Jack, Adam’s brother and special task force detective, sat quietly across from them, forearms braced against his knees, and his partner, Greer, was seated next to him. Jack remained quiet, observing, and Greer was unassertive and compassionate as she spoke. She introduced both herself and Jack, voice soft. She told Joel they were there to try to find out who had hurt him.
“Can you tell me your name?”
Joel stared at her unblinkingly.
When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer, Ford supplied the answer for him.
“Joel.”
“That’s good. Joel. We are trying to find out what happened to your friend. Can you tell us his name?”
Joel didn’t answer, just held on to Ford tighter. Greer tried several different approaches, but each question was met with stony silence. After a few minutes, it became clear they were getting nowhere.
“Maybe we can try again after Joel has gotten some rest,” Diana suggested.
“That would be fine,” Greer agreed. “We can come back tomorrow and see if you’re feeling any better, all right?”
Once more, Joel didn’t answer, but Ford was proud of him nonetheless. He’d already been through so much, and despite being scared, he hadn’t broken down. Ford didn’t know if he’d have been as brave at thirteen.
He led Joel back to his bed and stayed to check his vitals periodically. Ford wondered what would happen to him, where his parents were.
“I’ll be right back,” Ford said, gently pulling his hand free of Joel’s. He stepped out from behind the curtain and spotted Diana still speaking to the detectives near the quiet room.
“Hey, Diana, can I talk to you a sec?”
“Sure,” she replied, excusing herself from her conversation with Jack and Greer.
“I’m just wondering what’s going to happen to Joel. For as long as I’ve worked here, I’ve never had a kid in this type of situation.”
Her voice was soft when she spoke—Diana’s voice was always soft. “It’s too early to tell. He has obviously been abused, but whether that abuse came from his family or someone else, we won’t know until he starts talking.”
“How long will that take?”
“I’m not a psychologist, but from experience it could be anywhere from a few hours to years. We don’t know the extent of the abuse he’s suffered or what kind of psychological trauma he’s been exposed to.”
“Is there anything I should be doing for him, other than my normal stuff?”
She shook her head, smiling warmly. “No, you’re doing exactly the right thing. Joel trusts you. It’s not uncommon for children who have suffered to latch on to something or someone who makes them feel safe. I think that’s what has happened with Joel. The fact that he can forge that sort of emotional bond is a very good sign.”
Ford exhaled, his mind racing. There was a long road ahead for Joel, and they were only at the beginning. He thanked Diana for her help and returned to Joel’s bed.
The blood work was repeated, and Dr. Goodwin poked his head in a couple of times to check on him. Ford never left him again. He felt as though he’d been holding his breath since the moment the paramedics brought him in. There was no logical reason for Ford to have reacted the way he had, but in the moment that Ford had mistaken him for his brother, Joel had bonded with him and become more to him than just another patient.
As the clock clicked over to midnight, the opiate withdrawal symptoms became pronounced, and by two o’clock, Ford’s nerves were ragged. He was barely holding it together. His heart shattered, watching Joel’s muscles spasm and sweat soak through the thin hospital pajamas they’d provided for him.
It was intense and heartbreaking to watch someone so young, someone who should be home playing video games or watching movies with his friends, clinging to consciousness as his body protested against the denial of the physical craving for drugs. Joel vomited despite the antiemetic Ford had pushed into his IV, and as he had since he’d arrived, Ford held his hand.
He stood watch, offering as much comfort and compassion as possible while Joel threw up into the little cardboard tray, his eyes welling with tears as he doubled over in pain. Ford had done everything he could for him, and now he just had to survive the night. Saint Joe’s, where it was geographically situated, was well equipped to deal with drug dependency. There was a section in the emergency psych unit dedicated to helping those with addictions come down off their habit.
The nurses there were well trained, and they had helped thousands of people before Joel. It wasn’t going to be an easy road, but with a little luck, he would be all right.
