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Lucy looked back over her shoulder. “You know where she is?”
“I think so,” Kinnick said. “She told Leah where she was going.”
“She did?”
He thought about telling Lucy what Leah had begrudgingly told him, but he didn’t want to put Lucy in the position of having to withhold anything from law enforcement. “Yes,” Kinnick said simply.
Lucy paused outside Chuck’s treatment room. She put a hand on the curtain and turned back to Kinnick. “He’s pretty jacked up on pain meds right now.”
From the other side of the curtain: “Gilligan? Is that you? Where’d you go?”
She pulled the curtain, and there was Chuck, in a hospital bed, cabled to a heart monitor, electrodes all over his bare chest, a blood pressure cup on his arm, IV drip above him, catheter bag below him. He looked so small in that bed, hooked to all that equipment.
“Hey! There he is!” Chuck said. “My new partner. Hey, we pulled it off, didn’t we?” He held up a fist for Kinnick to bump.
“How are you feeling, Chuck?”
“Me? Shoooot.” His fist fell to his side. “I’m fine. All things, you know, considered.” His eyes were glossy with pain meds. “Anyway, it takes more than a bullet to slow me down. How are your grandkids?”
“They’re fine. Thank you. I left them with some friends for a while. What the hell happened up there?”
“Ah.” Chuck waved the question away. “One of those toy soldiers got nervous and his gun went off! I was trying to keep those idiots from following you, and this kid pulled his piece on me, shot me, and then shit his own drawers.”
“I’m so sorry, Chuck.”
“Guy was weirdly protective of his tires. I would’ve buried the poor kid, but he threw his hands in the air and practically started crying like a baby. I felt sorry for him.”
“Did they arrest him?”
“Nah, Sheriff Yahoo says he’s still investigating it. But I doubt he’ll charge the kid. Your eagle-killer was there, too, and he and the pastor are claiming the kid shot me in self-defense. Now, there’s a cold fish, that guy Burris.” Again, a quick glance to Lucy. “But even Brother Dean knew better than to draw onme.”
Lucy muttered something.
“I shouldn’t have gotten you into this,” Kinnick said.
Chuck waved this off again. “Are you kidding? This is my job.”
Lucy muttered again, but this time louder. “Not your job.”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone up there,” Kinnick said.
“Bullshit. It was the only way to get those kids out of there.” He glanced briefly at Lucy, as if making sure she was hearing this. “I had the whole thing handled. Just didn’t count on a nervous kid not knowing how to handle a firearm. Thatstupid fuck!”
Kinnick took a half step back.
Lucy put a hand on Chuck’s chest, between all the wires. “You should rest. You’re getting worked up again.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, Chuck.”
“Yeah, well...” Chuck shrugged. “I’m no hero.” As if someone had been arguing that he was. “We just did what had to be done, am I right, partner?”
Kinnick nodded.
But the air seemed to have gone out of Chuck. He leaned forward and adjusted the blanket covering his lap and his legs. A catheter tube led to a square bag clipped to the side of his bed. Bloody piss was dribbling into it. Chuck sighed, leaned back, and closed his eyes, as if the enormity of the past day had suddenly hit him, and he realized how close he’d come to not coming off that hill.
Kinnick looked at Lucy, who wouldn’t return his stare and was watching Chuck’s face. “I brought these back,” Rhys said, and he held out the key fob and the cell phone for Chuck to see. “Your truck’s in the parking lot. Do you want me to move it somewhere?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Lucy said. She held out her hand without looking at Kinnick and he gave her the key fob.