Beneath the Cracks (42 page)

"I'll give you some more fentanyl, but the
next time you wake up, we need to get you moving out of the
bed.  I'll take out the Foley catheter.  You need to
start using the restroom.  If we're gonna get you home on
Saturday, we've got a long way to go."

"Saturday..." it was a euphoric little sound
that escaped my throat while the opiate washed my pain and all the
rest of reality away.

Nurses are like any other profession. 
Some are kind; some are not.  The daytime nurse cared less
about my pain than she did the regimented schedule she
followed.  Fortunately for me, Maya showed up before I was
ready to kill for more fentanyl and took care of the problem. 
The next time I woke, it was dark, and my room was empty.

During a lucid moment earlier, the few
seconds where pain medication wiped away my agony but hadn't yet
knocked me out cold, Maya explained the plan.  "I'm going to
stay with you during the day and Johnny will be here with you at
night.  We're not leaving your side, Helen."

Opiates washed away my natural inclination
to argue.  Instead, I nodded weakly and drifted away into
la-la land where nothing hurt, and genocidal maniacs weren't
grinning at me over the barrel of Dirty Harry's weapon of
choice.  The first thing I did the next time pain jerked me
into the unpleasant world again, was push the call light for the
nurse.

"Why didn't you give me one of those nifty
patient controlled administration things for my pain?  Maya
got one."  I recognized the nurse as Ginny, one who had cared
for Maya during her early post-operative period. 

She shrugged, "Different surgeon.  We
want you waking up for therapy, Helen."

"That's simply unfair.  How am I
supposed to move when it hurts too much to breathe?"

"We're going to try a different medication
for your pain.  I want you to tell me if this helps."

"What's it called?"

"Toradol.  It's a non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drug."

"Just give it to me already.  This
hurts like you wouldn't believe."

Ginny fiddled with my IV tubing.  There
was no euphoric wave, but the pain abated enough that I drifted off
to sleep again.  The next time I woke, the throbbing wasn't as
bad.  I pushed my call light again.

"You slept several hours that time,
Helen.  How do you feel?"

"Maybe a little less miserable.  But
I'm afraid."

"I know."  She pulled another needless
syringe out and twisted it into the IV tubing.  "Think you can
stay awake for a little while this time?"

"I don't know.  Do I have to start
therapy in the middle of the night?"

She shook her head and smiled. 
"Someone arrived to see you when you called for more pain
medication.  I suggested he wait until I could assess whether
or not the Toradol helped you more than the fentanyl has been."

"I see."

"Would you like him to come in?  He was
here earlier but you weren't awake."

"If it's official police business, I don't
feel –"

"It's personal," Johnny announced from the
open door.  "And I'm not leaving you, Doc."

Chapter 37

The kiss, whose absence I felt so keenly the
first time Johnny sat with me, finally arrived.   
My heart quickened, even though it didn't last as long as I
would've liked.  "No," I whispered when he pulled away.

Johnny laughed softly and thanked Ginny for
taking care of my pain.  He settled into a chair beside the
bed and tangled his fingers with mine.  "Wanna hear about your
case?"

"Sure," I muttered.  Maybe sulking
would encourage more kissing.

Maybe the narcotics had warped my
brain.  What was I thinking?  Bits and pieces of why
these people needed to be held at arm's length started swimming to
the forebrain.

"Jessica Blake and her brother Jason are
both in custody…protective custody, I might add, while Crevan and
Tony are out rounding up the group I suppose we'd call a militia
–"

"They're terrorists, Johnny.  It was no
accident that Kim Jackson used Denton's lab so he could engineer a
more lethal cassava root.  I believe that if we ever gain
access to Denton's computer, we'll find evidence of the plan to
introduce that plant into the cultures that use cassava as a food
source."

