The doctor was about to leave when Val stopped him. “Where’s the bastard who did this to her?”
The doctor pointed down the curtain-lined corridor to a closed door. “He’s restrained to his bed in isolation and there’s an officer with him. He’s got a concussion from when the deputy tackled him, besides the broken nose. My understanding is that state law enforcement is already on their way to pick him up.” The doctor smiled at Charity with admiration in his gaze. “I heard what she did. That’s one brave lady and I’m damn glad I could patch her up for you.” He looked like he wanted to say more but put Charity’s chart in its receptacle and moved on.
There was only one chair and it was on the other side of the bed. Val didn’t care as he went to her and kneeled down on the tile floor and took her hand. He shuddered in relief and looked up at her with a grin, trying to not contemplate how this could’ve all turned out different and remembering how much she didn’t like being in the hospital.
“For someone who hates coming to this place, you sure do seem to spend a lot of time hanging out here, baby.”
“Shh,” she said in a loud whisper, pointing to the nurse and giggling. “I don’t want to hurt their feelin’s. They’ve been so nice to me and they can’t help it that I hate it here.” She fell back against the bed and sighed happily as she closed her eyes and then whispered, “Whoa, the room is spinnin’. I feel fun-nun-nun-ny.”
Justin chuckled and said, “Someone’s comfortably numb. I know she’s in good hands so I’m going to slip out and make some calls. That okay with you, babe?” He leaned over and kissed her.
She nodded slowly as she beamed up at him. “Mmm-hmm. I’ll be right here when you get back, sexy.” He kissed her one more time and left the two of them to sit with her.
Charity looked up at him and Ransome and said, “I still can’t believe that happened. I’m so pissed.”
Guilt continued to plague Val as all the what-if scenarios for how the situation could’ve played out flashed through his mind. On the way there, he’d imagined the look on her face when the bastard had shot her. Pictured her lying on the ground, bleeding. He pressed his lips to her knuckles and whispered, “I’m so sorry, babe.”
“Huh?”
Ransome took the chair on the opposite side and clasped her other hand in his. He made eye contact with Val, his brown eyes dull. They’d weighed the pros and cons before they’d moved to Divine. Thought they’d had all their loose ends tied up in nice, neat knots, so they wouldn’t come unraveled.
Ransome said, “That guy was here because of us. What happened to you is on us.”
“How do you figure that?”
Val explained to her that they’d always been careful to shield their families from their jobs, fastidious about working anonymously when in the presence of their “pickups.” In their effort to take care of Jessica, he’d let their names slip, something they never did. That had to have been how Trevor had traced them, because Val had told Jessica within his hearing that he and Ransome would help her if she ever needed it.
“That’s not what I’m pissed about, guys,” she said as she squinted at them.
A little confused, Val asked, “What’s got you pissed, baby?”
She pointed at her handbag and Ransome handed it to her. “I’m pissed because that motherfucker shot a hole through my brand-new studded leather handbag.” To demonstrate, she reached in her purse and stuck her finger out through the bullet hole. “I loved this purse and now it’s ruined.”
Ransome didn’t say a thing as he lifted the bag and exchanged a look with Val. It could very well be that the handbag has slowed the bullet enough so it didn’t do more life threatening harm to her. Ransome mouthed, “Fuck.”
She tried to sit up in the bed again until she grimaced in pain. “Ow.”
“Angel, stop moving around,” Ransome said, reaching for the button to adjust the bed. “Let me fix the bed for you. You’re just aggravating your wound.”
“I hate being medicated like this,” she said in a low voice. “It makes me loopy and silly. Listen to me, guys. Dornan found out where Jessica was on his own.”
“How?”
Charity put her hand over her mouth and yawned. A small, vulnerable sound that made him want to cuddle her up into his lap, to hold and protect her while she rested. “Grace told me earlier that Jessica’s apartment was broken into. The only thing missing was her desktop computer. You didn’t lead him here. He put the pieces together using information he found on her computer. He’s a misogynistic asshole who was supposed to be in prison. Do you know he was planning to steal Grace and keep her until she had the baby?”