Chapter 13

It was past six when I finally reached the ICU at GW Medical Center. The nurse at the station said Sampson’s vitals had been irregular most of the day, and there’d been little if any reduction in brain swelling.

“You sick in any way?” the nurse asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. Why?”

“Protocol. The shunt draining the wound is an open track straight to the inside of your friend’s healing skull. Any kind of infection could be catastrophic.”

“I feel fine,” I said, and put on the gown, mask, and gloves.

When I pushed open the door, Billie stirred awake in her reclining chair.

“Alex? That you?”

“The man behind the mask.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, getting up to hug me. “I’ve been wearing one the past forty hours and I’m getting rubbed raw.”

“His vitals?”

Billie scanned the monitors attached to her husband and said, “Not bad at the moment, but his blood pressure took a short, scary dive about four hours ago. I was thinking stroke until he just kind of came up out of it.”

“They say talking to people in comas helps,” I said.

“Stimulates the brain,” she said, nodding. “But that’s usually with a non-induced coma, when there aren’t drugs involved.”

“All the same,” I said, and went to Sampson’s side.

“I’ll be a few minutes,” Billie said.

“Be right here until you get back,” I said.

When she’d gone out, I held Sampson’s giant hand and gave him an account of the day’s investigation, sparing him no detail. It felt good and familiar, and right, to talk it out with him, as if Sampson were not drugged down to the reptilian part of his brain, but acute and thoughtful and funny as hell.

“That’s it,” I said. “And, yes, I want another crack at Soneji’s widow and kid before long.”

The door opened. Billie stepped back inside, and then several of the monitors around Sampson began to squawk in alarm.

A team burst in. I was pushed to the corner with Billie.

“It’s his blood pressure again,” Billie said in a wavering voice. “Jesus, I don’t know if his heart can take this much longer.”

Ninety seconds later, the crisis passed and his vitals improved.

“I don’t know what happened,” I said, bewildered. “I was telling him about the investigation and...”

“What?” Billie said. “Why did you do that?”

“Because he’d want to know.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s done. That’s over, Alex.”

“What’s over?”

“His career as a cop,” Billie said. “No matter how he recovers, that part of John’s life is over if he wants to continue to be my husband.”

“John loves being a cop,” I said.

“I know he does... did... but that’s over,” Billie said sharply. “I will care for him, and defend John until the day one of us dies, but between now and then, his days carrying a gun and a badge are behind him.”

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