Page 66 of Booked for Murder

I’d given my life for his, and he’d secured mine. Tit-for-tat.

Idiot man.

“She might never awaken.”

“But she might.”

“Even if she survives, the physical therapy is practically insurmountable. Nobody goes through a crash like that and walks.”

“I did.”

The memory faded away, and the conversation repeated itself several times with minor variation, although Bradley refused to budge, ordering the doctors to continue my care despite their protests over impossibilities. Then the conversation changed.

Their voices no longer seemed quite so far away.

“I think you like flying me in from New York once a week. Did you miss me that much, Dr. Avers?”

For the first time, the doctor chuckled. “I’m looking forward to making you leave my hospital.”

“We’ve talked about this before. I’m not authorizing her removal from life support.”

“She was taken off life support this morning.”

Silence. “She’s breathing on her own.”

“I appreciate you did not jump to the incorrect conclusion. Two days ago, she stabilized on her own, and we began preliminary testing to see if she could survive without life support. Early this morning, she passed our final checks, which is when I called you to ask you to come in. You have some decisions to make.”

“What decisions?”

“It is about her foot. We are evaluating our options, and we are not confident in recovery. We are recommending amputation.”

I could make a few guesses on why that particular memory had been ejected into the ether, and I’d be asking Bradley if that conversation had actually happened or my twisted psyche hated me. If it had, I’d be marching across the country and kicking Dr. Avers in the groin for even thinking about amputating my damned foot.

“That’s her driving foot, and I absolutely will not authorize amputation unless she’s at risk of dying from infection or she decides otherwise. It is her choice, and as it was not amputated immediately following the crash, I will need a second opinion on that recommendation.”

“It’s prohibitively expensive—”

“Do I look like I care how much it costs? Did I care that your hospital charges fifteen thousand a day for life support care? If I wasn’t concerned about those fees, why would I care about the rest of it? Once she wakes up, you will act like you expect to work on rehabilitating her foot. The cost is of no issue to me.”

“It takes a great deal of resources—”

“If you are unwilling to do the work, I will find someone who is.”

“It’s not that. The treatments would be excruciatingly painful.”

“You do not get to decide what she is willing or not willing to endure. That is only a decision she can make, and you will abide by whatever choice she makes.” Bradley’s tone allowed no argument, and I gave the idiot doctor credit. He kept his mouth shut.

The conversation explained a lot about all the little things I’d wondered about over the years, including Bradley’s callous way of telling me to bugger off until I reached my prime.

He’d understood me better than I’d believed possible.

My twisted psyche spared me from reliving when he’d come into my hospital room, looked me over, and told me the next time he wanted to see me was when I was back in my prime. That hadn’t worked out in the way I’d thought.

Life rarely worked out like I thought it would.

A beep drew me from my memories, and I recognized the sound as a heart monitoring machine, something I shouldn’t have been hearing.

I’d been at home having weapons calibrated to me. That shouldn’t have landed me in the hospital. A surge of panic snapped me awake, and the machine squealed, informing the world my heart rate had spiked.