Chapter Eleven
Something had gone wrong.
It was the first thought Darius had before he opened his eyes, and it was only reinforced when he took in the room around him.
He was at the hospital.
Well, in the hospital.
A dull pain radiated up his left arm. A little pinch at his hand too.
He couldn’t see the bag or its label at the top of the IV pole, but he recognized the sound of digital monitors beeping.
Over the last seven years or so, members of the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department had been in and out of the hospital multiple times because of one case or another.
The hospital staff already knew most of them from living in such a confined area, but by now most had gone from a polite hello to the doctors and nurses to an easy first-name-basis chat.
However, in the last seven years, Darius hadn’t been a patient. Only a visitor and a detective on the job.
He’d never been a patient who had, he guessed, gone through some sort of surgery.
Darius looked down his left side. Instead of wearing a shirt, there were various bandages stuck to and wrapped around his arm, chest and shoulder.
He also guessed his ribs had a wrap, but he couldn’t confirm it visually. A blanket was wrapped around him.
On top of that blanket a hand rested on his thigh.
There was a small bandage and tape holding an IV to the back of the hand.
Darius followed the tube with his eyes until he had to turn his head slightly to his right.
Someone was in the hospital bed with him, body pressed along the side of his, head laid back with the incline of the bed, and mouth wide open.
Darius must have been coming off some medication.
It took him way too long to worry about Eve.
He was glad that once his brain caught up to worry, she was already there with him.
She was resting above his blankets and wearing a hospital gown that stopped at her calves. Her rainbow socks were gone.
Darius continued tracing the plastic tube from her IV to the metal pole standing on the other side of the bed. He moved his head slightly to get a better view of the reason she needed it in the first place.
Eve had been shot. He knew the moment it happened because a pain he had never known before tore through him the second she had fallen against him. It wasn’t until he had been in the room below the residence hall that he had guessed the same bullet had gone into him too.
He hadn’t cared then. He didn’t care now either.
Bandages peeked out of the top of Eve’s gown, but he couldn’t get a good view of how much of her was covered. Darius’s own IV tube pulled as he gently moved the collar of her gown away a little.
There were no ulterior motives in the move—simply the need to see proof that it wasn’t as bad as he had imagined at the time.
Eve didn’t stir at the adjustment.
However, someone else did.
Theo stood from a chair near the foot of the hospital bed. There was a couch on the wall next to them. It was occupied by another sleeping woman. Winnie had a blanket wrapped around her.
Theo had a look of panic wrapped around him.
He put his finger to his lips and hurried over to Darius’s side.
“Literally both of them just fell asleep,” Theo whispered, so close that Darius could smell coffee on the boy’s breath. “If you can, keep it down.”
Normally, Darius would have been a little grumpy at the command, but it was obvious what had happened wasn’t exactly normal. Darius took his advice to heart. He turned his head slowly, trying not to move Eve in the process. He waited a beat to make sure he succeeded in the attempt.
He only spoke once he confirmed her breathing was even.
“What time is it?”
Darius’s mouth was dry. His throat hurt a little too. He managed to keep his voice low despite the uncomfortable feeling.
Theo didn’t need to look at his phone or find a clock.
“Just after three in the morning. You’ve been out since yesterday.” He frowned. “You lost a lot of blood. You had to have surgery too.” His finger hovered next to the bandage on Darius’s shoulder. “They had to dig a bullet out of you.”
Darius understood why he was running slower now. He really was medicated. It explained the haze and the dull pain.
“I’m guessing they got it out?”
Theo nodded.
He pointed to Darius’s side.
“You have some pretty intense bruising around there—we guess where you took the impact from the fall through the floor—and there’s also some bad gashes around your thigh area. But other than where you were shot, there’s no stitches. At least, the doctor didn’t tell us if there were.”
When he said the word us, his gaze went to Winnie on the couch.
Darius waited for him to look back before asking the part of the situation he didn’t understand.
“What about her? Eve. Is she okay?”
Theo nodded again.
