Rising Tides (45 page)

She flicked off the nurse who hustled in to grab her arm and leaned over the bed. ‘‘Why the hell didn’t you just die?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ Phillip said calmly. ‘‘I tried.’’

‘‘You’ve never been any good.’’ She hissed at Good Cop when he pulled her back. ‘‘Never been any damn good. Don’t you come around looking for a place to stay when you get out of here,’’ she shouted as she was dragged out of the room. ‘‘I’m done with you.’’

Phillip waited, listening to her swearing, shouting, demanding papers to sign to get him out of her life. Then he looked up at Bad Cop. ‘‘You think you can scare me? I live with that. Nothing’s worse than living with that.’’

Two days later, strangers came into the room. The man was huge, with blue eyes bright in a wide face. The woman had a face full of freckles and wild red hair that escaped from a messy knot at the nape of her neck. The woman took his chart from the foot of the bed, scanned it, then tapped it against her palm.

‘‘Hello, Phillip. I’m Dr. Stella Quinn. This is my husband, Ray.’’

‘‘Yeah, so?’’

Ray pulled a chair up to the side of the bed, sat down with a sigh of pleasure. He angled his head, studied Phillip briefly. ‘‘You’ve got yourself in a hell of a mess here, haven’t you? Want to get out of it?’’