The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(71)

*

Josie left the crime scene and drove straight to the Trauma Center. Vie Blessings was the ER nurse on duty and pulled Josie in for a hug. She whispered in Josie’s ear, “Sweetheart, you deserve a big old bonus check after the week you’ve had.”

Josie smiled and asked about Dell.

Vie took Josie’s hand and led her down the hall. “It’s best if I show you.”

Josie followed Vie into one of the two overnight rooms and found Dell propped up in bed, scowling at a TV set hung on the wall across from his bed.

“You wonder why young people can’t think anymore? Flip through this trash. Biggest bunch of drivel. It’s a wonder people even got the common sense to get out of bed in the morning, watching this all day long.”

Josie, wondering how nurses put up with old men like him, smiled as she approached his bed. “How you doing?” she asked.

“Are you serious? That old biddy Blessings thinks she can keep me in bed by locking up my pants and underwear, but she don’t know me too well, does she?”

Josie winked. “I think you have a crush on Nurse Blessings.”

“Don’t give me any smart mouth.”

“What did the doctor tell you?” she asked, bumping his feet over on the bed with her hip so she could sit at the end.

“You look like hell, girl. You need to go home and go to bed. I’m fine. Heart attack. No big surprise. They want to ship me to Houston for tests, but I put an end to that. No one’s going to plug me into a machine to keep my ticker charged. If it runs out of juice, so be it.”

She didn’t even attempt getting into that pointless argument. “How long do they want to keep you?”

“I didn’t listen. Go talk to that old prune. See if you can’t work me a deal. I need to feed the horses.”

*

At ten o’clock in the morning, Josie slumped on the couch and stared at Chester, who lay sleeping at her feet. She sipped at a tumbler of warm bourbon, her solace for a night that would keep her from sleeping for months to come. She had taken a shower and dressed in a nightshirt, but she knew sleep was a distant hope as she stared at the blank TV screen. She leaned her head back and felt the steady numbing of her body, her brain, the slowing of her senses, the heaviness of her eyelids, and she prayed for the deep uninterrupted sleep of the guiltless. She wanted to sleep like those uninitiated few who still believed in the inherent good of people. She stared at a long hairline crack in the ceiling above her that was lit by the harsh morning sunlight. She wondered if she believed in the inherent good of anyone anymore. Dillon was good, but she couldn’t factor him in just now. The hurt was too fresh. Otto and Delores were as good as any two people she knew, but she could tick off twelve others who were equally as bad, who given the choice would rather shoot you than shake your hand. Dillon had done nothing to deserve the dangers of the lifestyle she had chosen. He was a good man, and she had no right to drag him down the garbage-strewn path she had chosen to call a career.

Josie stood up and set the empty glass on the coffee table, the tumbler clicking too hard. The noise raised Chester’s head from the floor in front of the front door. The old dog looked suddenly alert and ready to protect. She sat on the floor beside him and picked up the cell phone from the coffee table. The dog laid his head on her lap and fell back asleep within seconds. With a stomach sick with guilt and shame, she flipped her phone open and dialed Dillon’s cell phone. After three rings, it went to voice mail. She hesitated and almost hung the phone up, but knew he would see the missed call anyway.

“Dillon, it’s Josie. Hope you’re doing okay. I know you’re at work. I’m sorry to call you like this. I know I don’t have the right. I just need you. I need a sane person to talk to.”

Thirty minutes later, Josie had moved from the floor up to the couch again, unable to face her bedroom. Otto and Delores had cleaned it, swept the remnants of the attack from her room. Dell had come in and patched the holes in the walls while she was at work. But the white hot flash of the bullets, the flying debris, the threats, and the deafening sound of the guns played in a repeating loop in her mind. She could still smell cigarette smoke lingering in the air, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to sleep in her bed again. Then she heard a car in front of her house. She didn’t reach for the gun lying on the coffee table. She knew with certainty that Dillon, good caring man that he was, had come.

She held the door open for him and they stood awkwardly inside the living room for a moment. Dillon wore his office clothes, a navy suit and red tie, and stood with his hands in his front pants pockets.

“I appreciate you coming over like this,” she said.

“I heard about the mess last night.”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “It’s like my brain has shut down on me.”

“Come in the kitchen, and I’ll make you a cup of hot tea,” he said.

Several minutes later, he sat down across from her at the kitchen table with two hot mugs and tea bags.

“I want to do this job,” she said, staring into her mug, “but I don’t know if I have what it takes. I feel like the floodgates of Mexico are leaking and all their violence and chaos is about to flow into our country. And we’re in the direct path. And by some bizarre twist of fate, I’m the one that’s supposed to repair the crack. I know this is absurd, but in some ways, I feel like the security of this nation rests on my shoulders.”