Chapter 18
RIGGS
Three Weeks Later
Imoved my foot.
The left one.
Might not seem like a big deal but I gotta be honest, when I saw it jerk after staring at it and concentrating so hard I was sure I was going to pop a blood vessel somewhere, I felt like crying.
“Everything looks good, Mr. Wheeler,” Dr. Merrick says, looking up from my chart with a satisfied smile.
“Your latest set of films show that swelling at the L2 and L1 are finally lessening which is allowing your implants to communicate with your brain at a more consistent rate.” To prove her point, Dr. Merrick presses the tip of her pen into the sole of my foot and it instantly begins to tingle.
“The implant acts as a relay system, bridging the gap between your brain and the nerve receptors that were damaged in your accident.”
“I think if you asked whoever dropped that building on us, they’d tell you it was very much not an accident, Doc,” I tell her, with a tight, humorless smile while I battle back the temper that threatens to overtake me.
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand and I can’t be angry at her for that because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. What I signed up for. I signed up to know so that people like her would never have a clue.
“Of course.” Offering me a small, contrite smile, Dr. Merrick shakes her head.
“I’m used to dealing with accidental trauma.
What happened to you and your unit was very intentional.
I apologize if I misspoke.” Before I can apologize for being a dick, she presses the tip of her pen even harder into the sole of my foot and drags it upward.
The pressure of it causes my foot to tingle before it jerks.
“Involuntary responses are coming online.” Looking up from my foot, she nods her approval.
“As long as you’re willing to work for it, all signs point to a full recovery. ”
Looking around the room, I find my mom, sitting in the chair next to my hospital bed, tears glistening in her eyes.
Reese standing by the door in her deputy’s uniform, a look of stark relief on her face that tells me no matter how sure she sounded when she called me a few weeks ago to harass me into saying yes to the surgery, she had her doubts.
“Thanks, Doc.” Throat thick with emotion, I clear it. “Now what?”
Making a few notations on my chart, the doctor returns my smile while she flips it closed.
“Now we discharge you and the real work begins.” Dropping her pen into her coat pocket, she looks at my mom.
“The aftercare specialist has assured me that you’ve secured placement that meets ADA requirements and that the VA is providing wraparound services, including occupational and physical therapy. ”
“Yes.” Throwing a quick look at Reese who’s still hovering by the door, my mom lifts a hand to brush her fingertips across her cheek. Giving the doctor a reassuring smile, she nods. “Everything’s ready to go when Riggs is.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Merrick bobs her head on her way to the door. “Then let’s get that paperwork started and get you out of here.”
There are two rehab facilities near the hospital.
The one in Barrett is good enough for what it is.
Decent food. Staff that, even if overworked, care about their patients.
The fancy one in Clearwater boasts a Michelin starred chef and a strict, 1:2 staff to client ratio.
An indoor pool and on-call massage therapists.
No way the VA is going to pay for a place like that, so when Reese takes a left out of the hospital parking lot and aims her car at the bridge that will take us to Barrett, I’m not surprised.
Watching the scenery slip by from the back seat of the car, I half listen while my mom and Reese catch up—what it’s like to be a cop in the town she grew up in. How much my mom likes living within walking distance to the ocean.
Exiting the bridge, I spot the Mill, coming up on my right, Directly across from it is a lone, towering oak tree.
Town lore says it was planted by Eugene Barrett when he founded Barrett Creek and opened the mill, over a hundred years ago.
I can see the ugly, deep gash hammered into its trunk from here.
When they see it, my mom and Reese go quiet for a moment.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it on the news,” my mom says, finally breaking the silence. “Things like that don’t happen in places like Barrett.”
“They do when you’ve got a psycho like Ethan Pryce running around,” Reese says, her tone flat and hard. A reminder that Ethan very nearly killed her father and that he almost got away with it. Probably would have if Ethan’s brother, Jensen, hadn’t stopped him.
Reaching out to pat Reese on the arm, my mom makes a soft, sympathetic sound in the back of her throat. “Dr. Merrick seems like she’s recovered nicely.”
“Sloane’s a fighter.” Laughing a little, Reese shakes her head. “She saved my dad and then she drove her damn car into the Barrett Oak to save River and Jen—she’s Mike freakin’ Tyson as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ve never met River, have I…”
Leaving them to their conversation, I tune them out.
Shifting my gaze, I aim it out the window on the opposite side of the car, just in time to watch the Mill pass by.
The front door is propped open with a rock and there’s a primer gray Challenger parked in the gravel lot.
Next to it is an old, topless jeep. Just as we’re passing by, someone steps out onto the porch.
A man wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Dark hair, way past regs.
