She loved him and how much he cared, but today she needed something else. Ellie had no idea what that was, but it certainly wasn’t this.
Jittery and completely emotionally exhausted, she glanced up and down the empty hallway. Steve was in one of these rooms. She couldn’t see Amelia for another few hours, but it would be nice to at least see Steve and be reassured that one of her two favorite people was okay or at least was going to be. He seemed to be in good condition when she’d seen him before going in to find Amelia in the house, but one of the bullets had grazed his lung and caused a major bleed. After a few hours of surgery, he was doing well and recovering in his room.
It was a lot easier to hear the news about Steve than the information about Amelia’s injuries. Ellie had to work hard to not think about how they nearly lost her and that her sister might actually be gone even though her body was still technically alive. She wondered if the detectives would tell Steve the truth about Amelia or wait until he answered some questions and then let the doctors come in and break the news. He would be absolutely shattered. Maybe it was better to wait a little bit, until they knew for sure what Amelia’s prognosis was going to be, even though she had no idea what she would say to protect him from that information.
Ellie’s feet were heavy and every step took a massive amount of effort, but a force was pulling her down the hallway toward a room with a man in a dark uniform standing outside. It was a uniformed officer. Not Travis but clearly one of his buddies. Ellie swore she could hear the murmur of voices coming from that room at the end of the hall. The rise and fall of one of the deep-toned voices was all too familiar. That had to be Steve’s room. He must be awake.
Every part of Ellie wanted to run in and see him alive and well with her own eyes. She wanted to hear him say, Hey, L! and reach out to tussle her hair like she was twelve and not twenty-two. If anyone could make her feel better or feel safe, it was Steve.
But with the guard there, she had to play it cool and hope that maybe they’d crossed paths at some point out on a scene or parade or chili cook-off. She pulled at the waist of her scrubs, a little nervous about her unkempt appearance. It would be so much easier if she were wearing her uniform. People tended to take you far more seriously if you were wearing a badge.
She stopped in front of him, hands out of her pockets and by her side, and cleared her throat.
“I’m here to visit Steve Saxton,” she said, deciding it was best to bluff her way through.
The officer put his hands on his hips like he was trying to look tough. “Uh, sorry, no visitors at this time. They should’ve told you that at the front desk.” He took in her eclectic outfit, her unkempt hair, and it didn’t take a detective to see the red rims around her eyes. “Oh, wait. I know you.”
“I’m with the Broadlands Fire Department.”
“Oh yeah, a paramedic, right?” He took his hand off the radio and adjusted his pants by the leather belt.
“Yup. Ellie. Ellie Brown.” She lingered on her last name. When her father was still chief, it had held some power, but just seven months later, she was lucky if people remembered that Plackard hadn’t always been the Broadlands fire chief.
“Ah, right . . . ,” he said, seeming to catch on. But then he stood up a little taller like a shock had gone through him. “Oh my God, your dad is Chief Brown? This is your family, then, huh?”
She tried not to let the annoyed tension in her shoulders show.
“Um, yeah. Steve,” she said, pointing to the cracked hospital room door, “is my brother-in-law.”
“Oh man. I’m so sorry. I think they’re almost done in there. Sorry, it is kinda intense, or else I’d interrupt.”
“Yeah? Intense?” She took a step forward with a conspiratorial twist to her lips and breathiness to her whisper. “So, Steve is awake, I take it?”
“Yeah, he’s a little loopy but awake. You know, he actually thought the nurse was you when she first came in. He called her Ellie and asked for green Jell-O or something like that.”
Green Jell-O. Ellie had to bite down hard so she didn’t show how the mention of that neon gelatin snack made her choke up.
When she had had the stomach flu three Thanksgivings ago and Dad had been working a double shift, she had spent the weekend on Amelia’s couch and had lost track of how many times she had thrown up. Finally, seeing her so weak and dehydrated, Steve had made her a huge bowl of green Jell-O. Just the smell had made her want to yak all over again, but he had sat by her and, using his stern but gentle paramedic skills, he had fed her small bites, even when she had covered her mouth, shaking her head like a stubborn toddler. It had soon become a family joke, and each year since, Steve had made an obnoxiously huge bowl of green Jell-O to go with Thanksgiving dinner.
Suddenly she wished she were in that room, filling water cups, fetching Popsicles for post-anesthesia nausea, and watching carefully for any signs of complications. It seemed like the only thing that would keep her from obsessing about Amelia’s dire situation was to have some control, some place of comfort and assistance in Steve’s life.
“So, does he remember anything?” she asked.
The officer—Blackford, according to his name tag—lowered his voice further, still far too wrapped up in looking like he knew things to remember that perhaps he shouldn’t share certain information with family members.
“Well, like I said, he’s still pretty loopy, but from what I can tell, he got a good view of his attacker.”
Maybe she should’ve been a cop. Who knew if she’d be any good at interrogating criminals, but she was doing a pretty stellar job at getting information out of this guy at least.
“I’m sure the cameras helped plenty.” She knew that dropping in just enough insider information would make the officer feel more comfortable with sharing.
“Well, that’s the thing. The cameras were turned off until just a few minutes before the crime. They got a good picture of all the stuff after the shots were fired but not much before that.”
Ellie’s mind was racing, but she had to look calm on the outside in order to keep the officer talking. She just nodded slowly as he spoke and hoped a few seconds of silence on her part would entice him to give more information. There were too many conflicting facts in his statement. The cameras were turned off. That didn’t make much sense. And then they were back on after the crime. But, she’d been in the house; the power had been turned off at some point.
“Well, that sure is odd.” Ellie tried to sound as oblivious as she could. Blackford was getting a lot of satisfaction out of acting like the all-knowing police officer talking to the less-than-knowledgeable young female paramedic.