Page 67 of Undercover Hearts

A nurse had offered hospital scrubs. Jenna had refused. She couldn't bring herself to change, as if doing so might sever the tenuous connection she felt to Michelle.

The emergency room's rhythmic beeps and distant voices had become white noise, occasionally punctuated by the more urgent sounds of new arrivals. Each time the doors swung open, Jenna's head snapped up, hoping for news. Each time, disappointment settled deeper into her bones.

The fluorescent light flickered, and suddenly Jenna was back on the cliffside path, watching Kendall emerge from the shadows, weapon raised.

The sharp crack splitting the night air. Michelle lunging forward, her body spinning with the impact. The look of surprise—almost confusion—on her face as she crumpled to the ground.

"Michelle!" Her own voice, raw with panic, as she dropped to her knees beside Michelle's fallen body.

Blood. So much blood, pumping in rhythmic surges from beneath her collarbone, soaking through her shirt with terrifying speed.

"Officer down! Medical, now!"

Her hands pressing against the wound, Michelle's skin already growing cold beneath her touch. The warm, slick sensation of blood pulsing between her fingers despite the pressure she applied.

Jenna blinked hard, forcing herself back to the present. Her hands trembled, and she clasped them tightly together to still them. She'd been a detective for five years, had seen her share of violence, but nothing had prepared her for watching Michelle fall. For holding her hand as her pulse grew weaker. For the way Michelle's eyes had locked onto hers in the helicopter, trying to communicate something vital before consciousness slipped away.

The doors at the far end of the waiting room swept open. Two uniformed officers entered, scanning the space until they spotted Jenna. She recognized Detective Zoe Alvarez and OfficerDestiny Washington from department meetings, though she'd had little direct interaction with either during her short time in Phoenix Ridge.

"Walsh." Zoe approached, her typically confident stride tempered by the solemnity of the situation. "Any news?"

Jenna shook her head. "Still in surgery."

Destiny settled into the chair beside her, offering a paper cup of coffee that smelled marginally better than what the waiting room vending machine provided.

"Thought you could use this," she said, her voice gentle. "It's from the diner across the street."

Jenna accepted the cup, the warmth seeping into her cold fingers. "Thank you."

"The operation was a complete success," Zoe reported, taking the seat on Jenna's other side. "Seventeen arrests, including Sienna Castillo and Isabella Garcia. Substantial evidence seized: financial records, communications, and the drugs themselves. Lieutenant Hodges said you got everything needed to connect them directly to all three victims."

The information should have brought satisfaction. Three women would get justice. A dangerous organization had been dismantled. Their operation had achieved every objective.

Jenna felt nothing but hollowness.

"Chief’s on her way," Destiny added quietly. "She was overseeing the evidence processing personally."

Jenna nodded, her throat too tight for words. The investigation would continue without her. Without Michelle. Protocol demanded statements, after-action reports, evidence chains to be maintained.

All of it seemed distant and unimportant compared to the surgery happening somewhere behind those swinging doors.

"How did it happen?" Zoe asked, professional curiosity mingling with genuine concern.

Jenna took a steadying breath. "Kendall Buchanan had circled behind our extraction route. Michelle spotted her before I did." She swallowed hard. "Kendall aimed at me. Michelle intercepted."

The weight of Michelle's body as Jenna caught her, lowering her to the ground. The desperate pressure of her hands against the wound, trying to hold Michelle's life inside her body.

"Stay with me," she'd commanded, her voice steadier than she felt. "Medic incoming. Just stay with me."

The horrible rattle in Michelle's breathing. The way her eyes had begun to lose focus, pupils dilating as her body responded to catastrophic blood loss.

The medical helicopter's arrival, wind whipping their hair as they loaded Michelle onto the stretcher. The medic's clinical report: "BP dropping. Forty over thirty and falling."

The lieutenant's voice: "Detective, we need your statement."

"To hell with protocol. I'm staying with her."

Jenna blinked rapidly, focusing on the industrial tile pattern beneath her feet. Zoe's hand settled briefly on her shoulder, a gesture of solidarity that nearly broke Jenna's composure.