LANE -
We caught a cab outside of the hotel. Braden and Raegan climbed into the backseat first, and I realized there wasn’t enough room for all four of us to sit side-by-side. I scooted in next and pulled Kate onto my lap. It’s never pleasant to have to ride shotgun with the cabbie, so I was glad that I had found a way to get us all back there.
The ride should have only taken us fifteen minutes, but with traffic coming off the bridge it took a good thirty before I saw the dingy police station. I didn’t really mind the drive. Along the way I began pointing out different places to Kate. Even Braden joined in and asked a few quiet questions. Kate was bouncing in my lap, telling me how much she loved riding in cars and airplanes. It took that moment for me to realize she probably hadn’t been in either before these past few days.
Another reason why I didn’t mind the extended stay in the yellow cab—Raegan fell asleep on me. Almost two minutes into the ride, she began to scoot down in her seat. Her head fell lazily onto my shoulder, and I decided I didn’t mind the feeling of her using me to catch some rest.
She was really going to need a decent amount of time to catch up on sleep. She tried to be tough and I knew she was, but I always caught her eyelids fluttering in exhaustion or her head drooping with her immense fatigue.
Last night after my shower, I scanned the labels on her prescription bottles. Even though it had been insanely late, I texted Charlie and asked him to look into what she could be taking those for. I knew the cut on her forehead wasn’t pretty; I had seen it twice already. But I didn’t understand why she required so many different types of drugs. Surely, they were the main culprit in her weariness and those crazy dizzy spells. Should she really be up and about this much? My guess was she probably didn’t know what taking it easy was though, so I’d have to step in and show her.
We pulled up to the curb of the precinct, and I swiped my card quickly through the cab’s card reader. Kate opened the door and slid down onto the concrete. I softly jostled Raegan next to me and felt her sluggishly move, but she didn’t bring her head up.
“Hey, Rae, we’re here,” I delicately crooned. I felt bad for waking her, but I really couldn’t let her continue to sleep in a cab. My insistent hands shook her a little more. She moaned and mumbled what sounded like, “I’m coming,” but I couldn’t be sure because she didn’t look like she was going anywhere.
Panic started to hit me when I realized something wasn’t right here. This wasn’t just normal fatigue. I thought back to our conversation last night when she told me about her heart and her blood pressure.
Quickly, I reached toward her neck and felt for a pulse point. I knew the one in that spot would be stronger than anything I would find in her wrist. I also knew I wouldn’t be able to tell what her blood pressure was, but I just felt the need to know her heart was still pumping.
Lutheran Medical Center would typically only be a five-minute drive, but I didn’t know how long it would take in this afternoon traffic.
“Raegan, I’m gonna take you to the hospital, okay?” I told her. Her head bobbed up and down before she finally raised it to look at me.
“No. No more hospitals.” Her words were tired, but she seemed to be pulling herself together—clawing her way through the fog was more like it. “I just forgot… to take my medicine. Just... grab my bag,” she said, fading slightly.
I cursed and scooped her up into my arms while trying to slide out of the cab. The driver gave me an exasperated expression. No doubt he was wondering when we planned on vacating his vehicle. A*shole. Kate grabbed ahold of the backpack, and with all of her might she hoisted it up onto her tiny back. Holding Raegan in my arms, I reached back into the cab and seized my bag from the floorboard. Good thing I had ditched that sling again.
Raegan’s body was light and conformed to the front of mine easily. Her head burrowed into the side of my neck, and I almost took that moment to rub my face across hers. It was a little too tempting.
Braden was the last to climb out of the yellow car and right after he shut the door, the a*shole screeched his tires in his retreat. I wished I had the time to catch his license plate.
“Hey, Braden, you remember where Officer Charlie’s office was right?” He nodded and glanced nervously at his mom in my arms. “I need you to run real fast inside. If anyone tries to stop you, just ignore them. I’ll take care of it. Find Charlie and tell him I need a Gatorade right away. Make sure he knows it’s super important.”
“I want a Gatorade! What’s that?” Kate asked excitedly. It was obvious she was blissfully unaware of the situation, unlike Braden.
“Tell him we need two Gatorades. Now run! Please.” I tried to not freak him out, but I needed his little feet to get a move on.
I had scooped Raegan up with my injured arm and I knew if I tried to transfer her over, I would likely pull something. I walked slowly, trying to not jostle my burning shoulder in the process. When we made it inside, all eyes were immediately focused on us. Braden had likely just run past all of them and they were curious.
“Hey, what’s going on?” April, the desk clerk, asked softly.
“I think she’s having a low blood pressure episode.” My mom used to get spells like this sometimes, which was the only reason I had half a guess. I looked down at her and her eyes were open, but she seemed exhausted.