“The bullet that lodged into you went through her first, but she got lucky at the angle,” he said. “It went clear through and didn’t do any permanent damage. The doctor even clocked her recovery time at a few weeks as long as she takes her antibiotics.”
Anger seared through Darius.
Eve being shot hadn’t been lucky in his book.
Not at all.
“The man who did it?” he asked, jaw clenching.
Theo lowered his voice just a bit more.
“Died instantly. Never had a chance to shoot his gun again.”
It hadn’t been the first time Darius had had to take a life in the line of duty. That didn’t mean he was used to it. But seeing as how the man had made the first move—that move being to shoot Eve—he wasn’t overly upset about it.
“What about the second shooter? The woman.”
“A woman carjacked Mr. Gleason at the gas station next to the mill around the time I got down to you and Eve. They caught her on camera and have an APB out on her and the car.” He shook his head. “So far nothing, but the entire department is on it.”
The last thing Darius remembered before blacking out was being in the dark with Eve in a tunnel beneath the residence hall. His eyebrow raised in question.
“When you got down to us?”
Theo went from frowning to brandishing a sheepish smile. He pulled at his earlobe in a fidgeting gesture.
“I kind of followed you yesterday morning.”
Darius almost tilted his head to the side at that.
“You followed us… What do you mean?”
Eve had gone back out of his bedroom window the morning before while Darius had gone through the house, acting like everything was normal. He hadn’t seen Theo at all.
That sheepish smile grew a little.
“Winnie convinced me to run a half-marathon with her in a few months, so I’ve been training before breakfast. I was out running and came back in time to see a lady coming out of your window.
I almost said something until I realized it was Miss Myers.
I, uh, hid to see what she was up to. Then when you came out and got into your truck with her…
I got curious.” His smile dropped. “I would have gotten to you sooner, but by the time I got out to the road, I had to guess where you’d gone.
I guessed the right direction, and when I heard the first shots, I was close enough to the back-road turn. Sorry.”
Darius wasn’t sure why he was apologizing.
He said as much.
“It sounds like I should be thanking you. I’m guessing the second shooter took off because you showed up. You get us out of that room too?”
Theo looked pleased, even though he shook his head.
“I called Dad and EMTs before going down there to check on you.” He motioned in Eve’s direction.
“I tried to get her out first, but she refused to even try until you could come with her. Lucky for all of us that Rose’s husband was close to us.
He was the one who helped get you up the ladder we got from the main building. ”
James was Seven Roads’s only mechanic. He was also a muscled mountain of a man. If there was anyone who could get Darius as dead weight up a ladder, it was definitely him.
Still, he didn’t overlook what had been Theo’s obvious effort.
“Thank you,” Darius said, “for helping to get us.”
Theo’s cheeks turned a little red. He waved a dismissive hand through the air.
“Just trying to be a good tenant to my landlord is all. It was no biggie.”
They finally got to the part of the conversation that was, indeed, a biggie. Darius knew that Theo felt it too. He cleared his throat but managed to stay as quiet as he had been.
His gaze moved to Eve.
“She wouldn’t tell me—or anyone—why you two were there at the steel mill,” he said. “All she would say is that you were the one who needed to answer the questions. Dad got mad at her, but I think that was more because of Scott Keys.”
Darius felt that anger rise in him again.
Before they had been attacked, he had finally put together that Eve wasn’t interested in Mitchell but rather his brother.
And not in a romantic way.
He hadn’t had time to consider what was actually going on.
“Scott Keys? What was he doing?”
Theo rolled his eyes.
“Kicking up a fuss so loud that Dad and Blake had to pull in some lawyers.”
That didn’t make sense. Why was Scott kicking up a fuss at the sheriff when it seemed like the sheriff was the one also trying to find the bad guy? Theo must have picked up on the question. He answered it without Darius having to ask. Though, there was some hesitation in it.
“Mr. Keys seems to think that Miss Myers has an intimate relationship with you…and that’s causing some issues.”
Darius felt his eyes widen.
“An intimate relationship,” he repeated.
Theo nodded.
