Chapter Eighteen
Gonzo repeatedly tried to call Christina, but she didn’t pick up. When he tried a fourth time, the call went straight to voice mail, which made him wonder if she’d turned off the phone. He decided to text her.
I’d like to know how my son is doing.
It took half an hour for a reply to come through, and when it did, he was sorry he’d asked.
NOW you want to know how OUR son is doing?!? That’s awesome. Haha! Where were you last night when I had to sign legal documents as if I’m his LEGAL parent, which I am NOT?!?! Go to hell, Tommy. I packed up your clothes, and Freddie is picking them up after work. Have a nice life.
“Fuuuuck,” he said as he fell back against the pillows, closing his eyes.
Pain ripped through him, starting in his chest and working its way to the rest of him.
She’d had time to pack his shit, which must mean Alex was better.
He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to make sense of what she’d said and what it meant.
They were over. He expected a burst of predictable pain that didn’t materialize. He’d gone numb where she was concerned. She’d become one more thing he couldn’t handle in the aftermath of Arnold’s death, one more person who wanted something he no longer had to give.
Despite the pain that had him craving the relief he could only get from Vicodin, the thought of losing Christina had no impact on him whatsoever.
But his son was another story altogether, and he had no intention of losing him.
As soon as he got out of here, he’d call Andy, Nick’s lawyer friend who’d helped him in the past, and ask for advice on how best to proceed.
He had no desire for any kind of legal hassle with Christina.
It was in Alex’s best interest to have them both in his life, and that’s what he would have.
But there was no way Gonzo would allow her to cut him out of his own son’s life. That was not going to happen.
A knock on the door had him turning to see who was there.
Oh fucking hell. Goddamned Trulo. They hadn’t wasted any time getting the department shrink over there.
He’d probably come running when Sam called him.
Of course he had. It wasn’t every day Trulo got to work with a head case like he’d become lately.
Trulo, a wiry guy with thinning hair, looked at Gonzo with kind gray eyes and empathy Gonzo didn’t want. Why couldn’t everyone leave him the fuck alone? “May I come in?”
“Can I stop you?” Gonzo asked, not caring in the least that he was being rude to someone who’d been kind to him since that awful night last January. Not to mention that Trulo could take him off the job if he deemed it necessary. And wouldn’t that cap off a spectacular twenty-four hours?
“You can stop me,” Trulo said. “If you don’t want me here, say the word.”
I don’t want you here, he thought. But rather than say that, he only shrugged. “I promised Sam I’d see you, so I’ll see you.”
Trulo gestured to the chair next to Gonzo’s bed. “May I?”
“Go ahead.” Gonzo resigned himself to getting through this so he could go back to figuring out what to do about Christina and Alex, not to mention where he was going to live now that she’d kicked him out of the home he paid for.
Not that she didn’t do her share to support their family, but how was he supposed to swing the rent on two places in DC on a detective’s salary?
He was well and truly fucked in more ways than one.
When would that nurse be by with his meds?
Checking his watch, he saw that it’d been four hours since she’d been in, and the dose she’d given him then was beginning to wear off.
He could always tell when the meds were wearing off.
Edginess set in, his anxiety spiked and the pain…
Jesus, it could take down a horse. He’d never experienced anything quite like it.
“Sergeant?” Trulo’s voice interrupted the increasingly desperate thoughts running through his mind.
Gonzo glanced at him, noted his brows were furrowed. “Yeah?”
“I was asking about what happened last night that landed you in the hospital. You didn’t hear me?”
“Sorry, I was thinking.” He shifted to find a more comfortable position, and pain reverberated through his body.
Where was that fucking nurse? Or, better yet, where was his coat with the pills he’d stashed in the inside pocket?
Remembering he had them was like finding water in the desert.
If he could get rid of Trulo, he could have a pill.
The thought of the relief that would follow calmed him ever so slightly.
“Tommy?”
“I, um, my girlfriend broke up with me. I hadn’t eaten all day, and I guess my blood sugar was low, so my blood pressure and heart rate dropped. That’s all it was. No big deal.”