“Hey, Frank’s back there having lunch with his wife!” She perked up with this information but I gave her a look, wondering if I should give Frank a cookie for having a wife or for having one that would actually want to come see him. Why was April wasting my time? Her expression instantly flipped and she said, “His wife is an RN, sorry! I keep forgetting you don’t know what goes on around here anymore.”
“Oh, thank God! Grab her and bring her to Chief’s office for me.” I spoke to her over my shoulder as Kate and I made my way up the stairs. My dad’s office was the only one with a couch.
As I turned the corner toward his door, Charlie and Braden came barreling down the hallway with Gatorades in their hands. I knew Charlie kept a ton with him. He was always downing the yellow-colored sports drink. They all followed me into my father’s office and my Dad looked up at the sudden intrusion with wide eyes.
“What the hell did you do to her, son?” His words felt incriminating, but his tone told me otherwise.
“I think it’s her blood pressure.”
“Move, please,” a soft elderly voice called out. I looked up as I placed Raegan on the couch and watched a little old lady with white hair part the crowd with authority. She carried a large bag in her arms.
Frank walked in behind her and placed a chair in front of the couch for his wife to sit on. I knelt down in front of Raegan, offered her the Gatorade, and she lazily sipped at it. I heard Charlie behind me explain to the kids how he had envelopes in his office that they could put stamps on for him. I knew he was just trying to be nice by getting the kids out of the way, but I didn’t want Kate out of the way.
“Leave them here, Charlie,” I said without turning around.
“She’ll be okay, my office is the next door over.”
“She’s fine here.” My voice was final.
“Actually, if we could get the psych evaluations going, it would move this process along for all three of them,” my dad said from where he still sat at his desk.
“I don’t know…” I hesitated. “I think we should wait for Raegan to be fully present.”
“The counselor will need to speak with them individually so it will take a lot of time, son. They’ll be okay. Her office is across the hall.”
I turned to look at both children standing against the wall with their little hands clasped together. They had already been through so much, but I knew they didn’t really understand any of it. I got up, leaving Raegan with the nurse. I looked back at her and then back at the kids. Why was I getting so caught up in all three of them? My sole focus was on Kate, but I wouldn’t lie and say Raegan and Braden weren’t creeping under my skin as well.
“Hey guys, remember how Raegan explained we were all gonna have to talk to a nice lady today? Well, I think it’s time to do that while Rae takes a little nap. I wish one of us could go in with you, but you’ll be fine. You can color pictures and she might even have some paint.” Both of their faces perked up at the mention of drawing pictures. “We will be right here when you get out, okay? And if you don’t want to talk anymore, just come right back here to me.”
“I’ll go!” Kate excitedly called out.
“No, Kate. I’ll go first. Mama needs you to help her get better,” Braden said. Kate happily complied and scampered across the room toward Raegan.
I squatted down in front of Braden. “That’s awfully brave of you,” I told him.
“I need to go first to make sure it’s okay for Kate.” He shrugged his shoulders casually.
“You’re a great brother, Braden.” It was hard for me to say that word. I still couldn’t call Raegan Kate’s mother, but I had to remember this was all they knew. I pushed out my clenched fist in his direction. He stared at it in confusion. “When guys agree on something or they respect each other, they bump their fists together.” He reached his closed fist out and lightly tapped mine. “Thank you for protecting her.”
I stood up and ushered him to the doorway. The psychologist was standing in her doorway observing our little talk. She smiled warmly and gestured for him to enter her bright, friendly room. I’d had many victims and their children go in there in the past. The Victims Service Unit offered crisis counseling and sought to make their occupants feel comfortable enough to divulge information.
“Hey, don’t pressure him to talk, okay? He’s real quiet.” She nodded her head with a smile. In that moment, I wished that I knew more about Braden—something I could contribute to give him an easier time. This is why we should have waited for Raegan. “If he seems at all upset or uncomfortable, I want him to come out. Immediately. I also don’t think you’ll get much. As far as I can tell, Raegan kept the whole situation from them.”
“I would never pressure anyone, Mr. Parker,” she responded.
She shut her door, closing her and Braden off from the rest of us, and I felt a pang in my gut. Raegan would want to know her son was in there, and I didn’t like him being separated from the rest of us. I’m not sure where this pack mentality of mine had suddenly come from, but I was feeling like pieces of me were scattered when we weren’t all together. I liked it better when we were all locked away in the hotel room.
“What happened here?” Frank’s wife asked, breaking up my new and scary thoughts. I watched as she pulled a blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope out of her bag.
Quickly, I explained everything I knew and then I had to ask, “You carry all this medical stuff around with you?”
“You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had to use these outside of the hospital. Besides, I was just on my way to Lutheran Med for my shift, so I like to keep all my belongings with me.”
“I’m glad you do,” I whispered.
“Can you elevate her legs for me?”
