didn’t think another demonically possessed mayor was seriously unlikely, I’d say she was under the control of darker forces.”
“Yeah. It was odd enough when the first mayor split into two. I’m not sure she’s got enough brains to make two.”
“I wish there was something I could do. A call I can make. But she’s pulled this one away from the police department, probably because she knows they have sense and pay attention to rules of evidence. But these terrorism folks?” He shook his head. “They have to justify their existence. Vampires are a new threat? Great. They now have a basis to request a budget for next year.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of pieces to play in this one. We can’t use magic against her. She’ll just call us enemies of the state, and we’ll never see the light of day again. Figuratively,” I added. We already were biologically barred.
“You could always ask your father,” my grandfather carefully said, which earned him a look.
I certainly could ask my father to put in a word, to use his significant capital to convince Kowalcyzk to back off. I was sure it wouldn’t be the first time a bribe was offered or taken in Chicago. But I didn’t trust my father’s motives, and I certainly wouldn’t want to owe him a debt.
But my father was still my grandfather’s son, and I actually respected him. So I answered politely. “I don’t think that’s the best option.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” my grandfather said. “I don’t really care to be in here when this city is falling down around us.”
Unfortunately, being out there wasn’t proving all that helpful, either.
“Is it time for you to think about slowing down?” I asked the question out of obligation, even though I knew the answer—and predicted the flatness of his expression.
“Caroline Merit. You know better than that. I’m a cop. Always was, always will be.” He looked down at his blanket-covered legs. “And it’s going to take more than a bump to make daytime television look good by comparison. Especially when you’re out there. You’re still mine to protect, baby girl.”
I leaned over, pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you, too, Merit. And now that you’ve cleared your conscience,” he said with a grin, “what did you really want to talk about?”
I smiled. He read me better than nearly anyone. “Aline and Niera,” I said, and he nodded.
The librarian and Paige had given him the details. So when he nodded, I gave him an update, telling him about Regan’s involvement, the other disappearances, and the magical attacks.
“We haven’t been able to find her or the carnival.”
“You think there’s a link between her and Dominic Tate?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really fit what we know about the Messengers and the breakup of the Maleficium.”
He looked at me for a moment. “You’re thinking about finding Tate.”
I blushed. I hadn’t actually considered it as a tactic—why invite trouble?—but I was running out of options. Chicago’s vampires were potential targets, and the longer it took to find Niera, the higher the risk the elves would consider the truce breached. And that was unacceptable to me.
“It’s an idea,” I admitted. “He’d know better than anyone what she is—and how to stop her. What do you think?”
He whistled. “His history was, as you know, inconsistent. I know he’s fashioned himself as a different man after the Maleficium. Do you believe him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know Seth Tate, and I knew Dominic Tate. Seth was a different man after the split. Not just personality-wise. He’s still a politician,” I said with a smile. “But magically. Psychically, I guess. You could tell he was different. And he’s the key to this. I’m just not sure how.”
“Sometimes you have to follow your gut.” He smiled a little. “And in this particular case, I’d check with chain of command. Follow your gut, but cover your ass.”
Advice didn’t get any better than that.
• • •
I didn’t want to end on such a dark note, so I turned the conversation to something lighter and we chatted a little while longer, sneaking Oreos from the drawer after ensuring the coast—and hallway—was clear. We apparently hadn’t been in Loring Park long enough to miss any important family events. My brother’s wife was still very pregnant, and my father still had money coming out of his ears.