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"Lean forward a little. That's good. Hold still."
He tried to crane around.
"I said, hold still! This is going to sting."
She jabbed the fleshy muscle and injected him.
He didn't flinch, but he did demand, a little sourly, "What the hell was that?"
"Synthetic morphine. Don't argue. Just lie down and let me deal with this."
Dan Collins glanced up from his own bedside vigil and tried to smile. "Take my advice. Don't argue. You'll be a happier man."
Charlie blinked, then swallowed sharply. "Okay."
Sibyl wanted to comfort the army colonel, too, but she couldn't lie to him and say, "Lucille will be fine." Lucille Collins' life was still very much in danger. At least Charlie had begun to relax under the influence of the medicine. By the time she finished washing grit and sand out of the welts, he was very drowsy and much more comfortable.
"Forgot how nice it is not to hurt," he mumbled into the army cot.
Sibyl turned aside, searching for the surgeon's medical kit. She found it on the floor and rummaged.
"What do you need?"
She glanced up. Francisco Valdez was awake. He looked a little pale.
"Something to prevent infection, something to deal with existing infection, and something for a broken rib."
Francisco eased up to a sitting position. "Let me see."
Sibyl helped the surgeon wobble over to Charlie's cot. Francisco's brows drew down sharply. He prodded cautiously, drawing a sharp yelp from Charlie.
"That needs to be set. It's out of proper alignment." He glanced around. "Where's that big lunatic, McKee?"
"I heard that," McKee said from the other room. He appeared in the doorway. "What's up?"
"I need some help setting a broken rib. If we don't, he'll risk a punctured lung. We can't deal with that here."
McKee nodded. "Tell me what to do."
Sibyl scooted out of their way. She hugged herself and tried not to flinch too badly when Charlie yelled. Thank God I dosed him first. Sibyl learned more colorful curses during the next five minutes than she had during her entire academic career. New Jersey cops had foul mouths. In any language. The one time she dared look, Charlie was sweating down his mutilated back, fists tightened in the blanket. The wetness on his face wasn't sweat, nor did it look voluntary.
It took far too long, in Sibyl's estimation, but Francisco Valdez finally said, "Yes, that's better. Much better. Thanks, McKee. Hang around a minute, I'll need you again."
Francisco Valdez went to work on the welts, using a topical anesthetic, followed by antibiotic ointment.
"Normally," he told Charlie, "I'd want you on oral antibiotics, but I've got an appendectomy and a gunshot wound that take higher priority and we have a limited supply of ampicillin."
"No problem." Charlie's voice, muffled by the blanket on the cot, wobbled a little.
"We'll keep these scrupulously clean and apply topical antibiotics to the worst welts until we run out of it. Hopefully by then, we'll be somewhere to get these properly looked after."
While he talked, Francisco smoothed in the medicine.
"Ms. Johnson, would you find the large gauze pads, please, and the adhesive?"
Sibyl rummaged again. She handed over a whole box of gauze and the tape. "I can do that," she said. "Your hands aren't steady yet."
Francisco smiled ruefully. "Yes, my ribs hurt, but not as much as Charlie's. Relatively speaking, I'm fine. Place the pads like so, overlapping, and tape the outsides to one another. Yes, just like that... ."
They covered Charlie's whole back, from his neck to his tailbone and partway around the sides. By the time they'd finished, Charlie looked more like the permanent occupant of an Egyptian crypt than a cop. At least he'd stopped wheezing like an asthmatic elephant. The wet trails down his cheeks had started to dry.
"Very good. Charlie, can you sit up?"
A sheen of sweat still glistened on his throat. "Sure, doc. No problem. Sometime next week, maybe."
McKee had to help him get there, then had to brace him once he made it.
"Now what?" McKee asked.
"We need to tape his ribs. Ms. Johnson?"
Sibyl handed over tape and helped hold Charlie up. McKee did the taping. Charlie compressed his lips and bruised Sibyl's wrist every few seconds. But he didn't yell again.
"Glad you... gave me that stuff," he said at one point. "This would'a been... murder without it."
Francisco lifted one brow. Sibyl explained. "I used only two cc's."
The army surgeon nodded. "That's all right, then. I'd have done the same. All right, Charlie, we're done torturing you for now. I prescribe plenty of rest and about twelve straight hours of sleep, followed by getting the hell out of here."
Charlie managed a wan smile that did amazing things to Sibyl's pulse. "You said it. When do we leave?"
"Right after you get some sleep," Sibyl said sternly.
Francisco caught her eye. "I think you need a little sleep as well, young lady. Off to bed. Now."
So Sibyl had ended up putting together two separate nests of blankets out in the main room, a small one into which she tucked sleeping little Lucania. She then offered to share the other with Charlie. The look in his eyes when she made that offer was one of the treasures she locked away in a secret corner of herself, along with memories of her parents and her grandmother's warm hugs and laughter.
Sibyl just wished she could sleep as deeply as Charlie. Every time she closed her eyes, some newly remembered horror would present itself for reinspection. She stared into the semidarkness, watching dust motes in the narrow shaft of light from the bathroom, and listened to Charlie's heartbeat and soft breaths. She thanked God every few minutes he was alive, that he had a chance to recover. That Lucania was safe with him.
She hoped Charlie could afford some good reconstructive surgery. What kind of health insurance did a police officer have? And had he been missing, subjectively, long enough to account for the age of his injuries? Not bloody likely.... Some of those scars were four years old. She damned Carreras all over again. Maybe something could be done through Francisco Valdez. It was the least the Army could do.
Nothing was easy anymore. Not that anything had ever been easy in her life. When God handed out trouble, He seemed to keep a special eye out for the Johnsons.
She wondered what part of New Jersey Charlie'd grown up in. Where, exactly, was Jersey City? They'd had so little time to talk. Did he have family up there? Maybe even a wife and kids? The question left her stu
And even if he'd been married, they'd have taken every physical clue from him at the time of his capture. She wasn't sure undercover cops who were married would even wear a wedding band. She had a feeling something like that would come under the heading of protective camouflage.
God... She didn't want Charlie to walk out of her life. She treasured his friendship and harbored a sneaking feeling she didn't want to settle for just friendship. Her thoughts jolted her. He was old enough—at least, looked old enough—to be her father. She barely knew him. All she really knew about Charlie...
He was tenacious. Infinitely gentle with those who needed him, deadly to his enemies. Loyal to a fault. Astonishingly resourceful. And the most honorable man she knew.
Her throat closed traitorously.
The only virtue she could lay at her own feet was stubbor
She already knew how he felt about children.
Low voices from the infirmary sidetracked Sibyl from her own worries. Lucille was awake. Dan Collins' voice was a broken whisper in the darkness.