20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20) - James Patterson Page 0,52
When she smiled and stretched out her hand, I went to her, gave her a long, gentle hug.
“Be careful of my lifelines,” she said of the tubes running hither and thither from IV bags, into and out of her thin cotton hospital gown.
“Bossy even now,” I said, moving a big chair up to her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been run over by a team of horses. Those Budweiser ones. Clyde-somethings.”
I laughed with her, picturing that.
“Well, they didn’t trample your sense of humor.”
“No, thank God. I need it, but I’ll tell you a little secret.”
“What’s that?”
She signaled me to come close. I moved in so my ear was almost against her mouth.
“You can ask me anything,” she said. “I’m so doped up, I’ll spill all my beans.”
I paused to wonder if she had any secrets that I hadn’t already discovered over the last dozen years.
“How about this? Tell me what the doctors told you.”
“Thassit?” she drawled. “That’s like you got one of those genie lamps with the three wishes and you wished for a sausage on the end of your nose.”
I couldn’t help cracking up at the image from that ancient parable or fable or whatever it was. But I refused to be sidetracked. And so I persisted.
“What did Dr. Terk say?”
“Oh, you know. Looks like they got it all, but they’re not committing, not yet.”
“When are they letting you out of here?”
“What day is it?”
“Tuesday?”
“What year?”
“When, Claire? When can you go home?”
“When the docs are sure my lung isn’t leaking.”
“Do you hurt?”
“Not now. Man, I never realized how boring you are, grrfren’.”
I laughed out loud. I knew it was the drugs talking, but still, I was so glad to be in her face, annoying her to death.
“And work? Did they say when can you come back to work?”
“Why? Did someone die?”
I laughed again. “The usual number. Lots. And no more pushing me around. Doctor said you have to go for a walk, so we’ll go together to the end of the hall.”
“He did not. You’re lyin’.”
I buzzed the nurse, and when she arrived a moment later, she detached a few lines and helped Claire from her bed. I got a laugh out of her flashing her big butt down the hallway, and she laughed, too, wheezing some, telling me she’d get me for this. I put my arm around my best friend’s waist and told her to shut the fuck up.
She said, “Did you catch that sniper or snipers yet?”
“Working on it.”
And then she started to sing. Yeah. As I had one arm around her waist and was holding the IV pole with the other.
“Hup two, three, four. What the hell we marching for? Sound off.”
I stared at her.
“Lindsay. You say ‘sound off.’”
“Sound off.”
“Thassit. Sound off, one, two. Three, four,” she sang.
I shook my head and helped her make a two-point turn.
“What? What are you thinkin’, Lindsay?”
“I’m thinking I want what you’re having.”
She laughed and laughed some more, wobbling enough on her slippered feet to scare me. The nurse and I used considerable strength to hold Claire up and walk her back to her room, and it took three of us to get her into bed.
I promised her I’d come back the next day, and not long after that I hugged her good-bye.
CHAPTER 68
I CHECKED MY phone as I walked through the exit doors out to my car.
Richie had called a couple of times. I climbed into the driver’s seat and called him back, and he picked up on the first ring.
I wasn’t expecting him to say, “Bad news.”
“What is it? Please don’t make me beg.”
“Kennedy. That detective in Houston. He was shot a couple of blocks from the Moving Targets storefront he was checking out. He took one slug to the back of his head. This can’t be a coincidence.”
I was stunned. I liked Kennedy. He was perceptive. Curious. Outgoing. Proactive. I’d felt as if I knew him.
I didn’t speak, and so Rich said my name a couple of times.
“I’m here.”
“I know, I know how you feel,” he said. “It’s sick. They’re going after cops now?”
“How could they have known he was a cop? Did he tell them? Or did they just make him when he walked into the shop? And then what? They followed him out, tailed him for a few blocks, and shot him?”
“Houston PD is on it. They crashed Moving Targets and the space was empty. No computers. No nerds. No fingerprints. No cameras. Back door open to the loading dock. No one