Fear Nothing (Detective D.D. Warren #7) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,9
can imagine . . .”
The detective pursed her lips. “Six.”
“So slightly above average.”
“Sure. I want to build in some room. Tonight is shower night, which will bring me to a seven, followed by attempting to sleep, which I’d place at an eight, because I can’t seem to stop rolling onto my left side; then, of course, there’s getting out of bed tomorrow morning, which is an easy nine.”
“What would you consider a ten?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said tersely. “I’m still new at this walking-wounded business, but from what I can tell, that’s what physical therapists were put on earth to find out.”
I smiled. “Many of my patients would agree with you.”
“I know about the scale,” D.D. said. “Russ Ilg, my personal torturer, already walked me through it. Don’t think of pain as a single point, but as an entire spectrum. Where are you on the spectrum right now, this afternoon, for the whole day, for the week? Then, instead of just being in pain, you can experience the full rainbow of physical agony. Or something like that.”
“He has you rate your level of discomfort when he is working with you?”
“Yeah. He raises my left arm. I yelp. He tells me to breathe through my mouth. I yelp some more. He asks me if I’m at an eight yet. I say no, he raises my arm an inch higher.” D.D. wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her gaze had gone beyond my right shoulder, to a spot on the wall, while her right leg began to bounce restlessly.
I had scanned her medical reports. The avulsion fracture she’d suffered in her left shoulder was a particularly rare and painful injury that called for an even more agonizing remedy—physical therapy. Lots of extremely excruciating exercises designed to keep her left shoulder from locking up, while minimizing scar tissue during the healing process.
According to the detective’s charts, she worked with a physical therapist twice a week. Most likely, she ended those sessions with tears running down her cheeks.
I wondered, already, how that must feel to a woman accustomed to operating under complete control.
“So you take the time to consider and rate your pain?” I asked now.
She made a motion that may or may not have been a nod.
“How often?” I pressed.
“Well, you know, when Russ asks me.”
“So during physical therapy?”
“Yes.”
“What about at home? Say you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re uncomfortable. What do you do then?”
She didn’t answer right away.
I took my time, waiting quietly.
“I tell myself to go back to sleep,” she said at last.
“Does that work?”
That motion again, the nod that was not a nod.
“Do you want to be here?” I asked abruptly.
She seemed startled. “What do you mean?”
“Today. Right now. Do you want to be in my office, talking to me?”
The detective stopped staring at my wall, met my eyes instead. Her gaze was mutinous. It didn’t surprise me. Some people internalized their pain. Others externalized it, lashing out. Not too hard to judge which camp D. D. Warren fell into.
“No,” she said bluntly.
“Then why did you come?”
“I want to return to work. I like my job.” Her tone turned less hostile, more defensive.
“You’re a homicide detective, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And you enjoy your job?”
“I love my job.”
“I see. So your injury, not being able to work right now, that must be difficult.”
“I’m on medical leave,” the detective stated briskly. “Might sound clear enough: You’re hurt, you stay home. You get fixed, you return to work. But like any good bureaucracy, the department likes to make it complicated. Because maybe my shoulder gets better, but what about my head? Am I still the cool, calm detective I was before? Maybe I regain my physical ability to charge into a crisis situation. But will I? Or will I hang back, unnerved by the thought of jostling my left side, straining my shoulder? The department doesn’t want my body to return to work but my head to stay at home. I understand their point, but still . . .”
“You’re here to humor your bosses.”
“Let’s put it this way: The deputy superintendent of homicide personally handed me your business card. I took the hint.”
“So what’s your plan?” I asked, leaning forward, genuinely interested now. “You’ll have to attend more than a single session with me—no one will believe you took pain therapy seriously with only one visit. Six is maybe a bit much. I’m pegging you at three. You’ll see me three times; then the ‘rescheduling’ will begin.”