Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Chaney reported to Lydia as normal the next morning, but learned she was going to be working with Tonya on special projects for the next several days.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Lydia explained. “We rotate all volunteers this way. I get you for a day or two, then Tonya, then Sally, and so forth until you’ve worked with all the counselors.”
“Okay,” Chaney said, following her to the assembly room where it looked like Tonya and several other volunteers were setting up for another drive. Lydia didn’t linger and headed back to her office.
“Oh good. We can use another set of hands,” Tonya said. “We’re sorting books today. We got these donations and need to divide them into categories before we can pass what we can’t use on to other shelters.”
Tonya quickly explained what to do and Chaney began helping the other volunteers sort through the boxes, packing up what should go to domestic violence shelters, and other shelters in the state. By mid-morning they were finished and were able to clean up.
Tonya sent two of the girls to work with Sally for the afternoon. “We’re getting a shipment of clothing this afternoon. Chaney, Deidre, you go ahead and take lunch. Polly and I will take these boxes to the post office to ship them out.”
They left to go to the staff break room but ran into Roger in the hallway.
“What are you doing here?” Chaney blurted, surprised to see him out of quarantine.
He laughed at her shock. “Thought you’d seen the last of me, didn’t you, bitch? I wasn’t about to leave without giving you a parting gift.”
In a swift motion, he pulled something from his back pocket and jabbed Chaney in the stomach.
She groaned, doubling over. “Roger! No!” Her voice echoed down the hallway with his footfalls as he ran away.
Deidre shrieked her name in alarm when she fell to the floor, blood seeping into a pool all around her.
“I need Rawlins,” Chaney cried. “Find Rawlins.”
“Who?” Deidre asked, kneeling beside her, reaching for the producing object sticking out of Chaney’s stomach.
“Don’t pull it out.” Tonya dropped the boxes she carried and rushed over to her side. “Chaney, look at me, you’re going to be okay. I’m calling 911. Hang in there.”
“Why shouldn’t we pull it out?” Deidre asked.
“Because she’ll bleed out more if you do,” Tonya said. “Polly, get Hannah.”
“Right,” the other volunteer said, discarding her boxes as she ran down the hall.
“How the hell did Roger get out of isolation?” Tonya mumbled, punching in the numbers on her phone. “I thought he was leaving this morning. Ugh, hello, I need an ambulance sent to The Village immediately. We’ve had a volunteer stabbed with what looks like a handmade knife. She’s bleeding around it, we’ve left it intact, so she won’t bleed out.”
Chaney’s eyes closed and she tried to breathe softly to keep the pain at bay. She could hear running footsteps all around her and several voices, but even though they were near, they felt far away. Or maybe it was she that felt removed from the present. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was she wanted the pain to go away. She wanted the sharp object sticking in her to be gone, but she understood what Tonya had said about it, keeping her from bleeding out. The less blood she lost the better.
A cool hand was at her forehead, brushing her hair away and then she heard Hannah’s soothing voice. “Chaney, the ambulance is here. It won’t be long now.”
“Rawlins?” she murmured.
“He’s coming. He was in the ceiling of the boys’ dorm running wiring for the security system,” Hannah said. “We had to locate him.”
“Roger.” Her eyes fluttered and she tried to smile. “His parting gift.”
“I’m so sorry. He will be found,” Hannah promised. “He will be punished.”
“Better me than Josie,” Chaney said before everything went black.
The beeping sound of the vitals machine mixed with the blast of cold, sterile air woke Chaney sometime later. The pain was gone. She was glad for that. An IV stuck out of the top of her hand and it looked as if she were alone in the room. She pressed the call button on the side of the bed.
“Can I help you?” a nurse asked.
“I’d like a status on my condition please,” Chaney said, wondering where Rawlins was and if his absence meant he hadn’t been allowed with her because they weren’t related. But surely that wouldn’t be the case since he was her protector. Hank Patterson would be able to pull the necessary strings with the hospital, wouldn’t he?
“Someone will be right there.”
“Thank you.” She moved the sheet that covered her body and tried to see where she had been stabbed. However, the hospital gown was securely around her, and she was lying on it when she tried to move a pain shot through her abdomen. “Okay, that wasn’t a smart decision.”
Biting her bottom lip, she laid her head back until the pain went away. She wondered if she’d had to have surgery to repair any damage. It made sense if she did. But where was Rawlins?