I immediately complied, using my duffel bag to prop her feet up on the couch. It was weird to see someone like this. Raegan was awake, but she wasn’t taking in her surroundings so it was like she wasn’t fully there. I was glad she was at least conscious enough to drink the Gatorade to replenish some of her minerals. I felt dad and Charlie hovering behind me, trying to glance over my shoulder. Kate leaned up against the wall close to the couch, trying to closely observe everyone helping.
I dug around in Raegan’s backpack and pulled out all of the medicine bottles with her name on them. I handed them to the lady next to me, explaining how Raegan had said she missed taking them this morning. As she read the different labels, I didn’t miss the distinct ‘hmmph’ sound she made at a certain bottle.
With a quick twist, she had the top off and poured two white tablets into her wrinkled hand. “Get her to take these, please.”
I gently ran my fingers down the side of Raegan’s face and said, “Hey babe, open up.” I chuckled under my breath because I usually said stuff like that in much more… sensual situations. Her eyes immediately cut to my mine and I swear I saw those beauties roll. “Sorry, not the time for fun,” I laughed again.
She opened her mouth and looked me directly in the eyes. When her tongue pushed forward indicating for me to place the tablets inside her mouth, all I could do was stare back at her blazing green gaze. I quickly gave her the medicine and shook my head to break the spell.
“Her blood pressure is very low, but I don’t think we need to rush her off to the hospital just yet. Especially if she’s already got a prescription. This could just be an instance of not taking her medicine. Just in case, I’m going to call the doctor that prescribed these and then I’ll come back and check out what’s under that bandage,” Frank’s wife explained. Without waiting for my response, she vacated the room.
I took a breath and stood up to talk to the others. When my eyes met the two other men in the room, I froze.
“Why the he—why are you two gawking like that?” Not cussing in front of Kate was going to be a hard habit to break. At the thought of her, I extended my hand toward her and she skipped to my side. I needed her close to me as much as humanly possible right now.
“Shit…” I immediately covered Kate’s ears when Charlie started speaking. “It happened a lot faster than we thought,” he told my dad.
“Yeah.” Dad smiled mischievously.
“What happened?” I glanced down to check on Rae’s sleeping form. She had finally slipped into a peaceful rest, and the nurse said it was okay to let her stay that way for a while.
“I thought it would take at least a month. Chief here thought it would take two weeks. Guess we were both wrong...” Charlie continued.
“What are you two goons talking about?”
“For you to fall for her,” my dad stated simply. “It’s written all over your face.”
I turned my back on them and faced Kate, who was listening in on the inappropriate conversation but luckily didn’t appear to be absorbing any of it. I grabbed my headphones out of my bag and pulled my phone from my pocket.
“Hey Kit Kat, can I show you something cool?”
“Yup!” She bounced on her toes excitedly.
I quickly scooped her up and sat her in my dad’s leather chair. I slipped the headphones over her ears and scrolled through my playlists. Audrey had downloaded a country album on here, and it was the only thing I was sure didn’t have any curse words—at least I hoped not anyway. I adjusted the volume to a level low enough for her ears and when the music began, her face lit up brighter than the California sun.
“This is so cool, daddy!” she yelled in the little room, not knowing her own volume. I chuckled and then tousled her hair.
I stepped back over to the couch where Raegan snoozed lightly and sat down on the edge near her legs. With a heavy sigh, I faced the two men in front of me.
“Okay, now what in the hell are you talking about? Fall for her? As in you think I fell in love with someone in a little over twenty-four hours? Because if that’s what you’re yapping about, I think I’m just too tired for this stupid conversation.”
“Cranky, much?” Charlie jested.
“Exhausted,” I amended.
“Not love… at least, not yet. But you care for her,” my dad said, pointing to Raegan’s prone form.
“Of course, I care. She took care of Kate. She figured out a way to tell Kate about me and I don’t know how yet, but she saved Kate. She got her back to me safely, both physically and mentally.”
“She made herself sick,” Charlie began, “like really f*cking sick so they would have to take her to a real hospital. She took a big chance they could have just offed her, but they took her. When she saw an opening, she called the station and asked for you. You, of course, weren’t available so the next person she knew to ask for was Chief.”
My head hit my hands and I contemplated everything this woman had gone through for these kids.
“Look, son, I can see the wheels spinning. You have always admired strength and courage. I can see the way you look at her and she is quite beautiful. But if the feelings do head down that way, make sure they’re for the right reasons. Make sure it’s because you care about her, not what she did. Because if you don’t, eventually the reasons will fade from your memory and the children are the ones that’ll be hurt in the fallout.”
“Dad, I think you’re taking this a bit too far. I’m grateful for her, but I’m not in love with her. Even I can see the difference.”
The two men in front of me exchanged knowing looks, and I glanced down at the girl they were insisting I was “falling” for. She was kind and beautiful and so damn strong, but I didn’t even really know her. These two were crazy.