The Chilling Spree (13 page)

“He wanted to arrest Danny Datello, didn’t
he?”

“Johnny wanted to arrest everybody that
broke the law.  He wanted this city cleaned up and respectable
the way it used to be.”

“Are you from Darkwater, Chris?”

“Born and raised, though I went into the
military at eighteen.  I put in twenty-two years before I
retired and came back home.  The state police was an ideal
option for me.  With my command experience, they hired me
immediately and put me in charge out here.”

“How many years ago was that?”

“Creeping up on twenty,” he grinned. 
“Yes, Helen, I’m over sixty years old.  My wife doesn’t think
I’ll ever retire.  I suppose I’m one of those people who
doesn’t know how to slow down and play golf.”

“Johnny values you too much to see you leave
OSI.”

“We have a good arrangement.  He’s
never treated me like he’s my commanding officer,” he said. 
“Even when he blew his cover so he wasn’t arrested after he saved
your life in October, he didn’t strip me of my rank or really
change how the day to day operations are run.”

A faint smile curled my lips.  “No, I
don’t suppose he would’ve done that under any circumstances. 
Johnny loves investigating too much to ever be content sitting
behind a desk and directing others into the fray.”

“I just wish he could accept that,” Chris
said softly.  “This thing that happened, with Southerby out at
Dunhaven, it’s knocked him down a few pegs.”

“He thinks he can’t do the job
anymore?”  I’d had my suspicions, but not that I seriously
thought a few months of blank spaces would’ve undermined Johnny’s
confidence in a truly detrimental way.

“I suspect it’s more than just the voltage
they zapped him with,” Chris said.  “Part of it was you.”

“
Me
?”

Chris frowned, the scolding
come on,
let’s be honest here
variety.  “Helen, you’ve been here
what, six, seven months?  You arrested a corrupt police
official and got rid of a bunch of very bad detectives, found and
almost singlehandedly shut down a major drug distribution ring who
planned to commit genocide in the third world, and to top it all
off, you arrested Datello on charges that have Zack Carpenter
dancing a jig in the streets the case is so solid.”

I shook my head.  “I’m sorry, Chris,
but I did none of those things alone in the first place, and in the
second, why would any of that make Johnny feel like he can’t do his
job?”

“Because he’s been out here beating his head
against the wall of corruption for twenty years now, and some gal
comes in here and in six months makes a bigger dent than all of us
have accomplished together.”

“It’s easier to have a clean perspective
when you look at it with fresh eyes,” I said.  “It wasn’t some
kind of showmanship, Chris.  And Johnny played a huge role in
every single case I’ve worked.  If it hadn’t been for him, I
would’ve been dead long before Datello was arrested.”

“I get that.  Believe me, I do. 
I’m just repeating a few of the things he said after he read the
case files from the blank slate in question.”

“Then he does resent me.”  I’d picked
up on it, to put it mildly, when he accused me of being at fault
for his blown cover and the most recent injury that stripped away
his memories.

“He’s confused, Helen.  Nothing has
ever been easy for him where you’re concerned.”

“He really would be better off if I backed
out of this completely, wouldn’t he?”

“Johnny doesn’t know what he wants.  He
wants you.  He wants to outthink you.  He wants you to be
his partner.  Then again, he doesn’t want any of it.”

“Because I wasn’t there when he woke up last
week.”

“Partly.”

“What’s the other part?” I asked, almost
afraid to hear Chris’s unique take on the situation.

“He’s got some folks who are making all of
this more confusing by throwing their opinions of how he should be
feeling or behaving into the mix.”

“Briscoe,” I half growled.

“Yeah, I supposed you’d know that one
without much confirmation.  He gave Johnny quite the history
lesson on you.”

“I’m sure he did.”

Devlin stirred.  Chris and I bounced up
and peered down at him.

“Dev?”  I squeezed his hand.

Eyes fluttered.  “Helen?”

“I’m right here, Dev.  Chris is here
too.”

He sighed and poked at parched lips with a
dry tongue.  “Ned,” he rasped.

This time, the tears overflowed the dam in
my eyes.

“No,” he rasped.

“We’re so sorry, son.  Ned didn’t make
it.”

“Should’ve been me.”