She looked over at the beeping vitals monitor and saw that her heart rate and pulse looked good, but that was all she could understand. There was an IV bag, but she really wasn’t sure if she had a medicine pump for pain. Not that she needed anything. Sure, it hurt, but she wasn’t in that much pain. It had hurt worse after she’d been stabbed.
Closing her eyes, she drifted off, but was jolted awake again when the door to the room opened and a woman a few years her senior came in wearing a pair of scrubs. “Miss Daniels, I’m Dr. Pirelli. I’m the surgical resident who performed your abdominal repair. You were one lucky young woman that no vital organs were severed.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” Chaney said.
“I’m sure it doesn’t right now, but after a couple of days of bed rest, you’ll be up and as good as new,” Dr. Pirelli said, pulling over a rolling stool and sitting down beside the bed. She pulled out a color photo from her doctor’s coat pocket and showed it to her. “The shank the kid made didn’t go deep at all because the blade area was so short. We’re more worried about infection because of the unsterile material he used for the weapon, so we’re pumping you with antibiotics in your IV. We’ll keep you overnight for observation and if everything looks good, you should be able to go home after twenty-four hours.”
“So, it didn’t even nick my intestines?” Chaney asked.
“Not at all. Which is a great concern being in the abdominal region,” Dr. Pirelli said. “Like I said you were very lucky. You shouldn’t even have a scar.”
“That never even crossed my mind.”
“I want to check your wound to make sure it hasn’t started bleeding,” Dr. Pirelli said, lifting her blanket and then the gown without a problem. “It looks good.” She walked the stool backwards before standing. “I’ll let you get some rest.”
“Thank you,” Chaney said.
The door opened as Dr. Pirelli turned to leave and Rawlins came in. His hair looked damp, and he was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. Had he gone back to her condo to shower?
“Hello, doctor,” he said. “Is she doing okay?”
“Excellent. I’ll let her fill you in,” Dr. Pirelli said.
His brow arched and he came over to the chair near the bedside and sat down. “I thought I’d get back before you woke. I waited until you were in recovery and I knew you were okay before I left. I was covered in gunk from crawling in the ceiling of the boys’ dorm running wiring, getting it ready to put in the security system when Swede and the others get here from Montana.”
“Hannah said that they had a hard time finding you,” Chaney said.
“Yeah. They knew where I was essentially, they just didn’t know exactly where in the ceiling I was,” Rawlins grinned.
“That’s kinda funny,” Chaney said.
“Dr. Pirelli said you’d tell me how you’re doing?”
“Didn’t they give you an update when I came out of surgery?” Chaney asked.
“Not really. Just that you came out without any complications.”
“Roger didn’t create much of a knife when he formed his weapon,” Chaney explained. “It didn’t go that deep, so no organs were cut. I was very lucky.”
Relief washed over Rawlins, and he leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and cupping his chin in his hands. He stared at her for several minutes. “I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.”
“I can see it on your face,” she said. “Did they find Roger?”
He nodded. “He’s in jail. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He was arrested on sight as soon as the Colorado Springs men in blue arrived and found him hiding on the property. It was out of Hannah’s hands.”
Chaney nodded. “Do you think there will be a trial? I don’t want to have to testify at another trial.”
“Depends on if he’s charged and how he pleads,” Rawlins said. “The bigger question is are we calling your parents?”
“No. Please no. If we told them, I’d be forced to return to Baltimore no questions asked,” Chaney said. “One or both of them would fly out here and take me back, trial or no trial.”
“I hear you,” he said. “I was just asking what you wanted me to do. The next question is the hospital bill. I’ll see if Hank can cover it for you. We don’t want it sent to them.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” she said. “I’ll have to get a job for sure once I get back on my feet. I can’t just volunteer.”
“I’ll talk to Hank about that as well. Maybe he will have a suggestion on what you should do,” Rawlins said. “He might be able to guide you in the right direction. I better try to reach him before he leaves for DC. He said he was going to be going in a few days the last time we spoke. I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Chaney said. She closed her eyes as he left.
In the hallway, Rawlins searched for the best location to make his call. He saw a set of glass doors the led out onto a balcony and he went in that direction. It was a nice eating area for staff who worked on the floor. There were several small umbrella tables with chairs for shade. He walked over to the concrete railing and made his call, thankful when Hank answered.
