Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“One and the same.”

Zoller’s phone jangled and she plucked it from a pocket, saw the display, and, smiling for the first time that day, mouthed, “Bruno,” whom she often referred to as So, her shortened form of Significant Other. “Gotta take this. He’s pisssssed about me missing the meal with his folks. Guess it was a command performance with the PILs—Potential In-Laws—but, hey, too damned bad. Someone starts taking shots at my boss and I don’t like it, so all bets and command performances are off!” She swung the phone to her ear and said sweetly, “Hey, Bruno . . . what’s up? Yeah, yeah . . . I know . . . me, too, but this is a really big deal . . . um-hmm . . . Give them my love and I know they’ll understand. . . .” She sauntered into the hallway still cajoling Bruno while Alvarez checked her watch. She’d avoided the hospital all day, instead working the case, putting her efforts into finding the bastard who had tried to kill her boss. Yet she knew she would have to spend some time in the hospital, would want to be close to him. But the idea of sitting around with Grayson’s small family, doing nothing but waiting and silently praying, feeling impotent while Grayson battled for his life, wasn’t something she wanted to face.

So she turned her attention to Grayson’s will.

Feeling a little like a Peeping Tom, Alvarez started reading the Last Will and Testament of Dan Grayson even though the man was still struggling for his life. If he pulled through, and she prayed fervently that he would, she’d feel even more guilty of voyeurism, but in the name of bringing his assailant to justice, she really didn’t give a damn.

“I’ll be home soon, I hope,” Hattie whispered into her cell. She was standing outside the wing of the operating rooms at the hospital, in a hallway of Northern General where cell use was permitted. She’d taken a much-needed trip to the restroom, then stopped to call her mother and check on her daughters. “Just feed the girls and, if I don’t get home before bedtime, please let them each pick out a story to read, and tuck them in.”

“They’re asking about you,” Zena said, and Hattie detected a hint of recrimination in her mother’s voice. “Mallory’s complaining about not seeing her mama on Christmas.”

“I was there this morning, and we had breakfast and opened the gifts from Santa and . . .” Why was she arguing the point? Zena wouldn’t understand, nor would she listen. She bought into her granddaughters’ acts hook, line, and sinker, and Mallory, a bit of a conniver who’d already announced she planned to be an actress when she grew up, knew exactly how to play her grandmother and get what she wanted. Zena never understood that she was being manipulated. Today was no exception.

“Well, honey, they’re worried about their uncle, of course.”

They should be. Hattie backed up to let a man with a walker and his wife ease past. His wife was tending to him, guiding him, her hand patiently placed upon the middle of his back, leaning forward to whisper to him, as he tried to steer the walker toward the elevator bank.

“I don’t suppose Cara has shown up?” Zena said, drawing her back to the conversation.

“Not yet, but I called and left her a message.” That had been a little weird. “I’m not even certain I have her correct cell number, my call went right to voice mail.”

“I don’t have her cell, just the house.”

“I’ll try that later if she doesn’t call back.”

“When’s the last time you talked to Cara?”

Hattie remembered distinctly. “A year ago. I called Christmas night to wish them all Merry Christmas.”

Zena gave off a little huff of disgust. “She sent me a card last year. One of those preprinted things with a picture of the family. No note. Nothing.”

Hattie imagined her mother’s face as she talked about her eldest daughter. Her face would be tight, her lips pursed in disapproval, her eyes sharp with pride, her chin inched up a bit. Zena always felt as if she were the persecuted one, the victim.

But today, it wasn’t about her. “Look, I’ve got to go.” She glanced down the short hallway and saw a grim-faced man in scrubs appear and draw Dan’s two brothers and the detective aside. “I think the doctor’s got some news about Dan.” Before Zena could say another word, she clicked off and hurried to the waiting area where she heard the tail end of what the doctor was saying.

