Chapter 4
“Hello?”
“Fullwood. We need you down here at Rose County Med,” Lieutenant Oliver Edwards demanded over the phone.
I glanced at the clock and noticed that it was a few minutes after six. Dragging my hands down my face, I asked, “Is everything okay? I’m off today, Lieu. Besides, I just worked a double.”
“Fullwood, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. We’re at the ER. Get your ass down here now!” he barked in the phone.
I scowled and shook my head. I removed my other boxing glove that I’d been using for my workout with my best friend, Blake, who owned Concrete Gym & Fitness.
“Everything good?” Blake asked, releasing the punching bag and watching me unwrap my fists.
Shaking my head, I replied, “Nah. I don’t know what it is, but it’s serious. That was Lieu telling me to come down to Rose County.”
“The hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but the fact that he wouldn’t tell me what it is has me worried as hell. Catch you tomorrow evening. Same time?” I asked, grabbing my gym bag.
“Yeah. Keep me posted,” Blake called out after me as I headed for the doors.
The cool evening air hit me like a blast in the face, instantly cooling my temperature down from where it had been. I had worked up a sweat in the last forty-five minutes that I had been working out.
I hopped in my truck and turned the station on to Chris Perry and let his music blast as I made the fifteen-minute drive in nine minutes.
I didn’t bother to park since Lieutenant made it such an urgent thing.
When I saw all the cars parked in the parking lot, my stomach clenched, and I immediately became nervous.
I pushed through the emergency room doors and looked around for my people.
It wasn’t hard to spot us when the lobby was filled with my brothers and sisters in blue.
I almost missed the sympathetic look in their eyes when I stepped inside and walked over to them.
It told me that this emergency had something to do with me, but I couldn’t fathom what it might be.
I searched the room looking for Lena, who I knew would tell me what was going on, but I didn’t see her.
It was her day off too. She was probably on the way over to the hospital now.
I thought about my parents, and I knew they were safe. I had spoken with them on my way to the gym. They were at home cooking dinner. I thought about Asad and Amani briefly. Before I could make a call, Lieutenant was heading my way.
“Hey, Lieu. Wassup?”
“We’ve been trying to call you for hours.”
“I was working out. I didn’t have my phone on me until I moved from one side of the gym to the other. What’s going on, Lieu?” I asked, looking around.
“It’s Lena.”
My heart stopped.
“What do you mean, ‘it’s Lena’?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“She was shot this evening and rushed here.”
“Shot? By who? She was off duty today.” I would have known if she was called in to work another shift.
“Her husband, Paul.”
The blood drained from my body and the oxygen from my lungs.
I whirled around searching my brothers’ faces and waiting for someone to say this was a cruel joke.
But all I saw was sympathy from my sisters and brothers in blue.
There was a crowd of us here. I wouldn’t be lying if I said there were well over fifty of us crowded into the emergency room.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in custody, but it’s not looking good, Fullwood,” Lieutenant explained, his tone softening as he gripped my shoulder.
“Where is she? I need to see her.”
“She’s in surgery. The only thing that we can do is be patient, wait for the doctor to come out and give us an update, and pray.”
I paced back and forth, unable to believe what he was telling me.
Lena had procrastinated about telling Paul that she was leaving him.
For two weeks, she used the excuse that he was busy with work and couldn’t meet her, or he was only available when she was working.
Paul had left town on a couple of business trips.
Now here we were a month from when she told me that she was pregnant, and she had finally confronted him alone, putting herself and my baby at risk.
“What is he saying, Lieu?”
“He’s not talking. Paul has lawyered up.
The only thing that we know is that she called him over.
There were text messages in her phone asking him to come over because she had something to discuss with him.
He called her minutes after the text went out, and their call lasted six minutes and fifty-two seconds.
We found the divorce papers on the floor next to her body when we arrived. ”
I found a corner where I could get away from the others and quietly prayed to God.
Quite a few officers found me after I finished, to let me know they had my back and they would make sure that Paul paid for what he had done.
There were encouraging words about her being strong and how she would make it through this.
After all, Lena was a fighter, and no one expected less than that.
I thought about the last time we were together privately, which was a couple of days ago. We had gone back to the motel that we often spent time at and watched movies and held each other. We hadn’t even had sex that night. We had simply discussed potential names for our unborn son.
The motel was the safest place for us, because it was on the outskirts of town.
Both of our places were off-limits because while we were partners, there was a certain familiarity about showing up at each other’s house.
We didn’t want anyone to uncover our truth and create problems for her career or our relationship with our fellow officers.
There was a flurry of movement at the edge of the waiting room, and that was the minute that I looked up and saw a small room off from the lobby.
Frosted glass on the window and a door provided privacy for its occupants, and when the surgeon walked into the room, I caught my first glimpse of who was inside—Lena’s mother, Joanna Jones, and Lena’s sister and brother.
I stood and quickly made my way over there, arriving at the same time the door opened again. The surgeon overlooked me and beckoned to my lieutenant.
I stepped forward, and the surgeon frowned and stretched his hand out as if he were going to stop me. “Only family and the lieutenant, please.”
“I’m family,” I growled, shoving his hand away from me.
“He’s her partner,” Lieutenant Edwards declared.
“He’s family,” Mrs. Jones confirmed, looking at me with a soft smile.
The surgeon nodded and held the door open for me to step inside. He looked around at us, and my heart stopped beating. No words needed to be spoken when the message was written all over his face and in his eyes.
“Mrs. Jones, I’m sorry. We did everything that we could to save her, but the damage from the bullet was just too extensive. We exhausted every effort to save her and the baby.”
