Paranoid(70)

He checked his watch and found it now after 4 a.m., the neighborhood calm. Not even the raccoon disturbed the stillness. He stretched the muscles in his neck by rotating his head, then settled back against the seat. That stakeout had been the beginning of the end, he thought.

When he’d opened his eyes, he’d found himself staring up at the can lights in the ceiling of the intensive care unit of the hospital.

A male nurse was in the room with him. His name tag read Ari Granger, RN. With stern blue eyes, a soul patch, and the brisk demeanor of a bartender, Ari checked Cade’s vital signs. Cade winced.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice gravelly and dry. For a second he wasn’t able to remember anything.

“EMTs brought you into the ER. Gunshot wound. You’ve been in surgery.” Another grave look.

Cade tried to shift in the bed and changed his mind when the pain flared through his back.

“How’s your pain on a scale of one to ten? I can give you something for that,” Ari said.

“Not . . . not good.” Cade stopped moving to help the agony subside. “My back . . .” The top half of his body felt raw.

“The bullet lodged close to your spinal cord. Another inch and I don’t think we’d be having this conversation right now. But if you rest and follow the doctor’s orders, in a few days, you’ll walk out of here a whole man. For now, you need rest. Here, let me give you something for that pain,” he said, and added a dosage into Cade’s IV.

“Point taken. Is my partner okay? Kayleigh O’Meara?” he asked as the memory of the scene at the meth house started to return.

“She’s out in the waiting room, I think. You thirsty?”

Cade nodded, increasingly aware of the dryness in his throat and the burning pain spreading through his back, shoulders, and chest.

The nurse disappeared for a minute or so it seemed, then returned with water in a glass with a bendable straw. “Dr. Kendris will be in sometime this afternoon to discuss your prognosis.”

Cade sucked the ice water through the straw, soothing his parched tongue and throat. As his memory returned with a slow clarity, he recalled the fuckup at the stakeout, how he’d given in to temptation with Kayleigh, and how he’d almost let his marriage go.

What had he been thinking?

“My wife?” he said, but the nurse had disappeared through the door again. Of course Rachel knew he was here. She would have been the first one notified. He thought to call her but his damned cell phone wasn’t anywhere in sight, and the old landline phone sat across the room on the windowsill. Pushing his palms into the mattress, he tried to sit up, get up, get to the phone. But failed. He was sleepy again. Succumbing to the pain medication. He closed his eyes and was gone again.

When he reopened them, it seemed like a moment had passed, but he sensed more time than he imagined had lapsed.

Someone squeezed his hand.

He blinked.

Kayleigh, her green eyes dark with guilt, her face pale. “So you decided not to leave us after all,” she said. “You scared the hell out of me. Out of all of us.” She cleared her throat. “I . . . I . . . shit, I don’t know what to say. I made a mistake. Nope, I made a lot of them last night. I, um, I’m sorry. God, so sorry.”

He paused a second, then had to ask, “Is Rachel here?”

Her eyes slid away. “Not sure. But she’s been called.”

He wondered if she’d show up. Their last fight . . .

“So, seriously,” she said, clearing her throat. “How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”

“I think I’m on pretty good meds. Just can’t move much. I need to get up and—”

“Don’t think so, Detective.” She attempted to put on a brave face, lighten things up. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got doctor’s orders to stay put.” Her auburn hair, which she usually pulled back, hung down loose and thick now, falling onto the hospital gown over his chest as she leaned in. “You stay where you are and follow every single doctor’s order, Ryder. You just scared the hell out of me, and I’m going to make it my personal mission to make sure you take it easy until you’re back to one hundred percent.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Too bad. Already decided.” Some of her guard had fallen away and he witnessed a deeper emotion in her eyes, something neither one of them wanted to acknowledge.

“Kayleigh, don’t,” he whispered just as the door to the room opened and Rachel appeared, looking frazzled and rushed, her jacket billowing, her dark hair springing from its ponytail.

Everything about her said: I’m here for you. I dropped everything. I rushed over.

But in the next heartbeat the intense desperation in her eyes gave way to shock and pain as she took in the scene.

Kayleigh dropped his fingers as if they’d burned her.

“What the hell?” Rachel whispered, her eyes wide.

“I was just leaving.” Kayleigh started for the door.

“Cade?” Rachel said, then shook her head slowly as Kayleigh’s footsteps echoed down the hallway.

“Hey, Rach.” He almost added, I know this looks bad, which was the truth, or It’s not what you think, which was a little bit of a lie, all things considered, but he didn’t want to stoop to clichés.