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"Hello," Detective Richards answered.
"Richards, this is Nick Simmons. Where’s Monika?"
"You’re her partner, right?"
"Yeah, where is she?"
"She’s been shot, Nick. Shot five times. Doesn’t look good for her."
"When was this?"
"Around ten, we figure." While I was busy laying down my mack with Felicia. I cursed myself for not answering.
"They took her to the hospital."
"What hospital?"
"Lebanon."
"What happened?"
"I’m not at liberty to say. Was she working on the same case?"
"I’m not at liberty to say."
"Come on, Nick, give me a break, anything you can give us would help."
"Come on, Richards, give me something, That’s my partner." My friend. My family.
"You know I can’t do that," Richards said. I could hear Kirk’s big mouth in the background. I couldn’t make out everything he said, but I did hear him say, "There was no sign of forced entry. Nothing appears to be missing. So we can assume it was someone she knew." Which answered all my questions. When I heard him say, "Pick up her partner, Nick Simmons, see what he knows." I knew it was time to hang up. "I’m going to the hospital, Richards. You can catch me there."
I went to Monika’s room in the intensive care unit. The nurse stopped me from going in the room. "I’m sorry, sir, family members only."
"I am her family." And pushed by her.
Jett and I are the only family she has, or at least that she communicates with. Monika and her mother fell out long before she joined the army. When she was fifteen, her mother’s boyfriend grabbed her ass when she walked by him. She told her mother what happened. But she didn’t believe her. She accused Monika of flirting with him and told her that’s what she got for dressing like a tramp. They haven’t spoken since.
A doctor came in to check on her. To be honest she didn’t look old enough to be a doctor. She told me that Monika had been shot five times. Two shots in the chest, two to the head, one hit her above the left ear. She caught the one in her eye. They were not able to save her eye. The other one was in her hand. Knowing Monika, she was probably trying to stop the bullet with her hand. I felt my eyes begin to water.
I sat there with her, holding her hand and talking. I didn’t know if she could hear me or not, but I didn’t care. I wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone. That I was there with her and that she was going to be all right. If 2Pac could take five shots and live, she could too.
"Nick, 2Pac is dead," Wanda asserted.
"Freeze say’s he ain’t," I replied.
Monika was strong, in both mind and body. Next to Mike Black, she is probably the strongest person I’ve ever met. I sat there wondering how it happened. Was her attacker there when she paged me? Was there something I could have done to prevent this from happening? Even if I left right then, the best I could have done was get there in time to talk to the police. "I still should have answered." There was nothing I could have done. But still, I felt like shit. I should have been there. I should have been there watching her back.
"But no, fuckin’ Felicia seemed a little more important."
The chair began to feel harder than it had all night, so I walked to the window and watched the sunrise. I don’t know how long I stood there, but when I turned around Jett was sitting there.
"How long you been here?" But he didn’t answer. He just sat there, kinda stone faced. He was pale. Paler than he usually is. He just sat there staring at Monika, he didn’t even blink. Since he wasn’t talkin’ I went and sat down.
Finally, after about an hour, Jett finally spoke. "I love Monika."
"I do too." I replied.
"I don’t think you understand, Nick. I really love her. I love both of you. You and Monika are closer to me than my own family, man. — I was there, Nick. I was right fuckin’ there, Nick. Right there."