Chapter 26
Bess
“No.”
I turn my back on Savvy.
“Look,” she persists, “until we’ve made sure there are no other threats, you’ll be safer somewhere else.”
I can be equally stubborn.
“I’m not leaving voluntarily.”
Not a chance in hell. The man took a bullet that was intended for me, I’m not about to leave him by himself.
“Bess, come on. Nate is on his way to the school to pick Carson up and bring him here.”
“And the last thing that boy needs is to see me turn tail. I love you, Savvy, but you’re wasting your energy.”
We’re in an empty room on the first floor where Hugo was taken to have a tube placed in his chest.
The bullet hit him under the right shoulder blade, fractured a rib, and nicked the right lung before lodging just under his clavicle. His right lung collapsed, which is why they’re putting in a chest tube. It’s supposed to drain air and blood from around the lung so it can reinflate.
Thank God for Dr. Sharma, who handled the injury like it was par for the course, and not highly unusual for this small-town hospital. Two gunshot wounds in a week must be a rarity.
I’m on pins and needles, wanting to see for myself Hugo is going to be okay, but having my friend hovering restlessly is only amping up my anxiety.
“Go,” I tell her. “Check on progress, do what you need to do. There’s no need to babysit me. You said the FBI team had the situation under control.”
Apparently, the shooter had been posing as a utility worker, doing inspections on the electrical poles along the street.
He’d been up in a cherry picker in front of the hospital.
Roy Battaglia’s team intercepted a young kid running out of the hospital lobby when the shooting started.
They figure he was a lookout and probably alerted the shooter when Mayor Merrick held us up in the middle of the lobby.
I was surprised to hear Mancuso tell Savvy the shooter was none other than Shane Lee himself. The agent suggested he probably got tired of his soldiers not delivering on his orders, and decided to come out and do the job himself.
A decision that cost him dearly when a bullet from one of the agents returning his fire ended his life.
I should feel relief, but I don’t, and I likely won’t until I can look into Hugo’s eyes and have him tell me he is going to be okay. That’s the only thing that matters in this moment. Everything else gets shoved to the back of my head until later.
“Where’s Dad?”
Carson barges into the room, panic in his eyes when he locks them on me.
“Bess?” His voice is small and wavers.
Nothing but a small boy in a man’s body, terrified out of his mind he’s going to lose yet another parent before he’s even finished high school.
I surge to my feet and wrap him in my arms.
“He’s going to be okay,” I whisper in his ear as his shoulders shake in my hold. “I promise you; he’s going to be fine.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Nate pull Savvy out of the room, closing the door on us.
I’m not sure how long we stand here, Carson letting go of his emotions while I struggle to hold on to my own.
“What happened?” he eventually asks, wiping at his face with his sleeve.
“He was protecting me,” I share, not hiding from the truth as I slowly release him.
The boy deserves to know. “And was shot in the back. Right now, the doctor is placing a tube in his chest so his right lung can inflate again, but we’re hoping he won’t need any additional surgery and will heal on his own.
I expect Dr. Sharma to drop in and give us an update any time now. ”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, honey. I’m fine.”
Good Lord, what a sweet boy he is. His parents really did a good job with him, and hats off to Hugo for making sure his son was nurtured emotionally after losing his mother.
Carson is a sensitive kid—something I assumed was inherited from Emily—but now that I’m getting to know his father better, I can see that same sensitive side in him.
Although, Hugo has more trouble expressing his, and instead walks away from an emotional confrontation, like he did when I opened up about the secrets I’d kept.
“Did you have a chance to talk to Tate?”
I know those two have a lot in common—Nate’s daughter, Tatum, lost her mother to an overdose only about a year ago—and it’s been good for them to have someone in their own age group who’s been through a similar experience to talk to.
“Yeah, Nate picked her up too. She was going to wait in the truck.”
“Good.”
I’m restless, but I do my best to present a calm front and force myself to sit. No sooner does my ass hit the seat when my phone starts vibrating in my pocket. I don’t recognize the number but answer anyway.
“Hello?”
“Bess?”
Hearing my brother’s voice is a relief. A team of FBI agents whisked him away after what happened in his room, and I was told he was taken into protective custody. We never had a chance to finish our conversation.
“Ken…”
“Listen, I talked one of the agents into letting me use their phone, but I only have a few minutes. I never had a chance to say goodbye.”
“I know, I had come up with all these things I wanted to say to you. I was going to bring up things I remember of when we were kids, before moving to Seattle, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m sure you have those same memories, or maybe you have different ones.”
“Good times, Sis,” he mumbles.
“Yeah, good times.”
“I have regrets—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“As do I, but you know, in the end the only thing that matters is I love you. I always have, and no matter where you are, or who you are, that will never change.”
It’s silent for a beat, and then I hear him clear his throat before he comes back on.
“I feel the same,” he returns gruffly. “Have a good life, Bessie.”
“You too, Ken,” I choke out, hearing the line go dead.
This time it’s Carson—a little taken aback by my sudden flood of tears—who comforts me with a warm hug. I barely get a chance to explain what my emotional outburst was about, when Dr. Sharma pokes his head around the door.
“You can see him now.”
Hugo
It feels like I got trampled by a herd of buffalo and it hurts like an SOB to breathe, but it was so worth it when I see Bess walking in, holding my son’s hand.
The nursing staff put the head of the bed up, so I am more sitting than lying down, which makes it a little easier to get air.
It also makes me look a little less helpless, although I still have a tube sticking out from between my ribs and my face is covered with an oxygen mask I was warned not to remove.
My, “I’m okay,” is no more than a whisper, almost drowned out by the hiss of the oxygen.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo. Sorry for the scare.” My voice sounds a little stronger this time.
