Val hadn’t heard from Gil by quitting time, when the rest of the WAVE Squad joined Simpson’s team—now Jan’s—at the Blue Line Tavern for celebratory drinks. She begged off with reluctance, as celebrating sounded like the perfect end to a tumultuous work week. But with the two most important people in her life both lying in hospital beds, she opted for bedside visits instead.
“How about after?” Jan said in a pleading tone, disappointment painted all over her face.
“Maybe.” Val added to herself: don’t bet on it.
Mercy Hospital’s main reception area gave her Beth’s room number straight away. To her chagrin, however, they couldn’t locate Gil. “He last checked out of radiology over an hour ago,” the nurse told her. “Leave your cell number and when I find him, I’ll call you.”
Val found Beth’s mother sitting by her bedside in a semi-private room, and after a quick hug and thank-you to Val, she excused herself. “I need a potty break anyway,” Mrs. Hammond said. “You girls should enjoy some alone time.”
Beth waited for her mother to shut the door behind her, then reached out for an embrace. Val sank into her friend’s hug, luxurious and loving even in her weakened condition.
When Beth let go, Val took Mrs. Hammond’s vacated seat and held her friend’s hand. “How are you feeling?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I’ve been better,” Beth said with a crinkly smile. “It’s not the medical procedure I wanted today. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”
Val chuckled at Beth’s morbid humor. “Sorry. This is all my fault.”
“No it’s not,” Beth said, her tone emphatic even with her faint voice. “If anything, you saved my life. If not for you, I’d have just laid there and gotten shot again.”
“Did they…fix everything?”
Beth shook her head. “The bullet hit my spleen and large intestine. They couldn’t save the spleen. The doctors say I’ll be fine without it, though. The intestine they sewed up with a couple of stitches.” She lifted her gown to show the patched-up wound on her left side. “The doc said the bullet took a really obtuse angle. Which I pretended to understand, but geometry was never my thing.”
Val laughed. “It’s the opposite of an acute angle.”
“Yeah, like that helps.” Beth grinned. “Anyway, because of the angle, it kind of skimmed over my organs, even though it made a mess of my belly fat. If it entered an inch more to my tummy side, I’d have had intestine salad inside of me.”
“So…vivid,” Val said, getting queasy.
“While they were at it, I miscarried. So, that’s over too.” She teared up and covered her face with her free hand.
“Beth, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” Beth grabbed a tissue from a box next to her bed, wiped her tears away, and blew her nose. “That’s kind of what I came in for, isn’t it? At least this way, my mom can tell herself I had no choice, so she’s decided not to hate me for it after all.”
“Your mom would never hate you.”
Beth tossed the soggy tissue in the general area of the trash can. “You know the grudges she keeps. In this instance, though, she’s decided to forgive me.”
How magnanimous, Val wanted to say, but swallowed it. “I’m glad she’s here for you.” Left unspoken: where’s Josh?
As if reading her mind, Beth blew out a loud breath and said, “Meanwhile, Mr. I-Love-You-Forever is nowhere to be found. Claims he faints at the sight of blood and hospitals make him sick or some such bullshit. I don’t even care why, frankly.”
“He’s showing who he really is, isn’t he?” Val squeezed her hand harder.
A nurse knocked and entered. “Sorry to break up the party. I need to check on our girl’s stitches and meds. Would you mind stepping out for a minute?”
Val hugged Beth goodbye and promised to visit her at home on Saturday. On her way to the elevator, Maya, exiting a hospital room, waved her over.
“How’s your mother doing?” Val asked her.
“Better.” Maya gripped Val’s arms and smiled. “They’ve upgraded her condition to fair and moved her to a private room. Thank you for asking.”
“Of course,” Val said. “I’d love to catch up more, but—”
“I…heard about what happened today. So scary. Were you hurt? Is that how you…” Maya stared at the gauze covering the gash in Val’s cheek.
“Thank Stafford for that.” To Maya’s puzzled look, Val added, “You know him as Stevie Ray. He was the shooter.”
Maya’s mouth opened wide. “That little coward shot my mother? I’ll kill him. I’ll kick his face in. I’ll—”
“He’s in custody in Fairview.” Val rested a hand on Maya’s shoulder to calm her. “Hey, I really need to run…but real quick: given your feelings on the subject, how would you like to testify? The District Attorney may want to depose you as a witness concerning Tank’s involvement in all this.”
“Tank’s involved, too?”
Val nodded. “They’ve both been charged with conspiracy and a lot of other nasty crimes.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Maya said. “All I know is that he’s a major turd who hates women and—Oh, I see. Yeah, sure. I’d be happy to help.”
“Awesome. Thanks. Let’s talk soon, okay?” As Val started to walk away, Maya called out to her again.
