Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
The first thing Zoe felt was the weight.
Not pain but heaviness. Like someone had poured concrete into her body.
Then came the light, sterile and sharp, penetrating closed eyelids. She turned her head instinctively, but even that small movement sent a ripple of nausea through her. Something tugged at her arm—an IV. Her throat was dry, raw, and incredibly painful, like she’d swallowed glass.
A distant beeping rose in the background. Her thoughts were wispy, floating in the air like smoke. The memories started to trickle back. She remembered a broken bridge, a stream of river with churning water, and skeletal trees twisting in odd shapes, poking the sky.
And then she remembered her body caving in, her stomach folding, her back smacking against a rock, her hand drenched in sticky, gushing blood.
She blinked. The world swam into shape.
White ceiling tiles. The faint smell of antiseptic. Machines she couldn’t name blinking softly around her. A curtain pulled halfway around her bed.
Hospital. Thank God. She wasn’t dead.
The ache in her side was deep and dull, but alive. Like something had burrowed its way in there and gone to sleep. She tried to move her hand. It responded, barely. Her fingertips felt like they were wrapped in cotton.
A moment later, the curtain was drawn back.
A nurse in soft blue scrubs smiled down at her. “You’re awake,” she said gently. “Take it easy. You’ve been through a lot.”
Zoe blinked up at her, her mouth dry, her mind full of holes. “What…” she managed to rasp. It burned. “What happened?”
The nurse reached for a cup of water with a bendable straw and held it out. Zoe sipped greedily, coughing once, then drank more. “You’re in hospital,” the nurse said. “You came out of surgery a few hours ago. How do you feel right now?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a truck,” she grumbled weakly.
The nurse chuckled. “The bullet went through your lower left side. Nicked a rib but missed anything vital. You were very lucky.” Zoe resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the word lucky . “Your vitals look good. The doctor will come see you soon. He’s wrapping up another surgery right now.”
“How did I get here?”
“You have resourceful friends,” the nurse said vaguely before leaving. Zoe searched for her phone when the curtain was drawn back again and two figures approached.
Aiden and Simon. Both tall, wearing black coats, a grim expression on their faces.
“Either you’re here to abduct me or you’re male strippers. I can’t tell,” Zoe said.
“What’s wrong with you?” Simon pinched the bridge of his nose while Aiden’s mouth twitched, holding back a smile.
“Many things. Why do you think I took my sweet time with that psych evaluation?” Aiden said and then turned to Zoe. “How do you feel?” His body was wired and stiff.
“Peachy. Wait, you were there. You brought me here.”
Aiden nodded. “It wasn’t long after we heard the gunshot that we found you.”
“What happened to Lisa and Jim?” she asked.
“Lisa’s fine. Just minor injuries. Jim is in custody.” Zoe didn’t miss Aiden’s hardened stare.
Zoe glared at Simon, the question burning in her eyes—why was he here? She knew why. All three of them did. The dull pain in her abdomen was nothing compared to the awkwardness that hung low in the room like smoke.
“I don’t think you’re allowed more than one visitor at a time here, so I’ll wait outside.” Aiden rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Once Aiden had left, Simon relaxed and sat on a chair next to her. His hand reached out to hold hers, but she pulled it back. “Simon… you didn’t have to come all the way.”
He looked crushed. “I get a call from Aiden that you were shot and you think I wouldn’t come.”
The memory came back in fragments. Was someone else there too? She almost had it but Simon distracted her. “Z, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sent you on this case.”
“You didn’t send me. The riddle was addressed to me, remember?”
“I suppose.” He looked like he wanted to say something else but held back. “So you and Aiden, huh? Is that why you haven’t been returning my calls?”
“Me and Aiden?” she squeaked. “What?”
“Oh.” He frowned. “He’s been worried sick about you. I figured…”
A warm feeling rose in her chest as she shook her head. “Nothing is going on.”
“Good.” The edges of his face softened.
But why did the denial feel like a lie?
“Are you insane, Storm?” Aiden’s eyes were wide as Zoe dragged herself into work next morning.
“Yeah, have you met me?” she quipped, suppressing a wince.
There was one part of the job that Zoe despised almost as much as breaking the news to someone that their loved one had been killed. It was the part that nobody thought much about. When she would single-handedly tell someone that their loved one had killed someone.
Ironically, the weather had turned bright and sunny. The first day Zoe had seen the sun in Pineview Falls. A day with blue sky with cotton-like clouds, dappling shadows on sidewalks, and scent of spring.
