Lucky Like Us

chapter Eleven

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Tuesday, 9:31 P.M.

THE DOOR CLOSED. Judge Hamilton and his wife must have left for the night. Sam avoided the Hamilton family. He also avoided Deputy Director Davies and his own family, though they were more insistent he speak to them. Not that he said much. They were probably getting tired of his one-word answers and his aversion to talking about what happened. He’d told Deputy Director Davies he knew as much as he did.

Sam simply allowed them all to think his memory remained foggy, with missing pieces because of the drugs. While that had been the case for the first day or so, he now recalled almost the entire incident up until he’d blacked out under the car after hearing Elizabeth’s scream. He woke up in a cold sweat more than once, her scream ringing in his ears. He didn’t think he’d ever go to sleep again without waking up to the sound of her scream.

He didn’t want to speak to anyone, especially after he’d talked to Tyler.

Why didn’t they all leave him alone?

He needed to get out of this room. Every time the alarms went off on Elizabeth’s machines, he panicked and prayed to God nothing more happened to her. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she died because of him.

They rolled her out of the room yesterday and back into surgery for the plastic surgeon to repair the stitches on her arm and thigh. They’d discovered she had an infection deep in the muscle. Now, they pumped even more potent antibiotics into her system to help rid her body of the infection.

Waiting for them to bring her back had nearly undone him. He couldn’t imagine everything she was going through with the surgeries and being in the black empty space. He knew what it was like to be in that void, feeling so alone and not knowing how to claw your way out of it.

He tried to avoid her family, but they caught him pretending to sleep every once in a while. Her brothers had calmed down, since their last encounter. He understood Daniel’s anger. Dealing with his sister’s condition wasn’t easy. Being young, Daniel figured he was still invincible. He’d learn soon enough, if he hadn’t already, life is fragile. Look at Elizabeth. She was holding on to hers with both hands.

Sam always got the feeling the only thought Daniel had for him was, “Do you see what you’ve done?” He knew all right. They were all angry with him and wishing he was hooked up to all those machines, lying half dead in Elizabeth’s place. He wished for that with every breath he took.

The Silver Fox had somehow known Sam was an FBI agent. If only Sam had been more careful, or minded his back before he ever went into that bar.

Oh yes, he knew Elizabeth was here because of him. He put both hands over his bearded face and scrubbed them up and down, trying to wash away the images of her holding his gun and knife and telling him she was only trying to help him. She hadn’t even known he was an FBI agent. She’d just wanted to help some guy lying in the street. He rubbed his hands over his face again and turned to stare at her like he did when they were alone together. Rachel sat beside Elizabeth, staring at him.

“I was wondering how long you’d ignore us. You’re quite good at pretending to sleep.” She gave him a half smile. “Don’t worry, the Judge went to make some calls. He won’t be back for a while yet. How are you feeling, Agent Turner? Better, I hope.”

Sam had almost dropped dead when he found out Elizabeth was Judge John Hamilton’s daughter. Just his luck the daughter of a federal judge saved him. “I’d think you’d hope I was on my deathbed.”

“Nonsense. Aside from needing a haircut and a shave, I have to say you look much better. I’m sorry about what happened on Sunday. Daniel is, well, young and impulsive. I’ll bet when you’re all cleaned up, it’s hard to tell you and Jack apart. At first, I thought you were Jenna’s husband. We’ve met them at several social functions, and when I saw her here a few mornings ago, well, I thought you were Jack.”

Sam dismissed that. He was used to being mistaken for his twin. “You call her Elizabeth. Everyone in your family calls her something different. Lizzy, Busy Bee, Ellie, Liz. I’ve never heard one person with so many names. You always call her Elizabeth though. For the Judge, it’s Ellie Girl.”

Rachel smiled. Sam Turner was an observant man. “She’s all of those names. Each of us knows her and sees her in a different way. She’s Elizabeth to me because from the moment she was born, she seemed so regal. Even now, she has this air about her that makes her stand out. It’s the way she carries herself. Even when she was a baby she had this way of looking at you.” Rachel stared at her daughter, and like a slide show, she saw her grow up into the beautiful woman she was today. “She’s Ellie Girl to John because she’s daddy’s girl. He loves her with everything he is. When they argue he calls her E-liz-a-beth, dragging out each syllable with his exasperation because she’s usually right, or puts up a really good argument for her case. After one of their arguments, he always comes to me shaking his head and says, ‘That Ellie Girl, she’s really something.’”

She stroked the back of her hand down her daughter’s cheek, stood, and went to the chair beside Sam. Propped up in the bed, when she sat, they were eye to eye. “Her brother, Patrick, calls her Busy Bee. When they were young, she’d trail after him everywhere he went, like a bee going from flower to flower. He made quite a fuss over her ‘buzzing’ around him, but he liked it. Daniel has called her Lizzy since he started talking. Like a little mother to him when he was born, she thought I’d given her a live doll to play with, and he adored her. She’s so close to her brothers she has an uncanny way of knowing when they need her. They tell me all they have to do is think about her and she calls them. Have you ever had that happen?”