"I don't doubt you at all, Helen. 
Uncle Nooky quickly surrendered and was arrested at the bar after
the shooting.  He's singing like a canary.  His
involvement seems to be related to the drug distribution aspect,
which he freely admitted wasn't as lucrative as it should've been
for him or his cohorts.  He said that his brother, the smarter
of the two, kept sinking the money into something else that would
pay off better in the end than money.  He also says that his
brother was a little off in the head.  I suppose that's a low
blow coming from someone who insists being called
Uncle
Nooky
.  As for the Blakes, they were basically coerced
into cooperation when Kim Jackson told them he'd kill their brother
Lucas if they didn't do exactly as he said."

Johnny's warm fingers made my nerves tingle
from hand all the way up my arm.  I squeezed gently. 
"When did you get back?"

"About an hour before you were shot. 
Crevan called me in a panic while the plane was still taxiing."

"You saved my life."

"Yeah," his voice dipped low.  "I
thought I was too late, Helen."

"Please don't yell at me again.  I know
what I did was incredibly stupid, but when I realized why the
cassava root had been engineered to make it remain poisonous, I was
incensed."

Johnny lifted my hand to his lips for a
lingering kiss.  "One of the many things I love about you is
that all of this matters to you, Helen.  You didn't have to
come here.  You didn't have to care about our murdered girls
and a bunch of dead homeless guys or a cop who died doing his
job.  You didn't have to protect a Greek restaurateur who was
being abused because of his ethnicity.  You do these things
because you are a good person."

"Don't," I whispered.  "You don't know
that, Johnny."

"I do know it.  What I can't understand
is why you don't believe it."

Bitterness crept into my voice.  "I
have my reasons."

"Would they have anything to do with nature
versus nurture?"

The gossips of Darkwater Bay struck
again.  Whether it was Darnell and my FBI file or Briscoe and
Conall from my confession, I would probably never know. 
Someone had told Johnny that Wendell is still alive.

"Hard to deny that I'm screwed no matter
which way you look at the proposition, Johnny.  His
genes.  His influence during my formative years."

"I don't believe that anyone is pure evil,
Helen.  Well, except for Kim Jackson maybe."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, and I see how you turned out."

My eyes started burning.  The sensation
migrated south into vocal cords.  "You don't know what you're
talking about."

Johnny rose and hovered over me.  "I
love you, Helen.  I'm not the only one.  What you did on
this case, it matters.  Do you have any idea how many lives
you probably saved because you figured all of this out and were
willing to put yourself on the line to stop Jackson?"  Warm
lips pressed against my forehead.  "Please stop blaming
yourself for what your father did.  This is gonna sound
strange coming from a cop, but I'm sure he had reasons for a lot of
the things he did that weren't about being a bad person at
all."

Tears streaked down my cheeks in a molten
river.  "How can you say that?  Nobody even knows for
sure all the crimes he committed."

"He raised you, and it might've been the
only truly good thing he did, but he did it right."

"Johnny…" I sniffled, and he plucked a
handful of tissues from a box by the bed.

He held them to my nose.  "Blow."

I was too tired to argue.  "Where were
you all day?"

A crooked smile spread across his
face.  "Homeland Security showed up when it became obvious
that Kim had big plans for his genetically manipulated cassava
roots.  We've had a lot of help busting up this drug
ring.  Apparently, Jackson had used the majority of his drug
profits to fund more than his own aggressive tactics."

Thoughts of David inevitably suffused my
mind at the mere mention of federal involvement.  "Did anybody
call David?"

"Shh," Johnny soothed.  "He knows you
were injured but expected to make a full recovery.  I had
Chris call him before you went into surgery."

"He didn't come?"

Johnny's forehead crinkled.  "No, I
think Chris said he was out in the field on some big case. 
He'd come if he could be here, Helen.  Is it really that
important to you?"

"Don't be jealous.  I didn't mean it
that way."

Finally, something elicited a deep
kiss.  When Johnny pulled away a fraction of an inch, he
murmured against my lips, "Thank you.  I needed to hear
that."

"Can you stay?"  My eyes scanned his
face.  "You look tired, Johnny.  Maybe you should be home
resting."

"I'm not leaving you.  Not today. 
Not tomorrow.  Not even when they finally send you home. 
In fact, I don't think you should be alone for a minute until
you're at 100 percent again."