Zoe watched Ethan remove the missing person poster of Amy from the bulletin board with a satisfied smile on his face.
Since Amy had been found alive, the tension that had held the substation in a perpetual chokehold had dispersed.
The deputies’ smiles and shoulders were more relaxed, conversations were less somber.
Pineview Falls had been stuck in a stress position for almost two weeks and was finally uncoiling, unwinding, and finding its flow again.
A smile cracked on her face. But then she saw Lisa coming out of the washroom, looking pale. When they locked eyes, Lisa’s face fell.
“How’s she taking it?” she asked Aiden, who was absorbed in some report.
“She’s in denial. Nonreactive. Classic first response.” He didn’t look up.
“They’re bringing Jim up from holding. Apparently, Ethan tried to talk to him yesterday but he didn’t get anything out of him.”
“Did you try?”
“No, I spent the night at the hospital,” he said fleetingly. “Hmmm.” He frowned, distracted.
“What is it?”
“I’m just going through the reports, making sure everything is airtight for when we hand over the evidence to the DA’s office. When did you say Viktor showed up at Jeff Gold’s house?”
Zoe’s stomach folded. “Why is that important right now?”
“Because the cases are connected. Jeff Gold sent you Jackie’s letter, so whatever happened there has to go in here.” He flipped through the pages. “The timeline doesn’t make sense.”
Shit. The alarm in Zoe’s head went off like a siren. She scrambled to come up with an excuse as Aiden kept connecting the dots.
“You said he was there in less than five minutes after you, but the report says the shooting started fifteen minutes after you said. So you must have had a chance to talk to him.” He stared at her. “Storm, what’s going on?”
Her face was too hot. She felt her cheeks redden. “Can we talk about this later?”
The next thing she knew she was being dragged away by him.
“You’re lying!” Aiden snapped.
“I’m not!” Zoe said, her breaths choppy, her chest heaving. She met his fierce, burning gaze with determination. Seconds ticked by, stretching to infinity as Zoe focused on steadying her breathing and keeping her facial muscles still.
She was skilled at deception but Aiden was better at spotting it.
Strips of flickering white light lit the narrow hallway, which smelled of cleaning product and sawdust. Some people turned around the corner, chuckling and chatting, but they froze when they saw Zoe and Aiden.
Zoe swallowed hard, feeling eyes on them when Aiden grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her through a door into the empty staircase in the back of the building. “Watch it!”
Aiden let go of her and put his hands on his waist, breathing hard. “Storm, the timeline doesn’t make sense. There is a discrepancy in the reports.”
Damn it . “Maybe it’s a mistake. I must be misremembering.
” Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed.
She pressed her back into the cold wall.
The heating didn’t permeate this section of the building, where her breaths seemed to bounce around the concrete walls.
She desperately tried to think of an excuse, an explanation, a believable lie.
She drew a blank. “Have you told anyone?”
“No one.” He seemed offended. “Storm, you know something, don’t you? What are you hiding? You aren’t misremembering anything. It’s obvious by your face.”
Zoe knew things—her mother’s connection to the case, Jeff Gold being Gina’s father and the fact that she didn’t have to shoot her mother’s killer, Victor, dead. It had unsettled her, unnerved her. “I need time.”
He was puzzled. “Time for what ?”
“To think and… just give me time. I need to figure something out.” Her tongue lay heavy in her mouth. The words were on the verge of spilling out. Aiden’s eyes bore into hers. “Please, Aiden. Just trust me.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he scoffed. “I didn’t expect dishonesty from you, Storm.”
Zoe felt the full force of his words. He left her standing on the staircase. The sound of the door slamming shut bounced around and the air whooshed. When she was alone, heaviness made her chest sink closer to her spine.
A scream was knotted in her throat. She clutched it tight and breathed through it. She had tampered with evidence to protect the memory of her mother.
She went back out at the sound of a mild disturbance.
Jim had clomped in, wearing a hoodie that looked too familiar, his shoulders hunched and his eyes lined with shadows.
His hands were cuffed and a uniform was with him.
His disoriented gaze was taking in the station when they latched on to Zoe’s.
Instinctively, his hand touched the shoulder he’d injured in the chase.
Zoe tried to stay composed. She didn’t want to give away how affected she was. Jim had seen a different side of her, a different her. Someone who rarely surfaced. But she was too shaken by Aiden’s outburst.