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So far Dr. Ben hasn’t gotten tired of me, either. I keep asking myself where we’re going with this, whateverthisis. But being such a hotshot lawyer, I already know the answer to that one.
We’re heading right into a dead end.
Literally.
I know I should end it before we go much further, but I also know why I’m not doing that, at least not yet.
He makes me happy.
Or as happy as I can be. Neither one of us has talked about love. If he turns out to be the first one of us to do it, I’ll probably feel the urge to pull a gun on him. But I think he might already be about halfway in love with me.
And me with him.
Good timing, Jane.
I want to tell him about my condition. Tell Jimmy first, then him. But for now, my condition—it sounds far more benign when I call it that—remains a secret between Dr. Sam Wylie and me, until I start to get sicker or start treatment and can no longer keep it a secret.
I have spread out a lot of my case notes on the kitchen table and go back to them now with my mug of hot tea.
The BC fight song blares from my phone.
The screen says: “Bridgehampton Trauma Center.”
It’s the new, small hospital they’ve built behind the mall in Bridgehampton, the one with the only operating room east of Southampton Hospital, the place having opened about six months ago.
The voice, male, on the other end of the call identifies himself as Dr. Williams and tells me that Jimmy has been shot.
“I should say he’s been shot again, because I couldn’t help but notice what looks like a very recent wound not terribly far from tonight’s.”
Jimmy.
Shot.
Again.
Twice in the same week.
He’d done so little complaining—really, no complaining at all—about getting hit in the shoulder the first time that I’d almost forgotten about it.
I remember it now. And feel as if I’ve stopped breathing.
Or being.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes,” Dr. Williams says. “We were told that you are his closest contact.” There’s a brief pause. “Are you his next of kin?” he asks.
“Even closer than that,” I say. “How bad is it?”
“You should get over here,” he says.
Eighty-Six
THERE ARE ACTUALLY Alot of thoughts floating around inside my brain as I blow through more than one red light on my way to Bridgehampton on 27. But I keep going back to the big one:
Hecan’t die onme.
I know he was shot as a cop. Never since he started working for me. Now this. I am putting him more in the line of fire than the NYPD ever did.
