Fletch
FLETCH
A fter taking the call from hell and declaring an hour of personal time, I stride into the hospital alone. My daughter is still at school, and Archer begrudgingly respects my space.
For an extremely limited time.
After that, if I don’t check in, he’ll sic the women on me. And we both know that’s a far more effective threat than the others he has at his disposal: Guns. Mafia. Vigilante killer in his pocket.
I head to the elevator without asking for directions, then stepping out again on the third floor, I emerge into a busy ward filled to the brim with medical personnel doing their best to keep shit under control in a city bursting with bullshit.
It’s mine and Archer’s job to roll in after a crime has been committed and solve a murder. But that doesn’t change the fact that the crime was, in fact, committed. That people have been hurt. That lives have been destroyed, and families have been torn apart.
As homicide detectives, we’re already too late.
As medical examiners, Minka and Aubs are already too late.
But as a trauma surgeon, or an ER nurse, maybe, if they’re lucky, they’ll show up in time and make a positive change in a victim’s life.
“Nurse?” I stop in front of one and force her focus up from a report that she reads while she walks. Startling her, I show her my hands as her eyes spring wide and her brain, for a moment at least, assesses the danger that stepped in her way. “I’m sorry. My name is Charlie er. I was called to collect a patient.”
“er?” She thinks, thinks, thinks as names and charts and numbers and all sorts of shift information flitters through her mind. Then it hits. “Oh! er! Detective. Yes.” She steps to the side and points the way I was already heading. “Go to the desk down there and tell them you’re here for Jada Watson. She said she was a er when she arrived, but her ID says something else.”
“We were married.” I draw a deep breath and try not to exhale on the poor woman merely attempting to get through her shift. “She never changed her name, even while we were married. But in social settings, she was a er. Our daughter is a er.”
“Yeah, well…” She shrugs. “Glad we found you. Head on down and ask for more directions. She didn’t want us to call anyone else, so I hope your divorce was amicable.”
I cough out a short, silent laugh as a way to cover the anxiety swirling in my stomach. Then I follow her orders and stride toward the bean shaped desk where nurses work, filing paper or prepping charts. Whatever it is nurses in the wards do.
“Detective Charlie er,” I repeat, drawing three sets of eyes from three overworked women who have little tolerance for interruptions. “I’m looking for Jada Watson? Someone here called me.”
“She’s in three-oh-three,” the nurse on the left, Carman, according to her tag, says. She tips her chin to her right. “She came in kinda messed up. But they transferred her up from the ED a couple of hours ago for obs. You’re still the next-of-kin on her paperwork, though she told us you aren’t married anymore.”
“Are you good to go in there?” Nurse Number Two inserts. “I’m divorced too. From a cop, even. No way I want him to come save me from the hospital when I’m vulnerable. She’s not thinking with complete clarity, so her requesting we call you could be a number of things: confusion, for one. Familiarity.”
“Coercion,” I supply. “Abuse?”
She firms her lips in defiance. “Could be. It’s our job to keep our patients safe.”
“I’m not her abuser.” I gently push away from the desk, my eyes on the numbers on the doors. “I’m not an unsafe person to her. Believe it or not, but I actually want her to be healthy again. For our daughter.”
“Says every abuser,” she mumbles, just loud enough to catch my ears and earn a scowl when I glance back. She’s bitter. Angry. And she clearly has a hard on for cop ex-husbands. But I’m not hers, and despite Jada’s absolute fuckery these last few years, I still love her enough to save her, time and time again.
More importantly, I love my daughter enough to keep catching her mom and propping her up. So I let the nurse’s harsh words roll off my back and drag my attention around to read the labels outside each room.
Three-oh-one. Three-oh-two.
I lick my dry lips and swallow to wet my parched throat. I prepare myself as I approach three-oh-three, because maybe I’m walking in on a woman tied to her bed. Maybe she’s coming down from her last trip. Fuck knows, maybe she’s still pissed at me and thinks I’m a selfish asshole for not staying married to a woman who would fuck my coworkers and neglect my daughter.
Whatever is waiting for me is bound to hurt. So I draw a heady breath and fill my lungs until bursting. I pat my shirt down and tap the gun strapped to my body. A habit I’ve developed after years of walking through doors that scare me. Finally, I exhale and ignore Nurse Nasty as she stares at the back of my head. Then stepping into the room, I push the curtain aside and reveal my ex-wife—the love of my fucking life—sleeping in her bed. Heart rate monitors beep-beep-beep , the sound filling the room with a melodious confirmation the woman who looks damn near dead, isn’t.
My eyes itch as they scour her small dancer’s frame. Her too-thin, hundred-pound body, black and blue all over. What was once a gloriously beautiful face, is now bruised and beaten. Split lips. Sunken eyes. Her cheekbone is raw, with a long scrape I don’t want to know how it got there. Her hair is matted, cut with shears, I can only assume, and not at a salon. Her ear, where she once wore stud earrings, is torn, and the jewelry gone.
My heart thunders in my chest because she’s my daughter’s mother.
My daughter’s twin in a lot of ways.
I draw my eyes down to her arm held in a sling, and knuckles, scabbed and with broken skin.