Although I was numb inside, I immediately went into action the minute Mrs. Jones’s body buckled sideways as though she were about to fall off the chair. I grabbed her, and she held me tightly and cried.
“Baby?” my lieutenant and Lena’s siblings asked at the same time.
“Yes. She was pregnant,” the surgeon confirmed.
I had no words to offer, no comfort, or anything of value.
I was an empty shell of a man, and all I wanted was to be alone.
I had lost my woman, my partner, and my child.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t walk away at the moment.
So, I remained in place as her mother cried inconsolably over the loss of her daughter and her grandchild.
The surgeon continued to speak, but I ignored his words as I held Mrs. Jones and rocked her softly. When she finally finished crying, she turned back to the surgeon who looked uncomfortable and ready to leave.
The lieutenant stepped up and took her hand, and I stepped back.
“Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do,” the surgeon stated.
“May I see her, please?” I asked.
“Yes. You may. Mrs. Jones, would you like to go see her?”
“Not yet. I can’t,” she cried out, and my lieutenant held her close.
I followed the surgeon out of the room as Lieutenant Edwards spoke about what a wonderful officer Lena was. He didn’t even know the half of it. Not that any of it would bring her daughter back.
“She’s in here,” the surgeon stated, opening a set of double doors for me after we walked down a long hallway.
Lena looked like she was sleeping peacefully like she often did when we would hole up in hotels for a couple of days at a time.
My hands were shoved in my pockets as I stared down at her. I didn’t want to touch her, not because I was afraid. I had touched plenty of dead people in my career. It was because I worried that when I did, she wouldn’t open her eyes and speak to me the way she always had in the past.
She wouldn’t wake up and smile at me, as she held her arms up for me to pull her into mine. Her eyes would remain closed, and the finality of that would break me.
But after several minutes of staring at her and talking about nothing in particular, I reached out and stroked her hair. My hand gradually moved to caress her cheek. She wasn’t cold yet, but the warmth that remained wasn’t the same warmth that generally radiated from her when I touched her.
“I should’ve been there with you. I swear that he’s going to pay for what he did to you. If it takes every breath in my body, I will vindicate you and Rohan.”
I shook my head as I stretched my hand forward and rested it on her belly. That was when the tears came, because I knew that the life that had once been there was gone, along with Lena’s. Rohan, the son we were expecting, was no more.
It took minutes before I calmed down. I leaned forward, pressed my lips against her cooler ones, and kissed her one final time. I broke down crying again as I laid my head on her chest. No heartbeat, no warm breath, nothing.
“Oh, Lena.” I sobbed softly in the room, unable to express my love for her amongst my peers.
I heard voices in the hallway, and I forced myself off her and wiped my tears. Three deep inhales and long exhales were all I needed to gather my composure.
I pressed a kiss to my fingertips and then to her lips. “Goodbye, sweet Lena.”
I stepped out into the hallway as Lieutenant Edwards, the surgeon, and Mrs. Jones stepped up to the door. Not bothering to say anything, I rushed past them and back to the lobby. My fellow officers were stunned, and some were even crying, men and women alike.
“I’m sorry, Fullwood,” Officer Cal Bell stated, gripping my shoulder.
“My condolences, Deuce,” Officer Nona Black professed, grabbing my hand.
There were several other responses similar to that one, and I became numb against the well wishes and offers of sympathy.
I didn’t want to hear any of that. No one knew how deep my pain ran. They wouldn’t begin to understand that losing Lena was much more than losing a partner. I had lost my best friend, my lover, and my first love.
The cold wind hit me like a blast in the face. I walked past my truck that was still double parked at the entrance of the ER. I walked past the dozens of other police cars congregated outside, some with officers and others not.
I walked past the emergency vehicles and visitor cars that came and went, and kept walking until I was off the hospital campus and on the main road. I had no idea where I was going nor how I would get back to my vehicle. Truthfully, I didn’t give a shit.
I walked and walked until the medical complex turned into a business complex and that turned into a shopping area and that became an area full of restaurants.
I walked until the rain turned from a light sprinkle to a downright pour.
In my mind, I replayed our last conversation over and over.
I had no idea that it would be my last. I racked my brain, and I wondered if I had told her that I loved her. I had, and she had told me the same.
I looked up and realized that I was several blocks from the hospital, but only five minutes by car. My home wasn’t that far either. I was closer to my house than I was the hospital. I would walk the last six blocks until I reached my neighborhood and go back to get my truck in the morning.
In a daze, I stepped out into the street.
I heard the screech of tires and a horn blowing.
I didn’t care. Maybe I could be taken away, too, and I would never feel the full impact of losing them.
Maybe if I were killed, I could avoid the pain of devastating, soul crushing grief.
I was afraid to face the days, weeks, and months to come without Lena.
But the moment that I looked into that woman’s eyes staring at me through the windshield, I couldn’t do that to a stranger. She didn’t need my death on her hands. I jumped back, but the car was already spinning into the opposite lane in the path of an oncoming truck.
The truck was moving too fast for it to be able to brake in time, and the car couldn’t steer out of the way fast enough. My heart squeezed as I watched the Mack truck slam into the car and spin it around several times before it faced oncoming traffic again.
I rushed to the middle of the road to see if I could assist, while pulling my phone from my pocket to call the accident in. I wouldn’t leave the scene but would remain there until help arrived.
No sooner than I was able to get inside of the car, I knew the man was dead, but there might be hope for the woman yet. One night. Two dead. All because of my actions.