The Homecoming (27 page)

“How broad?” he asked as she pulled up to the valet parking.

“Let’s just jump off that bridge when we come to it?” she suggested.

They made their way up to the intensive-care unit. Outside the door, Faith paused, holding his arm. “Before we go in there, you need to know that even when people are unconscious, their senses can still be intact. They can still hear, feel, smell, taste.”

“I’ve read that. Also that hearing’s the last to go.”

“It’s true. The brain is a miraculous thing. Studies have proven that people in a coma who are spoken or sung to have more brain-wave activity.”

She decided against mentioning that a person could be clinically dead and still able to hear what was being said around him.

“So it’s important that you talk to Daniel. Encourage him to wake up, but keep your tone casual. Maybe talk about the parade, the fireworks, conversational things.”

“We were going fishing next weekend,” he said. “On Cole Douchett’s boat.”

“Perfect. And you still could well make that trip. Besides, planning for the future is a good thing. A positive thing.”

While John talked nonstop to his unconscious nephew, Faith ordered a new CT scan, which showed what she’d suspected—that trauma had caused Daniel Sullivan’s brain tissue to swell against the inflexible bone.

In some cases, she might have relieved the pressure inside his skull by placing a ventriculostomy drain to remove cerebrospinal fluid. Had the swelling been massive, she might have removed a piece of his skull, giving his brain room to expand while placing a small pressure valve inside to measure pressure on a moment-by-moment basis, then later reimplanted the bone after the swelling retreated.

But given that Daniel’s case didn’t appear to be all that severe, Faith opted for nonsurgical management.

“We’ll keep him in the ICU to prevent further injury,” she told John, who appeared to have aged a decade in the two hours since she’d received the call from the hospital. “There’s no miracle drug to immediately improve brain function, but we can use medication to modify his blood pressure and optimize the delivery of oxygen to the brain tissue. Which should prevent further swelling.

“Plus, the fact that he’s withdrawing from painful stimuli, and showing pupillary response to light, neither of which was occurring when the resident first called me, is a very good sign.”

“Then he’s coming out of it?”

She was a doctor. Trained to compartmentalize. But the naked hope in his husky voice was painful.

“It’s still too soon to tell.” She would not,
could
not lie. “But if I were a betting woman, I’d definitely bet the farm on Daniel.”

It was only a white lie. And the relief that flooded over his haggard, yet still handsome face made the small prevarication worthwhile.

Her phone, which she’d switched to vibrate when she’d entered the hospital, buzzed from her jacket pocket.

Normally she didn’t take personal calls when she was on duty, but since the caller ID showed Kara’s phone, she took the call.

Only to hear the most frightening sound any mother could ever hear: her child’s shouts as she sounded as if she were being savagely attacked.

“I’m sorry,” she told John, who caught her upper arms as she swayed. “I need . . . I . . . Oh, God.”

After lowering her to a chair, he plucked the phone from her icy hand, appraised the situation, and quickly placed calls to the state police and the Shelter Bay sheriff’s office.

“Trey,” she managed, as the initial shock subsided and the clouds began to lift from her brain.

“I’m already on it,” he said. “Hey, Sax,” he said as the voice on the other end of that call answered. “We’ve got ourselves one effing serious problem.”

Kara had been trained in hand-to-hand combat and various martial arts, which should have given her an advantage. But her mind had been on other things and she certainly hadn’t been prepared to be ambushed in her own house.

“I’m a cop, dammit,” she shouted as she went for his eyes, which was the only part of his face she could see, given that he was wearing a black hood, like some damn video-game ninja. Even as flashbacks to that violent attack in California came flooding back, although she missed his eyes when he turned his head, she continued to land punches wherever she could—his face, his shoulders, his chest.

Fight
. Since flight wasn’t an option, even if she had wanted to choose it, training, instincts, survival all kicked in with a huge adrenaline rush. But he was larger. Stronger. As they rolled across the kitchen, limbs tangled, arms flailing, a full-powered impact of his fist exploded against her jaw and caused the back of her head to slam against the granite-topped island, making her see stars.