“Hey, I was just thinking about you,” Hank said. “Have Swede, Taz Davila, and Viper Van Cleve arrived yet?”
“Not that I’m aware,” Rawlins said. “I’ve got some disturbing news. Chaney was stabbed at The Village by one of the male residents. She had to have minor emergency surgery but she’s fine. She’ll be up and about again in a few days.”
“How’d this happen?” Hank asked. “I thought you were there to keep an eye on her?”
“I was damn it, but I was also pre-wiring one of the dorms getting it ready for when the equipment arrived. I couldn’t be in two places at once. We really thought she was safe,” Rawlins explained. “The guy who stabbed her was in isolation waiting to be transferred to another facility when he got loose. But he isn’t the reason why I called.”
“He isn’t?”
“Chaney doesn’t want her parents knowing she’s been hospitalized which means she’ll need a way to pay for her stay,” Rawlins said.
Hank chuckled. “I get it. She’s afraid her parents will fly out here and force her back to Baltimore.”
“Precisely. Which means she wouldn’t be able to testify,” Rawlins replied.
“But she has no way of covering the bill. And since the kid who stabbed her was living at the shelter, he isn’t financially capable either,” Hank stated.
“Exactly,” Rawlins said. “And he’s been arrested.”
A sigh came over the line.
“Chaney is talking about getting a job, but she’s never held one because her parents wouldn’t hear of it. We both know it will take her years to cover this by making minimum wage if she could get a job,” he said.
“She’ll do fine. Lots of college kids start out having never worked,” Hank said. “What hospital is she in?”
Rawlins passed on the information.
“I’ll call them tomorrow and take care of it. She can work something out with me,” Hank said. “The kid’s got spunk.”
“She does,” Rawlins agreed, smiling.
By the time he got back to her room, Chaney was asleep. So, he settled in the chair and closed his eyes, trying to get some rest himself before the rounds of night check ins started and neither one of them got any sleep.
Chaney was released mid-morning the following day and Rawlins took her home to start recuperating. He got her settled on the sofa with the TV remote and made her lunch before he left to go meet up with the Montana Crew at The Village to get them started on installing the security equipment.
“If you need me, I’m only a phone call away,” Rawlins said.
“I’ll be fine,” Chaney assured him. “I’ve got everything I need right here. I’ll eat, take a nap and you’ll be back.”
He nodded. “I wish I could call Rafferty and Justus and have them come over.”
“No. I don’t want to bother them,” she said. “Besides, I don’t want Justus to know about me volunteering at The Village or thinking about changing my major. I don’t want to share any of this with Justus until I’m positive that this is what I’m doing.”
“And what will get you any more positive?” he asked. “I thought this was settled.”
“Being left alone,” she teased.
“Oh, is that so?” he asked.
“Yes. Now go, so you can hurry back.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m out of here.” He headed toward the door but looked back over his shoulder and grinned at her before opening the door.
“Good,” she said. As soon as the door closed, she swung her legs off the sofa and slowly got up and hobbled to the bathroom. Her side had started hurting and she’d been afraid of what it meant, but surely not. It hadn’t happened for a while now.
But the answer was clear as soon as she pulled her pants down. She’d gotten her first period since the implant had been removed. It had taken almost two months longer than the doctors had said. And here she was downstairs, and her supplies were upstairs.
“Darn it,” she grumbled. She reached for her phone and called Rawlings.
“Hey, what is it? Miss me already?”
“Hate to bother you, but I need something from my bathroom upstairs. Are you too far away?”
“No. Haven’t pulled away from the drive yet. Was answering a text message. What do you need?”
She took a deep breath. “This is embarrassing. But I’m just going to come out and say it. I got my period. I have a box of pads under the sink in my bathroom. Can you bring the box down for me? I think there is a heating pad under there as well if you can bring that too?”
“You got it. Anything else?”
“No. I don’t need you rifling through my panty drawer if that is what you’re asking.”
“Hell no!”
She laughed. “Good. Because I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
The call ended and she laid the phone on the end of the counter and waited for him to appear at the door. She heard footsteps above and then on the stairs before a tap came at the door and it opened a small enough crack for him to stick his arm inside with the box of pads.
“Toss it,” she said. “I’ll catch.”
