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Catherine glanced down at her once pale green T-shirt and jeans. “No, but it’s a good thing I was dressed to paint, isn’t it?”
The paramedics were able to rouse Dave, but as the police officers began to escort him out to their squad car, Catherine called out to them. “There are some clothes in the bottom drawer of the desk that you ought to take with you. They belong to the Lady in Red. DNA testing should prove Dave wore them.”
Once the officers had Dave confined to the back seat of their patrol car, the younger of the two returned to retrieve the suspicious garments. He bagged them, then shook his head. “You telling me that guy out there is the Lady in Red?” he asked.
“Apparently so,” Catherine replied.
Toby appeared to be equally astonished. “I’ve been hanging with the Lady in Red? You got to be kidding.”
“Does Luke look as though this were a joke?” Catherine countered. “Now I doubt they’ll let me ride in the ambulance, and I’m too upset to drive my own car. Will you give me a ride to the hospital?”
“Of course. I didn’t mean I doubted you. It’s just that, well, nobody expected the Lady to be a man in drag.”
“I did,” Catherine claimed proudly. “Now come on, let’s get out of the paramedics’ way.”
Kids had begun to gather in the parking lot and crowded around the ambulance when Luke was carried out on a stretcher. “Is he gonna die?” Max called out.
“Hell, no,” Luke shouted.
“A few stitches and he’ll be fine,” Catherine assured them. She crossed the street with Toby, and while he failed to drive with Luke’s manic speed, they arrived at the County/USC Medical Center only a moment behind the ambulance.
“I don’t like coming here again,” she said.
“There’re not that many trauma centers operating anymore, and Luke is a bloody mess.”
“I could have done without that.”
“Sorry, but I’m not happy to be here again either,” Toby complained.
“Just drop me off. I want to stay with Luke.”
Toby dug a business card out of his wallet. “Here’s my number. Call me if you need anything, a midnight snack, donuts at dawn, a ride home in the morning, whatever.”
“Thanks, Toby.” Catherine leaned over to kiss his check. “Oh, there is one thing. In the morning, will you please tell Pam what happened? I’ll need to buy a new pot for the plant, but I don’t want it thrown out.”
“You got it,” Toby assured her.
Catherine left his truck to follow the paramedics inside. She caught up with Luke’s stretcher and reached for his right hand.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Luke tried to smile, but winced. He was close to blacking out, but squeezed her hand. “Good. I want you to stay.”
She bent over to kiss him. “Hang in there, hero.”
Luke didn’t feel much like a hero, but he liked hearing it. His left arm felt as though it were on fire from his fingertips to his shoulder. The paramedics shifted him from the stretcher to a treatment table, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he were in the same room where Nick had died.
He tried to sit up, but a whole crowd of medical personnel appeared to hold him down. The bright light hurt his eyes, and he shut them tightly. “Just sew me up. I want to go home.”
They numbed Luke’s pain, but Catherine couldn’t bear to watch the doctor stitch up his flesh. She kept a firm grip on his hand but looked the other way. A nurse cleaned off her face and brought her an icepack for her cheek, but she cared little about being bruised from Dave’s blow.
It was early morning before Luke was released, and they were both too tired to think clearly. “I can call Toby to give us a ride to Lost Angel to pick up my car,” Catherine suggested, “or we could just take a taxi to my house and worry about our cars later.”
“Call the cab,” Luke urged. “I can do without Toby today.”
Luke’s left arm and shoulder were so heavily bandaged, he could hardly move, but he slept easily in Catherine’s bed knowing she was cuddled by his side. They didn’t get up until late afternoon, when hunger made further sleep impossible.
“Do you still have the steaks?” Luke asked.