“Val, there’s one more thing. Something good did come of all this.” Maya smiled and showed Val her left hand, which sported a pretty gold band with a modest-sized diamond. “My boyfriend, Abesh, is now my fiancé.”
“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you.”
“He doesn’t care about what happened between me and Tank and that he wants to raise the baby with me and be its father,” Maya said. “Isn’t that wonderful? He’s so amazing!”
Maya hugged her again and Val, trying to break the embrace, offered her well wishes several more times, each time eliciting yet another version of the same story. Abesh came to her side after her mother’s shooting and realized how close he came to losing Maya, and that he couldn’t live without her.
“I’m sure he’ll be a wonderful father and the two of you—three of you—will be so happy.” Val pulled out of the hug after several minutes. Maya finally let her go, remembering that she was supposed to be fetching her mother’s nurse for something.
A line of wheelchair-bound patients pushed by nurses and family members crowded the elevators, so Val opted for the stairs. Once in the stairwell, she checked her phone again. Nothing from Gil. She returned to reception, and the nurse there still had no new information.
What happened to him?
Val found Gil after an hour’s search, sitting on a bench outside the hospital exit, playing with his cell phone. A new cell phone.
She planted herself in front of him in a confrontational stance, hands on hips, waiting.
“I guess I forgot to mention that Stafford destroyed my phone this morning,” Gil said when he noticed her glaring at him. “So, I took a taxi to the mall and got a new one, with a different number, and none of my contacts.”
“You didn’t think about calling to let me know you’d checked out of the hospital and went wandering around downtown?” Val huffed, folded her arms across her chest, and sat next to him.
Gil stretched his arm around her shoulders, and she resisted the urge to knock it away out of frustration. “I couldn’t remember your damned number.” He showed her his phone’s call history. He’d placed at least a dozen calls to numbers similar to hers, but not quite. “I always use speed dial for you.”
“That one was almost right.” Val pointed to one near the top of the list. “You transposed the last two digits.”
“Anyway, I’m sorry,” he said. “I also called the WAVE office—nobody answered. HQ wouldn’t give me your number ‘for security reasons.’ I work in Dispatch, supervise half the staff there, and still they—”
“All right, enough, I believe you.” Val’s frustration melted. She leaned into his shoulder and let him draw her in close. “I was worried you were wandering around Clayton with a concussion, not knowing who you were. I was getting ready to search every strip club and pool hall in the area.”
“Yeah, good plan.” Gil laughed. “Next time I get bopped on the head by a criminal, I’ll know right where to go.”
They sat for a bit in contented silence, letting their moods mellow. People with a mixture of expressions ranging from worry to relief passed them by in both directions, some entering the hospital, others heading out to their cars. Each had their own loved ones to fret about, living their own pain and recovery, paying no attention to Val or Gil.
“So, any news on arrests or anything?” Gil asked after a while.
“Tank, Stafford, and Nora all turned on each other.” Val smiled. “And Grimes is back. Simpson got suspended, and Parkinson ‘retired’ when they didn’t give him the job. Instead, they put Jan in charge of his team for now. Which means I’m still on the case for the mop-up.”
“Wow. And here I’ve always said nothing ever changes.”
She sat up and faced him. “With all the vacancies, Petroni said they’re going to open up the detective exam in a few weeks. She said we should both apply.”
Gil cocked his head to one side, glanced off into the distance. “You should.”
“You, too.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Maybe? Gil, you’ve always wanted to make detective. You said you’d wait until I was eligible, and now, well, they’re letting me try. This is our chance to work together again—at the next level.”
“Yeah. It might be.” Gil’s voice sounded distant, uncommitted.
“So, why the hesitation?”
He continued staring off at the horizon for another long minute, biting his lower lip. Then he turned back toward Val. “This whole experience was a real eye-opener for me. I always thought detective work involved a higher level of policing. Digging for clues, cornering the perps with good old-fashioned gumshoe work. Hitting the streets, sweating suspects, that sort of thing.”
“It is, sometimes. At least, on the WAVE Squad.”
He shook his head. “Not enough. It looks a lot like a desk job. I hate desk jobs.”
“There’s also field work, and undercover, like you did today.” Val’s heart sank. She hadn’t given up yet, but it felt like a losing battle.
“And getting kidnapped and almost killed for my trouble,” he said. “Did I mention how I hate getting concussions? And going to hospitals? Don’t tell me I’m an exception. Since you joined WAVE, you’ve gotten clobbered at least three times I know of, and you show no signs of slowing down.”
“I’m getting better at fighting back,” she said with a wry grin.
“Yeah, and I’m not.” Gil smiled back, pulled her in close again, and grew serious. “I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pursue this. You definitely should. It’s been your lifelong dream. But not mine. It’s okay,” he said when she started to object. “I like police work, especially patrol, but I enjoy Dispatch more than I expected. It’s exciting to find out what’s happening out there and being part of deploying the city’s response. It’s an adrenaline rush I never expected.” He smiled. “You’d hate being cooped up in there. So what? They’d never let us partner together. This way, we can still work sort of close by, if not together-together.”