“No, Devlin.  Please don’t say that,”
Chris’s voice cracked on the last.  “You know how much you
mean to me, son.  I couldn’t have…”

“And Ned wouldn’t have felt that way, Dev,”
I said softly.  “He’d want you to fight, to keep doing the
work.  We’re all so grateful that we didn’t lose both of
you.”

“All,” he echoed with emptiness that broke
my heart.  “You and Chris.  Everybody else will wish it
was me instead of Ned.”

My fingers sifted through his hair. 
“That’s not true.”  For Briscoe it probably was true, but he
didn’t count in my opinion, even though he hadn’t expressed that
thought at OSI. 

“What happened?”

“We’re not sure,” Chris said.  “Johnny
was going to find out and get back to me just as soon as he
could.”

“Orion hates me,” Devlin muttered.  He
stole a glassy-eyed glance at me.  “You know he does,
Helen.”

“He doesn’t.  Johnny’s so confused
about things right now, he doesn’t know how he feels about
anything,” I soothed.  “Chris, we should probably let his
nurse know that he’s awake.”

His eyes had already drifted toward the
doorway.  “Shit,” he muttered.  “Uh, rather, you stay
with Devlin.  I’ll be right back.”

I pressed my lips to Devlin’s
forehead.  “I don’t know how the accident happened, Devlin,
but I can tell you what’s been going on since you got to the
hospital.  Or would you rather have the nurse explain it when
she comes in here?”

“You tell me.”

“They had to open you up to find out what
happened,” I said.  “Apparently there was abdominal trauma and
they knew you were bleeding internally.”

“And?  Don’t tell me.  They found
out that I’ve got three stomachs or something.”

I grinned.  “They were worried about
your liver, but it turns out that you ruptured your spleen
instead.”

He sighed.  “Thank God for that. 
I can live without my spleen.”

“How would you know that?”

“My mom was a pediatrician, although when I
was very young, she was a family practitioner.  I’ve been
around that lingo my whole life, Helen.  What else happened to
me?”

“That’s it,” I said.  “No broken bones,
no head trauma, just the spleen.”

“And you know nothing about the
accident?”

I glanced toward the door.  What was
taking the nurse so long to get in here?  “Uh, the emergency
room doctor thought they said you were hit by a truck of some kind,
but he wasn’t sure.”

“You’re wondering where my nurse is,” he
sighed.  “You’re not gonna rest until she comes in and starts
poking and prodding, are you?”

“No, I guess I’m not.”

“Go on then.  I’ll be fine for two
minutes while you chew someone out for not dropping everything to
rush in here.”

“I’ll be back in a second.”

I stepped through the door - and saw why the
nurse hadn’t arrived.  Chris hadn’t summoned her yet. 
Angry whispers shot back and forth between him and Johnny.

“… telling him I’m some kind of demented
idiot!”

“John, that’s not what she said.”

Oh boy.  I laid my hand on the small of
Chris’s back and stepped beside him.  “Did you call for the
nurse yet?”

“Because we can’t possibly wait five seconds
to tend to Detective Dreamy, can we, Helen?” Johnny growled.

I gritted my teeth, sucked a deep breath
through my nose, struggled to hold the angry retort inside. 
“Chris, I think Johnny and I need to talk.  Would you let the
nurses know that Devlin is awake?”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Johnny
started to turn away, but I grabbed his arm with iron will.

“Then you’ll listen for once in your
life.”  I started dragging him down the hallway.  Surely
there was a waiting room around here somewhere. 

Johnny jerked his arm away from me and
grabbed the door that opened into a stairwell.  “Make it
fast.  I’ve got a job to do.”

“Fine, you wanna do this in the
stairwell?”  My hands shoved against his chest, caught him off
guard and slammed him into the wall adjacent to the door. 
“Then we’ll do it in here.”

“Don’t get pushy with me, Helen.  I’m
aware of your abilities, and warning you right now, jujitsu or not,
you’re no match –”

The words cut off in his throat when I
plastered myself against his body and gripped two handfuls of
hair.  “Shut up and listen to me.”

He swallowed hard, frozen against the wall
and nodded.

