Page 64

Sunday

Rowan

I open my eyes, but the room swims, and I let them fall closed again. Everything is heavy.

“Hey, Gallagher,” says a voice nearby. “Feel like waking up? I’ll buy you a beer.”

Harrison.

With great effort, I open my eyes. All these years later I still feel the pull. It’s strong enough to motivate me to roll my eyes toward his voice.

I find him sitting close to my hospital bed, stroking my left hand. My right one feels immobile, and it takes me a moment to remember why. “How’d it go?” I croak, meaning the surgery I just had.

“Pretty good,” he says, a furrow in his handsome forehead. “They got all the bones lined up where they want them. No surprises.”

“Okay.” I relax against the pillow. “Let the healing begin. Where is Natalie?”

“Doing donuts on my motorcycle in the parking lot.”

“Harrison.”

He gives me a sly grin. “Tessa brought a pizza. They’re eating it in the hospital cafeteria. I told her I’d text her when you woke up. So hang on...” He lets go of my hand and pulls out his phone.

“You can let her eat.”

“Yeah, but she made me promise.”

It’s been two days since Beatrice attacked me. I spent yesterday having my hand scanned and waiting for the hand surgeon to decide on his course of action. Between medical exams, Detective Fry asked me questions until I was so exhausted that I literally fell asleep in the middle of a conversation with him.

I’m not sure how useful I was. My memory of what happened after Natalie came pounding up the staircase is pretty shaky. I’m told that I managed to convey two things clearly: that the gun was loaded, and that Beatrice had been trying to kill me.

I have only vague memories of Harrison struggling—and finally succeeding—to pull Lickie off Beatrice.

Beatrice lost a lot of blood after Lickie nicked an artery, but somehow survived. She’ll be charged in Tim’s death and my attempted murder. And she’ll be undergoing a psychiatric evaluation.

In the meantime, I’ll be spending the next several months rehabbing my hand and trying to regain my grip strength and range of motion. That crazy bitch stomped on my drafting hand.

Thinking about it makes me burn. Another person I trusted.

The recovery-room nurse comes buzzing by to check on me. She makes some notes on my chart and encourages me to sit up a few degrees as the anesthetic wears off. Her energy exhausts me. “Can I have some water, please?”

“Here.” Harrison produces a cup with a straw from a table on wheels. He brings the straw close to my face.

I still have one good hand, so I take the cup and help myself. But when I’m done, he gently puts the cup back. Then he takes my hand in his and kisses the back of it, his beard tickling my skin.

It’s so confusing to realize that the man who gave me all my trust issues is the one I can most rely on right now. He’s taking good care of me, and of our daughter. I’m basically staring at him in wonder as Natalie comes prancing through the door.

“Mom! How does it feel?”

Astonishing is my first thought, as Harrison gently squeezes my hand in his. But Natalie is talking about my hand. “Ask me in a couple weeks, baby. But right now, I’m fine.”

Her smile is tired, because it’s been a terrifying week.

But it’s a little less terrifying now.

***

They move me to a regular hospital room a little later, and I spend the afternoon napping. My father comes by to see how I’m doing.

I hadn’t told him that Harrison was staying with us, and apparently he got a little testy when Harrison called him to tell him that I’d been hospitalized. I heard Natalie take the phone and more or less tell her grandpa to knock it off.

He’s behaved himself ever since. And after spending a few minutes asking questions about my surgical outcome, he makes an announcement. “I’ve come to steal Natalie away for dinner and a movie marathon.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” I agree.

“Maybe she’ll want to stay with you tonight,” Harrison suggests in a quiet voice. “If so, I’d stay here with Rowan.”

You don’t have to do that . The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I fall asleep before I can say them.

***

The next time I resurface, it’s because of the urgent tone in Harrison’s voice. He’s having a whispered argument with a hospital worker.

“Sir, I can’t give you any information about another hospital patient. It’s against privacy laws.”

“I’m not asking you for her social security number,” he grinds out. “I just need to know if she’s still a patient in this hospital. Because if she is, I’m not leaving this room.”

Oh.

It hadn’t occurred to me to worry about Beatrice climbing out of bed to finish the job she started.

