“Yes, Lieutenant,” Burns said, nodding solemnly. “We have this under control.”
Before Jacob turned away, Williams reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. “She’ll pull through.”
Jacob nodded as the detectives lead Mary Jane Barrowman through the door and down the long, carpeted hallway where, already, curious onlookers were gathering. He knew by the sirens blaring outside that the backup had arrived. For one small moment, he couldn’t turn around, couldn’t bring himself to face Lola as she lay unconscious on the floor.
She’s alive. His mind kept repeating over and over. She’s going to be fine. She has to be.
Steeling himself, he turned back, knelt on the floor again so that he could watch over Lola as the paramedics stabilized her. “Jesus. Look at these bruises.” The second medic, a young man with dark hair and eyes, pointed to Lola’s throat where finger pad bruises were already raised in ugly red splotches.
“Close call, that’s for sure.” The first medic glared at James Barrowman’s body. “Fucker.”
“Will she be okay?” Jacob asked, too afraid to hope.
They were silent.
“Lieutenant?”
Jacob looked up to see McConnell and Zac in the doorway. Zac looked down at Lola, his eyes filled with pain, filled with memories that Jacob hoped he wouldn’t have in common with his best friend.
“The processing team is on the way. Same ME as the girls. Jason Ridley.” McConnell didn’t smile, but Jacob could tell by his tone that they shared the same thought: Fucking divine justice.
When the medics rolled her onto a stretcher, Jacob stood. “I’m coming in the ambulance.”
Either they trusted that he had the jurisdiction, or they could tell by the look on his face not to argue, but they nodded and lifted the stretcher off the ground. Despite the crowd, Jacob longed to reach out and touch her pale face as they moved her past him, but he didn’t. There was a part of him that was petrified of how close to breaking he was, and he knew that he needed to power forward, keep his mind shut down until they got her to the hospital and evaluated further.
“I’ll meet you there,” Zac said, moving to follow him out of the apartment.
“McConnell,” Jacob turned to the young officer, “oversee processing.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Once they were outside, he climbed into the ambulance, sat beside the stretcher beside one of the medics as the other put the sirens on, and sped through traffic.
“She special?”
Jacob looked up at the medic, nodded once. He didn’t really know what to say. ‘She’s my fiancée,’ sounded disingenuous because as much as he wanted it to be true, he knew that Lola had brought it up in an extremely stressful situation. And he wanted her to be sure. Instead, he just said, “She is.”
“Her vitals are good. She’ll pull through...”
“But?” he asked, hearing the hesitation in the EMT’s voice.
The young man paused as if uncertain of how much he should say. But with a small shake of his head, he added, “Blunt force trauma to the back of the head like that can be touch and go,” he said honestly. “Until she wakes up, we won’t know the extent of the long-term damage—if there’s any at all.”
Jacob nodded. He knew as much, had heard of similar cases where the victims had never made a full recovery, had heard of other cases where they’d woken up as if nothing had happened to them except experiencing a bad concussion. He didn’t want to think about Lola not being able to talk, or paint, or use her hands when she told him stories, but the black and white part of his brain forced him to face the fact that she just might have a long recovery ahead of her.
It doesn’t matter. And it didn’t. He loved her, and he knew that he’d stay by her side no matter what. Because one thing was certain: his life had been a shallow, husk of existence before he’d met her, and knowing that he might have lost her…might still lose her...
Chapter 23
There was a freight train, and it was burrowing a new furrow through her brain—that was Lola’s first thought when she tried blinking open eyes that felt heavy with sleep. Through the thick haze, she was aware that her entire body felt weighed down, stuck in some in-between place that was neither here nor there. It was as if she were wading through a pool of densely packed cotton, her movements slow and labored despite the packed air around her.
Maybe I’m dead.
The thought alarmed her for a quick moment, and her heart began ticking loudly in her ears. Voices, ones that she recognized, poked small holes in the blanket that was shrouding her mind. She tried to pull the sound of them forward.
“I think she’s waking up.”
“Go and call a nurse!” Jake. She’d know his voice anywhere.
Gentle hands touched her face, first her forehead, and then her cheeks. The feeling, big fingers scraping over her skin, brought with it the first realization that she must, in fact, be alive.
Taking a small breath, she tried to open her eyes again. She managed to pry them wide enough that she glimpsed bright, white light shining back at her, and quickly shut them against the glare. The effort of the simple task, opening and closing her eyes once, left her drained beyond belief. A shiver of panic gripped her spine. Something wasn’t right. What’s wrong with me?
“Shh, baby. It’s okay.” She heard Jacob say, as his hands fluttered to her face again. “You’re just coming out of a long sleep. It’ll be okay.”
“Jake?” It hurt to speak, and her voice came out in a dry croak. When she tried to swallow, she tasted the sterile odor of the hospital through a mouth that was desert dry.
“I’m here, honey. Just try and stay calm okay…Relax.”
She tried to nod but wasn’t certain that her head moved at all. A few minutes passed and she realized she could feel her hand, could feel that it was engulfed in one of Jacob’s, while his other seemed to be trailing a soothing path down the bare skin of her exposed arm.
Slowly, the fog started to dissipate, and she became gradually more aware of her surroundings. Just by the smell alone, she knew that she was in the hospital. By the feeling of his hands on her skin, she knew that Jacob was with her. Somewhere in her mind, she knew that she understood what was happening, but try as she might, the pieces of the puzzle alluded her.
She’d been at the press conference...
When the sound of another familiar voice broke into her thoughts, Lola tried to open her eyes again. This time, when her lids cracked open, she stared for a full five seconds as the light blinded her before slowly receding to frame a halo around the two faces that she’d be most happy to see in that moment. Jacob and Sarah stood over her, concern mirrored in their eyes and guarded by similar, tight smiles.
Well, that’s not a good sign.
When she heard a third person by the foot of her bed, she glanced down to find Zac standing nearby, a small grin pulling his face up in a smile. He was the first one to speak. “How you feeling, champ?”
She nodded her head slowly, aware of the pounding headache that seemed to have settled into a consistent throb. “Okay…I think.”
He chuckled and, casting a glance at Jacob, said, “You had us worried for a minute there.”