prints at the scene. But we show up because an injured detective wants to talk to us and suddenly you’re interested? Damn, son—talk about a day late and a dollar short.”
“Henry,” Jackson rasped.
“You think you rate talking to a detective in the hospital, you little punk?” the officer snarled. “We did not know. That is not our fault!”
Jackson’s head snapped around. “No, but it’s somebody’s. Communication in your department is for shit, Carruthers. I don’t give a damn who’s in charge, but if your patrol officers can’t maintain protocol, what good are they?”
The officer, Carruthers, had tanned skin and what had probably been ginger hair, bleached thin and blond by too much time outside. He narrowed his eyes at Jackson, and Lance grabbed Jackson and Henry both by the shoulders and yanked them around, herding them toward the unit itself. When he got there, he waved his ID in front of a sensor, and the heavy barred doors swung open to let them all in, Ellery bringing up the rear.
“Henry,” Jackson and Lance both growled at the same time.
“Don’t let them talk to you like that,” Henry muttered back to Jackson.
Jackson closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose even as he dodged a piece of medical equipment that Ellery couldn’t name but after all of Jackson’s time in the ICU looked unsurprisingly familiar.
“Henry, I told you to forge some relationships with the police department,” Jackson said, voice despairing. “You can’t do that when you take some old fart’s head off for being an old fart!”
Ellery held back a laugh. Well, he did have a point.
“I did forge a relationship,” Henry complained. “That desk sergeant wants to have my baby now, on top of the one she’s about to push out.”
Lance stopped them in front of a sliding glass door that led into an almost spacious cubicle. There were two stuffed chairs, an office chair, and a love seat in there, along with a small unit designed for visiting family to set their things on.
The office chair was occupied by a giant of a man, well over six feet tall, with iron gray hair and a weathered, fortyish face, who was leaning forward, hands dangling between his knees, really working a scowl of irritation.
As Lance let them into the room, the stranger stood and said, “Here’s your new crew, Sean. I hope they treat you right.”
“Jesse,” Kryzynski murmured in a thin whisper. “Don’t be mad.”
The man, who was wearing a dark blue SFD T-shirt and what had to be big and tall jeans, shook his head. “I’m not mad,” he said. “Just disappointed. I’ll be by tomorrow.”
He stalked out, glaring at Jackson on his way, and Ellery suppressed a wince. Well, one day back and Jackson had made more enemies than friends without even trying.
Of course he had.
“Ouch,” Jackson said, taking the vacated office chair and moving it closer to Kryzynski’s bed. He didn’t sit down right away but instead engaged in one of those complicated masculine handshakes that Ellery had never gotten the hang of. Sean seemed to know how to do it, though, because he made languid hand motions as Jackson pulled in to an abbreviated mock chest bump, and he smiled when Jackson had finished.
Testosterone levels in room: restored.
Henry took one of the club chairs near the wall, and Ellery sank into the one nearest Jackson.
“How we doing?” Jackson asked, and then—because this was one of his strengths—he sat back and listened.
“Fabulous,” Sean wheezed, still sedated, blue eyes sleepy. His blond hair, usually a thick shock of it, combed into submission, was plastered to his forehead, and his color was so pale he was almost gray against his sheets. “Was so jealous of Rivers getting that two-month vacation. Had to take one of my own.”
“Two months for a punctured lung?” Jackson asked.
“And a hemothorax,” Lance corrected. “They spent two hours draining the blood out of his pleural cavity and closing off bleeders before they could reinflate the lung. He’s got four bright and shiny new pints of blood in his body. How’s that feel, Mr. Kryzynski?”
“Like it needs more morphine,” Sean said woozily.
“Pussy,” Jackson murmured affectionately, and Sean managed a slight smile.
“Who hit me with the pigsticker?” he asked. “I owe him one.”
“We’ll be sure to pay up,” Jackson said. “And you remember us talking about the kid who was at both crime scenes?”
Sean closed his eyes. “Ziggy,” he said. “Great. I got knifed by some asshole named Ziggy.” He took a few breaths that