He was moved to the emergency psych unit a little after three, as soon as a bed opened up. He was set up in a room all his own in the department that sat behind two doors that required key swipes to enter. Ford went with him. Despite the fact that Joel would no longer be his patient, he had to see it through.
When Ford’s shift ended, he reluctantly left the hospital. His heart was torn, leaving Joel there alone, but he needed to give himself some space and a bit of perspective. The boy would be in good hands. Logically he knew that, but he felt a sense of responsibility for him. He blinked hard and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, willing himself to focus and make it through the next few hours.
NASH COULDN’T
wait to get out of his uniform, climb into bed, and pretend the whole day never happened.
Pulling up to the station, he saw the other car in the bay and the supervisor’s vehicle parked outside. The paperwork alone would probably take at least another hour, and the debriefing would be a minimum of thirty minutes on top of that. The aftermath of the day was beginning to wear on him. An hour and a half seemed far too long to wait before being allowed to book off and go home.
Quickly and efficiently, he, Rob, and Caleb sanitized the inside of the ambulance and made sure everything was restocked for the part-time replacement crew that would be taking over for them. When everything was done, they climbed the stairs to the main living quarters, where the supervisor was waiting for them.
They went through the same song and dance every time a traumatic call went down. Nash knew the spiel almost by heart. He nodded when he was supposed to and signed his name where required, and before long the taillights of the supervisor’s car were fading out of sight.
Nash turned back from the window, ready to get the fuck out of that place and sleep off the long-shift hangover, when he saw Adam pacing back and forth, staring at his phone, clearly agitated.
“You okay, man?” Nash asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He didn’t sound fine.
“Just don’t like that Dex is dealing with this all on his own. I know this shit’s gonna hit him hard, and it pisses me off that there’s some asshole out there and all we do is clean up the aftermath of his psychotic tendencies. It’s fucked. Jack should have caught the guy by now, but instead here we are, half a year later and there are four fucking kids, all carved up, and he’s no closer to finding who did this than he was that first night. Maybe if he spent more time concentrating on his fucking job than who I’m sleeping with, the goddamn serial killer would be sitting in the electric chair.”
Nash shot Adam an empathetic look, ignoring the fact that they didn’t use the electric chair. It was incredibly doubtful Jack spent all that much time worrying about who Adam was sleeping with, but Adam was upset, and understandably. Everyone was on edge, but the case affected Adam’s family more than most. Being the attending medic on not one but two of the victims and his partner performing the autopsies was enough to put a strain on any couple.
The fact his brother was the investigator was one more blow that brought the murders far too close to home.
“You wanna go to the Nickel? Wait for him to be done?” Nash offered, thinking maybe a beer or two would dull the anxiety of waiting for Sam to finish up with the autopsy.
Adam looked over to him, their gazes locking. Nash read the gratitude there, and he watched as some of the fire seeped out of him.
“No. Thanks, though. I should head home, wait for him. He’ll be lucky to see his bed tonight, but I wanna be there if he does.”
“Come on, Adam. One drink,” Caleb chimed in. “It’s not going to do you or Sam any good to have you waiting around at home, stewing in angst for hours before he gets there.”
“I want to be there when he gets home.”
“You will be. Don’t worry, Cinderella. We’ll get you home before your coach turns back into a pumpkin,” Rob teased.
Adam sighed. “Fine. One drink.”
“Good man,” Rob said, and Nash grinned.
“I’ll meet you there. I should go home and get changed first….” He trailed off, looking down at his uniform and the patches of blood that had soaked through his shirt. Nash mirrored the motion, noting the substantial amount of blood on his own uniform.
Paramedics had to make up the majority of Tide’s business.
“Me too. Meet you all there in half an hour?” Nash asked.
“You bet,” Caleb replied.
BY THE
time they left the bar, Nash was pleasantly buzzed, the evening sufficiently dulled around the edges. It felt good to spend an hour blowing off steam with the guys. Mostly they bullshitted about nothing at all, but as the beer flowed, the mood shifted and Adam spoke about Sam and how difficult the cases had been for him. He cursed his brother once more for being a homophobic prick and a useless detective, and Nash got the feeling there was a lot more to the story than what he’d been told.