“Jack and I have something like that. We always seem to know when the other one needs him. When we were kids, we finished each other’s sentences. We were inseparable. He told me the night this happened he felt like someone had locked him in a dark closet and he couldn’t breathe. That’s exactly how I felt when I was going in and out of consciousness.”

“They say that about twins. There’s a connection. She has that with her brothers.”

“How do you think she’s doing?” Sam asked in earnest.

“You’ve heard everything the doctors told us.”

“I know what they think. She’s doing well. She’s holding her own. She needs time to heal. They’re keeping her medicated and sedated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know her. What do you think?”

Serious, concerned, his need to know poured off him like a raging river.

“Elizabeth is one of the strongest people I know. Think of what it must have taken for her to get you under that car with another car speeding after you, trying to run you over.”

Sam closed his eyes hoping to avoid the memory of what happened, but closing his eyes only made it easier to see the replay in his head. “I remember her on top of me. She grabbed my shoulders, clamped her feet to mine, and she rolled and used the momentum and my weight to propel us under the car. She must have scraped the hell out of her back, not to mention the strength it took for her to move me without any help.”

“She and her brothers would do that down the grass hill at our lake house. It was a game they’d play when they were very little. ‘Jack and Jill tumbled down the hill,’ I think they used to call it. So much joy, she’d laugh and scream. I heard her delight all the way in the house.”

She took a moment to relish that memory of her children playing when they were small, thankful they were still so close. “Her shirt was torn up pretty bad, she has some cuts on her back from under her Suburban. Lucky for you, she drives a car that has a lot of ground clearance.

“It’s been hard to see all the damage to her body. She’s almost completely covered by bandages. I imagine she looks worse than you do.”

Sam winced at the thought. She did look worse than him, because although he was severely bruised from the gunshots, Elizabeth had holes in her back where the bullets entered. She had surgical cuts on her abdomen where they’d repaired the damage. He’d seen a lot of victims of gunshot wounds and knife attacks and knew the damage would leave a lot of scarring.

“I’ve been trying to piece all of the events together. It seems I was awake then asleep then awake so many times. I couldn’t keep track from one moment to the next. Things were hazy and out of sorts. I think, after she got me under the car, the suspect rammed her car and she tried to get in front of me. Maybe she wanted to move me further back under the car toward the curb. She found my gun and knife in their holsters at my ankle. She had them when she was beside me and . . .” He covered his face again with his hands and ran them through his hair, and stared at Elizabeth so still in her bed.

“And you took the gun from her and shot her in the arm.”

He closed his eyes as Elizabeth’s mother spoke the words he didn’t want to say and didn’t want to be true. “I remember seeing the gun. I grabbed it, but she held on. She said something, but another crashing sound made it impossible to hear her. The other car rammed us again. Everything happened so fast, or so it seemed. I remember, now, what she said: ‘Please, I’m trying to help you. He’s getting out of the car. Let go.’ I didn’t let go though. When she held the knife in her hand, I guess I only saw her as a threat, and I fired. I shot her. She was there one minute and gone the next. She screamed. That’s all I hear now.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I don’t know what happened after she disappeared, but I remember her scream. I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to see it play in my head over and over. It should be me lying in that bed unconscious with all those wounds, or dead on the street. She should be home baking cookies. Is that right? She was baking cookies?” He thought how sweet and innocent an act, a woman at home baking.

“Poor Sam, tormenting yourself with guilt over what happened. Don’t. She wouldn’t want you to.”

Sam didn’t deserve the gentle way she touched his shoulder to reassure him. It didn’t. Nothing would. Except Elizabeth waking up.

“She bakes cookies every Thursday and delivers them to the children’s hospital on Friday. The police took the ones she finished over to the hospital the next day. They apparently ate the pies and tarts she’d made up that night.”

Sam’s eyebrows drew together and he frowned deeply in outrage. Rachel laughed.

“She wouldn’t have minded. She loves to bake, and when she’s upset about something, she bakes a lot. Kay, her friend, who called the police that night, told me she’d been upset.” Rachel shrugged like it was common knowledge everyone bakes when they’re upset. “If she hadn’t been incapacitated, she’d have fed all the officers there that night. It’s what she does.”

“Incapacitated. That’s putting it lightly, don’t you think? You’re awfully calm about all of this. Your sons are agitated and upset each time they come in, but you and the Judge, you’re always so calm when you sit with her. You talk to her and tell her she’s going to be fine. The Judge told her he expects her to wake up in time for Sunday dinner, or else.”

Rachel smiled. “I love John. He’s demanding in the most loving ways. We have Sunday dinner once a month. No one is allowed to miss it. It’s to be this coming Sunday, and I suspect the Judge does expect Elizabeth to wake up in time to have supper with her family. I have a feeling she will too. She hates to disappoint her father.”

