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Hudson ached all over.
When he shifted in the bed, there didn’t seem to be an inch on his body that wasn’t in pain. He looked at the chart next to his bed, a sequence of “happy” and “not-so-happy” faces indicating where his pain medications should keep him. He was supposed to be in the kinda happy zone, and he definitely was not. But the nurse had just been in and adjusted his IV drip, so things would improve. The detectives from the sheriff’s department had already taken off as well.
It had been a frustrating interrogation. He’d learned little, and, he suspected, they’d learned less from him. A no-win/no-win situation, leaving both the cops and him discouraged.
He itched to get out of this place, to start looking for that unhinged jerk who had run them off the road and most probably killed Renee. But try as he might, he couldn’t convince the doctor to release him. Whenever he asked a nurse or physician when he could be released, he’d been met with a “soon” or “possibly later today” or “probably tomorrow.” He wanted out and he wanted out now. It worried him that Becca was still hanging out here, where all the trouble had started, where Renee had been investigating before she’d been killed, where the attacker had already tried once to kill them. What was to stop him now?
And what did it mean that both Becca and her attacker had seen a vision of Jessie?
Hudson cursed his luck, tried to move and felt another sharp pain slice through his shoulder. He forced his eyes closed so that he could think and plan. Somehow he had to nail the son of a bitch who’d attacked them before the lunatic got another shot.
The medication had just started to kick in when the door to his room opened and Becca let herself inside. He’d never been so glad to see anyone in his life. “Hey,” he said, sliding over as best he could. “I think there’s room for two up here.”
“Yeah, right,” she said and managed a bit of a smile.
“I’d make it worth your while.”
“Must be the pain meds talking.”
“Seriously.”
“Well, that’s just it,” she said, her smile sliding away. “I do want to talk to you. Seriously.”
He saw a shadow cross her eyes and wondered what was coming now. Something else had happened! Another one of their friends killed? Someone they knew?
Reading the alarm in his eyes, she grabbed his good hand and said, “It’s not that bad. Relax.” And then she told him about bone spurs and DNA and the fact that it looked like she’d been adopted, had never been told the truth, and had no idea who her biological parents were.
And she told him she and Jessie were sisters.
“What?” Hudson was stunned.
“We’re both from Siren Song,” she said. “Both of us. Those are our people, and they’re his.”
“I don’t believe you,” he declared, but he was lying.
“There’s something else.”
“Something else?” he asked in disbelief.
She took in a deep breath. “Something I should have told you a long, long time ago.”
“Okay…” Her tone sharpened his attention.
“Remember the last time we were together? After high school?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She was nodding and he saw a sheen in her eyes. Tears?
“We were together all the time,” she said thickly.
He nodded.
She hesitated.
The hospital room seemed to close in on him and the noises from the hallway outside receded. “What, Becca?” he asked and realized she was squeezing his hand so hard he felt it through the smooth haze of whatever painkiller was seeping into his IV.
“I was pregnant,” she said, her face white and twisted.
