“Damn you, Terry Walker,” she muttered. “Don’t you dare die. I love you.” Swallowing back a sob, she looked up at Jason. “Find Neil. Please.”
He glanced at Hank. “You aren’t budging?”
“Not on your life.”
Jason still looked reluctant to leave her there, but he nodded finally and went in search of Neil. The two of them came back just as the ambulance screeched to a halt on the nearby road.
All of the color washed out of Neil’s face when he saw Terry. “Oh, God, no.” He tried to get closer, but the paramedics pushed him gently aside.
Callie went to him and held him. “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay,” she repeated over and over, clinging to Neil. He said nothing at all, but she could feel his tears dampening her hair where his head rested against hers.
When they lifted Terry into the ambulance, Neil approached and shot a defiant look at the paramedics. “I’m going with him.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Not in the ambulance. You’ll just be in the way.”
“We’ll follow,” Jason said, grasping Neil’s elbow and guiding him away. He glanced at Hank. “Where’s your car?”
Hank looked torn. “I should stay here, help with the investigation.”
Jason nodded. “Just give me your keys. You can meet us at the hospital.”
“I’m coming, too,” Callie said.
Jason took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Of course you are. Terry will need both of you.”
Hank tossed Jason the keys to his car. When they were inside, he reached in, grabbed the police light and placed it on the roof. “Try not to break any major laws,” he warned Jason as he started it flashing and hit the siren. “They could have my badge for this.”
Despite Hank’s warning, Jason ran three red lights and took several corners on two wheels as he sped through the streets in the wake of the ambulance carrying Terry.
Callie worried about Neil. He was entirely too ashen. She reached into the backseat and clasped his hand. It was icy. “Are you okay?”
He glared at her. “Just swell,” he said sarcastically.
“Hey,” Jason protested softly. “Don’t take it out on Callie.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
Neil sighed. “No, it’s not,” he said, squeezing her hand. “It’s just... I can’t bear to think of what will happen if I lose him.”
“We are not going to lose him!” Callie protested. “Don’t even go there.”
Their noisy arrival at the hospital drew startled looks from the paramedics. Jason silenced the siren as he let Neil and Callie out by the emergency room door. “I’ll park and be back in a minute.”
Inside was bedlam. Terry had already been whisked off to some inner sanctum for treatment. Children sobbed as frantic mothers tried to soothe them. One man, his expression desperate, clutched a plastic cup of coffee so tightly it looked as if it might bend in two, spilling the contents all over the already dingy floor. The nursing staff looked as though it were under siege as relatives demanded information and doctors barked out orders.
Neil was too used to being in charge to sit quietly and wait. He joined the others clamoring for information, finally threatening to break down every door in the place until he found somebody who could tell him something about Terry.
Oblivious to Callie’s pleas, he was standing toe-to-toe with a burly security guard by the time Jason came inside. Jason sized up the situation and intervened before Neil ended up being banished to the parking lot.
“Come on, pal. Let’s go track down some coffee,” Jason said. “Callie can wait here for news, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a while.”
Neil resisted. “You go. I don’t want any coffee.”
“I do and I think the walk will do you good,” Jason countered. “Come on. I know waiting is hell. At least we can kill a few minutes of it.” He glanced at Callie. “You’ll be okay here by yourself? You won’t leave the area and go off on your own?”
She nodded. “I won’t move an inch. I’ll be fine. Just take care of Neil.”
Jason put a comforting arm across Neil’s sagging shoulders and steered him off toward the hospital cafeteria. Callie thought she had never loved anyone more than she did Jason right at that moment.
For all of his frequent protestations that he was cold-blooded and aloof, labels which had made their way into most of his media profiles, she knew that he was anything but. His sensitivity to Neil’s anxiety was proof of that.
She sat back in the hard plastic chair and waited, her gaze fixed on the automatic doors through which Terry had disappeared. Her eyes, already gritty from too many tears, ached from the strain of nonstop surveillance.
When she could stand it no more, she approached a nurse who looked half-dead on her feet but who still managed a smile for everyone.
“Excuse me, could you see if there’s any word at all on Terence Walker?”
The woman glanced at Callie and her expression softened. “You play on that soap with him, don’t you?”
Although she was surprised anyone would equate the glamorous Cop Kelly with her own grubby appearance, Callie nodded. A tear leaked out before she could stop it. “I’m so scared for him,” she confessed. “There was so much blood and his face—”
“Will be more ruggedly handsome than ever, once they get him patched up,” the nurse promised her with a wink. “He was conscious and cursing a blue streak last time I passed by his cubicle. The X-ray tech was just going in there. Let me see what I can find out for you.”
Callie turned away just in time to spot Lisa and Lindsay hurrying through the door. When they saw Callie, they raced over and enveloped her in a fierce hug.
“How did you know where we’d be?” Callie asked.
“Hank told us,” Lisa explained.
“What’s happening? Is he okay?” Lindsay demanded.
“He’s conscious. I think that’s a good sign. A nurse is