“What the hell happened to you, JJ?” Swallowing, I turn back and close the curtain again, to buy us privacy and me, a space to lose my fucking shit in the quiet. Then I move toward her bed, taking her hand in mine and biting down on my rage when I find two of her fingers secured in a splint.
Once a dancer, destined for fame.
Now a… what? Junkie fated to be beaten to death by her current boyfriend .
Her nails are chipped and broken. Her wrists, bruised as though someone grabbed on and refused to let go. Her hair is knotted in some spots, held in clumps by drying blood, while in others, it’s thinning so much, I can see her scalp.
My heart aches for what has become of a woman who was once vibrant and the definition of alive. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. The sweetest. Funniest. Kindest.
“Charlie?”
I sniff quickly as my eyes shoot up to stop on her battered face. On her closed eyes, but fluttering lashes.
“JJ?”
Her lips curl. Barely. Infinitesimally. And then they stop when her split widens and a hiss rolls along her throat. But her thumb gently strokes my wrist, the way she used to when we were younger. “You haven’t called me that in a really long time. JJ,” she sighs. “I miss it.”
“What happened?” I reach with my free hand and brush strands of hair from her face. I’m careful not to touch her flesh. Terrified I’ll hurt her more. “The hospital called me. They said you asked them to.”
“I can count on you.” Her voice crackles with an ache so deep, I know it goes further than her physical condition. “I didn’t want to call my parents. But I knew I could rely on you.” Slowly, she drags her eyes open and looks into mine. But although she may see a pair of honeycomb, the same I’ve had my whole life, all I see are burst blood vessels. Milky brown irises. Emptiness. “I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” I hold her hand between mine, warming hers with my palms. “What happened?”
Tears spill through her lashes and dribble toward her pillow. “I’m sorry for everything. For doing what I did and being the reason our marriage ended.”
“We don’t have to talk about th?—”
“I’m sorry for being weak,” she croaks. “And for choosing myself when I should have chosen my family. I’m sorry for being a bad mom.”
“You’re not a—” But I swallow my lie down. I want, so fucking much, to build this woman up and help her be better. But she is a bad mom. She has actively been a bad mom. Fucking and snorting lines, while our toddler watched on. Bringing strange men into her apartment, while my three-year-old hid in the shadows. Sneaking out at night to dance at clubs and get laid, while my daughter fended for herself and thankfully, lived to talk about it once everything came out. I can’t tell her the lie, bolster her ego, and convince her that her toxic behavior is okay. “How did you end up in here, Jada?” I search her bloodshot eyes. “Who hurt you?”
“Knock knock?”
I twist in my chair and look toward the curtain at the door, scowling when a couple of uniforms wander through with loud steps and friendly smiles. They clock me instantly, my weapons, and then the badge I often keep hanging around my neck on a chain. A cop knows another cop on sight, and a single moment of seeing them tells me they didn’t expect to wander into one today.
“Uh…” The one in the front, Stevenson, according to his shirt, clears his throat. “Sorry, sir. We didn’t realize?—”
“You’re Detective er, right?” The second uniform moves closer. His face, I guess, is somewhat recognizable. Though without the insignia on his uniform, I wouldn’t be able to guess his name. “I’m Officer Hutchins. We met on a case a few months back. We, uh…” He nods toward a watchful, silent Jada. “We’ve come down to take a statement regarding Ms. Watson’s assault today.”
“Assault?” It’s not like I didn’t already see it, but I bring my eyes around and study hers. “Who assaulted you, JJ?”
“Actually,” Hutchins comes closer, stepping around the bed so we can see each other without me turning away. “We need to take a formal statement, Detective. If you could just…”
“They want you to be quiet,” Jada rasps. Still, her smile shines from somewhere deep beneath pain and bruising. “You can’t interfere.”
“We understand an ambulance brought you in at approximately four this morning,” Hutchins begins. He takes out his handy-dandy notebook and presses a pen to the paper. Then parking his ass on the only other available visitor’s chair, he leaves his colleague standing guard and feeling awkward. “Do you remember all that, Ms. Watson? Do you remember the ambulance ride?”
Fresh tears well in her eyes. But they don’t fall over. She refuses to let them. “I remember a little bit, I guess. I remember the paramedic talking to me for a minute.”
Probably for an hour, really.
But it’s clear she’s had the shit—and half her memories—kicked out of her.
“He was really nice,” she adds softly, her lips quivering. “He was very kind to me. Even though I look…” Swallowing, she looks down at herself. “Well, you know what I look like. ”
“You look fine, JJ.” I press my lips to the top of her hand. An old habit I’m not sure I’ll ever kick. But for now, while she needs me, I can be the old , and I can pretend she’s the old Jada. “You came in at four this morning? Didn’t they offer to call someone earlier than now?”
“Detective?” Hutchins prods gently. “If you could…”
I flatten my lips and hold Jada’s stare. Beneath the pain and trauma and addiction, she smiles just like she did way back when we were sixteen and wildly in love. Like my current case, we were kids back then, but we were so sure we had the world by the balls. We didn’t get pregnant at eighteen, but hell if we didn’t marry the moment we could.
