“Wait, Garrett,” I said as he wrestled his colleague out the door. An SUV pulled up with Andre the Giant, aka Ulrich their third man, at the wheel.
“The cops are almost here. Apply pressure.”
“Thanks,” I said at his back. Turning to Garrett, I realized the blood I saw in an arc around my head was not mine but his. I sought out the worst of his wounds and, well, applied pressure.
Chapter Sixteen
NATIONAL SARCASM SOCIETY:
LIKE WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT.
It was late when I slipped into Garrett’s hospital room. He was still asleep, so I decided to help myself to his tray. I’d been admitted for a concussion and he’d been admitted for three gunshot wounds. So he won. This time.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice gravelly from fatigue and medication.
“I’m eating your ice cream,” I said through a huge mouthful of vanilla delight.
“Why are you eating my ice cream?”
Really, he asked the silliest things. “Because I already ate mine. Duh.”
He laughed then cringed in helpless agony. He’d been in surgery for-like-ever, then in recovery, but they put him in a room because, despite the amount of blood loss, his wounds were no longer life threatening. “You here to get in my pants?” he asked.
“You’re not wearing any pants,” I reminded him. “You’re wearing a girly gown with a built-in ass ventilator.” I was in a similar outfit, but Cookie had brought me a pair of sweats to wear underneath.
My doctor was reluctantly dismissing me after making Ubie and Cookie promise not to let me fall asleep for twelve hours. He was doing the paperwork now. It was late, but really there was no reason for me to sit in a hospital when my computer was clearly in my apartment and I could just as easily sit there. And pass the time looking at pictures of Reyes on the Web.
I put the ice cream down and crawled into bed with Garrett. “You’re not a blanket hog, are you?”
I could feel Reyes close. I could feel him tense when I climbed into bed with Garrett. Was he jealous? Of Garrett? I was there for a friend. Period. To console and comfort him.
“I’m very uncomfortable,” Garrett said with a groan.
“Don’t be ridiculous. My presence alone is comforting.”
“Not especially.”
I reached an arm over his head and pulled it onto my shoulder.
“Ouch.”
“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I got shot in the shoulder you’re leaning on.”
“You’re on pain meds,” I said, patting his head roughly. “Suck it up.”
“Sanity’s not really your thing, is it?”
I let go of his head with a loud sigh and scooted away from him. “Better?”
“It would be if I could fondle Danger and Will Robinson.”
Ignoring the surge of anger that crackled in the room like static electricity, I covered the girls protectively. “You certainly may not,” I said, thumping him on his IV’ed hand.
Garrett chuckled again, then grabbed his side in pain. After a moment of recovery, he asked, “Do any other body parts besides your breasts and ovaries have names?”
I’d introduced him just last week to Danger, Will Robinson, Beam-me-up and last but not least, my right ovary, Scotty. “As a matter of fact, my toes were recently christened in an odd game of Spin the Bottle and one- too-many margaritas.”
“Could you introduce me?”
I hefted myself upright and wrestled off my socks, wiggling the bed just enough to elicit soft gasps of agony from Garrett. “You’re such a whiner,” I said, lying back beside him and lifting my feet. “Okay, starting with my left pinkie toe, we have Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, Sleepy, Queen Elizabeth the Third, Bootylicious the Patron Saint of Hot Asses, and Pinkie Floyd.”
After a thoughtful moment, he asked, “Pinkie Floyd?”
“You know, like the band, only not.”
“Right. Did you name your fingers?”
I turned an incredulous look on him. I was a master of incredulity. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” he asked, all offended like.
“Why on planet Earth would I name my fingers?”
He looked at me with a drug-induced glaze. “It’s your world,” he said, his consonants slightly slurred, and I knew that last bit of morphine was kicking in.
I leaned into him and kissed his cheek just as his lids closed. I expected another blast of anger from Reyes, but I realized he was gone. His absence left an emptiness in the general vicinity of my upper torso.
After a night of hospitals, uniforms, and questions, I was finally released on my own recognizance. Since I had no idea what recognizance meant, I felt it would be unfair to hold me accountable later should I screw it up. Garrett was in stable condition, and I was once again superglued back together. Or, at least my head was. A dull ache pounded continually to remind me what getting knocked out felt like.
When the cops arrived at the abandoned motel, the gunman was dead. His neck had been broken when he apparently slipped off the back of his car while shooting at us. Okay. That worked for me. I told them that Garrett, worried they might have taken me, had followed the men out there. When he realized they had, he called the police and came in with guns blazing, shooting one of the kidnappers dead. Evil Riggs.
But the dead gunman outside did not have crystal blue eyes. Thus, he was not who I suspected Evil Murtaugh to be. Namely one of my fake FBI agents. The one Garrett shot was apparently the supposed Agent Foster. He turned out to be a petty criminal from Minnesota. So then, where was my other fake FBI guy? Special Agent Powers? He must’ve gotten away. And the gunman was new. I’d never seen him.
I had yet to hear from my Juicy fan Mr. Smith and hoped Mr. Chao was okay. I couldn’t tell Uncle Bob to check the hospitals for him without letting him know there were more people on scene than I’d let him believe. Hey, if they didn’t want to be identified, who was I to blab?
As Cookie and Ubie walked me to my apartment, I stopped off at my neighbor Mrs. Allen’s place and knocked. It was late, but she crept around her apartment all hours of the night, and I needed to make sure they hadn’t hurt her when they took me. She cracked her door open.
“Mrs. Allen, are you okay?”
She nodded, her expression heavy with fear and regret. I found out that she’d called the police after they took me, but she couldn’t describe the car or the men. At least she’d tried.
“All right. If you need anything.”
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice quivering with age and worry.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How’s PP?”
She looked over her shoulder. “He was so worried.”
I offered her the biggest, most reassuring smile I could conjure. “Tell him I’m just fine. Thank you so much for calling the police, Mrs. Allen.”
“They found you?”
“They found me.” I promised never to take that woman or her poodle for granted again as Uncle Bob and Cookie escorted me to my apartment.
