“Of course.”
“Like what I just saw, or something remotely sincere?”
“That was sincere,” he barked at me.
I winced at the volume. “That was combative.”
“Well, what would you do?”
I squinted at him. Why was he asking me for advice? “I dunno, how about flowers?”
He shot me a look.
“Hey, I’m not the one who can’t help but put his foot in his mouth.”
He shook his head and moved close to the bed. “Whatever. I didn’t come here to discuss my issues with hospital personnel, I came here to talk about the four men who assaulted you going to jail after they get out of the hospital.”
“Who assaulted Savannah, you mean.”
“You and Savannah both, yes.”
“Why did you come all the way over here to tell me this?”
“Because I’m going to charge them, and I thought you’d want to know,” he replied, almost defensively.
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. He could have called. I really didn’t understand the need for the visit. “How’s Savannah?”
“She’s a bit banged up, and she’s still scared, of course, but she gave a fantastic point-by-point accounting of the attack and made you seem like Captain America coming to her defense.”
“Yeah, well, she’s young.”
“You saved her from being raped, Jeremiah. Don’t downplay that.”
I nodded. “Is Mr. Hornsberry all right? Did he get hurt?”
His eyes widened almost comically. “Uh, no. Mr. Hornsberry broke three of the guys’ jaws, fractured ribs on all four. He snapped one of the guys’ wrists, and no kidding, he broke one guy’s leg in two places.”
Mr. Hornsberry looked like a linebacker or a professional wrestler, and he’d been a longshoreman back east before he moved out to California. When I got home late and he was sitting out on his porch having a cigarette and a beer, I liked to sit with him and listen to his stories. He always invited me to share a cold one, which was how I knew he was awake last night.
“Those guys will be pissing blood for weeks. It was a bit of overkill, if you ask me.”
“They got off easy,” I said flatly. “Savannah’s only sixteen. They’re lucky Mr. Hornsberry showed such restraint.”
“Well, if they try to sue him…but there’s no way. No jury anywhere is going to convict a father for beating up the guys who tried to rape his daughter and assaulted the guy who came to her rescue.”
“I appreciated him getting there when he did.”
He took a breath. “It’s lucky for you they weren’t alone with you long enough to do too much damage.”
“Huh. That’s easy for you to say,” I scoffed.
“I—you know, it could’ve been a lot worse.”
I had bruised ribs on my left side, assorted scrapes on my hands and arms, a black eye—it was a beauty and would probably turn lots of pretty colors over the course of healing—a subconjunctival hemorrhage in my right eye, and a concussion. Thankfully, my MRI had come back clean. So yes, as injuries went, I was lucky, but I didn’t like his dismissive tone. I’d taken a lot of beatings in my life. Another person deliberately hurting you left marks both inside and out.
“I didn’t mean it like––”
“It’s fine,” I muttered. I suspected he didn’t mean to be a dick; he just came off that way because he spoke without thinking. Often. In high school he’d been a bully, and I believed he’d changed since then, but his brain needed to catch up with his mouth. “I don’t think the universe could give me many more nudges to move out of Barrett Crossing,” I finished, sitting up straighter and moving the pillows behind me.
“What?”
We both turned, and there, standing in the doorway, was Merrell Barrett. He had a plant with him, one of those peace lilies people usually sent for funerals. I had to wonder if someone mistakenly told him I was dead.
“Did you think they killed me?” I asked him.
“What?” he snapped, glaring.
“That’s a death plant,” McCauley chimed in, pointing at the lily. “You know that, right?”
“It’s not a—it’s just a nice plant.”
“No,” McCauley insisted. “When my grandmother died, we got a ton of those, and white roses and carnations. It’s the plant you send if you want something pretty that will live longer than a few days.”
Merrell looked from McCauley to me, and back to McCauley. “What are you even doing here? It’s Saturday.”
“I had to come explain to Jeremiah that I’m charging the men who attacked him and Savannah Hornsberry last night.”
“Why couldn’t you have just called?”
I turned to look at McCauley, because it was a good question.
“I thought I should check on him, Bear.”
Merrell growled. “Mayor-elect Barrett,” he corrected sharply.
McCauley snickered. “Are you kidding?”
“Listen,” Merrell said, putting the heavy plant down on the tray table, only to scoop it back up when the tray nearly collapsed. He took it over and set it on the counter by the sink and then darted back. “I’m the newly elected mayor of Barrett Crossing, and as such, all the guys I used to play football with—that means you and Dutch and Torres and Whitman—are going to need to treat me with the respect the office deserves.”