“That’s…That’s very kind of you.” Lydia’s mouth twitched into a smile. Most of her makeup had rubbed off, and it madeher look younger. Less intimidating. Bill put his arm around her. Maurice looked a little embarrassed. He said goodbye and headed out.
“He’s so caring for a security guard,” Lydia said. “Or maybe it’s just Sky. She seems to have that effect on people.”
I waited till Maurice was gone to excuse myself, and told Bill and Lydia I was going to look for a bathroom, but I was really headed to the ICU. I didn’t want to insult Maurice, but he himself had admitted that he hadn’t spoken to the doctors working on Sky. And I was willing to bet that he hadn’t spoken to the two uniformed police officers whom I’d noticed stationed just outside the ICU door.
When it came to Sky’s prognosis—and who might have shot her—I felt like I needed a second opinion.
Twenty-Eight
It was sad, but at this point in my life, I knew better than to drop my dad’s name on the two uniformed officers standing guard in front of the ICU. They were simply too young to have heard of him, their combined ages roughly adding up to the number of years it had been since Phil Randall made captain.
It was a better tack to bring them coffees from the little place I’d seen in the lobby, and so that was what I did. “Thought you guys might need these,” I said. And I’d thought right. Up close, the two of them looked as though they were falling asleep on their feet. They took the coffees and thanked me, then dumped in the packets of cream and sugar I’d also generously provided. “You know, there’s no such thing as free coffee from a PI, right?” I flashed my private investigator’s license and gave themboth a smile. The twelve-year-old on the left rolled his eyes. The one on the right sort of giggled and blushed. Maybe he thought I was a MILF? I had no idea. But at any rate, I decided to focus my attention on him.
“You have any idea how she’s doing?”
“Were you hired to protect her?” the eye-roller asked.
“If I was, I wouldn’t be very good at my job, would I?” I grinned.
Boy on the right giggled again.
“Actually, I’ve been hired to find her best friend,” I said. “Do you guys know anything about how she’s doing?”
“Pretty sure they’ve got her stabilized,” Right Boy said. “There’s a lot of them working on her now.”
A few guys in scrubs hurried past us, pushing through the double doors. When they did, I caught a flash of the scene in intensive care. A curtained-off area, the men in scrubs barreling toward it. There were at least ten people in there, clustered around a patient—one of the few patients in the suite. From their urgency alone, I knew it was Sky.
One of the people working on her had said something. I couldn’t make it out. But I thought I heard “blood loss.” And also “transfusion.”
“I mean, these types of situations are always touch-and-go,” my friend on the right was saying. “But one of the docs said they’re cautiously optimistic.”
I wasn’t listening anymore. Not really. Even now, long after the doors had swung shut, my head was still in the ICU suite.What would Dylan think if he knew about this? After all he’s done and as awful as he is, would he come out of hiding to be by his best friend’s side?
“I hope she pulls through,” I said.
The two of them said nothing.
“Have you guys heard anything about the shooter?”
“Just that he acted alone,” said Right Boy.
“Are we sure it was a he?” I asked.
“When they brought her in, she was sayingheandhim. ‘He shot me.’ She was barely conscious, though.”
“We don’t know anything,” Left Boy said.
“Where did the info about him acting alone come from?” I asked. “Were there any eyewitnesses?”
“I don’t think so,” said the boy on the right.
“We don’t know anything,” his eye-rolling partner said again.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I said.
Right Boy started to speak, but the eye-roller gave him a nasty look. Then he turned to me, his face like granite.“We don’t know anything,”he said.
He’s just saying what his higher-ups told him to say,I thought. Still, he didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.