My grip relaxed, evolved into a
caress.  “It tore my heart out, what happened to you.  I
wanted to be with you more than anything in the world, Johnny, but
seeing that vacant way you look at me now, it’s almost more than I
can bear.  I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to hover over
you, the weeping stranger with a broken heart.  I’m sorry that
I couldn’t bear to hear you tell them to throw me out.”  I let
go of him and turned away before grief blinded me all over
again.

Johnny’s hands rested on my shoulders. 
“I wouldn’t have done that, Helen.”

A tightly compressed ball of grief uncurled
in my belly, exploded really.  Moisture dripped from my
chin.  My body shook with silent sobs.  Johnny’s hands
moved to my hips, turned me swiftly and pulled me against his
chest.

“Shh,” he murmured into my hair.  “Oh,
baby…”

The truth of the matter came in a succession
of hiccupped confessions.  “It took me so long to accept that
I love you, and then in an instant, I did something so stupid, and
you got hurt, and it was all gone, Johnny.  You looked right
through me.”

“You didn’t look like the person I
remembered,” he whispered.  “Familiar, but not.  Helen,
this isn’t easy for either one of us.”

“I know,” I wept, “but I thought we agreed
that we’d try to get through this together, Johnny.”

“We did.”

“Then why do you keep getting so angry with
me?”

His fingers spanned my jaw and tilted my
face upward.  “Because you’ve known this guy for what, a
week?  Two?  He gets hurt, and you run off to be with
him.”

“He’s my friend, and he knows who I am.”

“You loved me, and I know who you are
now.”

“Knowing me, it’s not the same,
Johnny.  You don’t remember us.”

“I know that nothing feels right when I see
some other guy kissing you, you kissing him.  I know that I
can’t stand seeing him put his hands on you.  I know that we
fit
, Helen.  We belong together.  I know that
hearing you cry tears me apart.  The idea that you don’t love
me anymore is making me crazy.”

“But I do love you,” I rasped.  “Do you
think I could just stop simply because you forgot how you feel
about me?”

“My
feelings
are the only thing that
I haven’t forgotten, Helen.  I don’t remember how I got them,
but I never doubted for one second how I’ve always felt about
you.”

I turned my head and drew the thumb resting
against my jaw between my lips.  Johnny’s eyes fluttered
shut.  His body shuddered.

“Helen…”

“Devlin is only a friend,” I said
softly.  “I’m one of the few he actually has.”

Johnny nodded.

“I don’t want him, Johnny.  I want
you.  I want the man who once told me that he knows me inside
and out, all the dark corners of my mind where even I’m too afraid
to look.  I want the man who remembers our first kiss, the
first time we made love, why I couldn’t let you walk away from me
that night.”

“And I’m not him anymore, am I?”

“You are him.  I believe that.  I
know it.”

“You need me to know it too.”  His hand
fell away from my face.  “That’s what you meant when you told
Devlin I’m too confused to know how I feel about anyone right
now.”

“Yes,” I whispered.  “I’ll help you any
way I can, Johnny, but I can’t spoon feed your memories back to
you.  Nobody can give you that.  You’re right that this
is all my fault.  I’d love to be the one to make it right for
you.”

“But you can’t.”

“Not by filling in the blanks for you,” I
said, “but I’ve got another idea.  Something that might help
you remember more on your own.”

“Tell me.”

“Stay with me.”

“Helen, we’ve got a case to solve –”

“And I’ll still work with you, but Johnny
doesn’t it make more sense that you’ll remember things if you
actually spend time with me?”

“What if I never remember?”

“We’ll deal with whatever happens as it
comes.  Please, Johnny.  How will you ever know the truth
from the lies you’ve been fed if you don’t at least try to see it
for yourself.”

“I thought you were staying here with the
new friend.”

“He knows about the case.  He’s got
Chris with him, and he knows I won’t abandon him.  Johnny, he
knows I love you,” I said softly.

“He still kissed you.”

“Not the way you think.  Stop being
angry and jealous.  It’s assures one thing.”

“What’s that?” he muttered.

Before I could respond, his cell phone
rang.

“Orion,” he hissed curses before answering
the phone.  “I’m at MSUH now.”

I glanced at my watch.  The day had
bled away into nighttime between Devlin’s surgery and the bedside
vigil at the hospital.  

“No, I haven’t gotten around to telling any
of them what happened.”