Bones and Roses (23 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“It was all that coffee,” McGee explains later on, at the hospital, after my leg wound has been stitched up and dressed. “I got out to take a piss, and that's when I heard the shots.”

“And to think I worried about what was in that thermos.” I'm reclining in my curtained cubicle in the ER, my bandaged leg propped on a pillow. I'm in pretty good shape overall. Other than the stitches in my leg, it's just minor cuts and bruises. I'd be on my way home by now, except we have to wait for Spence. He'll have some questions, and, no doubt, some choice words for me.

McGee adopts an aggrieved look, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his camo jacket, his ponytail hanging over the collar like something fished from a drain. “I gave you my word.”

“I know, and I'm sorry I doubted you. Though I'm still saving you a chair.”

“This is the thanks I get.” He rolls his eyes up at the ceiling.

“It'll do you good.” I reach for his hand and give it a quick squeeze. He's not a touchy-feely kind of guy. A group hug and you'd run the risk of getting shot. “Thank you. If you guys hadn't shown up when you did, I'd be down there,” I point toward the morgue on the floor below, “instead of up here enjoying the amenities.”

“Don't even.” Ivy flashes me a warning look.

Through the curtain around my cubicle where the two ends don't meet I see another patient being wheeled past on a gurney, a teenage boy with what looks to be multiple injuries. A shudder goes through me, and when Ivy and I exchange a look I know the same goose walked over her grave. The events of tonight have taken their toll on her. Despite two coffees and a pack of Skittles from the vending machine, she looks pale and wan. I do my best to cheer her.

“My point is, I'm still here, so I must be made of strong stuff. Also, I didn't go through hell to get sober so I could be offed by a crazy, society bitch. Think how it would have looked. I'd have been the laughingstock of AA.”

Ivy musters a half smile. “I see you haven't lost your sense of humor.”

“Never. I'm donating it to science when I die.”

“No more talk of death.” She swats my arm, and I wince.

“Ouch. Watch it.” I ache all over. I used muscles tonight I haven't flexed since the president's fitness test in sixth-grade PE. I seriously need to start working out at the gym.

“Tish?” Daniel steps through the part in the curtains.

He looks, as one might expect, disheveled, distraught, and more than a little bewildered by the news of his girlfriend's near demise at the hands of her erstwhile client and his landlady. He didn't waste time getting here. Ivy phoned him not more than a half hour ago and it's a twenty-five minute drive from La Mar. He's wearing cargo shorts and the holey Iggy Pop T-shirt he uses as a pajama top. His sandy hair is mussed and a pillow crease stands out on his left cheek. I'm torn between feeling happy to see him and wishing he hadn't come. I can't decide which is the predominant emotion, so I opt for a lighthearted remark. “Dude. Seriously?” I point down at his feet. He's wearing sandals with socks, the ultimate fashion crime even in a laidback beach community.

His face grows redder, and not from embarrassment. Seems I missed the mark in aiming for levity. “Are you all right? How bad is it? My God.” His gaze travels from my bandaged cheek to my gauze-wrapped leg, resting on my pant leg that was cut open by the resident who attended to me.

I downplay my injuries. “I'm a little banged up, but I'll live.”

“Thank God for that. When Ivy told me shots had been fired and you were hurt …” He forks his fingers through his hair, holding his head between his hands, in unconscious parody of an actor playing a character in a soap opera who's just received life-altering news, before dropping them to his sides with an audible exhalation. “Frankly, I didn't know what to think.”

“Sorry. I couldn't really get it into it over the phone,” Ivy apologizes. “There was a lot going on.”

Daniel doesn't take his eyes off me. “I'm just glad you're all right.”

“I am.”
I think
. I won't know for certain until the shock that's currently acting as a buffer—I feel weirdly calm for someone who narrowly escaped death, at the hands of a psychotic society matron no less, and who isn't high on painkillers (class-A narcotics are verboten in AA)—wears off.

McGee steps forward to introduce himself, and the two men shake hands.

