With a short, hard knock, Curtis entered
the little room first. Jesse could see someone lying on a bed with her back to
him and another woman, this one dressed all in white, saying something to her.
“I know you can’t really hear me, love,
but I want you to take a deep breath, honey, and I’ll get this cleaned for you.
Why those idiots left this unattended is beyond me.” Without taking her eyes
from her patient, she barked at who she thought had entered the room. “Bring me
some more four-by-fours, darling. This is much worse than I thought.”
When the nurse or doctor moved, Jesse
could see it was indeed bad. She turned to them then and stared. Before she
could speak, the door behind them opened.
“She’s been out for over an hour, but I
still like to think they can hear me. I want you to call an ambulance and have
them come and get her.” Jesse turned to see who was there and saw that the girl
from the desk was there. “And if you had anything to do with these two in here,
you’re fired.”
Curtis spoke first. “Don’t fire her. It’s
my fault. This girl is important to my family as she saved my mom the day
before yesterday. We’ve been looking for her to see if she’s alright.”
“Well, as you can see, she’s not. I
don’t know what kind of dumb ass it was that treated her, but he should be
barred from treating animals much less humans.”
“What did you give her? I thought…what
did you give her to knock her out?” Jesse flushed when the doctor looked at
him. “She left the hospital before treatment could be finished. But I agree,
someone should have seen this.”
The burn on the back of her leg was
horrific. It was at least eight inches long and nearly half as wide. The
blister had burst at some point and it now seeped with puss. He could also see
that there were bits of something in the wound and he didn’t want to think what
it was. The doctor explained before his imagination got the better of him.
“She’s been wearing her jeans over it
without protection. It’s gotten infected and she needs to get some antibiotics
in her. I don’t know how much longer she would have gone if I hadn’t seen her
last night and insisted she come here to have me stitch up her arm. Poor thing
was working through her shift when my friend called me after she’d thrown up
her dinner and started bleeding.”
Jesse nodded. He didn’t ask what was on
the tip of his tongue. The woman was helping them. He didn’t want to piss her
off asking why she didn’t have an ambulance called last night. He could hear
the sirens even as he looked at his watch. Curtis stepped out as he moved
toward the head of the girl.
She was covered in sweat and he looked
up at the doctor to ask. Again, she answered before he spoke. “She passed out
from the pain, I would imagine. She was in a great deal of it last night and I
would guess it didn’t get any better her walking here from the bar.”
“What bar?” He wasn’t sure why he cared,
but would file away the information in the event that she left again without
him getting her name.
“Doyle’s on tenth. She does dishes a few
nights a week he told me and, when she can, works the bar for him. Doyle said
she’s had a bit of bad luck lately and he likes the girl.”
Jesse nodded. “You know where she
lives?” She shook her head. He didn’t think she would. “How about her name?” He
looked up when she cleared her throat.
“You know who tried to strangle her?”
He nodded.
“Anyone I can help along to an early
grave?”
“I’m working on that myself.” He looked
at the girl and brushed her damp hair from her cheek. “My mother has friends in
high places and is working on a campaign to get that to work as we speak.”
“I love your mom then. All I know about
her name is she goes by ‘Joey.’ Doyle thinks her last name might be Foster, but
he’s not sure. I think he’s lying about that. She hasn’t been all that
forthcoming, so he said. I think he’s trying to protect her.”
It was more than he’d had. Further
conversation was stopped when two medics arrived. He realized when one of them
called her Missy that he’d not asked her name. Jesse made a mental note to make
a sizeable donation to this clinic to help keep her working here. Her licenses
were hanging on the wall next to the door and he noticed that she’d graduated
from Harvard. And that her last name was Cummings.
Jesse shook Missy’s hand as Joey was
being loaded. She’d made it so he could ride along with her. Curtis was following
in the car. Jesse had no idea what he was going to say to Joey if she woke and
started asking questions, but he was more concerned by the way the medics had
worked on her. Her temp had spiked, they said, and they worked very hard to get
it to go down.
Chapter 4
Annamarie watched the girl sleep. She’d
gotten out of surgery more than three hours ago and the surgeon had said he
wasn’t worried when she didn’t wake when he’d projected.
“She’s been fighting off the infection
for several days. If she wakes before morning at this point, I’ll be surprised.
The girl is strong, I’ll give her that.” He’d ordered her pain medications to
be given every four hours to keep her still and told Annamarie that she could
stay with the girl until she was tossed out.
She snorted. As much money as the
Hunters donated to this hospital yearly, they should name the sucker after her.
She closed her eyes and thought about the girl, woman really, that lay so still
on the bed.
Her name was Josephine Delilah Foster,
twenty-six, and the only child of Mary and Donald Foster. It was probably just
as well she’d been their only child. By all accounts they hadn’t cared much for
the one they had. She’d been living with a grandmother who seemed more inclined
to get loaded up on Friday night and stay that way until Friday morning of the
next week. She’s gone through what little money the younger couple had left
their daughter in less than a year. And had treated Josephine like a live-in
maid more than a grandchild. When she’d turned eighteen, less than four years
later, the young Joey had moved around a great deal. It wasn’t until she’d
moved into the Buster Apartments that she’d begun to make some headway into
getting herself some sort of life. Annamarie turned when the door opened behind
her.
“What have you found out?” She whispered
the question to her son. “I know we own the building she lived in, but I’m
thinking there might be more to the story than we’d been told.”
Daniel shifted in his chair,
uncomfortable. She was sure that whatever he had to tell her wasn’t going to be
good.
“We bought the building about two years
ago. We’d been trying to work with the previous owner, but he was being
evasive. He told us, according to the report that Royce filed with the building,
that the people wouldn’t cooperate. Then when we still had tenants after the
required ninety days, we gave them another four extensions. He was handling the
evictions for us.”
