Seconds Away

CHAPTER 40

There were tubes and machines and beeping noises. There were curtains and antiseptic smells and monitors with green lights. I saw none of it. All I saw as I entered the room was my friend lying in the middle of all this horrible gadgetry.

Spoon looked so small in that bed. He looked small and as fragile as an injured bird.

Mrs. Spindel’s voice-Oh, I know it’s your fault-still echoed in my ears.

The doctor, a tall woman with her hair pulled back, put a hand on my shoulder. “Normally I would never allow it, but he’s so agitated. I need you to make this short and keep him calm.”

I nodded and slowly walked toward his bed. My legs felt rubbery. I stopped at one point because the tears were starting to come. I turned around, bit down hard on my lip, and gained enough composure. It wouldn’t help Spoon if he saw me hysterical. To keep him calm, I knew that I needed to be calm.

When I got to the bed, I wanted to pick him up and take him home and make it somehow yesterday. It was all so wrong, my friend lying here in this hospital.

“Mickey?”

Spoon seemed suddenly to be straining to move. He looked distressed. I bent down low, close to him. “I’m right here.”

He lifted his hand and I took it in mine. He was struggling to talk.

“Shh,” I said. “Just get better, okay?”

He shook his head weakly. I bent my ear to be closer to his mouth. It took him a few seconds but eventually he said, “Rachel is still in danger.”

“No, Spoon. You saved us all. It’s over.”

Spoon’s face tightened. “No, it isn’t. You can’t sit here doing nothing. You have to save her. You can’t stop until we find the truth.”

“Calm down, okay? Those two guys shot her. They’re in jail.”

I saw a tear escape his eye. “They didn’t do it.”

“Of course they did.”

“No, listen to me. Get out of here and help her. Promise me.”

Spoon was getting more agitated. The doctor rushed over and said to me, “I think that’s enough. You should go wait in the other room.”

She started to add something into his intravenous tube, a sedative, I guessed. I tried to let go of Spoon’s hand, but his grip grew tighter.

“It’s going to be okay, Spoon.”

Nurses came to the bedside too. They tried to hold him down and pull me away.

“She was shot in her house,” Spoon managed to say.

“I know, Spoon. It’s okay. Calm down.”

But he suddenly had new strength in his arm. He pulled me close, desperate. “You said they asked you which house was Rachel’s. Remember? When you saw them that first time on the street?”

“Right, so?”

The doctor finished injecting the medication. The effect was immediate. Spoon’s grip grew slack. I was about to pull away but now-

That the Caldwell house?

– Scarface’s voice came back to me. Spoon looked up at me and managed to ask me the same question I was suddenly asking myself:

“So if those two guys had already been at the house, why would they ask you where it was?”