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Nothing they do for the next five minutes can pull me out of my shell. If I wait them out, they’ll leave, and then I can just be alone with my pain.
Someone adjusts an IV. Dr. Short Woman presses a piece of plastic into my good hand. “This is for pain medicine. Push it whenever you need a dose. You can only get one dose per hour, though. It will help you sleep.”
I push the button.
And wait.
By the time they leave the room, my pain is hovering in the corner, watching me like a spirit that doesn’t know it’s dead.
Drew
“I mean it, Harry. I’m not leaving until I can see her.” I’m squared off against him, face to face, right outside Lindsay’s hospital room. After a torturous night in my own hospital bed, and debriefings and interrogations from more law enforcement agencies than members of a baseball team, I’m here.
Battered, bruised, and checked out of the hospital against medical advice.
But here.
“Drew,” he says, his voice compassionate. “Monica is on her way. Lindsay just woke up a few hours ago. We have her under careful guard. Let us see her first.”
“Of course. But I need to see her after you.”
“That might not be good for her mental health. The trauma...”
“You think I don’t know about the trauma? I witnessed most of it.”
He flinches. “So did half of America, on national television. That live feed complicates everything.”
“You mean having your naked daughter on television cutting off her attacker’s cock may hurt you in the polls.”
“You think I’m that cold?”
Before I can answer him, Monica sweeps down the hall, her face lighting up as she sees me.
I experience déjà vu. Last time she looked at me like that was four years ago.
“Drew!” she gasps, pulling me in for a fake hug, two fake kisses on my cheeks. She’s a cloud of perfume in female human form.
Those eyes express genuine emotion. “Thank you for what you did, Drew. You’re the one who cracked this all wide open.” Her side-eye glare aimed at Harry leaves nothing to interpret. She’s pissed at him. “Unlike some people,” she elaborates, “you weren’t snowed.”
Harry just clenches his jaw and sighs.
“Then again,” she adds, leaning in, “we could have done without the whole world seeing Lindsay naked like that. The live feed was brilliant, though.”
I give Harry a look.
“We haven’t been briefed yet on all the specifics. But Nolan Corning is in custody, has already resigned from the Senate, and an ad hoc investigation committee is underway. We know now that he reached out to Blaine, who pulled John and Stellan into the mix. Their goal was to paint my daughter as a whore, to discredit me, to derail my future in politics. Corning had one hell of a web he wove to make that happen.” Harry gives me a cold look I can’t read. “Unfortunately, the perpetrators are all dead. We have you to thank for that.”
“Only two of them. Lindsay killed Stellan all on her own.”
Harry grimaces. “Right.” He looks sick. “I’ve seen the video. Your drop kick helped.”
No reason to respond, so I don’t.
Monica nudges Harry, then looks around to see if anyone’s watching. “Did you thank Drew publicly?”
“Yes.”
“Now we have ample proof that Lindsay was drugged. Jane found the video Blaine Maisri made of that horrible night four years ago. The scheming little asshole had it as backup, just in case someone turned on him.”