We wanted to do life together.
Neither of us needed the college track, since she was heading for stage fame, and me, a career that included a badge. And the fact that we didn’t choose college meant we felt older than we actually were.
More grown.
Like we’d paid our dues and could skip a few steps.
Fat load of good that did.
“Our reports indicate you were picked up from a house, Ms. Watson. But we know you live in an apartment, nowhere near there. Can you tell us why you were there?”
“Has she done something wrong?” I’m that guy, I guess. Making a cop’s job harder as I glance up to Hutchins. “Has she committed a crime? Or is she the victim of one? Because your questioning is kinda hinting at the former.”
“We believe her to be the victim of a crime,” Stevenson inserts. “But the home she was in is under investigation relating to others.”
“But that home is not hers,” I press. “She was visiting.”
“She was visiting persons who are of interest relating to other cases.”
“Hence, she became a victim ,” I grit out. “We don’t blame someone for being hit by a car, by questioning their need to be on the road.”
“Charlie?” Jada lifts our hands and cups my cheek. It’s a kick to the guts, and yet, a gentle caress for my heart. “You need to relax. They’re trying to help me.”
“They’re trying to blame you for being assaulted!”
“They’re trying to get a picture of everything that happened. I know you’d do the same.” She drags her focus to Hutchins and gently nods, her breath catching when the movement clearly hurts her injuries. “I was at a house that has people in it who do bad things.” She licks her lips and swallows. “They sell things to people and make money doing it. ”
“What things?” Stevenson presses. He wants the word. He wants her to say it. “What things do they sell there, Ms. Watson?”
“All kinds,” she rasps. “All of the things I was never brave enough to say in front of the man who once loved me. Because he’s a cop, and those things are illegal. Guns,” she sighs, as though the admission brings her pain. “I know they sell those sometimes. And drugs, too. But not the standard kind.”
“Standard how?” Hutchins persists. “What do you consider standard?”
“Like… pot for the beginners. And cocaine for the rich.” She looks across and meets my eyes, tears glistening in hers and spilling over to dribble along her temple. “There’s a gap in the market for affordable and powerful. So they cook meth there, too.”
“Why did they hurt you, JJ? What happened?”
She only shrugs, lifting a single shoulder while the other, the one in the sling, remains still. “I didn’t have enough money to pay. And I didn’t want to go to bed with them anymore.”
My lungs spasm, sucking in a deep clutch of air as my temper boils in my veins. She was being used as a fuck doll in exchange for her next hit. Which isn’t even surprising to me, really. It’s not like I didn’t already think it. But to have it confirmed, to know the girl I once gave everything I am to, is now this… this woman who sells her body for a high, and gets the shit kicked out of her when she says no…
“JJ…” I release my breath and feel bad when the air pushes her hair back. “It didn’t have to go this way.”
“I’m sorry,” she whimpers, attempting to drop her hand. Though I reinforce my grip and hold her close. “I’m so sorry, Charlie.”
“Can you tell us who hurt you?” Stevenson speaks up again, firming his voice so he’s heard above the din of a busy hospital. “Ms. Watson? Who, exactly, did this to you?”
Her chest heaves as she cries. It’s soft. Almost silent. These aren’t the tears of a scorned woman searching for attention. But a broken woman, desperately wishing she could go back in time and do things differently.
But she chokes it down. Then she looks at Hutchins and works to firm her voice.
“My arm,” she looks down at the one in the sling. “That was a guy named Tio. And my ribs,” she looks at the other side of her body, “his name was Jorge. My face,” tears slip from her eyes and join the others on her cheeks, “I think his name was Cale. Or Gale. It sounded like that, but I never asked for clarification.”
“ Several men hurt you?” Stevenson confirms. “At least three? ”
She nods, sad and broken. “And a couple of others, too. But they were doing it because Nathan told them to.”
“Nathan?” Hutchins writes in his notebook, scribbling letters just like I’ve done a million times on the job. Rushing to get details down, but not wanting to interrupt the flow of information once a victim or informant is finally speaking. He looks up from his paper, lifting a brow in expectation. “Nathan who?”
“Booth.” Her eyes flicker to mine, almost like she thinks that name means something to me. “Nathan Booth did it. And now I want to go home.”
“Do you have somewhere you can go?” Hutchins closes his book—for now, but I know he’s not done—and sets his hands in his lap. “Can we call your parents to come pick you up?”
“She can come with me.” I hold her teary stare and nod when hers spark with something. Hope, maybe. Disappointment, possibly. “If you wanna,” I add quietly. “No pressure. But if you want to, you can come stay with me and Moo until things calm down and you’ve had time to heal.”
“I don’t want to do those things anymore, Charlie.” Her hand shakes in mine, the tremor rolling all the way down her arm and into my shoulder. “I want to get clean. Properly.”
“I’ll help you.” I press my lips to the top of her hand and hold her still. I try to take the shakes from her and hold them within myself. “I’ll call up that place again and get you back in. I’ll pay for the whole program. I’ll do anything to make sure you’re okay, JJ. For Mia,” my voice crackles. “She deserves to have her mom back.”