Under the Moon's Shadow (25 page)

Farik quickly finished with the questions, and did a quick check of her vital signs. The ambulance had reached the outskirts of Leroy, and would be at the hospital in a matter of minutes.

Leaning over Beth, Jason started to ask a question, but stopped when he overheard Dan radio the emergency room about calling the helicopter in.

“What helicopter?” Jason asked Farik, afraid there was something they hadn’t mentioned about Beth’s condition.

“They’re going to want to fly her out to either Cincinnati or Louisville. Her vitals are stable, but we don’t have a trauma unit, and that’s what she needs. It’s standard procedure for gunshot wounds, I promise.”

As a deputy, Jason was familiar with the process, just not from this side of the equation. He relaxed a little as he realized the precaution made sense. Looking back at Beth, he gently squeezed her hand. “Hey, I need to ask you some questions.”

With a small groan, she opened her eyes and met his gaze. “Okay. Ask.”

“Tell me what happened, sis.”

She started talking, her voice weak. “Don’t really know. Came back from my run, and he was in the apartment. Didn’t know he was there. He put something over my mouth, and that’s all I remember ‘til I woke up in the van.” She swallowed. “I heard Ormsby and Ruby laughing. I thought he was Ethan. Then she came back and talked to me. She cut my hair, Jason.” When she started to cry, he felt tears form in his eyes, as well. Her long blonde hair practically a trademark, its violent removal was a very personal attack. He cupped her head with his free hand, pushing the now-ragged strands back off her cheeks.

“I know, honey, I know. Shhh,” he said as she cried weakly. “It’ll grow back, Beth. Besides, you know you’ve always secretly wanted to go punk. Just think how happy that’ll make Joely.” She laughed a little at the thought and her tears slowed down. Farik handed him some tissues, and he wiped his sister’s eyes and nose.

“What else, sis? Did they say anything else?”

She turned her head as much as she could and stared at him. “What are you asking me? Just spit it out. I know that look.”

“Did they say anything about Ethan?”

She kept her gaze on his for another minute before she closed her eyes.  When she spoke, her voice was flat. “Ruby said a few things about her relationship with Ethan, yes. About how he feels about me, my interference in his life.”

His anger at Ethan building, Jason pressed her. “Did anything she said make you think he might be involved in this?”

“No, not really. But she didn’t say anything that convinced me he wasn’t, either.”

The ambulance slowed as it turned in to the hospital’s emergency room lane. “We’re here,” Dan announced as he pulled up under the covered entrance. Jason sat back as Farik started getting the gurney ready to unload and, as Dan opened the doors from the outside and personnel from inside the ER came out, Beth looked at Jason.

“I don’t want to see him,” she said as they pulled the gurney out. “Promise me I won’t have to see him?” She reached out her hand to grasp Jason’s and clung tightly as he walked alongside her as they went through the sliding doors.

“You mean Ethan?” She nodded, and his mouth tightened. “I promise.”

They’d reached the double doors that led inside the emergency department, and Jason had to let go. As their parents, along with Chase and Sampson, rushed up, the ER doctor turned and spoke to Richard and Jackie. “Let us get her stabilized, and then you’ll be able to see her, okay?”

Richard nodded and pulled Jackie back. They all moved into the waiting room, and as everyone filed in, Jason saw that Wyatt was there. The sheriff hurried over, and everyone looked to Jason for news about Beth’s condition and what had happened.

“They’re going to airlift her out.” He felt a little better about that when he saw his father nod. “She was hit twice - one was just a graze on her shoulder, but the other was in the abdomen, down low. If Cullen hadn’t been there, she’d be dead.”

“Who did this?” Jackie swiped angrily at the tears that kept falling, but her voice was strong.

“Chad Ormsby.” He watched their faces as the shock spread. “Cullen shot him, but Ormsby’s injury didn’t look too serious. I don’t know how that’s going to affect Cullen.” He directed the last comment toward Wyatt, who nodded.

“I’ll head out in a little bit and make sure he’s okay.”

Jason shook his head. “I need to talk to you about something else first. Where’s Ethan?”

“What does Ethan have to do with this?” Chase’s tension was reflected in his quiet tone. “Wyatt told us that Ruby was involved. Surely Ethan isn’t mixed up in it, too?”

