Catherine Coulter - Backfire

She closed her eyes, and her voice was starting to fade out. “I don’t think I want to stay here, Dillon. The light’s too bright and I don’t know anybody and my head hurts. Well, maybe I’ll stay if you stay with me and bring me birthday cake.” She attempted a grin. “I’ll share it with you.”

Savich smiled. “You know what? I’m going to see if you can’t camp out with Ramsey. Would you like that?”

“I like Ramsey,” Sherlock whispered. Her words sounded like they were floating up from the bottom of a well.

Harry said, “Sherlock, do you remember chasing Xu down? Tackling him?”

“Yes, of course I remember Xu. I got him on his stomach, and he was bleeding all over the place and I was cuffing him and then-” She frowned. “I saw a really bright light, it was beautiful, and then, all of a sudden, I was here getting stitched up and waiting for my birthday cake. Do you really think they’ll let me camp out in Ramsey’s room? I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“I’ll see if you can sit with him by the campfire.”

“Please tell me Xu didn’t get away. Please.”

Eve said, “He did, but not for long. Now neither will the man who shot you.”

Sherlock couldn’t say anything because it was suddenly all too much. She closed her eyes again and breathed deeply. The orderly said, “We need to get her to CT now, Agent Savich. You’ll have to clear it with admissions if you’d like her to stay in the Taj with Judge Dredd. You really know him?”

There was a bit of laughter, which felt very good to everyone. Cheney said, “I think it’s a great idea, her rooming with Judge Hunt. Dr. Kardak might go for it, if only to keep even more law enforcement officers out of the hospital. There’s already a battalion of marshals and SFPD officers hovering on that floor. We can fit her in without adding a single man, and still be sure she’s safe.”

Eve said, “Ramsey can get her into their poker games. Does she play?”

Savich smiled at Eve. “She’s a killer at Texas Hold ’em.”

Cheney said, “Okay, listen up, everyone. There’s no way Xu gets away from us. We’ll have his picture all over the news in an hour. He’s wounded, and he needs medical care. He’s in a stolen white Infiniti with an APB out on him. All he’s got with him is what he was carrying in his pockets. A passport, if he’s lucky. But he’s not going anywhere until he gets his wounded arm taken care of. That’s got to be where we focus.”

But it wasn’t Xu who had shot Sherlock, Savich thought.

San Francisco General Hospital

Tuesday evening

Sherlock’s head thrummed to a steady beat. If she tried to move her head, it felt like electric jolts were frying her brains. The stitches felt like they were pulling her scalp too tight. On the other hand, she was alive, and breathing trumped everything.

Savich had kept her parents away with the promise she’d be home tomorrow. Really it was Sean who’d kept them away. Her parents had looked at him and known to keep still, and put on a good show. Savich told her he’d lied clean, telling Sean his mother was staying with Molly and Emma because they were scared. Sean had listened thoughtfully to this smoothly delivered lie, Savich told her, and said, “But Papa, I want to protect Emma. Can’t I go over and stay with them, too? We can have cocoa and I can show Emma Flying Monks, my new computer game.”

Sherlock’s mother said, “But Sean, you promised to go with me to the movies tonight to see Rory and the Last Duck, don’t you remember?”

Torn between impressing Emma with his computer game and the movie, Sean was seriously conflicted until his grandfather said, “Your grandmother promised to buy me kettle corn, Sean; that’s my favorite. Yours, too, right?” and so Sean’s conflict melted away. He did think to ask, “Papa, are you coming with us?”

No, Savich told him, he was going to help his mother make Emma and Molly and the twins feel all secure, but not to worry, he’d be back to tuck Sean in. Since Sean was five years old, matters of life and death and hospital stays with a huge white bandage around a parent’s head weren’t about to be a part of his reality. When they’d wheeled Sherlock into the room, Molly had been there with Ramsey. She was horrified at what had happened, and question after question came pouring out until she saw Sherlock had gone quietly to sleep, providential, since the last thing she needed was Molly hovering over her.

When Sherlock woke up, the nurse gave her two Tylenol, a net, the nurse told her, to keep her safe, the only pain meds she would be getting for now. Hence the dull roar in her brain when her dinner was delivered thirty minutes later.

A fillet of sole sat in the center of a hospital plate, with half a lemon on the side, and vegetables. Who wanted vegetables when you felt down and out? When you could have been dead, your head shot off? No, you wanted ice cream, and a birthday cake, not runny chocolate pudding. She said to Ramsey, who sat in his bed eight feet from hers, “How are you surviving on the hospital food?”

He smiled, having seen the limp fish on her tray. “Since I’m Judge Dredd, one of the nurses asks me every day what I would like for dinner. The chef either makes it himself or picks it up on his way in to the hospital.”

“That’s not fair. Nobody asked me what I wanted to eat. What did you get for dinner?” Despite the hot wire slicing through her head, she leaned up. “I see now, it’s a big steak, medium. And a baked potato. This isn’t fair, it’s not right. Can I have a bite?”

Ramsey looked at the steak left on his plate, looked over at her, and said, “Nah, I’m far more in need of red meat than you are, Sherlock. I’ve got to build up my strength. Getting shot in the chest trumps a little head wound any day. Eat your fish and leave the real patients to chow down the meat and potatoes.”

Deputy Morales said from the window, a hamburger halfway to his mouth, “We were nice as could be to the nurse, but she kissed us off, said we had a per diem, and we should order in what we wanted for ourselves.”

Savich appeared in the doorway, carrying two big pizza boxes. “Ramsey told me you’d try to steal his dinner, so here you go, sweetheart, enough for you and your guards and maybe one slice for Ramsey, if he’s still hungry.” He studied her face. She was still pale, but she was sitting up, with the bandage wrapped around her hair, looking faintly ridiculous. Today he liked ridiculous; it was a great look.

Soon there were four guards standing around the two patients, all chowing down on pizza, including Savich’s vegetarian pie. Savich stood at the foot of the bed knowing he should eat, but his thoughts of what had happened wouldn’t let go of his brain. He couldn’t imagine eating, and so he stood there, watching her, listening to their chatter and laughter fill the room. Everyone was distracted, and that was a good thing.

The pizza tasted wonderful and settled nicely in Sherlock’s stomach, despite her headache. She saw Dillon wasn’t eating, and she wanted to tell him she was all right. He leaned down to kiss her, and she saw the fear lurking behind his smile as he said, “I’ll be back after I’ve tucked Sean in for the night.”

She took his hand. “Will you bring my birthday cake?”

“So you remember that, do you?”

She smiled at him. “Don’t forget the butter-pecan ice cream.”

There was a knock on the door. A young cop none of them had ever seen said, “Agent Savich? I’m Officer Holt. I found a folded piece of paper on the sidewalk where Agent Sherlock was shot. I took it immediately to Lieutenant Trolley. After she read it and dusted for prints, she told me to bring it to you right away.” He handed Savich the paper. “You can see it has your name printed on it, nothing more. No one has any idea who left it.”