Chapter Twenty-Five
Ihate hospitals,” Gran said beside me.
“Since when?” I asked. As far as I knew, she’d never been admitted to one. She had both her kids at home, and Grandpa died in his sleep. The only time I could even remember her being in one was when I— Oh.
“Since you,” she said, elbowing me in the ribs.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to speak past it. “You’re the one who asked to come with me.”
“I know I did.” She paused and looked around.
The nurse’s station was to our backs. Doctors and orderlies moved with swift efficiency up and down the hall.
A man in a gown held on to his IV stand for dear life as he shuffled toward us.
Gran leaned in and dropped her voice. “That was because I didn’t realize how hospitaly it would be. ”
She must be really uncomfortable if she was making up words.
I slipped my arm through hers and gave her a tug. “Then let’s quit dawdling out here and go see the doc.”
Together, we moved toward the now-familiar door halfway down the hall. Gran stayed glued to my side, looking slightly queasy. Dr. Perez had been moved from the ICU a few days after she woke up, and I’d started coming to see her as soon as her attending physician granted visiting rights.
A tall, beefy Latino man in a guard uniform stood outside her room today, and the sight made me frown.
He held a hand out to stop us when we approached. “Names?”
“Krista and Izzy Evans,” I told him.
Gran tugged on my arm. “You didn’t say she was being guarded.”
“Because she wasn’t,” I said.
This new development worried me. Had something happened?
The guard spoke into the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder. Someone radioed back that we were clear to go in, and he nodded and opened the door for us.
“Thank you,” Gran and I chorused.
We slipped inside and found Dr. Perez sitting up in bed.
Beside me, Gran sucked in a sharp breath.
I’d warned her what she was walking into, but this was my fourth visit, and even I flinched when my eyes landed on the doctor.
Deep purple, green, and yellow marred the skin of her face from her left jawline all the way to her scalp.
A line of bruises ringed her neck from where Redding tried to strangle her.
Medical tape was stretched across her swollen nose, and she had two black eyes because of how badly it was broken.
Half her head was wrapped up like a mummy to cover the staples holding her scalp together.
Her right leg was broken and so was her left arm.
She sat stiffly because several of her ribs were fractured.
“Oh, Maria,” Gran said, stepping forward.
Dr. Perez lifted her head at the sound of her name. She’d been reading, holding the book aloft in her unbroken hand. I snuck a look at the cover. It was one of those old-school bodice rippers that were usually as problematic as they were addictive. She quickly set the book aside.
I noticed that she placed it with the cover facing down and grinned. “Whatcha reading, Doc?”
From her sheepish expression, she knew she’d been caught.
“Oh, just something one of the nurses lent me.” The words came out a little slurred.
Between the drugs they had her on and the pain in her jaw, she was still having trouble speaking.
She couldn’t smile yet, but her eyes brightened when she shifted her focus to Gran. “Izzy, it’s so nice to see you.”
Gran went over and gave her the gentlest of hugs. “How are you holding up?”
“I’ve been better,” Dr. Perez said.
I made sure the door was shut behind me before joining Gran by the bed. “What’s with the guard?”
Dr. Perez’s eyes darkened. “Redding made bail.”
A hazy red veil of rage tinted the edges of my vision. Bail had been set for half a million dollars. It was one of the reasons Nick thought he’d be able to hold on to Redding. Guess not.
“When?” I bit out.
“A few hours ago,” she said. “The police told the admin here, and they thought there was enough of a danger that I warranted twenty-four-hour protection.”
She met my eyes for a few seconds, and a world of unspoken words flowed between us.
We’d talked a lot during my visits—well, I had at least. We’d only briefly touched on what Redding had done to her.
She saw a nice hospital therapist once a day to work through her emotional trauma, and nothing I could say would be helpful.
All my words about him were tinged with my desire to see him dead.
My advice would be, “I bet you’d feel better if you killed him.
” Instead, I’d been helping her in what way I could, devoting a lot of our time to my own recovery after the plane crash, what had worked for me, what hadn’t, what might work for her too.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Want me to see if they’ll let me sleep in here with you tonight?”
I’d done it before. The first day I visited her was rough, and she hadn’t wanted to be alone, so the nurses, grudgingly, let me stay. I had to work tonight, but I’d call in sick in a heartbeat if she wanted me to.