Tears had very nearly fallen, and they all pretended not to notice, ordering another round and letting Adam purge everything as the words spewed out. The laughter that washed over the table after Rob cracked a stupid joke was tentative, but Nash could tell everyone felt lighter. They were lucky enough to have access to counselors and psychologists if they felt like they needed someone to talk to, but there was something to be said for decompressing with friends at the pub.
Caleb offered Nash a ride home, already having informed Adam that he would drop him off. Nash declined, opting instead to walk around for a while. The exhaustion he felt earlier had melted away, and he was feeling relaxed and content. He wanted to stretch that feeling out, to make it last awhile longer.
It was the middle of the night, and the streets were quiet but not deserted. They never were. It was part of the reason Nash loved living in the city. The shops were all closed, but most of the windows were dimly lit, washing the street with a soft glow.
He made his way down the sidewalk, hands shoved into his pockets, wandering aimlessly. The trees were beginning to lose their leaves, and even under a blanket of darkness, the residential streets that branched off the main boulevards were a wash of color.
Nearly an hour later, he found himself standing in front of the churchyard, where hours ago he’d found a scared little boy holding his dead friend. The property was cordoned off with police tape, and there was one squad car that remained, parked at the mouth of the alley that ran behind the church.
He recognized the officer sitting inside and tilted his head forward in acknowledgment before turning back to stare at the church. The tiny building looked so innocuous, its red clapboard siding reminding Nash of photos he’d seen of old schoolhouses. Lush rhododendron bushes dotted the perimeter of the building, the last of the bright pink flowers hanging on, refusing to let autumn shake them from their branches. The scene was peaceful, and Nash imagined there had been many happy memories made here. The stark yellow police tape stood in contrast to those joyful events and was the only indication that anything sinister had ever taken place here.
Nash stood there for what felt like forever, trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened. He would never understand the desire or capacity for people to harm a child. He’d seen enough kids, broken and bloody at the fists of adults, to know it happened more often than it should. Every time, it lit a flame of rage in his chest that took weeks to fade. This time would be no different.
He glanced at his watch and saw it was a little after five. He wanted to make it back to the hospital before six to see if he could catch Ford at the end of his shift. Nash needed to know how the boy was doing and, if he was being honest with himself, how Ford was holding up as well.
“HEY, FORD,”
Nash called as he walked toward him. He’d stepped out of the ER doors and was crossing the lawn, his head down and shoulders slumped forward.
“Hey,” Ford said, his voice sounding drained.
“You look awful.”
“Wow. Thanks,” Ford said incredulously. “Is that how you impress all the guys?”
Nash’s eyebrow quirked up. He was irrationally happy that Ford’s thoughts had jumped directly there. “I thought you didn’t want me to try to impress you.”
“I don’t. I didn’t mean it like…. Jesus, Nash. Tonight was fucking intense, and I’m so fucking wiped out. Could you not right now? Please?”
His smug grin fell. “Sorry. You’re right. That was shitty of me. How’s the kid?”
“Fucked up. He’s coming down off a shit mix of drugs in his system. You shoulda seen the labs. We don’t usually see results like that unless the patient was scooped up off East Hastings. It’s completely fucked that a kid could end up….”
“He’s going to be fine,” Nash said for the second time that night.
“I hope so.”
Nash shoved his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t put them on Ford. God, he wanted to. He was standing there all moody and tired, his scrubs crumpled and his hair tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it, and for a moment, Nash’s libido ran away with him.
He forced it back into check. Jesus Christ. Now was not the time. Ford was tired and upset, for Christ’s sake.
“Come on. Let’s get you fed,” Nash said, tilting his head to gesture down the block.
“I’m really not hungry.”
“Like hell you aren’t. When’s the last time you ingested something other than coffee?”