“Assuming I make detective.” Val grew sullen. “As a second-year, I’m a long shot, at best.”
“All the more reason I shouldn’t apply. One more grizzled old vet they’d have to pass over to reward you with the job you deserve.”
Val lay her head on his shoulder again and wrapped her arms around his sturdy torso. “I guess you’re right. It’s…a lot to adjust to. I mean, we’d both committed to this path together, and now it feels weird to want to do it without you.”
“You won’t be doing it without me.” Gil held her tighter. Her ribs ached, but she didn’t object. “I’ll be right there, supporting you. I’ll help you study, even.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “Really. And Val…”
When he didn’t continue, she sat up so she could see his face.
“There’s no change in my commitment to you,” he said. “That’s still one hundred percent.”
Warmth spread through her body, from her heart to her fingers and toes. “And I’m one hundred percent committed to you. Always.”
They snuggled closer again, letting the rays of the setting sun warm them, and for the first time in weeks, Val felt calm.
Val let Gil sleep late on Saturday morning, though she woke and rose early, too much restless energy still flowing through her after all the excitement of the day before. While her body had suffered as much as his—if not more, dating back to the MMA fight on Wednesday night—he always needed more recovery time from injuries, at least since getting shot the previous fall. Her aches and pains worked themselves out better with more exercise. She pulled on some shorts, a tank top, and running shoes and headed out into the light of dawn.
She jogged east, toward the sun rising over the river and the eerie silhouette of gentrifying warehouses lining its rocky bank. She reached the city running trail that connected to the west side waterfront, picking up steam on the rise of the bridge spanning the Torrington River’s choppy waters. Behind her lay Macy’s, where Beth worked, and to her right, Mercy Hospital, where her friend rested after her own traumatic day. They thought they’d escaped the drama and danger of Clayton’s abortion clinic shooting spree by escaping to the sleepy suburbs for the procedure, but trouble followed them there anyway.
Again.
Five months before, Beth survived a narrow escape from death at the hands of a local madman—an encounter she blamed, not without merit, on her close friendship with Val. Now it had happened again. Val’s role in her rescue both times only assuaged a small fraction of her guilt. It didn’t seem fair to take credit for pulling Beth out of death’s jaws when she’d put her there in the first place.
Running on the east bank running path along the transitional Alphabet Soup District, another wave of remorse flooded over her. Gil had initiated his infiltration effort over here—and now he, too, lay in bed recovering from injuries suffered because he tried to help Val. Again. His shooting the previous fall also resulted from risking his skin to save hers.
A few hundred yards farther, she passed the pier, where another violent confrontation a few months before put her mother’s and younger brother’s lives at risk.
Why did associating with Val always seem to put people’s lives in peril? Why did loving her have to be so damned dangerous?
Her thoughts made her angry, and that gave her even more energy. She raced up the ramp to the pedestrian bridge where she’d once spotted the body of a teenage girl floating in the river’s frigid waters. More terrible memories. At least that one wasn’t her fault.
Val kept up the pace all the way back home, racing up the gentle slope of Gil’s driveway to the front porch. She plopped onto a chair there, breathing hard. Only then did she notice the wobbliness of her legs, the pounding in her chest, and the irony of the morning’s cold air burning in her lungs. Wiping sweat from her face, she winced in pain when she accidentally touched the laceration and bruise on her cheek. The ache on her side also returned, memories of the beating she’d taken from Kalie in their rematch.
Was it all worth it?
Val needed coffee. She didn’t want to wake Gil yet, so she whipped out her phone, checking the workout app’s report on her morning run. Five miles in thirty-four minutes. Not bad for an impromptu jog. That lifted her spirits a little, enough to risk browsing the headlines online. The Fairview shootings and arrests topped the local news. It heartened her to read that the Fairview and Clayton district attorneys vowed to coordinate their investigations and seek the maximum penalties for the perpetrators. “Women in western Connecticut can now seek the health care they need,” crowed Clayton mayor Megan Iverson, “without fear of violent retribution.” Iverson didn’t mention Val by name—they had too much history, most of it negative. However, she praised the Clayton PD’s “diligence and courage in keeping the women in our community safe.” She promised to commit more resources to WAVE—a major reversal from all the talk of budget cuts.
Val closed the app, and her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the morning sunlight on her face. Thought back to the trauma she’d encountered in her youth at the hands of a violent, deranged man. Then, and ever since, she’d vowed to prevent that from happening to other women and girls, so long as she was able.
That helped Val answer her self-posed question.
Yes. It was worth it.