“You said your girlfriend broke up with you? As I recall, the two of you have been together awhile.”
“Almost two years,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Why did she break up with you?”
“You’d have to ask her that.”
“You mind if I do?”
Startled, Gonzo looked at him. “For real?”
“I’d like to know what’s going on with you. I figure she’s probably got some insight.”
“I, ah, I don’t know how I’d feel about that. She’s pissed, and you have the power to control my job. That combination doesn’t sit well with me.”
“No one’s after your job, Sergeant. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“It’s a check-in to see how you are. You’ve been through a lot. There’ll be steps forward and steps backward as you work to get past what happened last January.”
“Get past it?” Gonzo asked, instantly infuriated.
“You expect me to get past watching my partner be slaughtered right in front of me? You expect me to get over the fact that he was killed because I was annoyed by him and told him he could take the lead with the suspect if he would only shut the fuck up about how cold and hungry and tired he was? What’s the timeline for getting over that? I’d sure like to know.”
“I apologize for my poor choice of words. Obviously, the impact of Detective Arnold’s death is still very present for you.”
“You mean Detective Arnold’s murder, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have to testify soon at the probable cause hearing for the scumbag who killed him. It’s taken this long because they gave him a full psych eval to make sure the poor baby is up for enduring the trial. Did you know that?”
“I hadn’t heard that, but I’m not surprised you have to testify as you were the only witness.”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
“Is the probable cause hearing stressing you out?”
“What do you think?”
“Is the stress perhaps making you do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Gonzo rolled his eyes to high heaven. “Do they make you guys take a class in shrink school on how to ask vague questions?”
Trulo laughed. “Nah, we figure out how to do that on our own. We find that when we let the patient figure out their own crap, it tends to be more effective than when we lead them to it.”
“If you say so.”
“Back to whether you’ve been doing things out of the ordinary.
Perhaps it’s because you’re feeling stressed about having to testify against the man who murdered your partner.
I mean, that would make anyone stressed.
For instance, I imagine the lieutenant is stressed about having to testify against Stahl. ”
Gonzo shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she is. She hasn’t said anything about it to us.”
“Doesn’t mean she isn’t feeling it, the same way you have to be feeling this next stage in getting justice for Arnold and what that’ll require of you.”
The words “getting justice for Arnold” resonated with him. He’d do whatever he could to make sure the man who killed his partner would spend the rest of his life rotting in jail. That would be a small price to pay for what he’d done to a young man who’d had his whole life in front of him.
For fuck’s sake. Gonzo realized tears were rolling down his face. He angrily brushed them away. The last thing he needed was to break down in front of the department shrink.
Trulo handed him a tissue from a box on the bedside table. “You’re dealing with a lot. What can we do to help you through it?”
You can take me back to that night in January. I would’ve done it all differently. I would’ve taken the lead the way I always did. It should’ve been me. I wish it had been me. “Nothing.”
“Can I offer one piece of advice?”
“If you must.”
“Keeping it all inside is a recipe for disaster. You’re surrounded by people who want to help—at home and at work. People care, Tommy.”
“What can they do? No one can change what happened nine months ago, so what exactly do you want me to say to them?”
“Tell them how you feel. Tell me how you feel. Tell someone.”
“I feel like fucking shit! All the time! What do you want to me to say? That I can’t get a minute’s relief from the images that torture me, of the gurgling sound he made when he was trying to breathe or the way he was dead before I even realized what’d happened?
Do you want me to say I don’t give a shit about anything or anyone—not the woman I supposedly love or my job or anything other than my son? Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s a good place to start.”
Exhausted by the outburst, Gonzo fell back against the pillows.
“Does it give you any relief to say those things out loud?”
“No. Nothing brings relief.” Except the Vicodin, but he couldn’t say that, or Trulo would lock him up, and he’d be unable to get it. The thought of being without it was enough to spark a full-on panic.
“Before I came over, I took a quick look at your jacket to refresh my memory on a few things,” he said, referring to Gonzo’s employment file.
Panic overtook him. Where was he going with this?
“Not that long before you lost your partner, you were shot in the neck in a near-fatal incident.”