We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,17
hadn’t been convinced she would.
He stepped out of surgical with Virat. They would talk to Izzie’s next of kin, deliver the news that she might make it after all.
Annie; it would be Annie they told. Annie, who had gotten released from the hospital after her injuries in the storm that very afternoon.
Allen tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order. He knew he was most likely still dealing with the shock of what had happened. The questions. The adrenalin crash and the fear. Pain in his own injury. All of it combined to make him more than off-centered.
When he stepped inside the waiting room, he stopped short.
Nikkie Jean stood there, staring at him. Battered and bruised, but there. Whole.
Safe. Safe and alive and terrified.
He hugged her quickly, and she tolerated it longer than she normally would have. Allen had been so afraid she’d end up on their operating table next. Or that she would never make it that far.
She was ok.
He listened as Virat gave the official report to Annie and Nikkie Jean. They hadn’t been able to find Izzie’s only relative, her uncle, yet. Nikkie Jean and Annie were crying. Nurses everywhere were crying. People were everywhere, in every chair, leaning against the walls, sitting on the floor and tables. Just waiting for word.
Allen stayed out of the way.
Izzie had people she belonged to, people who loved her. Now was their time.
He had his sister and a few other work friends. Everyone he’d mattered to in his adult life was gone now, with the exception of his sister.
He stood and watched them all, feeling so damned alone.
Forty minutes later, Allen slipped into the private room where Izzie had been taken to recover. Wanda sat at her side. Her shift had ended a few minutes earlier, but Wanda had insisted she’d stay next to Izzie for a few moments.
Allen pulled up a chair. He wasn’t going anywhere, either. Wanda was crying. He pulled her close and hugged her for a moment until she settled a little. He didn’t know who needed the comfort more. “She’ll be ok, Wanda. She’s got some of the best in the nation taking care of her.”
He’d made a promise to Nikkie Jean not to leave her best friend alone even for a moment. In exchange, Nikkie Jean had agreed to go to her own hospital room—Layla had admitted her as a precaution because of the possible trauma from the beating she’d taken at Henedy’s hands—and get some actual rest.
There would be time enough tomorrow to figure out why Wallace Henedy had done this.
There had to be a damned why.
Everyone was safe now. Allen sat by the bed for a long time, long after Wanda left, and he’d promised to stay right there. He silently sat listening to the sounds of the monitors around them.
He wasn’t going to let Izzie wake alone.
19
Jennifer was struggling to breathe, even twenty-four hours after she’d watched in horror as her husband was arrested on the damned national news.
Wallace had ruined everything. Everything.
Jennifer had spent most of the night on her phone and laptop, cleaning up every record she could of anything she didn’t want found.
Her friend on the city council, Dennis Lee Arnold, had made it clear when she’d called him in a panic as she watched that the police would be coming to search Wallace’s home soon. Unless Wallace confessed everything.
If her husband gave away information that he shouldn’t, that he didn’t know he actually had, that would be horrible. Especially for her.
So much of what she had done to get their family to where they were—no one would say it was ethical. Some of it was outright illegal.
That would destroy everything she’d ever accomplished.
That was her greatest fear. If he got started, there was no guarantee that he would stop. She’d hidden what had happened for fifteen years. She didn’t want to lose that now.
Not now that her plans were finally bearing fruit.
Dennis Lee had told her exactly what to do to protect herself. She was doing that now. Jennifer pulled in a breath. Dennis Lee had enough people on the inside at the TSP that if something slipped through he could make it better.
She had faithfully recorded the names of those TSP officers in case she ever…needed…them.
Dennis Lee always said to watch her flanks. Well, she had learned well.
At this point, Jennifer trusted no one. Not fully. Except for Kyle.