Carson shrugs it off, squaring his shoulders, but I notice his red-rimmed eyes, and I hate that I put him through this. He’s seen too many hospital rooms in his young life already, and walking into mine must trigger a host of bad memories for him.
I notice how close he stays to Bess, and that does my heart good to see. Even after Emily died, Bess was someone he trusted, would occasionally open up to. Knowing if something had happened to me, he’d have Bess in his life. She would look after him, of that I have no doubt.
“Hey, Twinkie,” I greet her, meeting those pretty dark eyes.
She doesn’t speak and simply nods, taking my hand and pressing it against her face.
“Does it hurt?” Carson asks, filling the silence.
“Like a motherfucker.”
Who’d have thought talking would be a workout? It’s taking a lot of effort.
My son points at the tube coming out of my right side.
“How long do you have to have that in for?”
“Hopefully not too long. Doc says I’ll be here for a few days.”
Days I won’t be able to look after Bess, which I need to talk to Roy Battaglia about as soon as I have a chance. I haven’t even talked to Savvy or Mancuso, so I have no idea what went down after I got shot.
There’s so much I need to think of, but my head is so damn fuzzy.
Despite my efforts to keep them open, I feel my eyes drift shut.
When I next open them, Savvy is sitting in a chair beside my bed.
“Where is Bess?”
“Nate, Tatum, and KC took her and Carson to the diner for a quick bite before it closes for the night. Bess didn’t want to go, but we made her. She needed some fresh air.”
“What time is it anyway?” I ask, noticing at some point the sun had set.
Savvy glances at her watch.
“Almost nine.”
It was a little before eleven this morning when Bess and I walked into the lobby, but it feels like a lifetime ago.
“How are you feeling?” Savvy wants to know.
I do a quick inventory and am surprised to discover the pain isn’t quite as sharp as I remember it being earlier.
“Breathing a little easier,” I admit.
“Yeah, Dana was in earlier and put some meds through your IV she said would probably bring some relief.”
I must’ve been out of it, because I never woke once. But feeling better and thinking clearer, I want to be brought into the loop.
“Is it safe for Bess with just KC and Nate?”
Savvy grins.
“Yeah. We took care of the snake’s head and the FBI, in conjunction with the Seattle Gang Task Force, is quickly rounding up the rest of the Lotus Squad echelon. What do you remember?”
I think back to the moment I knew something was off. I’d caught a glimpse of a guy in a boom lift, facing the hospital instead of the electrical post. It took a fraction of a second for me to realize he had a rifle aimed right at us and I immediately reacted, but obviously not quite fast enough.
“Shooter was a utility guy in the cherry picker.”
She nods. “Correct. The utility company had been doing inspections along the road yesterday as well, and Mancuso’s team made sure and checked out the work orders.
When the truck with the lift was out there again this morning, they assumed the work was still ongoing.
We later discovered one of the utility trucks was stolen from the yard sometime during the night.
They saw an opportunity to get eyes in the room and took it. ”
Clever.
“So, I assume they picked up Shane Lee?” I inquire.
“More like picked off Shane Lee,” Savvy volunteers. “That’s what I meant by the head of the snake; Shane Lee was the shooter. One of Mancuso’s guys took him out. He’s dead.”
The agent was right the other day; the gang boss was gung ho to take care of business himself, but ended up making himself vulnerable in the process.
“Mancuso mentioned he suspected as much when Lee went missing. He figured Lee wanted to make Ken watch his sister get killed before he was executed himself.”
“Man, he was a cruel bastard,” Savvy comments.
“What about the third brother? Mike Lee.”
“He’s slick. He managed to slip across the border into Canada, so now he not only has the feds on his tail, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well.
He’s the money guy and has always stuck to the business side of things.
It’s suspected he may have had an exit plan all along, and funneled the bulk of the gang’s money across the border.
Looks like he’s more interested in maintaining the lifestyle he’d become accustomed to than seeking revenge, like his brother. ”
Good. Let Canada worry about the guy.
I briefly close my eyes in relief. It sucks to be stuck in a hospital bed where I’m no good to anyone, but it looks like things are under control, even without my help.
“Are you tired?”
“No, I’m good. I just don’t like sitting on the sidelines. Especially when we’ve already clocked what has to be record hours in overtime this past week alone.”
I’m the one who normally allocates hours and makes sure we stay within budget, and I already know there’ll be a headache waiting when I finally have time to sit down and crunch the numbers.
“About that,” Savvy returns. “I guess today’s events were good for something, because I got a call earlier from Judge Stephen Crombie.”
Judge Crombie is the chairman of the county commission.
“He’d received a complaint,” she continues. “It was from the mayor’s office, and outlined the blatant incompetence of the sheriff’s department given the rise in criminal and violent activity in Silence, and used today’s shooting as an example.”
Unbelievable, that miserable asshole did not waste any time, did he?
In a surge of anger, I try to sit up, only to be painfully reminded of my injuries.
“Whoa, easy, my friend. You’ll be happy to know Merrick’s complaint did not have the desired outcome, for him at least. Judge Crombie asked if I felt our budget was sufficient, which I told him it was not.
I mentioned the request for additional budget I’d submitted for the next meeting’s agenda, which he apparently had not seen yet. ”
She chuckles and shakes her head.
“Anyway, as a result of Merrick’s interference, Crombie has called an emergency meeting for first thing tomorrow morning, and he is going to put forth a motion to allocate us sufficient budget for an additional investigator, as well as two more full-time deputies, effective immediately.
He expects the motion to pass without much push back. ”
“I’m calling Tessa Androtti the moment I get the green light,” she adds with a smug grin.
I wish I could laugh, but all I manage is a snort.
“Damn, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in Don Merrick’s office when he gets wind of this,” I comment.
“Me too, my friend. Me too.”