“I hope she wakes up soon. Every time I hear those alarms go off, my chest hurts and I can’t breathe for hoping she’s okay.”

“You’re a nice man, Sam Turner.”

“Nice. I shot your daughter.”

“Oh, calm down. You’re getting all worked up over something you wouldn’t have done had you known she was trying to help you. Besides, you barely grazed her arm. You weren’t the one to shoot her in the back or stab her in the leg. So stop beating yourself up over something you couldn’t have prevented. Let me tell you something about my Elizabeth, she’d as soon set her hair on fire then stand by and not help when help is needed. She can’t stand to see anyone or anything suffer.”

Sam wasn’t appeased in the least.

“We have a three-story house, here in San Francisco. When she was a little girl, eight I think, she went out onto the roof on the third floor with a hammer. She was taking up the spike strips that her father had put up to keep the pigeons from landing and making a mess up there. When her father found her out on the roof, she stood up with her hands on her hips and told her father if he wanted to have a house in a place with lots of birds and not enough trees, then he’d have to share the roof. She took every last strip off and her father hired a crew to come and clean each month. Does that sound like someone who would leave a man lying in the street, even if she might get hurt herself?”

He didn’t know what to think. “Why did he leave her up on the roof? She could have killed herself if she fell off.”

“She could have, if he hadn’t insisted on tying a rope around her while she worked.”

“He let her have her way.”

“She was right. It’s hard to argue with an eight-year-old’s logic. What you missed about the story is that an eight-year-old girl was out on a three-story roof helping a bunch of birds. No fear for herself, just get the job done and save the birds. That’s who she is, and why she went out to help you. Don’t dwell on what you did. You know you wouldn’t have hurt her if you’d been in your right mind. She’s probably lying there wondering if you’re okay rather than thinking about herself.”

“That’s for sure,” the Judge said, walking into the room. “My Ellie Girl thinks about everyone but herself.”

Sam almost flinched when the Judge approached. Unsure what to say or do, he waited for the Judge to rage at him. He deserved it and accepted the responsibility for everything. He looked into the Judge’s eyes and couldn’t speak. Flashes of him shooting Elizabeth went off like rockets in his mind. Rachel held his hand, and he was thankful for the support.

“Don’t look so glum, boy. It’s not your fault what happened to my Ellie Girl. Sounds like the guy you were after got the best of you. I’m sure you won’t let it happen again. She’ll be fine. Right as rain for Sunday dinner. You’ll see. I expect you’ll join us. We’ll have dinner here, of course. Six o’clock. Sharp. No excuse for being late.”

“Sir, it’s my fault she’s here. I knew something was wrong before I ever went into the meeting. I went in anyway.”

“Like I said, you won’t make those mistakes again. If Ellie Girl doesn’t see you up and walking around for herself, she won’t rest. She’ll want to know you’re okay, and I don’t mean physically. It’ll hurt her if she thinks you’re blaming yourself and beating yourself up over what happened. Don’t make my girl upset about saving your life.”

Sam couldn’t believe his ears. They let him off the hook. Maybe they were right about Elizabeth thinking about him. “She had another anxiety attack last night. I went over to her bed and told her she was okay. She was safe. She spoke.”

The Judge and Rachel exchanged a glance. “What did she say?” the Judge asked, his voice hoarse.

“She barely whispered, but I heard her clearly. She said, ‘Save him.’” He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. Rachel squeezed his hand.

“She spoke. She actually spoke. See, she’s getting better. The doctor said in the next day or so they’ll cut back on the sedatives and see if she wakes up on her own. She’s not in a coma, but a deep sleep. It’s best to keep her calm, they said.” Rachel smiled softly, pleased to hear her daughter had managed to speak, even if it was only a couple of words. Tears filled her eyes.

The Judge gave Sam a brisk pat on the leg. “The nurse told me you sat with her most of the night. She said you held her hand.”

“I wanted her to know someone was here with her. After she calmed down and the nurses left, it was quiet. I think she might have been aware no one was sitting with her. Her heart rate sped up, so I let her know I was still here. When I held her hand, her heart rate went down.”

Rachel stood next to Sam. She leaned over him, holding his gaze. “You’re a nice man, Sam. If it had been her lying in the street, I have no doubt you’d have done for her what she did for you. Get some rest. I hear you’re going home tomorrow. I hope you’ll come back to check on her. We’ll see you on Sunday. The Judge does not accept excuses for Sunday dinner.” Before Sam said anything, Rachel leaned down and kissed his forehead. She whispered, “You’re a good man.”

He sat in silence while they said goodnight to their daughter. He thought about his own parents. They weren’t able to come to San Francisco, and he was sorry for that too. His father had a heart condition and finding out his son was injured and in the hospital had caused a mild episode. Sam had spoken to them every day on the phone, but it wasn’t the same. He missed them. Elizabeth Hamilton was a lucky lady.