Annamarie looked back at the girl on the
bed when she stirred. “You think he let them know what was going on?”
“No. I looked in the file and found a
few letters. Some of them were from someone on the tenants group and a few of
them were from her.” He nodded to the girl and handed her some letters. “She
claimed that they hadn’t been given enough time. That there were people in the
building that were going to have to move to nursing homes. Conway, the owner,
said she was a pain in the ass and he backed his story up about her being nuts
with a few letters from her neighbors. We just simply let him handle it as this
was about the time we were going to court over that thing with Kasey.”
Annamarie nodded. Yes, they’d been all
pretty devastated over the things that had come about when Kasey had worked for
them. And now they were about to have another go with the press.
She opened the letters and only glanced
at them. Her head still hurt from the blow she’d taken when she’d been knocked
off her feet at the fire. She gave them back to Curtis. She just wanted to
crawl into her bed and rest. She opened her eyes and looked at her son. “Jesse.
Do you know what the relationship between him and this girl is about? I heard
they had words in the hospital before she left the first time.” She’d laughed
at the story that Kasey had told her about the woman and her son. “Do you think
he likes her?” Curtis didn’t answer, so she asked again.
“Are you playing match maker, Mom? If so,
I don’t want any part of it. She’s just a good kid that’s been dealt some
pretty nasty crap. Thank her for saving your life and leave her alone.”
Annamarie didn’t say anything right
away, too mad at Curtis for thinking her so devious. It didn’t really matter
that he was partly right; she just didn’t like him knowing it. “The girl
deserves a break. And, if at all possible, I’d like for him to keep away from
her. She doesn’t need him breaking her heart because he wants to screw her.” She
was happy to see that she shocked him and turned her head away from him before
he could see her smile. “You make sure that he is aware that she is off limits
to him or he will answer to me.”
A few minutes later, a nurse came in to
tell Curtis that he had a phone call. His cell had been turned off and the
caller needed to speak to him. Curtis left her alone once again. A few minutes
later Joey rolled to her back and spoke.
“I don’t know who you are, but you’d
better have a damned good reason for bringing me back to the hospital that I
can’t afford.” She groaned when she moved again. “And my flipping throat still
hurts.” With that, she burst into tears. Annamarie got up and went to her, asking
her to please cover her eyes so that she could turn on the light. With the
light on, Annamarie fussed with the bedside table while Joey got control again.
After a few minutes, the girl thanked her.
“I need you to see if they can get me a
set of the A.M.A. papers. I think they have them on file at the nurses’
station. I’m sure if you tell them I don’t have any insurance, they’ll get them
right away.”
“You can’t leave against medical advice
for lack of insurance. Well, I suppose you could, but that doesn’t matter.” Annamarie
smiled at her.
“I’m sure it might not to you, but this
place frowns upon you not being able to pay your bill. And I can’t.” She stared
at her for several seconds before she spoke again. “You’re the lady from the
building. Hunter. You’re Mrs. Hunter.”
Had Annamarie not been looking at her,
she would have missed the change. Her entire face seemed to tense up and she
could feel the hostility boiling off her. She stiffened and pulled herself to
the other side of the bed.
“I need for you to go away now. I’m glad
you’re okay, but I don’t want to have anything to do with you people.”
Curtis walked in just then and started
to say something to Joey that Annamarie thought might not be very nice.
“You have every right to be mad at the
Hunters for what we’ve apparently done to you. If I were in your shoes I’d be
pissy about it too. That’s why I want to make this up to you any way I can.”
“You can make it up to me by getting
your rich ass out of my room. I don’t need, nor do I want, your charity.” Joey
pulled on the call cord so hard she yanked it from the wall.
When Curtis started to help her, Annamarie
stopped him with a look. “Curtis, please go and get your brother. I think Jesse
has something to say to her as well. And bring Kasey. She should have what I
asked to get for me.”
Joey didn’t move until the nurse came
in. She simply handed her the broken cord, told her how sorry she was, and
asked if she could please have a copy of the A.M.A. paperwork.
The nurse looked at Annamarie, and she
nodded. She could have them, but she wasn’t leaving. Not like this anyway. She
sat in the chair again and waited for the cavalry. Curtis returned first then
Kasey and Jesse. He didn’t even speak to her, but went straight to the girl.
“You look better. How are you feeling?” Joey
answered by growling at him and it was everything she could do not to laugh at
her son. “I guess your throat still hurts. The doc said it might be a few more
days before it felt better.”
When the nurse came in and handed her the
papers, Jesse snatched them right up. He was walking away from the bed as he
read them. Annamarie watched as Kasey brought Joey the bag.
“I got you some clothes. It took us
awhile to figure out where you lived. It was very cozy, by the way. Much better
than my first apartment. Anyway, most of your things were gone. I figured
someone noticed you weren’t around so they took what was there. Your bed and
things had been ransacked and we think some transient might have found it
before we did.”
“I’m a transient, in case you hadn’t
noticed. And I don’t want your clothes. I have…I have things I can get my hands
on if I need them.” Everyone in the room could see the hurt on her face when
she’d found out about her things. “And will you please give me back those forms?”
“I don’t think so,” Jesse said as he sat
on the couch. “These say you’re leaving against medical advice. The only way
you’re getting out of that bed is if I carry you somewhere or you’re released
by a certified doctor.”
Curtis cleared his throat and asked to
speak to Jesse in the hall. This is where either the fireworks began or Jesse
walked away. Either way, she was prepared. Annamarie was slightly disappointed
when Curtis came back in alone, but brightened when Jesse came in a few minutes
later. He seemed tense and she was nearly giddy with happiness. This could be a
turning point in both his and Joey’s lives.