“. . . with this kind of trauma to the brain, we just can’t be certain. He’ll be in intensive care, where he can be closely monitored around the clock, but that’s no guarantee.” The doctor, a neurosurgeon named Kapule, took their questions and explained some more about decompressive craniectomy, in which part of Dan’s skull was removed to take pressure off his brain where swelling had occurred. The more the doctor talked about blood loss and brain trauma and infection, the more worried Hattie beca

me. She wasn’t alone. Detective Pescoli was somber, Big Zed’s eyebrows slammed together, and even Cade had lost some of his bluster and anger, his rage replaced by dread.

The long and the short of it was that even though a neurosurgeon who had worked with brain injuries on soldiers from the battlefields of Iran and Afghanistan had operated on the sheriff, Dan was still in critical condition. Since the wound had been through and through, the bullet entering and exiting his brain, back to front, with no major blood vessels hit, he surprisingly had a chance of full recovery; though, of course, the odds were against him. “He’ll be in ICU within the hour. It’s on the third floor and he’ll be monitored closely.”

“There will be a guard posted,” Pescoli said and the doctor nodded, understanding that the cops were going to take care of their own. Already there had been a parade of deputies and detectives through the doors of Northern General, and Hattie had seen several police cruisers and SUVs in the parking lot. Obviously, someone bold enough to strike Grayson at his own home on Christmas morning might not be deterred by the hospital’s security.

“He’s a fighter,” Zed said when Kapule, his cell phone ringing, had left them alone in the waiting area. Others, including the woman who’d been knitting and the older man thumbing through magazines, had left, replaced by a Hispanic family of four and a nervous middle-aged woman with her daughter, but they, too, had just departed from the hospital. Because Grayson’s surgery had been so involved and lengthy, their group had remained, and though Detective Pescoli had sometimes left the area, she’d always returned within the hour, sometimes moving away from them to talk quietly on her cell phone.

“I need some air,” Cade said, stalking away.

Zed’s bushy eyebrows shot up and Hattie had a short, sharp memory of Cade and her in an argument that had ended with him throwing up his hands and telling her he needed some air. It was inside his pickup one night after a high-school football game. She remembered the way he’d slammed the door and the breadth of his shoulders and leanness of his hips as he’d strode away from the stadium lights, leaving her to either wait for him or slam out of the vehicle as well. She’d chosen the latter, done with his anger over her relationship with Dan, which had been more a benign high-school romance than the hot affair Cade had accused her of. Still, it hadn’t been his place to question her, but now, her throat felt hot at the memory; so many things had come and gone between them since.

“Mebbe you need something like this,” Zed said as Cade retrieved his jacket and hat. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, as Cade turned around, dug out a can of Copenhagen, and tossed it at his brother, who caught it in his free hand.

“No, thanks.” Cade tossed the tin back. “I could use a drink.” He sent one blistering look Hattie’s direction, then headed toward the elevators. To Zed, he said, “I’ll check with J.D., make sure the herd is okay, and I’ll be back. Meet you at ICU.”

Detective Pescoli let out her breath in the wake of Cade’s departure. “Why don’t we all go down to the cafeteria for a while, until they get the sheriff moved and you can tell me about Dan, who you think might want to harm him.” She held up a hand as if she expected an argument. “I know we’ve been over this up here, but by now you’ve had some time to think about it. Maybe something’s bubbled to the surface of your memory.”

“Okay,” Hattie said, and at the mention of the cafeteria her stomach rumbled a bit, though she couldn’t really imagine eating anything. “Dan’s always been private. Holds things close to the vest.”

Zed was already walking toward the elevators. He was the one Grayson brother Hattie hadn’t dated, and he’d never much liked her, probably because she’d made a fool of herself first over Dan, then Cade, and lastly Bart, whom she’d eventually married. She’d been accused of “settling” and of being so enamored of the Grayson rumored wealth that she would have married any of the brothers, or worse yet, that she’d married Bart because her pride had been wounded when Dan had ended up with her half sister.