Another blow, between her ribs, sucked the wind from her lungs. But that didn’t stop her from kicking out. She managed to knee him in the groin, but although he roared in pain, it didn’t disable him the way it always had her opponents in training.

Trey
.

Even as she fought for her life, even as sweat stung her eyes and blurred her vision, her son’s name sounded over and over again in her head like a mantra, keeping her focused on her goal.

Which was to stay alive. Because no way was she going to allow this cretin to make her baby boy an orphan.

Trey
.

At least, unlike on the side of that California highway, there was no chance of his getting her gun, since she’d locked it inside its box, in the cruiser’s trunk, as she always did before coming home, to keep it out of her son’s hands.

And, if he had a weapon of his own, wouldn’t he have used it?

So logic told her that he was unarmed.

There was, fortunately, another thing in her favor, she thought as they wrestled for superiority. While he might be stronger and outweighed her by at least forty pounds, he wasn’t as fit as she was. He was already panting, obviously winded.

Trey
.

Taking advantage of his weakness, relying on her police academy training, she slammed the side of her hand against his windpipe. Wheezing, he struggled to his feet. Holding on to the back of a chair, he still managed to kick her in the head before lumbering out of the kitchen and into the garage.

Her phone had skittered beneath the table. Moaning, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth, Kara crawled toward it. She’d just managed to curl her fingers around it when her roiling stomach threw back the clam chowder and crab cakes she’d eaten with Cait McKade.

Then everything went black.

Having finished up lunch at the VFW, Sax was back at Bon Temps. He and Cole began ripping filthy Sheetrock from the inner walls with crowbars and hammers while Trey kept Velcro from eating pieces of whatever she could scoop up from the floor by taking her outside and attempting to teach her how to do a high five.

Though the good-natured mutt was attempting to be a fair student, her attention span wasn’t exactly stellar, and from what Sax could tell, most of the time she wanted to lick the boy’s face and chase sticks.

Once again, watching the carefree kid and joyful dog, it crossed his mind that Kara had definitely done the right thing in bringing her son back to Shelter Bay. Cities offered a lot of pluses, sure enough. But there was nothing as heady as the freedom a small, safe community offered growing up. Even something as simple as a burger at the VFW had proven a big deal; as all the guys who’d known his father shared their stories, Trey Conway’s face had brightened up like a kid who’d just received a thousand Christmas mornings. All at once.

Sax wished he’d had a camera, so Kara could’ve seen it. He was just hoping that there’d be more such moments when Brooks and Dunn began belting out “Little Miss Honky-Tonk” from his cell phone.

He dug it out of the front pocket of his jeans and, not recognizing the number, flipped it open. “Douchett.”

“Hey, Sax,” John O’Roarke said. From the strain in his tone, the deputy was not calling with good news. “We’ve got ourselves one effing serious problem.”

Sullivan might be competition. But Sax had hoped to live to a ripe old age without ever hearing those words again. “How’s Danny?” he asked, even as he braced for the worst.

“He’s in a coma, though Faith says signs are good for a full recovery. But I’m calling about Kara. She’s in trouble, Sax.”

Sax heard the stress. Panic surged through his bloodstream as the man on the other end of the phone choked up. Making sure Trey was still outside, Sax pressed the speaker option, so Cole, who’d stopped work, could hear the conversation.

“She’d just called her mother when someone attacked her in the house. I called OSP and the local cops, but I think you’d better get over there.” Another, briefer pause. “And if you’ve got a gun, I’d take it.”

Sax felt the blood draining from his face as he got slapped with a cold, metallic panic he could actually taste. It was the same way he’d felt up in those mountains, when he’d thought for sure he was going to die.

Unlike a lot of former military guys he knew, he’d gotten rid of his weapons when he’d left the military. During those seemingly endless visits to the families of his fallen teammates, Jack Daniel’s had become his best friend. It was, for a time, the only way he’d found to numb the pain. And the guilt.

Then, his duty done, he’d come home to this western-most part of the country, where he’d liberated his dog, started hanging out with his family again, and things had begun getting a little better. Which hadn’t stopped him from getting into a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with Cole, who’d driven out to the cliff house and given him the big-brother lecture about his drinking.

