Janice Johnson - Cop by Her Side

Yeah, well, too little, too late.

He stood abruptly. “I’m going in to see how your sister is doing. Then I want you to switch places with your brother-in-law so I can talk to him.”

By her narrowed eyes, he could tell she thought he really intended to bully poor, nice Drew, which upped his pissed quotient. But by God, he was too good at his job to let personal feelings influence an investigation.

He nodded at Jane, probably nothing too friendly showing on his face, and left her alone there.

* * *

DREW SAT IN the hard plastic chair beside Lissa’s bed in ICU, listening to the hum and beep of monitors and the squeak of shoes as a nurse walked past. Farther away were voices. Somebody else getting bad news? he wondered with a jab of pain.

Sometimes he tilted his head back and stared at the pattern of Lissa’s heart beating in jagged green lines across a monitor. Mostly he gazed at her face, so ominously still and unlike her. He sat on her good side, so he didn’t have to see the horrible swelling and bruising. Not that he could forget doctors had actually drilled into her skull.

He squeezed the lax, cool hand that lay in his. “Liss,” he murmured, “can you hear me? I really need you to open your eyes. You’re scaring me. I can’t believe you of all people—” He broke off with a harsh breath.

Melissa had been a revelation to him when he’d met her, filled with a vitality that made her stand out from everyone else he’d ever met. Enthralled, he hadn’t been able to resist her. He hadn’t wanted to resist her, even though he’d known he was hurting Jane.

The terrible thing was that sometimes he thought he’d been an idiot, that Lissa was all surface and flash, and he should have been able to see beneath it. He’d begun to wonder if she really loved him at all. Lately—

But he didn’t want to think about the suspicions that nibbled at him like mosquitoes raising welts. If only she’d open her eyes, they could talk. She would convince him that she had nothing to do with whatever had happened to Bree, and these doubts churning in his belly would go away. If only he could have Bree back, have Melissa back, he could forgive almost anything.

He leaned toward her, resting his elbows on his knees. “I need you to talk to me. Please, Liss. Please.”

But her face stayed still and sunken, and on a surge of anguish he tried to imagine never seeing her laugh again, or whirl on him in a fury, or light with some new enthusiasm. What if he had to plod on without her?

But on a clench of dread and fear, he knew: if he could somehow, magically, save either his wife or his daughter, but not both, he would have to choose Bree.

“That’s what you’d want, isn’t it?” he whispered.

She didn’t answer, of course.

CHAPTER FOUR

“AUNTIE JANE?” HUDDLED in a tiny ball beneath the covers, Alexis peered out. “Will you...will you stay till I fall asleep? And maybe even lie down with me?”

Jane’s heart squeezed painfully. “Oh, pumpkin. Of course I will.”

She untied her athletic shoes and dropped them on the floor, then turned off the bedside lamp before lying down atop the covers so that her head shared her five-year-old niece’s pillow and she could kiss her on the nose. The little girl wriggled a few times to fit into the curve of Jane’s body. Then she gave a small sniff.

“Auntie Jane, will you find Bree tomorrow?” The question floated, only a wistful thread.

Jane gave her a squeeze. “You know I’ll try, with all my might. But Sergeant Renner is really the one in charge of finding her. The good thing is, I know he’ll try with all his might, too.”

“’Cuz I miss her.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Jane squeezed her eyes shut in hopes of damming the tears and leaned her forehead against her niece’s. “I know,” she said huskily.

“Where’s Daddy? I mean, is he with Mommy?”

“Yeah. He’s with Mommy.”

The silence was so long, Jane began to hope Alexis had fallen asleep. Somehow she doubted it, though; even through the covers, she could feel the tension in the slight body.

“Why won’t Mommy wake up?”

“Mommy had a really bad bump on her head. You remember the time Bree fell off her bike and she had that great big lump that looked like an egg and we had to take her to the hospital?”

Alexis nodded slightly.

“Well, this is a bump way worse than that. Sergeant Renner thinks your mom’s car was going really fast when it went off the road.”

“Mommy always said if she was in a...a accident, this humongous balloon would puff up so nobody was hurt.” She sounded indignant.

“The balloon is called an air bag. And they work really well, except they only puff up in certain kinds of accidents. Like if your mom’s car had hit a tree. But the way the car tilted kept the air bag from puffing up.”

The “oh” was sad. After a minute, “When will Daddy come home?”

“I think he might be here when you get up in the morning. He misses you, pumpkin.”

“Okay.”

Feeling Alexis slowly relax until, finally, her breathing became deep and regular, Jane thought about Drew’s terrible dilemma. Did he stay at Melissa’s side, willing her to open her eyes? Or did he go home to comfort his youngest daughter, so terrified because, in her perception, almost everyone in her family had disappeared?

Jane was only glad she could be here. She’d already decided that if they didn’t find Bree tomorrow, she would pack a bag and come to stay. She’d take days off from work, too, as much as she had to. That way she could offer Alexis some stability and Drew the relief of knowing she was being taken care of. She could take care of him, too. Cook dinners, that kind of thing, even though she wasn’t exactly Susie Homemaker.

Once she was sure Alexis was sleeping soundly, Jane slipped off the bed and out of the room, leaving the door half ajar so she’d be able to hear the little girl if she awakened. The twin bed was way too small for the two of them to share, and Jane’s adrenaline ran too high for her to be sleepy yet anyway.

What she wanted was to be hunting for Bree, but she knew she was lucky that Clay had involved her as much as he had so far. He didn’t have any obligation to. And as much as she hated it, he was right that family members were always the first suspects when an act of violence or an apparent abduction happened. And what had she done but told him, so brilliantly, that she and her sister weren’t getting along very well. If she hadn’t been at work when the accident occurred, he’d have had to consider her; she knew that. Considering that she didn’t like him, she was disconcerted by the sting she felt at the idea that he’d readily suspect her of hurting her own sister, or her niece.

He’d said he didn’t as if the idea was ludicrous, but...she didn’t know whether to believe him.

He’d seemed angry at her when she’d last seen him at the hospital. Was that because she’d been too honest about Lissa, and he’d realized he had discounted her possible involvement too quickly?

I don’t care what he thinks about me as long as he does his job, she thought fiercely. As long as he finds Bree.

But...she knew that wasn’t true. She did care. She could have cared a whole lot, if only he had turned out to be the man she’d believed he was.

That thought felt like grief, heavy in her chest, not so different from her fear for Lissa and Bree and her sadness for Alexis.

Something she so didn’t need.

* * *

IT WAS PROBABLY too late to call Jane. Clay didn’t even know why he wanted to. He’d seen plenty of her today, God knows. But after he’d left the hospital, as the evening and then the night had crawled on, he kept thinking about her. Wondering whether she was still there, or had gone home, or...?