The Protector

6

The hot shower cascaded over Cavanaugh, drenching his bowed head and his back. Then he tilted his head up, letting the water pour over his face and chest. He was so unsteady, he had to sit.

The shower curtain was pulled open. Silhouetted by the light from a makeup mirror outside the shower stall, Jamie lowered the lid on the toilet seat. She sat, put her elbows on her knees, and watched him.

Although the light out there hurt his eyes, it allowed him to see the blood, dirt, and soot swirling down the drain. As he shampooed his head, bits of singed hair followed them.

"You've got bruises on your legs and chest," she said.

During the drive north, he had haltingly told her what had happened. Again, she had made him proud by listening, not interrupting with outbursts, instead swallowing her emotions and asking occasional necessary questions.

"Must have been when I rolled down the gully," he said. "You could have been an operator, you know that? You learn fast. I don't know where you got them, but you have the right instincts."

Her solemnity straining her beauty, Jamie said, "The instincts come from hanging around with you." She rolled up her sleeves and soaped his back. "So why did Prescott want your team dead?"

"And who were the guys in the helicopters? They handled themselves the way military special ops teams do," Cavanaugh said.

"What about the assault team at the warehouse?"

"They had hardware, but their tactics were conventional. They weren't as disciplined as the guys in the helicopters. When they stormed the stairs at the warehouse, they hung back, almost as if they were afraid."

He turned off the shower. As the water dripped from him, neither he nor Jamie moved for a moment.

"I guess it's show time," he said. "You remember what needs to be done?"

"You were very clear."

"Okay." Cavanaugh took a deep breath, reached his right hand to his left shoulder, pried up the edges on the duct tape, exhaled, took another deep breath, and started to pull the strips away. The pliant tape had a sticky under-side that parted slowly from his skin. He couldn't do it quickly, because he wanted to avoid tearing and widening the wound. Each second prolonged the pain. With the tape off, blood now flowed, but not as much as when he'd first been shot, clots having formed in the meantime.

Immediately, Jamie pressed the soapy washcloth onto it, swabbing quickly but gently, cleaning away dirt and puss.

He grimaced.

"Done," she said.

He leaned forward to turn on the shower, rinsing. "I can't move my head enough to see it."

"It's a gouge across the top of your shoulder. The good news is, as much as I can tell, the bullet went through."

"Felt like it. What's the bad news?"

"The gouge is two inches long."

Cavanaugh nodded. As blood flowed down the drain, he turned the shower off and braced himself for what Jamie was going to do next.

Before checking into the motel, they'd made a quick stop at a drugstore to buy a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

Jamie opened the bottle and poured it over the wound.

As the liquid bubbled and foamed in the long, deep gouge, the pain felt like razors and fire combined. He gritted his teeth and grabbed the side of the tub.

"Rinse it," Jamie told him.

His vision shaking, he turned on the shower again. More blood, mixed with foaming liquid, swirled down the drain. When he leaned back from the spray, Jamie poured another stream of hydrogen peroxide. Again the long, deep gouge erupted in bloody foam.

"Christ Almighty…" Cavanaugh murmured. He leaned into the spray. As more bloody foam swirled down the drain, he turned off the shower and slumped over the side of the tub, feeling Jamie towel the wound.

His jaw muscles hardened.

"The skin's red," Jamie said.

"The tape must have irritated it."

"No. This is a different kind of red. It looks like the wound's infected." Jamie soaked up more blood. In a rush, while the gouge was temporarily dry, she opened a tube of antibiotic cream, squeezed half of it along the gouge, pressed a wad of gauze over that, and sealed everything with several strips of first-aid tape.

He took a deep breath.

"Can you stand?" Jamie asked.

He slipped when he tried. Jamie grabbed him before he could fall, water from him sticking her blouse to her chest.

She sat him on the toilet lid and used the last towel, a big one, to dry his arms, chest, head, and back, avoiding the area of the wound, the thick bandage on it now pink with blood.

"I'm going to pull you up," Jamie said.

Off balance, Cavanaugh felt her move the towel over his legs, privates, and hips. Apart from the pain in his shoulder, his sensations came from a distance, as if his body didn't belong to him.

"Hang on." Jamie hooked his arm around her neck and guided him into the shadowy bedroom, easing him onto the nearer of the two beds. "You feel hot. Do you think you have a fever?"

Before he could answer, he started shivering.

As his chills became more violent, Jamie took off her slacks, got under the covers, and held him. "You need a…"

"No," Cavanaugh managed to say between shivers.

His eyelids felt heavier. The shadows in the room darkened.

She held him closer.