More than a little ink covering both hands, neck, and most of his arms. Kicking his makeshift door stop loose, he looks up and sees us driving past. Lifting his hand, he gives us a short wave before he goes back inside, the door slamming closed behind him.
“Cade Montgomery,” Reese says while she lifts her hand and waves back in response. “He works for Jensen. He and his son live upstairs.”
My mom makes another sound in the back of her throat, this one scandalized. “I hadn’t realized he’d been released from prison.”
What?
Sitting up a little straighter in my seat, I shoot a quick look at Reese while she hits the gas and rockets down the highway toward town.
I’ll be the first to admit we don’t talk much—I deploy as much as I’m allowed so that only gives me small windows of opportunity that I don’t always use to touch base the way I should.
Before she called me to browbeat me into having the surgery, I hadn’t talked to Reese in months.
But she never mentioned Cade Montgomery or the fact that he went to prison.
“What he’d go to prison for?” I ask from the back seat, my first contribution to the conversation since we left the hospital.
When I ask, my mom makes that sound again, while Reese flicks me a quick look in the rear view. “Second degree murder,” she answers me plainly. “He was sentenced to ten years. Served five. He was released on parole a few years ago. He’s been working at the Mill ever since.”
“Who’d he kill?”
“Riggs.” Still scandalized, my mother shoots me a don’t be rude look over the back of her seat.
“Rumors are conflicting,” Reese tells me while she lets off the gas as the highway turns into Main Street. “Some say she was his wife. Some say she was his girlfriend. For the truth, you’d probably have to ask him.”
Cade Montgomery wouldn’t recognize the truth if it ran up to him and donkey punched him in the nuts. “Has he been an issue for you since he moved back?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I’m stuck in a wheelchair. Even if he has been, there isn’t fuck all I can do about it.
“The Mill is a constant source of… activity. Has been since Tank was running things but Jensen keeps a pretty tight lid on the debauchery.” Reese shoots me a quick, knowing look in the rearview.
“Cade himself has been on his best behavior since being released. His custody of Gunner is provisional while he’s on parole.
He might be a murderer but he loves his kid.
Colt and Jen keep him on the straight and narrow—for the most part. ”
I bet.
Jensen Pryce is a Clearwater defector who went to prison as a juvenile. He was released around the same time Beck took off for LA and Reese left for college. Tank took him in and made him a Barrett but it takes more than a name change to earn the title.
I guess killing his psychotic brother, Ethan, is a decent start.
Settling back into my seat, I watch out my window while we make another right hand turn onto a residential street that is nowhere near the rehab facility I remember.
“Where are we going?” I ask, something hot and prickly dancing its way down my spine. “I thought?—”
“The rehab facility in town doesn’t have any beds available,” Reese says, cutting me off while my mom, no longer scandalized by the fact that the roadhouse on the edge of town is harboring a tattooed wife/girlfriend murderer, gives me a bright, sunny smile that tells me she knows exactly where we’re going, even if I don’t.
“Reese was able to find a private residence for you to stay in while you recover,” she tells me. “The VA came out and approved the place last week. Everything is?—”
Reese makes another turn, this one shooting that hot prickly feeling into the back of my throat because I can see it—I can see her—from here.
“What the fuck, Reese?” I can barely get it out, the words sounding muffled and flat, like my ears are stuffed with cotton. Instead of answering me, Reese stopped the car in front of Dent’s old house.
“She said you wouldn’t like it.” Sighing, Reese shoots me another look in the rear view before she shifts into park. “She warned me that little Tagalong was the last person you’d want helping you on and off the toilet, but I happen to think it’s pretty perfect.”
She was right.
“Perfect?” I choke out the word but neither of them seem to care or even be aware that I’m on the verge of losing my shit in the backseat because Gemma Pierce is standing on the front porch like she’s waiting for us. Next to her is the biggest fucking cat I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Tag still has all the equipment you need from taking care of Dent, and she’s still home health certified.
She’s only a few minutes from the hospital and Sloane is right down the road.
So, yeah—perfect.” Turning in her seat, Reese aims a look at me like she thinks I’m being ridiculous.
“So, unless you have a legitimate reason as to why you can’t stay here and a better suggestion as to where you should go... ”
“No.” I shake my head before I reach down and unfasten my seatbelt. “I don’t have either of those things.”
It’s a lie.
I have about a million reasons why I can’t stay here and number fucking one is standing on the porch, watching me have a nervous breakdown in the back seat of my best friend’s car.
But Reese doesn’t know that.
Reese has no idea what she’s doing to me.
The world of shit she’s just dropped me into.
The only people who know are me and Gemma.
And as far as I’m concerned, it’s going to stay that way.