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“Oh, no,” Kinnick started to say, “I’m not here for—”
But the nurse had turned back to the young mother. “Come on, Mom. We can do this. I’m with you. Your boy’s gonna be okay, but we gotta get him inside.”
She guided the young woman and her writhing son deeper into the hospital.
Kinnick walked past the intake window, and farther into the waitingroom, but didn’t see any sign of Chuck or Lucy. Or the police, for that matter—
“Rhys?” She came in behind him, through the open double doors, a Styrofoam cup in her hand. Lucy wore jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in a distracted ponytail, strands coming out on all sides. She looked like maybe she’d been crying.
“Oh, no, he isn’t—”
“No, he’s fine,” she said, and strode over. “Sounds like he got lucky. The bullet didn’t fracture his hip, and it didn’t hit any arteries or anything. Just sort of settled in. The surgeon is on her way down now to debride the wound and remove the bullet.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.”
“Where have you been? I thought you’d be here hours ago.”
“I didn’t want to bring the kids, so I took them to a friend’s house.”
Niceties over, Lucy smacked him in the chest with her open hand. “What the fuck were you thinking, Kinnick!”
“I didn’t— I wasn’t— What?” Kinnick had been so worried about the police, or that small-town sheriff, or the Army of the Lord, that it hadn’t occurred to him that the real threat to his safety might be Lucy. “I was just going along with Chuck.”
She hit him in the chest again. “You don’t go along with Chuck fucking Littlefield! Not when he goes manic like that! What did I tell you? Where’s your common sense?”
“You’re the one who set me up with him!”
Another shot to his chest. “Yeah, because I assumed you’d know better than to go half-cocked into some militia compound with him!”
Kinnick looked around, worried that people would think this angry woman was the cause of his black eye.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Today?” Kinnick asked. “Or, like... lifetime?”
She smacked him again. “It took me six months to break up withChuck! And now, because of you—and me—he almost gets killed. The guy has no one to take care of him, Rhys! His ex hates him. His kids won’t talk to him. Who do you think is going to have to take care of Chuck now?”
Of course, he hadn’t thought of that. “Lucy, I didn’t—”
“I honestly don’t know how you do it. One day back in my life and it’s a steaming bucket of rotten fucking fish heads.”
“I amsosorry. I really didn’t—” He held up Chuck’s phone and key fob. “I just came here to give back his truck and his phone. He’s got a lot of messages.” In fact, the thing had been buzzing nearly nonstop for the last hour.
She sighed. “Come on. I’ll take you back to see him.”
Kinnick followed her through the misery of the waiting room, past an aide taking a blood sample from a quietly weeping old man. The aide paused from his work to buzz them back into the treatment area, where another set of doors opened.
“Also, this sheriff’s deputy from Idaho was here earlier,” Lucy said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Did you give him my number?”
“Funny. You’re fucking hilarious, Kinnick. No, I told him I’d passhisnumber on to you.”
“Well, I’m not sticking around. And I’m not calling that sheriff.”
“Right. Good move. You’ll make a good fugitive.”
“I’ve got to find Bethany first, and once I bring her back, we’ll get this all straightened out with her kids.”