He stood up when I entered his small office. He came around his desk and hugged me. He patted my shoulder and asked after Joe. I told him what the doctor had said: “We have to wait and see.”
When we were all seated, I asked about Connor Grant.
“He’s in a cell by his lonesome, round-the-clock guard,” said Brady. He raked back his longish white-blond hair with his fingers and took a long, cold pull from his coffee mug.
Then he said to me with a voice still faintly colored by a Southern drawl after all these years, “Git talkin’, Boxer. Don’t leave anything out.”
CHAPTER 8
IT WAS ALMOST two in the morning when I came through the front door of the apartment I used to share with Joe. It’s a roomy space in a former commercial building. The ceilings are high, and the kitchen is open to the main room, which is furnished in leather and neutral tones, and has tall windows west and south, facing Lake Street.
Tonight home sweet home never felt so good.
Martha, my longtime border collie best dog friend, charged across the floor, her barking waking Mrs. Rose, our saintly nanny, who’d been asleep in Joe’s big chair.
Martha also awakened Julie Anne, age twenty-two months, who called out for me.
“Mommmmeeeeeeeeeeee.”
“Be right there, sweetie,” I croaked.
“You need some honeyed tea for that throat,” Mrs. Rose said. I followed her into the kitchen, and as I washed my hands and face I told her that Joe’s condition hadn’t changed.
She said she would pray for him, and after she made tea and assured me that both baby and dog had had their needs addressed, I walked her through my front door and across the hall to her own domicile.
We hugged, and I said, “See you in the morning. Um. See you in six hours.”
Back inside, I went to Julie’s buttercup-yellow room. My dark-haired, blue-eyed girl was standing up in her crib with her hands up for a hug—which I gave her in full.
We have a big, JFK-style rocking chair with a cushion and a view. I lifted my sweetie and pulled her into my lap. I rocked as I cuddled with her. I smelled her hair, kissed her fingers, listened to her breathing lengthen, before I settled her back down into her bedding. I whispered, “I love you soooooo much. Sweet dreams, babycakes.”
I checked my cell phone to see if I’d missed a call from San Francisco General. I had not.
Martha joined me in the bathroom, watching over me from the bath mat while I showered and scrubbed off the grit and stink of diesel fuel that had glommed on to me that night. As the spray beat down on my back and shoulders, I thought of my poor Joe with his gashed, shaven, and drilled head, his eyes swollen shut, his broken bones.
Please, God, don’t let him die.
I don’t remember getting into bed with my best dog friend, but she woofed me awake and then my phone buzzed.
Joe!
I grabbed it from the nightstand and saw San Francisco Hospital on the caller ID. I jammed down the green button and said hello to Dr. Dalrymple.
She told me, “Joe’s condition hasn’t improved to my satisfaction. We’re going into surgery right now,” she said. “I’m putting in a second drain.”
“Oh, no, no.”
“It’s okay, Lindsay. I’ll tell you when to get worried. I promise you. Okay?”
The doctor did her best to assure me that this second drain wasn’t a bad thing and that I should call her later. When I’d clicked off with Joe’s surgeon, the phone buzzed in my hand.
Brady was calling.
“You planning on coming in?” he asked me.
It was Friday, right?
“What time is it?”