“I don’t know. Beth wasn’t sure whether he was part of this or not, but she doesn’t want him anywhere near her right now. Ruby said some nasty things to her, and it’s left a pretty bad taste in Beth’s mouth.” He looked at Wyatt and shook his head. “I hate to even think it, but there’s a chance Ethan is involved. He’s certainly played a role in Ruby’s life lately.”

There was stunned silence all around, and then Jackie spoke up. “No, I don’t believe it. As stupid as he’s been acting lately, Ethan’s a member of this family. I can’t believe he would… No.” As she finished speaking, the door opened on the other side of the waiting room and the very person they had been discussing walked in. He stopped when he saw them all looking at him.

“Beth? How is she?”

With a low growl, Chase launched himself at Ethan, his weight carrying them back into the door with a crash. “What the hell did you do to my sister, you bastard?” He didn’t let him answer, slamming his fist into his friend’s shocked face. Pinning Ethan to the wall with an arm across his throat, he growled, “Answer me, damn you! How far did this thing go with Ruby? Were you in on it?” He eased up the pressure just enough to slam Ethan’s head back into the wall once again.

Richard, Jason and Wyatt sprang into action, struggling to pry Chase off Ethan, but it was taking all their combined strength just to move him a little. Ethan fought to get his arms up enough to fend the attack off, but Chase’s rage had given him unusual strength and he wouldn’t let go.. When Wyatt gave a particularly strong tug, the small distance gave Ethan the room he needed, and he got his arms between them.  He pushed back angrily.

Richard managed slide in the space between them. Jason was stunned by the rage he saw on his brother’s face. Richard finally managed to get Chase to look at him and away from Ethan, and as reason slowly returned, Chase crumpled, the fight gone.

“Dad…He hurt her.”

“I know, son. I know.”

Sampson came over and took Chase’s arm. With a few quiet words, he turned Chase and guided him out of the waiting room. There was a tense silence as everyone watched until they were clear of the ER doors, and then they collectively turned to look at Ethan. Standing against the door, stunned, he was bleeding where Chase had hit him, one of his eyes starting to swell already. Before anyone could speak, Jackie walked up to him and gently placed a tissue on the corner of Ethan’s mouth where Chase’s fist had connected. Dabbing at the blood, she spoke softly.

 “Now, Ethan, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Okay?” He nodded, still wary. “Did you have anything to do with Beth’s kidnapping? Anything at all?” Jackie finished dabbing at the blood and stepped back a couple of steps, waiting for his answer.

“No, ma’am. I would never hurt her, you know that.”

She shook her head slowly. “Oh, but Ethan, you have hurt my daughter, and you know it. Tell me, please tell me, flat out, that you had nothing to do with this.”

“Jackie, I promise you - I didn’t kidnap Beth. I didn’t have anything to do with this whatsoever. I… Ruby and I went out a couple of times, but that’s all, I swear. Just a couple lousy dinners.” As his cheeks flushed, Jackie watched him carefully, not allowing him to drop his gaze. Finally, she nodded.

“I believe you.” She moved a step closer to him. “But if I ever find out you’ve lied to me, I will castrate you myself, understand?”

Ethan nodded jerkily and Jackie turned to face the men. “He’s all yours, Wyatt. Get him out of my sight.” With that, she walked to Richard, who wrapped his arms around her. As Wyatt led Ethan past them, she turned her face away from them and buried it in Richard’s shoulder.

Jason walked over and touched her shoulder lightly. “I’m going to go wash up,” he told his father, who nodded.

Once in the bathroom, he closed himself in a stall and let the grief, the anger and the worry overtake him. Life as the Hudson family knew it had just changed. Their world had literally shifted on its axis. Even if Beth survived, nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Chapter Thirty Four

Beth didn’t remember the first several hours after she came out of surgery. That time was a blur, only a vague sense of movement, pain, and voices. When she did come around, it was nearly six thirty, the morning after the shooting. She opened her eyes and realized, strangely enough, that she was hungry. The hospital room was cast in shadows, the curtains partially drawn to block the light coming in from the nurse’s station. She turned her head and saw her mother stretched out on a cot across the room, her father sleeping in the recliner beside Jackie.