“And he doesn’t even know about the whole sneaking-out-of-your-window thing yesterday morning either.”
It was Darius’s turn to roll his eyes.
“I’m not having an affair with Eve,” he started. “And even if I were, us getting attacked at the steel mill while there’s still a homicide investigation going on doesn’t really fit into a sexy rendezvous scenario, does it?”
“That’s what Dad said too, but Mr. Keys still seemed pretty mad. Winnie pulled me back to the waiting room while they left to go to the department, so I’m not sure how that all resolved. No one has been here to see either one of you except us and Mitchell since visiting hours ended.”
In all the information dump, Darius had forgotten to wonder where Eve’s fiancé—real or fake—currently was.
And why Eve herself was in his bed.
Thankfully, Theo kept his answering streak going.
“Miss Myers’s room is next door, and Mitchell Keys was in there sleeping last I saw.
She said that he knew where she was when she came in here an hour or so ago and that it was okay.
” That sheepish look came back. “I worried about her getting into bed with you and also that Mr. Keys would be mad, but Miss Myers told me something that made Winnie give me The Look. You know, the don’t-ask-any-more-questions look.
They fell asleep not too long after that. ”
Darius noted the boy’s cheeks had reddened again.
“She said something to you, the pragmatic one, that made you think it was okay for her to hop into my hospital bed while we both are injured and one of us in engaged to a very rich, well-connected man?” Darius had a hard time with that one.
Winnie he could see letting it slide because she had, no doubt, picked up on the fact that Darius and Eve were close.
Or had been close.
But Theo?
He usually took a lot more convincing. Which was why Darius wasn’t surprised or all that offended that the boy had followed them the day before.
Now he shrugged a little and nodded to Eve.
“She said you were hers,” he said, matter-of-factly. “And between us, she was very convincing.”
THE YOUNG MAN named Theo had a nice voice that would have been good for narrating books or hosting podcasts. At first, Eve accepted his whisper-talking in tandem with Darius’s deep drone like it was white noise.
Which was good, considering she felt she was still in need of a mighty nap.
Only when that white noise became words she could follow did she remember where she was.
And who had finally woken up.
Excitement nearly made Eve open her eyes to detail out as much of Darius as she could before slinging a barrage of questions his way. How was he feeling? Did his shoulder hurt? What about his side? Did he want water? Did he need a doctor?
She managed to keep the desire to a thought only.
She liked Theo for what he had done, but Eve still wasn’t ready to let him into the secret.
The secret she was finally ready to tell Darius, despite swearing to keep him and anyone else out of it.
While the two men spoke quietly at her side, Eve took a chance and moved slightly. When no one reacted, she used her hand’s new position to place her thumb against Darius’s leg. She applied a quick three pulses of pressure.
The man didn’t move a muscle.
Did he not get the hint?
A few moments passed by, Eve readied to do it again, but Darius apparently had understood the assignment.
“Hey, why don’t you go ahead and take Winnie home?” he said when their conversation paused. “I know for a fact that those couches are uncomfortable as all get-out, and since I’m clearly okay now, there’s no reason for her to suffer on it and for you to do the same on a chair.”
There was some initial pushback at the suggestion.
That pushback doubled when Winnie herself was woken.
It was obvious that neither of them wanted to leave, but eventually Darius won out with a compromise.
They would leave for only a little while, get some sleep and be back as soon as visiting hours started again.
No discussions happened past that.
Theo and Winnie said hushed good-byes before their quiet footfalls finally left the room.
The second the door closed, Eve opened her eyes.
It was no surprise that Darius was already looking at her.
“Climbing through windows and climbing into beds,” he said. “I’m almost scared to see what habit you’ll pick up next.”
Eve suppressed an eye roll.
Mainly because there had been a specific reason why she was there now. It wasn’t just concern.
It was necessity.
And she cut right to the chase.
“We need to get our stories on the same page right now,” she said.
Darius’s dark brow rose.
“About the real reason you’re with Mitchell Keys,” he guessed.
She nodded.
“And why I think it’s time I officially ask for your help.”