Which, at the time, being three sheets to the wind, Sax hadn’t been all that amenable to hearing.

Afterward, as they’d lain out on the sea grass that served as a front lawn, panting, faces bruised, knuckles swollen, Sax had begun to laugh. And laugh.

Until he cried. Like a damn baby.

Then he’d set about straightening out his life. Which he mostly had. Except for his ghosts, who’d left him alone today.

“I’ve got what I need.” His fingers curled around the wooden handle of the oversize, twenty-eight-ounce framing hammer. “Tell Faith that I’m on my way.”

“I’ll take Trey over to Mom and Dad’s,” Cole said after Sax closed the phone. “The mutt, too.”

“Thanks . . . Shit.” Sax skimmed a hand over his hair. “What the hell do I tell the kid?”

“Nothing for now, because you don’t know anything. Just say you’ve got an errand to run, and I’ll take it from there.”

“Thanks.” Gratitude nearly weakened Sax’s knees. What the hell did guys who didn’t have brothers do?

“You’d do the same for me,” Cole said. “And if you’re even thinking of hugging me, little bro, you can just put that out of your mind and get the hell out of here.”

Which, after what he felt was a calm and collected, yet hugely sanitized explanation to Kara’s son, was exactly what Sax did.

Kara was shaken. Embarrassed at being caught so off guard. But most of all, she was majorly pissed off.

Whoever had attacked her had more than beaten her up. (Though she’d definitely gotten some licks in herself.) He’d invaded her home, dammit! If her son had been there, instead of at Bon Temps with Sax . . .

Every mother-bear instinct rose, burning away the pain as the paramedics who’d come screaming into the driveway, sirens blaring and lights flashing—good luck keeping this under wraps—fussed over her.

Apparently, the one lucky thing about this debacle was that since she was calling her mother when the bad guy jumped her, John, able to hear the fight, had placed the necessary calls to authorities. The unlucky thing was that she couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been for her mother to listen to her daughter being attacked.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she insisted yet again.

What she needed was to call Sax so she could warn him not to bring Trey home while the ambulance was here. Kyle Murphy, her young deputy, appeared totally over his head. Although he was eager and smart enough, being just out of community college he was green as spring grass. Kara suspected mailbox bashing would be over his head.

Meanwhile, after taking her statement, two OSP detectives were busy dusting for prints. And, wow, wouldn’t her mother love coming home to this mess? At least Kara had refused to sit on the couch. No way was she going to risk getting her mother’s milk-white upholstery bloody.

“You were unconscious,” the EMT said.

“Only for a second. If that. Probably a nanosecond. At most.”

Note to self: Call a cleaning service to take care of fingerprint dust.
Meanwhile, couldn’t all these people just leave? Or least give her back her damn phone?

“Your nose looks broken,” one of the medics pointed out.

It felt like hell; she’d give him that. She gingerly lifted her finger and slid it beneath the cold pack he’d taped to her face. Her nose, which had already slanted a little to the left before the attack, currently felt about the size of a Muppet’s nose.

“As a medical care professional, you should know that it’s often impossible to diagnose a broken nose until the swelling goes down,” she countered. “Look, I’ll take some Tylenol. Besides, my mother’s a doctor. If it does turn out to be broken, she can handle it.”

“Your mother’s a neurologist.”

“Exactly, so if I
do
have a concussion, she can take care of that, too.” It had, the deputy had told her, been John O’Roarke who’d sent out the SOS after they’d overheard the altercation on Kara’s phone.

“I’ll be fine. Really. And if I drop dead of a head injury, I promise not to sue.”

He opened his mouth to argue yet again. Then all action stopped at the earsplitting squeal of car brakes.

Looking out the bay window, Kara watched as a familiar white muscle car with orange hood stripes pulled up in front of the house. Sax Douchett exited the Camaro like a shot, and, despite the circumstances, Kara couldn’t deny that the sight of him racing across her mother’s emerald green lawn was a hugely welcome sight.