Shifting on the bed, she tried to get more comfortable without making any noise. Sharp pains shot through her abdomen and shoulder, restricting her movements, and Beth eased back onto the pillows. After she caught her breath, she raised her left hand toward the call button, her movement clumsy with the IV taped to the back of her arm. Before she could push the button, however, the curtain was quietly drawn back, and a nurse peeked around the edge. When she saw that Beth was awake, she moved into the room to stand at the bedside.

“How’re you feeling, hon?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

 “Hungry,” Beth told her. “And I really need to change the way I’m laying.” The nurse raised the back of the bed and helped Beth lean forward so the pillows could be adjusted behind her back.

“Oh, thank you.” Beth let out a sigh of relief as the pressure on her body was relieved. “Am I still in ICU? And um, what hospital am I at? For that matter, what city?”

“No, you’re in step-down. You’ll get more intensive care here than on the floor, but not as much as in regular ICU. That means you’re getting better. And you’re at the University of Louisville.”

Hearing her father stir, Beth turned and smiled at him as he stretched and came awake. He quickly moved to the side of the bed opposite the nurse.

“Hey, there’s my girl,” he said. He pressed a soft kiss to Beth’s forehead as the nurse hit the button that would inflate the blood pressure cuff Beth wore on her right arm. “How’s your pain?” 

“Bearable. Maybe a six out of ten? It’s getting a little worse now that I’ve moved around some.”

Her vitals checked, the nurse showed Beth the button for the pain pump, and Beth thanked her.

“Just push the button if you need anything, sweetie.” She excused herself, and Beth turned to Richard, who was trying to cover a yawn. It was odd to see her father with a day’s growth of beard on his face. Even on Christmas morning, he was usually groomed by the time he came downstairs. She noticed new lines on his face that hadn’t been there before yesterday, and her heart twisted.

“How much sleep did you get?”

He shrugged and glanced at his watch. “Enough. How do you feel?”

“Sore and hungry, but otherwise okay. A little fuzzy. Could I have something to drink?”

In answer, he reached for the small pitcher on the bedside table and poured a small amount of water into the cup beside it. He held it for her as she drank.

“Just sip it right now. You don’t want to go too fast.” Beth nodded as she took a tiny sip of the water. She held it in her mouth for a minute before swallowing, and closed her eyes as the cool liquid hit her stomach. After taking one more sip, she sat back and Richard put the cup down.

“Sit down, Daddy. Tell me how badly I’m injured?”

Beth saw him give her an appraising look, and then with a sigh, he lowered the bed rail and sat down beside her legs. He reached for her hand and held it gently. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then. You have two gunshot wounds. Your right shoulder’s grazed, but that’s just a laceration and some bruising. They put a few stitches in, and you’ll be sore for a while, but you shouldn’t lose any mobility. You’ll probably need to do some physical therapy, though, because the muscles suffered a pretty good insult. Okay?”

When he paused, she prompted him to continue, her voice quiet. “Tell me, Daddy. It can’t be worse than I’m imagining.”

Richard squeezed her hand, struggling with the words. “I’m not used to my patient being a member of my family. This is… difficult. You had a through-and-through wound in your abdomen, and you got damned lucky, Beth. It very easily could have been a fatal wound. There was some perforation of your small bowel, and some damage done from the passage of the bullet, small muscle tears, that sort of thing. The shock wave a bullet sends out is often more damaging than the actual projectile, and that proved true with you. They’ll watch you carefully because of the bowel repair, but your surgeon is one of the best doctors here, and I think you’ll be fine. He did have to remove your left ovary, though.”

She frowned. “I still have the right one, don’t I? Do I need both?”

“There’s a small, small chance of infertility associated with only having one ovary, but since you’ve never had problems with your cycle that I’m aware of, I’d venture to say you won’t have any problems when you decide to have children.” He looked down at their joined hands, and she knew he wasn’t finished.

“There’s something else you aren’t telling me.”

When Richard looked up, his face was solemn. “They did a standard blood pregnancy test when you came into the ER in Leroy.”

She closed her eyes and turned her head away, suddenly knowing what he was going to say. “It was positive?”

He squeezed her hand. “It was elevated, yes.” Her father fell silent while she absorbed the implications. When she turned her face back to his, she felt older, tired, broken in a way she hadn’t been before. He reached out and smoothed her hair back from her face.