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Violet knew by the tone of the nurse's voice she would brook no resistance. Since she was allowed here only as long as the nurses passed on good behavior reports to Dr. Hilaman, she knew she had to obey.
Still, she had to set her jaw and firm her resolve for several moments before she could release his hand. The power and virility was leeched from his skin, making him look like he belonged in a coffin. "I'll be right back," she whispered to him, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead, savoring the taste of his skin, still living, albeit far too cool.
At the end of the hallway there was a cramped nook with a couple of chairs and a side table with old magazines. Violet assumed it was provided for those, like her, who were temporarily ousted from their loved one's side for tests or procedures. Darla Rowe sat in one of the chairs. Violet didn't want coffee, didn't want to be any farther from Mac than she had to be, so she walked the twenty steps down the tiled hallway and took a seat across from her. "Are they all still here?"
"Some of them had to go back to work, or home to their families, but they're taking shifts in the cafeteria on the third floor. I've been getting the reports when the nurse comes out, taking that down to them. How's he look?"
Violet met her gaze. "He's still here."
Rowe nodded.
The two women said very little, but as the moments passed, Violet felt the other woman's regard become more intent upon her, and the weight of unspoken words building between them. She liked the look of Mac's boss, and under normal circumstances would have gone out of her way to be nice, but she wasn't really feeling nice at the moment. Perhaps it was that hostility emanating off of her adding to the rising tension, as much as something similar coming off of Darla Rowe.
"I've been fortunate," the police sergeant said at last, her voice a quiet murmur. "I haven't had to do this that often. But when I have, I've always wondered how platoon leaders do it in war zones. Watch their men go down, knowing that if they'd done one thing or another, it wouldn't have happened. Even when you send them out in the line of duty, you still did the sending."
Violet lifted her head. The early afternoon light was coming through the window in the nook, throwing Rowe's profile into relief. She was hearing a tone of voice she was sure the woman rarely used, because a sergeant couldn't afford to second guess herself, not with a squad of men and women depending on her confidence. But the quiet of this out-of-the-way part of the ICU against the boiling activity just outside it, the strain of keeping watch here in separate solitude for hour upon hour, left time only for contemplation and bitter hindsight, apparently for both of them. Violet was glad for the distraction, she realized, because her own thoughts were eating her alive.
"There were other ways he could have conducted this case," Darla mused. "He was pushing himself to the forefront from the beginning. He said he wasn't her target victim, but I think he expected to be made by her, so he could make himself her target. He didn't seem at all surprised when she left a note on the last body, telling him he was next."
"She...what?"
"The bitch addressed it to him."
"And you didn't pull him off the case, then?"
"No, I didn't." Darla leaned forward in the chair, propping her elbows on her knees, looked steadily at Violet. "I trust my people's judgment, Officer." Violet saw her high regard for Mac in her face, heard the pride. "What I didn't see, however, was that he was pushing too hard, and he was already tired. He was way overdue for vacation time. I trusted his instincts, but in this case, you're right, I should have pulled him off the case. He knew what he was doing the whole time, and knew this could happen. It had become too personal."
"Yes, it had," Violet said abruptly. "He was determined not to have another person's trust betrayed, their life taken. And you couldn't have stopped him from trying, exactly because it was so personal."
She was furious, knowing Mac had taken the risk, but she understood him enough to know he wouldn't have let it go down any other way. He was that damn stubborn. "Well, I expect he'll get that vacation now." Her voice cracked slightly. She tightened her jaw, looked toward the window.
"Yes, he will." Darla leaned back in her chair, studying Violet in that way that was starting to get on her nerves, so she turned her head, met the sergeant's look head on.
"Is there a problem?"
"My niece has converted to the Wiccan faith."
Violet blinked. "Excuse me?"
Darla shifted, uncrossed her legs, re-crossed them with the right leg on top this time. "I'm fond of her, and so of course I did some reading on it. It's a very alternative type religion, if you're familiar with it at all?"
Violet nodded, drawing her brow together in confusion.
"It attracts some nasty fringe elements, as the road less traveled often will. But at its core, it's a lovely faith, with principles that draw from..." A smile touched her lips that Violet did not understand. "...From natural law. People live in a very unnatural world, Violet. Those who walk outside the lines of that unnatural world, seeking their natural place, the way their instincts call them to be, they often walk a road of high risks for themselves. Doesn't make them wrong, just a bit braver, or perhaps more foolish, than most of us." She let her gaze travel down the hall, toward the open door to Mac's room. "I don't claim to understand the path that calls to the two of you, but I do know it's a hell of a risky lifestyle for two cops."
"All relationships have risks, Sergeant Rowe," Violet said at last, not sure what the woman was after, but giving her the simplest, most honest answer she had.
"So they do." Darla rose, her expression unreadable. "I'm going to go make my rounds, see who's still around, give them a status. What should I tell them?"
"Tell him he's an oak. And oaks survive what no one else can."
Darla reached out, closed her hand on Violet's. Turning her hand over so their palms met, Violet laced her fingers with the sergeant's, gripped hard. She closed her eyes, unable to bear the emotional connection and eye contact as well. She just squeezed, and Darla squeezed back, a silent communication of what the man twenty feet away meant to both of them.
Then she pulled away. Violet waited until Darla's footsteps retreated to raise her lids, which she suspected gave both of them the necessary time to compose themselves. Her timing was good, for as she opened her eyes, the nurse came out of the room, nodded at her. No change, a good thing at this point.
Violet rose, went back to the room. She paused in the doorway a moment, looking at him there. He was such a big man, his feet all the way at the end of the bed, those long arms lying pale and unmoving on the covers. That beautiful chest, the hair she loved completely shaved from it for surgery. But that didn't matter. Sinking down by his side, gripping his hand again, she imagined that the strength and love she'd felt in Darla Rowe's touch would soak into him with her own, reinforce the fight going on inside to keep him with them all.
In the raw clarity that the strain of the past hours had brought to her, Violet knew why she'd been so determined to have him the first time she'd seen him, when she'd sensed he was a cop. A part of her had believed it was a sign, that she'd found the fairy tale, someone who would share her life as well as her bed, someone who understood what she was, who she was. All the corners and rooms. Now, denied
