“Yeah,” I said. “There was a little accident last night.”
“But”—he swallowed hard—“shouldn’t the doctors be the ones to…you know…”
“They could,” I said. “But they’d ask all sorts of questions. I figured you wouldn’t want that. What with—well, considering it was your colleague and all.”
His eyes bulged. “My colleague?”
“What did his badge say?” I pretended to think. “Sham. No, Shaw.”
His mouth worked, but nothing came out.
“Yeah, so I just figured you guys wouldn’t want that going around. About a cop and all. Well, it’s up to you. I’ll just be inside.”
I shut the door and waited five minutes, then poked my head out. He was gone.
With my sheet trailing behind me like a robe, I strode through the hallway. So long as I looked like I knew where I was going, no one would bother me. I passed a few people in regular clothes and scrubs, but they only spared me a glance, despite my hospital gown and bare feet.
Room 504.
I slipped inside and saw why Philip may not have stayed, if he’d come by at all. Detective Cameron sat on the bed, his hair mussed and suit rumpled.
He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.
“How is she?” I asked, letting the door fall shut behind me.
He tried to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “She’s doing well. Unless she gets an infection, she should make a full recovery.”
I nodded, hanging back near the door. He was a cop. He might just send me back to my room. “That’s what they told me.”
“Here,” he said. “You can sit.”
He got up and stood by the window. I went to stand by the bed.
Shelly lay there, sleeping. Her skin was pale, with a flat, grayish tint. The only movement was a slight rise and fall of her chest under the blankets. More blankets than I’d had, and I supposed she could thank her cop for that.
Shelly had fallen for a cop. And if the way he looked at her was any indication, he’d fallen right back. It stung that she hadn’t told me, but I understood. What a match. A modern-day tragedy.
The chair behind me felt too far away. I climbed in beside her. The hospital bed groaned ominously, but it would just have to deal with it. I wrapped my arm across her from atop the blankets. Her body felt so slight, almost childlike. I rested my chin on her shoulder. She slept on.
Wind whispered across me, followed by a blanket, and I was covered up too.
“Thanks,” I whispered, without turning my head.
He grunted his welcome, then pulled the chair around to the other side of the bed and even farther away, and sat down. Somehow he knew he made me uncomfortable. More than that, he felt inclined to help me, stepping away so that I could be near Shelly without fearing his proximity. He was a strange one, this cop.
I rested that way, calmed by the scent of Shelly’s peach shampoo and the steady thump of her heartbeat. A nurse came in to check Shelly’s machines. She started to ask me to move, but Cameron cleared his throat, and she worked around me. Then it was the three of us and the machinery, steadily beeping away.
“Shelly said you had a problem with a cop,” he said.
I tensed. The smell of alcohol and sickness. Rough hands pulling, prodding.
“She said someone threatened you. I’d like to hear what happened if you’ll tell me.”
Ah. She’d told him about his partner, or the gist of it, anyway. Not that.
Still, I wasn’t sure I could. It was too raw, too related.
Maybe Colin or Shelly, maybe. I trusted them, but I barely knew this guy. He seemed nice enough for a cop. And the way he’d been with Shelly, that counted for something. But trust was a rare and precious thing, like a jewel. When I found it, the thing to do was lock it up tight, where it would be safe. The very worst thing was to lose it. It would have been better not to have it at all.
He stood slightly and took off his jacket, then draped it over the back of the chair.
He removed his jacket and pulled out his notepad. Then he came to stand by the bed.
Shelly whimpered in her sleep, and I realized I had tightened my arm around her. I loosened it and moved it close to my body, resting at her side.
“It will be okay,” he said. “I just want to help.”
“That’s right. I can help you.”
I shuddered.
What would happen if I told? It was such a foreign idea.
Almost like thinking, what if I jump off a cliff and try to fly? After all, it might work.
I opened my mouth to tell him nothing happened or, hell, to tell him the truth about his partner, but something else came out. Everything.