“Ivy tells me we have you to thank,” Daniel says.

McGee gives a low, guttural laugh. “Nah.” He jerks his stubbled chin in my direction. “It was her show. Me and Ms. Ladeaux here, we only got there in time for the closing number.”

Thank you, McGee.
For throwing me under the bus, that is. Daniel turns to stare at me as if waiting for an explanation. The look on his face tells me it had better be a good one. I give him the short version, though there's no softening the horror of it. He shakes his head, clearly at a loss for words.

“Only you,” he says, at last.

“I didn't ask for this!” I defend myself.

“No, but you put yourself at risk. What happened to letting the cops handle it?”

“I never promised.”

“That's not how I remember it.”

“Look, I admit it wasn't one of my better ideas, but I wasn't breaking any laws and I didn't think I'd be in danger. How was I to know she was a maniac? She wears pearls and twinsets! She sits on the boards of charitable organizations! Though I'm pretty sure she won't be hosting any more fundraisers. She's more likely to stage a prison riot if it's the side of her I saw tonight.”

Without warning, I burst into tears. Daniel sits down next to me and gathers me in his arms, making soothing circles on my back with his palm while I sob into the wrinkled face of Iggy Pop. Amid the sounds of my blubbering and the comforting noises Daniel's making, I hear Ivy say, “Um, we'll give you two some privacy.” I look up to see her and McGee making their exit.

I pull myself together, blowing my nose into the tissue provided by Daniel. “You want to know what I was like after a few drinks? You're looking at it.”

He smiles at me crookedly. “So you were a maudlin drunk?”

“When I wasn't throwing punches.”

“At least tonight you have a good excuse.”

“Lack of excuses was never my problem.” A drunk can always find an excuse to drink. A happy occasion to celebrate. Sorrows to drown. A new beginning. A bad breakup. A stubbed toe.

“I'm glad I didn't know you then.”

I fall into the pillows at my back, closing my eyes for a minute and letting the cacophony of the ER wash over me. The calm voices of doctors and nurses blending with the agitated ones of family members, speaking more than one language; the cries and moans of patients in pain; the rattle of gurneys being rolled past; the ceaseless squawking of the PA system. I open my eyes to find Daniel regarding me with an anxious expression. “I'm not sure you know me now,” I say to him.

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when you said you liked more than one flavor?”

He nods. “You accused me of only liking vanilla. Incorrectly, I might add.”

“It wasn't what you said, it was the
way
you said it. Like you were willing to accept me the way I am even though you wished I was different.”

“I never asked you to change.” A defensive note creeps into his voice.

“True. But be honest. If we'd met on Match.com, would I have ticked all the boxes? My point is, you love me in spite of who I am, not because of it.” I raise a hand to still him when he starts to protest. “No, I get it, I do. And I don't blame you. It goes both ways—I was trying just as hard to fit the square peg in the round hole. When I yelled at you, it was only out of frustration.”

“I don't understand. What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.”

He blinks at me in confusion. “What?”

“What I want, you can't give me,” I say gently. “You would if you could. I know that. You're a good person, Daniel. But we're just too different, and I think it's time we finally admitted it.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

I start to feel woozy. It's all catching up to me. The room is revolving like a merry-go-round winding down and my brain feels like it was spooned into my skull. “Yes … no … I don't know.”

“You're obviously still in shock,” he notes, his calm voice at odds with his stricken expression, “so may I suggest we table the discussion until you're feeling better?”

I nod in mute acquiescence, looking down at the soggy tissue in my hand, though I know I won't feel any differently tomorrow.

Spence chooses that moment to appear, stepping through the curtains into the cubicle. “Is this a good time?” His steely gaze travels back and forth between me to Daniel. It's more a hint than a question.

Daniel takes the hint. “I was just leaving.” He gives me a peck on the cheek before rising. “Let me know when you're ready to go home.”

“No, don't wait. Ivy can take me home.” She and McGee drove over in my Explorer after I was brought here by ambulance. “You should get some sleep. You have classes tomorrow.”

