Stirred

“Hey!”

An old, armed Detroit cop guarding the outside of my door peered in at me, different guy from last time I was awake. Shift change must have occurred.

“My baby,” I said, my voice cracking. “Did they…?”

“Still looking,” he said. “We got fifty guys there, but the area is huge. We’ll find her.”

“Did you check Luther’s footage?”

“The video files are encrypted. We’re working on that, too.”

I allowed myself to be devastated for a few seconds, then pushed it deep inside. Depressed, exhausted, hurt as I was, I needed to pull myself together, to bring my A game.

I blew out a stiff breath. “I’m Jack Daniels, by the way,” I said. “Thanks for watching over me.”

“Not a problem. Name’s Richie. You need anything, just let me know.”

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, still struggling to push away the dread.

I needed out of that room.

I needed to be with my friends.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, smoothing down my hospital gown over my legs. There was a pair of paper slippers on the floor, and I stood up and slowly slid my feet into them. I was still woozy. From the drugs.

From everything that had happened.

“I don’t know if you should be getting up, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not a cop anymore. And I’m going to see my friends. Know where they are?”

“Two doors down. I’ll show you.”

He led me down a bright, antiseptic hallway.

I moved in a slow shuffle, feeling a lot like a balloon that had all of its air let out. Richie was talking to the cop stationed outside the door, and I poked my head inside the room.

Harry and Herb occupied beds next to each other, which I immediately thought was a big mistake. But, incredibly, they weren’t at each other’s throats. In fact, they were both smiling and engaged in what appeared to be amicable conversation.

“Hey, boys.”

I walked in, hugged them each in turn.

“Hey, Jackie,” Harry said. “Herb didn’t know I had club box seats at Wrigley Field. We’re going to a game next week.”

“Who is?” I asked.

“Me and Herb.”

I eyed Herb. “You’re going to a Cubs game with Harry?”

“Yeah. We’ve put our differences aside and realized we have a lot in common. We both like baseball. And hot dogs. And Neil Diamond. And microbrew beer. Harry’s actually a pretty cool guy.”

I glanced down at Herb’s chart, looking for mention of a head injury.

“We’d invite you to come along,” Harry said, “but it’s a guy’s night out. Bros before hoes. Right, big dog?”

“You know it.”

I watched, astonished, as they bumped knuckles.

“Explode it!” Harry said.

They touched fists again, and then each made a POW sound as they opened their hands in a mock explosion.

I felt like rolling my eyes but didn’t want to be the gray cloud in their sunshine parade. “Where’s Phin?”

“ICU,” Herb said. “His surgery took longer than ours.”

“I got fifteen stitches,” McGlade said, smiling proudly. “Herb got thirty. Fo’ knucks, big dog! Holla back!”

They bumped fists again.

“Explode it!” Harry said.

Once more, with a POW.

I thought I liked it better when they hated each other.

Scratch that. I was positive I liked it better.

“Phin okay?” I asked.

Herb nodded. “They saved his kidney. Six hours under the knife, but he’s doing fine.”

“It’s okay,” Harry said. “He’s got a spare one. Apparently he’s some kinda genetic freak who was born with two kidneys. Phin’s the man, dog. Bust the rock!”

They tapped knuckles again.

“Explode it!”

POW.

I would have told them to get a room, but they already had one.

“I’m going to check on him,” I said, leaving them alone with their guy love.

My cop escort tailed me to the ICU, which required an elevator ride up to the seventh floor. Phin also had a guard in front of his door who wouldn’t let me through until I lied and said I was Phin’s wife.

Phin was asleep, a tube up his nose, his color pallid.

When I kissed his forehead, he opened his eyes.

“Hey, you,” he whispered.

“Hey. How you feeling?”

“Groggy. But strong. Did they find…?”

I shook my head, a tear raining down my cheek. “Not Luther, or our daughter.”

I reached down, held his hand, squeezed it. He squeezed back.

“Harry and Herb?” he asked.

“I think they’re going to start dating.”

“How are you, Jack?”

I pursed my lips together, because I was afraid I’d start sobbing if I spoke.

“That man,” Phin said. “The one Luther had chained up. Maybe he knows something.”

I nodded, wiping away a tear with the back of my hand. “I should go be me?” I said.

“No one does it better, babe.”

I gave Phin another kiss, this one on the cheek.

Then I shuffled off to talk to Andrew Z. Thomas.

Earlier

She walked into the waiting room of the ER.

Eyes instantly upon her, and why shouldn’t they be?

Her housedress practically shredded and reeking of dried sewage from her romp through Luther’s playhouse. And she looked like…

Well, she looked like what she looked like.

She limped up to the admit window and waited for the nurse to notice.

The older woman behind the glass didn’t even look at her, just said, “Fill out the intake form, bring it back to me.”

Lucy leaned in close to the glass, stared at the woman with her single, functioning eye, said, “Hey. Emergency here.”

The old nurse finally obliged her and registered a beat of shock and horror at Lucy’s hideous visage.

Already, blood was ru

Lucy held up her three-fingered claw and then lifted her dress over her head, exposing the skin-graft seams she’d ripped out in the parking lot, figuring her only sure shot at an admit would be copious amounts of blood.

She heard an “Oh my God,” from one of the other patients in the waiting room.

Heard the nurse pick up the phone and call for a gurney, stat.

Lucy had thought she’d have to fake losing consciousness, but she apparently had done too good a job, possibly ripped out too many seams, the blood flooding out of her faster than she’d pla

A swirling dizziness sapped the strength from her legs, which buckled.

She was out before she even hit the floor.

Richie led me down past the nurses’ station to a room at the end of the wing, where another guard stood watch in front of a room I knew must belong to Andrew Z. Thomas.

The guards must’ve known each other because they bumped knuckles but thankfully restrained themselves from exploding. What was up with guys and doing that? Maybe I didn’t get the memo because I didn’t have testicles.

My guard said, “What’s the hap-hap, Tone?”

“You know, just pulling the door duty. All’s quiet.”

“Same here. And I like it quiet. This is my last day, man. Retirement, here I come.”

“You and the missus buy that beach house in Florida?”

“You betcha. Go

“Who’s this, Richie?” Andrew’s guard motioned to me.

“I’m Jack Daniels,” I said, extending my hand.

“Officer Tony Satori. Pleasure to meet you.”