He did and luckily, she caught it.
“I’m hooking up the heating pad for you on the sofa, then I’m really gone unless you need something else,” he said after he closed the door back again.
“I think I’m good,” she replied. “Thank you. And sorry for having to ask.”
“I’ve had to make runs to the store for those before. I’ve got a mom and sister, and they made Rafferty and me go get them on purpose so we wouldn’t be embarrassed by it.”
“Your mom sounds like an awesome woman,” Chaney said.
“She is. You’ll like her I’m sure,” he said. “Gotta run.”
I’ll like her?
What was that supposed to mean? Chaney wasn’t sure how to take his comment and she sure didn’t want to read more into it than him saying she’d like his mother if she met her. Not that he was saying she was going to meet her. She sure didn’t think he meant that at all.
She took care of her business and stowed the box under the sink before hobbling back out to the sofa where he’d left the heating pad plugged up for her to use. If he only knew how painful the first days of her periods were, he’d know how much she appreciated having this heating pad to put to her back. She settled on the sofa and finished eating her lunch before she was disturbed by her cellphone ringing.
“Good gravy,” she muttered. It was her mother. She plastered a smile on her face before she answered the call. “Hello, mom. What a surprise.”
“Chaney, dear. We hadn’t heard from you, and it had been over a week so we thought we should call to check on you,” her mother said.
“Sorry. I’ve been very busy. Was I supposed to call you?” Chaney said.
“Yes. Your father gave you a time frame to respond,” her mother said. “And what have you been so busy with?”
“I got a job,” Chaney said.
“A what!” Her mother, gasping for air as she was hyperventilating, came across the phone.
“You heard me. I got a J-O-B. Job. It’s where you work for a living. I have to be able to afford food and tuition if you aren’t going to support me any longer,” Chaney said. “Two can play at your game, Mother.”
“Webster!” Her mother yelled her father’s name into the phone and almost busted her eardrum in the process. The sound of her mother’s heels clicking across the marble floor as she rushed to her father’s study was evident across the phone line.
The fact that Chaney wasn’t getting paid, and she was only a volunteer were not facts that she was going to share with her parents. As long as they thought she was supporting herself it would drive them crazy. It was apparent it had put her mother into a tailspin. She couldn’t reach her father’s side fast enough to tell him what Chaney had done.
“Calm yourself, Mother. You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t,” Chaney warned.
“We never expected you to get a J– Oh, Webster, it’s deplorable,” her mother cried.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Murmured whispers came over the line before her father cleared his throat and took the phone from her mother.
“Chaney, what is the meaning of this? You can’t possibly have gotten a job. Who in their right mind would hire a girl with no experience.”
“Well, dad, they do things differently in Colorado,” Chaney said. “If there is nothing else, I need to go. I have lots to do. It is my day off.”
And with that she ended the call. She thought it would make her feel good to do that to them, but it didn’t. Instead, she felt sad. She’d lied. She didn’t do that to her parents. She might not like how they did things and she’d come all this way to Colorado to get away from them, but she didn’t lie. She didn’t have a job that paid her a wage. In fact, she was in debt because she still had no way to pay for her hospital stay.
Sinking down on the sofa, she pulled the heating pad from behind her and turned it off for now. Then plumped her pillow and tried to go to sleep. But she wasn’t comforted. She felt bad and tears streamed down her cheeks, soaking the pillow. She cried until she couldn’t and then she fell asleep.
Rawlins arrived at The Village at the same time a tan F150 crew cab truck with Wyoming plates did and suspected that this was the Brotherhood Protectors team that Hank Patterson had sent. He parked his F5 in a staff spot and went to where the men were getting out. All were relatively tall from six four to six feet in height with salt and pepper hair, brown black hair, to blond. There was no doubt in his mind that the latter was Swede.
“Welcome guys,” Rawlins said. “I’m so glad you are here.”
“You must be Rawlins?” the shorter of the trio said. “I’m Taz.”
“I’m Viper,” the taller of the men said.
“Nice to meet you all,” Rawlins said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get all the wiring run like I was supposed to before you arrived, but my assignment, Chaney, was stabbed yesterday so I’ve been at the hospital with her. They just released her, and I got her settled at home before rushing over to meet back up with you guys.”
“Is she okay?” Swede asked.