"That's a little extreme, don't you
think?"

Johnny grinned.  "There's the woman I
know and love.  No, I don't think it's extreme.  You're
going to be wearing some sort of sling for a few weeks if the nurse
knew what she was talking about.  Hey, at least he hit your
left shoulder, huh?"

"And here I thought you were so observant,"
I snorted.  "I'm left handed, Johnny."

"All the more reason to stay with me."

"Oh, no," I shook my head and quickly winced
at the jarring motion to my damaged shoulder.  "If I have to
have a babysitter, it'll be from the comfort of my home, not
yours."

"Fair enough.  When you get out of here
on Saturday, consider me your new roommate."

"Johnny –"

"No arguments."

"It's not that.  Get me out of here
before Saturday.  I can't stand being in the hospital that
long."

"Close your eyes and rest now.  We'll
see how you're feeling tomorrow first."

"Tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh."

"What day is this?"

Johnny brushed the hair away from my
forehead.  "It's already Tuesday, sweetheart.  Saturday
isn't all that far away."

He was right – this time.  By
Wednesday, I felt stronger, but the struggle to get out of bed
precluded my discharge from the hospital.  At least until I
got used to wearing the immobilizer that kept me from damaging the
repairs that had been made to my shoulder.

When I was finally lucid enough for the
surgeon to deem an explanation appropriate, he detailed the damage
to my body.  Apparently, Jackson's aim was nothing short of
inept – at least if the goal was to kill me.  The bullet
shattered my left clavicle bone before its trajectory sent the lead
at a slightly downward angle through my scapula where it exited my
body.  I was astounded  that no major vessel was
transected during the bullet's path through flesh and
bone. 

The hardware in my shoulder included pins
and wires aimed at piecing together bone fragments until they
mended.  The good news was, I'd only be in the immobilizer for
a few weeks.  The bad news was that intensive therapy couldn't
begin until the joint was stable, and would probably last as long
as the healing process before full range of motion could be
regained.  I was looking at three months of
handicap. 

It seemed to suit Johnny just fine, the
thought of me needing help for that long.  My emotions were a
little more mixed.  On one hand, his TLC for one night had
been a welcome respite from the stress of a day on the job. 
On the other hand, the idea of having my privacy disrupted for so
long soured my mood.  Johnny developed a nasty habit of asking
what I was thinking whenever I drifted off into
contemplation. 

The surgeon discharged me Friday, one day
earlier than planned.  I grouched and cursed and muttered
wishes that Kim Jackson was still alive so
I
could shoot
him
while Johnny tried to gingerly help me up into the
passenger seat of my Expedition.

The immobilizer that Johnny insisted on
calling a sling was a belt around my waist that fastened my left
arm into position across my abdomen and prevented all movement of
the shoulder joint.  It screwed with my balance doing
something as simple as sitting down in a chair.

His hands spanned my waist and lifted me
into the car after my third failed attempt to do it
independently.  "At least I don't have to worry about you
hopping in the car and disappearing in the middle of the night," he
grinned.

"This isn't funny.  How am I supposed
to survive for five weeks in this stupid thing?  I won't even
be able to pee without help."

Johnny shot me a leering grin.

"And there will definitely be none of that,
either."

"None of what?"  Innocence definitely
wasn't a natural look for Orion.

I rolled my eyes.  "Honestly?  I'm
broken and barely out of Humpty-Dumpty mode and you're thinking
about sex?  What's wrong with you?"

"I'm only eager for how ready you'll be for
other things when the sling comes off.  Maybe even a little
desperate."

I snorted.  "Dream on, Orion.  I
lived without sex for years.  I've
never
been
desperate."

"And I disagree.  I was there, Helen,
when your dry spell ended.  Would it kill you to admit that
you liked it more than you expected you would?"

Instead of answering, I clamped my mouth
shut and stared out the window for the duration of the ride
home.  Johnny helped me into the house, accepting the silent
treatment without trying to bait me into response.