Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(93)

I lifted a hand to rub at the pain behind my eye. My fingers trembled. They were covered with blood.

“You’re bleeding.” Ryder reached for my hand, something that looked like real worry crossing his face.

No. You don’t get to care for me when it’s convenient for you.

I turned and stalked over to my desk before he could touch me. “Just do your job, reserve officer.” I picked up the phone and blinked until I could see the numbers. If there were tears in my eyes, they were angry tears. I dialed. “Stand in the hall in front of the door to the cells and make sure no one gets in or out.”

He locked his jaw on whatever he’d been about to say. Then he squared his shoulders and walked back to position himself in front of the cell door.

Sorrow sat in my chest like dark coals, but anger was the flame that kept me warm. And it was also the only thing that was keeping me on my feet.

“Myra?” I said as soon as she answered her phone, the room going a little dark and fuzzy at the edges. “I could use some help over here.”





Chapter 28


TURNED OUT both Myra and Jean rode to my rescue.

Also turned out I couldn’t argue my way out of going to the hospital when my sisters double-teamed me and I was blackout dizzy from blood loss.

I plucked at the thin blanket that covered me, ignoring the tubes taped down to my arm. It was past dinnertime and I was an odd mix of restless and exhausted. Jean lounged in the recliner chair thing on one side of my room, doing something on her phone.

My sisters refused to let me out of their sight, even though that meant we’d had to call up to Tillamook and borrow a couple of their officers to help out with the rally. Which meant I owed the police chief up there a favor.

Again.

I shifted my feet and scooted up a bit, trying to get comfortable.

“Need anything?” Jean asked distractedly.

“No, I’m good.” I picked up the tablet Myra had given me after I’d begged her to leave me something to do. I pulled up the report I’d been writing.

Margot had confessed to shooting me, which cleared Dan of some of his charges. I thought he might be able to get his remaining charges lowered if he listened to his lawyer’s advice.

Margot had also confessed to bribing Walt to let her stow away on the boat and to hitting Heim on the back of the head. She said him falling overboard was an accident. I wasn’t sure the jury would see it that way. Once Margot started talking, she hadn’t stopped, droning through all her plans, all her hurt and anger, like she was in a trance.

They found Walt working a ship down in Bandon. He was en route and should hit town in a couple hours to corroborate her story. Then their fate would be up to the judge.

Myra was off finding Lila to let her know her sister was in holding. I was stuck in a hospital bed.

Again.

I sighed and closed the report. There was nothing more to add.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?” Jean asked again.

“A new brain?”

“You haven’t hardly used your old one yet.”

I glanced over at her. Her fingers moved across her screen as she concentrated on a game.

“It’s almost Sunday,” I said.

“Yep.”

“If I don’t find someone to give Heim’s power to by Monday night, things…will get interesting.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek then stabbed at the screen a few times.

“Jean. Are you okay?”

She finally looked over at me. “I can’t believe what he did.”

“Dan?”

“Ryder. I can’t believe he did that to you.” It was hard to see the betrayal in her eyes. She’d always thought Ryder and I were a match made in heaven. That he was some kind of quiet hero who would one day realize the love of his life had been in his life, forever. Real life didn’t work that way. Not even in Ordinary.

“I couldn’t believe it either,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel. All I wanted to do was have a good cry, but all the tears in the world wouldn’t change a single word that he’d said.

“Can we forget about Ryder right now?” I asked. “I really need to figure out who I should give this power to.”

She took a drink out of her travel mug, which was probably full of Mountain Dew and Red Bull. “Have you narrowed it down at all?”

“Not you and not Myra. That’s about it.”

She made a face at me, then crossed her legs and leaned sideways in the chair. “The power calls to its own, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hear the power, right? Dad used to see them, but you hear them?”

I nodded.

“Does the sound of it ever change?”

I thought about it. “It shifts. It gets louder sometimes.”

Hurts more sometimes.

“Does it get louder every time you’ve been around one person in particular?”

I shrugged and wished I hadn’t. My shoulder ached. Everything ached. “I haven’t been paying attention to that.”

“Wow, you really suck at this.” She smiled to soften her words.

“It’s not like I haven’t had other things on my mind this week. Bullets, blood. Rhubarb.”