2

All around her, there were strange sounds, like the buzzing of flies very close to her ear. Her throat hurt, burned, as if someone had poured turpentine down her mouth and threw a match.

Pulling in a breath, she tasted something pepperminty, only not. This was not where she was supposed to be. She was supposed to be somewhere else. Thoughts were coming to her in disjointed clusters of sensation and awakening.

If I could just open my eyes, Lauren thought. I could figure this out.

The brightness hit her like a boxing glove to the temple. She immediately squeezed her eyes shut again. Someone in the room must have noticed because the buzz became a loud frenzy around her head. There was something on her face, a mask, pinching the bridge of her nose. Unfamiliar voices were swirling around her, interspersed with electronic beeps and the shuffling of shoes. Lauren’s hands batted out weakly, trying to get that thing off her face, until someone took hold of both her wrists and held them to her sides. She let out a croak of protest.

“Riley, it’s okay.” Reese’s voice popped into her head above sounds of the rest of the commotion going on around her. “You’re in the hospital. You’re okay, girl. You’re okay.”

She forced herself to open her eyes again. Blinking, blinking, blinking, the frame of the curtain that snaked around the top of her bed came into focus. The room was too white, too bright. She was lying in a bed surrounded by monitors. Everything was foreign; nothing was right. A man started passing a penlight in front of her eyes, causing her to snap them shut again. “Don’t do that,” she rasped. It was barely a whisper. “Reese?”

A hand came down on her shoulder. “I’m right here.”

She yanked her right hand free from her side. It seemed like it had been encased in cement somehow and reached up to touch his wrist. She willed her eyes open again. Shane Reese was standing above her, baseball cap on, dark circles under his green eyes. “You look like hell,” she said.

He laughed. Not a happy, you told a good one kind of laugh, but a half-hysterical, half-relieved version. He clutched at her gown for a second, then released his grip a little. “Thanks. You look great, by the way.”

Someone slipped a blood pressure cuff around her left arm and it began to inflate. Her right hand had an IV line taped to it, the tubing snaking up to a bag hanging from a metal pole next to the bed. The saline, if that’s what it was, hung an inch from Reese’s head. It didn’t make any sense. “What am I doing here? What happened to me?”

He swallowed before he answered and Lauren thought she had never seen him look so old and tired. “Do you remember anything after I left you on Friday night in the office? Anything at all?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. What do you mean, Friday? What day is this?”

“This is Sunday.”

“Sunday?” Now she began to panic, she could hear the pulse monitor hanging next her start to beep faster. “My daughters. What about Lindsey and Erin? Are they okay? Please—”

“No, no, no.” He tried to calm her. “They’re fine. I sent them home to get some sleep. Lindsey got in on Saturday night and Erin made it here today. They are fine. You’re in the ICU now. They’re moving you to a regular room soon.”

The confusion was too much; tears began to run down her cheeks. “Why am I here, Reese? What happened?” She felt an itch in her right side. When her hand went to scratch it, she felt gauze and plastic. Lead lines stuck out from her chest connecting her to various equipment. A furious beeping pulsed from a machine above her head. “Is that a tube? Oh, God. Reese, do I have a tube in my chest?”

A doctor swooped in and grabbed Reese by his free arm. “You’re going to have to leave now. She’s too upset. We have to bring her pressure down.”

“No!” Lauren didn’t recognize her own voice. It was shallow and raspy and forced. She began to shake uncontrollably. “He needs to stay. I want him to stay.”

The thin, balding doctor turned to her. “He needs to leave. Just for a while. He can come back soon. Just until we can evaluate you. You had surgery and we need to make sure that you’re recovering properly.” His face was ruddy and flushed, like he’d been standing out in the wind all day.

“No. Don’t leave, Reese.” His hand was still on her shoulder. She managed to grab onto his wrist now. Lauren could feel the tension in his fingers through her hospital gown.

“We need to work on her.” The doctor’s patience was wearing thin, but Reese’s was no better.

“Yeah? Call the police,” he challenged. They locked eyes for a second and the doctor turned away. Reese wasn’t going to budge. Lauren heard the doctor ask the nurse to get Security. Her eyes started to lose focus.

“What happened to me, Reese?” Lauren asked in a fading voice.

“I forgot my baseball hat. I came back and found you.”

She was breathing hard. Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did she have a tube in her chest? And why was this answer so difficult? “But what happened to me?” she insisted in a forced whisper.

“Someone stabbed you.” His voice was soft and far away. She tried to hang onto the sound of it, to keep her head above the water closing in. “Someone came into the Cold Case office while you were alone and stabbed you.”

The dark crept back over her and she was gone again.