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I should be okay knowing there are armed guards outside.”
“You’ll call me if you’re not?”
“I will,” she said.
My hands itched with the desire to curl into fists. “Can you excuse me for just a second?”
Gran waved me off, saying, “Sure, kiddo,” but Dr. Perez eyed me for a long moment before nodding. She was a good read of people—it was what landed her in trouble in the first place—and she must have seen something in my expression that worried her.
I broke her gaze and beelined for the door before I gave anything else away.
The guard shot me a questioning look when I reemerged from the room.
“I just need to step away and make a phone call,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”
He nodded. “You’ll need to go outside. They’re pretty strict about cell phone usage in here.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, heading toward the elevators.
One of the nurses at the station, a plump middle-aged Black woman who’d been helping Dr. Perez the past few days, recognized me and smiled. “Hey, Krista.”
I forced myself to smile back at her. “Hi, Michelle.”
“Here to see the doctor?”
“Yup. Just need to make a quick call.” I widened my grin a bit, coaching myself to act normal. “You lend her that bodice ripper?”
Michelle barked a laugh and pushed her short braids back from her face. “Lend? Honey, I wheeled our mobile library up to her, and she picked it out herself.”
“I knew it.”
“Don’t tease her too hard now,” Michelle said.
I snapped her a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
Michelle’s laughter faded as I stepped into the elevator.
No one else was in it with me, and I dropped my mask the second the doors closed and indulged in some low-level growling.
I was pretty sure that if I let out the scream that threatened, someone would hear it and come running.
Fucking Redding. That goddamn shit had slipped through Nick’s fingers, and if Redding was vindictive enough to go after Daniel ten years after Daniel wronged him, I had no doubt that he was coming back to Kearny to finish what he started here.
No fucking way would I let that happen.
I punched the ground floor button and stepped back to wait.
The walls around me were steel, so shiny that I saw my reflection in them.
I looked scary. My eyes were wild. The left side of my lips kept trying to curl up into a snarl.
The hospital was only six stories tall, and Dr. Perez’s room was at the top.
I spent all six of those stories entertaining a brief but vivid fantasy of dismembering Redding piece by piece with my bare hands.
Maybe I could hide him away somewhere in one of the Kings’ forgotten warehouses.
If I took my time, I could drag it out for months.
A chime sounded when I reached the bottom floor, and I did my best to school my features before walking through the lobby. My phone was at my ear the second I stepped outside.
“Pick up. Pick up,” I said.
Over a week had passed since I’d stormed out of the Larsons’ house.
In that time, Gran and I had gotten a little R & R at Iliza’s farm, and I’d found a new apartment, settled Gran back into a now Joker-free Magnolia, and gone back to work at Charley’s.
Jakob and I hadn’t spoken that entire time—he was giving me the space I asked for—but every night I worked, without fail, he came to the bar.
He sent a flunky to order his drinks, staying put in a booth in the back.
His eyes never left me. I could feel their intensity every minute of every shift.
Other people had started to notice. They knew something was up between us, but since neither Jakob nor I would tell them what, they were left to make their own assumptions.
Apparently the assumption was that I’d done something to piss the Viking off, and now people were avoiding me like the plague, which I would have welcomed if not for the fact that it meant that hardly anyone was ordering drinks from me, so my tips had plummeted.
Good thing I still had a couple of grand left over from Liam’s check squirreled away.
I could live off that until people came back to their senses and realized that Jakob wouldn’t kill them just for speaking to me.
The phone rang several times before Jakob picked up. “Your two weeks aren’t up yet,” he said. “You throwing in the towel early, Evans?”
I ignored his goading and got right to the point. “Redding made bail.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. And then he laughed. “Halle-fucking-lujah.”
The line went dead.
I pulled my phone away and stared down at the screen. I had four bars, so I didn’t drop the call. Jakob must have hung up on me.
I called him back. He didn’t pick up. I tried texting him.
What are you going to do? I want in!
He didn’t text me back. Goddamn it. I texted him again.
Be careful. Nick must be watching him.
Still no answer.
I ground my teeth and turned on my heel, heading back inside.
“Everything okay?” Gran asked when I walked into Dr. Perez’s room.