The nurse lets out a heavy sigh. “There’s a patient on another floor of the hospital with restraints and a policeman stationed outside her door.”

“Thank you,” he says stiffly.

“I can find you an ottoman. You’ll be more comfortable overnight.”

“Much obliged.”

When I wake up again, Harrison asks me what I want for dinner. “Maybe I can get somebody to deliver to the hospital.”

We’re just reviewing our choices when there’s a knock on the door. Officer Riley pokes her head into the room. “Hi, guys. Can I come in?”

Harrison gets a sour look on his face. “Only if you keep your handcuffs to yourself this time.”

She flinches. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. It’s what I came to tell you both.” She walks all the way in and takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry you had to live through that. We didn’t look closely enough at Beatrice. And I regret it.”

“I didn’t exactly catch on, either,” I admit. “Makes me feel like a fool.”

She shakes her head. “That woman is a gifted liar.”

“Not to mention straight-up crazy,” Harrison mutters.

“It will be a while until we piece together a full picture of what she did,” Riley says. “She’s given us a partial confession—before she halted the interview and asked for a lawyer. But I feel confident that she won’t be a free woman anytime soon.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

“Now, regarding Tim...” She gives me a slightly nervous glance. “It seems that Beatrice destroyed most of his notes. But she kept the pages where he wrote about you. They were supposed to, uh...”

“Make my suicide look like heartbreak,” I supply. “She mentioned that.”

Harrison makes a noise of dismay.

“Well...” Riley clears her throat. Then she looks pointedly at Harrison. “Is there any way that Rowan and I could have a private conversation? I want to share something with her, and it’s sensitive.”

To my surprise, he gets right up. “Do me a favor and stay here until I get back, detective? I’m going to get us some dinner.”

“I could do that,” she says.

“Good.” He snaps his fingers. “You’re on duty, officer. Stay sharp.” Then he takes his leave.

Riley waits until the door closes before giving me a funny little smile. “Ex-cons aren’t usually my thing, but he seems like more of a catch than I expected.”

“I noticed that, too,” I say. “We seem to be an evolving story. Now what did you want to tell me?”

She purses her lips. Then she sits down in Harrison’s chair and speaks to me in a hushed voice. “Listen, I took some photos of Tim’s notes,” she says quietly. “They’re not the kind of notes I would expect from a journalist writing a story. They’re more like full-fledged journal entries.”

“Like... dear diary?”

“Almost.” She spares a glance toward the door, as if to make sure it’s still closed. “I could get fired for sharing them with you.”

“But you’re going to anyway?” I guess. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“I feel like I owe you.” She pulls her iPad out of her shoulder bag and flips open the cover. “Read this. Just this page. It says a lot.”

June 3rd—

Made a decision today. Not an easy one. But R’s daughter called me out. Was at Black Cow with J...

I blink at the page. This is about Natalie? Black Cow is a burger joint with excellent fries. She goes there with her friends.

Didn’t notice N until I paid the bill and J went to the ladies. N comes up to me @ the bar, red face, so angry. Accuses me of cheating on her mom. Says I should be ashamed, and she saw me going through R’s phone.

Didn’t even defend myself, because she’s right. Not about cheating. But she’s right on the basic facts. I met R for research purposes. She’s spectacular. Maybe even perfect. But I can’t think of a way to come clean that doesn’t make me sound like an ass & a thief. Which I guess I am. Plus, my job is in NY.

Will do the right thing and let her go.

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah,” Riley says quietly.

“My daughter didn’t mention to me that she’d told him off. Maybe she thinks I’d be mad.” I feel a rush of love for my girl and her righteous anger on my behalf.

Riley takes the iPad back. “I just thought you needed to know. He thought you were spectacular. Maybe even perfect.”

“Nobody is perfect.”

But poor Tim. He made me feel unlucky. Then he turned out to be the unluckiest of all.

“You described your relationship to me, and now that I’ve read this, I know you were telling me the whole truth.” She taps the iPad and then puts it away. “My job is brutal sometimes. I have to look at everyone like a would-be criminal.”

I lean back against the pillow and think that over for a minute. “For fifteen years, I’ve been looking at the men in my life as would-be criminals. And, unlike you, it’s not because of my job.”

“It’s your hobby,” she says. And we both laugh.