He looks a little hurt at being dismissed but doesn't say anything.

When we're alone together, Spence says, “I'd ask how you're doing, but it's pretty obvious.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“I have. I stopped by the station on my way here. She's not talking without her lawyer present, but I gather you've had quite a night. Want to tell me about it? If you're feeling up to it, that is.”

“Like I have a choice.”

“I promise to go easy on you.”

“Gee, thanks. You're all heart.”

“Actually, it was your friend Ivy. She threatened to sue me for police brutality if I didn't behave.”

“Why, did you come to beat up on me?”

He cocks his blond head to one side. “What have I ever done to give you that impression?”

“Should I make a list?”

“What I'd like,” he says slowly, maintaining eye contact, “is to know how we ever got off on the wrong foot to begin with. I realize this may not be the best time, but I would like to set the record straight before we go any further, because it seems to be getting in the way of me doing my job. I wasn't the one who spread those rumors about you when we were in high school.”

“No, you just bragged to all your friends that you'd tapped me.”

“One friend. Jake Dorfman.” He names his closest buddy in high school. “What can I say? He's got a big mouth. One of the reasons I stopped being friends with him. And I never told him I tap—” He breaks off, the ridges of his cheekbones reddening. “As unbelievable as it may seem, I actually liked you. I felt bad about what happened the night of the party because I knew you were wasted. In my defense, I was drunk too. I was also sixteen, alone with a pretty girl who seemed willing. I'm not making excuses—I was wrong to take advantage. I owe you an apology for that.”

If don't know which surprises me more, the fact that he's apologizing or that I believe he's sincere. Did I misjudge him, or is it just that he caught me at a vulnerable moment? Probably a mixture of both. I manage a small smile. “Apology accepted. But I've got to say, your timing sucks. Why didn't you say something years ago instead of letting me think the worst?”

“Would you have listened?”

I sigh. “Probably not.”

“Also, you did set fire to my Camaro.”

“Yeah, well, there's that. I guess I owe you an apology, too. I'm sorry.”

“You're forgiven.”

“I'll make it up to you by washing your car. I'll even wax it.”

“Hell no. I'm not letting you near my car.” We both laugh, and he asks, “So are we good?”

I nod, and he breaks into a grin. At the dazzling display of even white teeth showcased by full lips and square jaw, I'm reminded of why half the girls in our class at Harbor High, me included (before we had sex), were in love with him. “Actually, I'm starting to think you must like me. You've been showing up at crime scenes lately. What does this one make? Four, five. I've lost count.”

“If you're so pathetic you have to get your ego gratification from playing the big man with crime victims, I'm not going to argue with you.” I adopt a bored look, suppressing the smile struggling to break loose. “Now can we please get on with it? As much as I'm enjoying your scintillating company and the comforts of this fine establishment, I'd like to get home to my own bed.”

“You and me both. Believe it or not, this wasn't my first trip to the ER tonight. I was here earlier with my dad.” He exhales wearily as he produces his notebook.

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Ruptured disc. He's having surgery in the morning.”

I make a sympathetic face. “How did that happen?”

“He was doing the limbo. Seventy-five years old and he still thinks he's a kid.” Spence shakes his head in fond exasperation, adding, at the questioning look I give him, “It was the party for my parents' fortieth. They made it a luau, in keeping with their Hawaiian honeymoon.”

“Ah, that explains it.” I gesture toward the outfit he's wearing: a Hawaiian-print shirt paired with off-white trousers. “Elvis called and he wants his
Blue Hawaii
duds back.” He chuckles. I pause to study him. Something else about him is different. “Hey, I just noticed. You're not wearing your contacts.” His natural eye color is gray-blue, the color of the ocean on a foggy day.

“Yeah. I lost one in the shower, then decided to hell with it—it wasn't me. I only did it for Donna. She thought it made me look like Brad Pitt,” he explains, his face reddening. Before I can reply, he points a finger in my direction and narrows his eyes. “Spare me the smart remarks, okay?”