“She is. Thankfully, the blade wasn’t long on the homemade weapon the guy used,” Rawlins explained.
“Was that related to the trial?” Taz asked.
“No. A male resident where she was volunteering got bent out of shape over the fact that he was being moved to a different facility,” Rawlins said. “He blamed Chaney for it because she tried to prevent him from harming a female resident.”
“Bad luck seems to follow her, doesn’t it?” Swede shook his head. “Okay, let’s see what we need to do to finish up running the wire and what we can get started on this afternoon. Because I have a feeling Rawlins may need to get back to Chaney as soon as he can if she is all alone.”
They all climbed back into the truck and Rawlins showed them how to drive around to the back of the facility to get to the male dorm. They unloaded the equipment and stored it in both dorms before getting to work in the male dorm.
“I was almost finished in the ceiling,” Rawlins explained.
“Okay. You and Taz get to work on that while Viper and I start working with the panels and surveillance camera points,” Swede suggested.
Rawlins retrieved the ladder and wiring supplies from the janitors’ closet, and he took Taz with him to the location where he’d exited the ceiling the day before. “How do you like living in Montana?”
“Love it. I met my wife Hannah there,” Taz said.
“That has to be a plus,” Rawlins said.
“Hank said you work for Kenneally out of Virginia. You’re one of the Lone Wolf guys,” Taz said.
“Yeah. Except I work with my twin on cases. So, I guess you could say we are the exception to how Kenneally’s men work alone,” Rawlins replied.
“Twin. Are you identical?”
“Almost. His face is rounder and mine is slimmer. His name is Rafferty,” Rawlins said.
Taz chuckled. “Brown hair, brown eyes, even facial hair?”
“Yes.” Rawlins leaned the ladder into place and started climbing up the ladder to move the tile away so they could move into the ceiling. “We were named after our grandmother’s families.”
“Lucky for your parents they both started with the letter R then,” Taz said.
“Yep.” Rawlins pulled out his small flashlight and stuck the end in his mouth as he began crawling through the ceiling dragging the wire.
“It’s very dusty up here, that means bad ventilation,” Taz mused.
“Mm hum,” Rawlins mumbled around the flashlight.
“The female dorm looks newer. I hope it has a better set up,” Taz added.
They got to work and finished running the wiring before heading back down to where Swede and Viper were working. The two men laughed when they saw them.
“What have you been doing? Rolling around in dust bunnies?” Viper asked.
“Not funny,” Taz retorted. “There’s lots of dust in that ceiling. The ventilation is bad up there.”
“You’ll have to shower before we go to dinner then,” Swede told him.
“I’ve got no problem with that,” Taz said. “You going to join us, Rawlins?”
“I better not. I should check on Chaney.”
“Bring her along if she’s up for it,” Swede said. “We’ve done all we can do here today. We’ll start early in the morning.”
“I’ll see,” Rawlins said. “Give me your number.”
Swede did and they stowed their gear before leaving for the day. As Rawlins walked to his car he tried to dust himself off the best he could, not wanting to get his new car dirty. He took a quick detour into the main building, hoping if he visited the men’s room, he might be able to shake some of the dust off his clothes before getting in the car.
He went to the staff restroom where he could lock the door and strip off his clothes and shake them good before putting them back on. He also ran his fingers through his hair to get as much of the dust out of it and washed his face and beard as well as he could. By the time he emerged he looked much better. But he’d still have to toss his clothes in the wash with ones from the day before when he got home to have a clean set for work tomorrow. And grab a hot shower for sure. That was the only thing that would make him not feel like he was going to itch to death right now.
He also needed a breathing treatment. Two days in those ceilings and his lungs were protesting. He dug into his utility belt for his inhaler and shook it before putting it to his lips and pumping. He closed his eyes as he inhaled.
He hoped Taz was right and that the girls’ dorm was not as dusty because their ventilation system was must better. It should be with the building not being any older than it was.
Finally, he got into the F5, started the engine and turned on the AC to full blast to cool the car down as he headed toward the Interstate and Chaney. He hoped she had been able to sleep while he was gone and was feeling somewhat better than she had when he left. He remembered how sour his mom and sister could be during their monthly, so he didn’t know how Chaney might be with hers. He could walk into a shitstorm when he returned. That on top of having just been stabbed. He really hoped he was prepared for that.