Page 31 of The Attercop

“He woke up,” Mickey said, sounding more exhausted than happy. “Well, for a few minutes at least. Can you come to the hospital?”

Without pausing Declan replied, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Great. I’ll text you the info on how to get to his room.”

“Thanks, Mickey.”

Declan disconnected and heard the incoming ping of a text.

He took the next available exit and turned back toward Foothills Hospital. At the first red light, Declan reached for the phone and called Gary. It went straight to voicemail. Declan left a message. “Sorry about this, Gary, but I’m not going to make it. Angel’s come to, and Mickey needs me there pronto. I’ll call you when I finish up over there.”

Declan considered forwarding the CCTV image of the suspect they’d found, but he thought he’d wait until after he’d talked to Angel. He didn’t want Gary to waste any time chasing after a ghost.

Thirty minutes later, Declan arrived at the hospital and followed Mickey’s instructions to the third floor, room twenty-eight, bed four. Angel had one of the window beds in the four-patient ward and Mickey was sitting at his bedside scrolling through his phone. He looked up as soon as Declan entered the room.

“Thanks for coming, Dec.”

He stood and gave Declan a warm hug.

“How’s he doing?” Declan asked, looking over at the sleeping figure. Angel’s thin bare arms lay on top of the sheets. His head was bandaged, his face bruised and his eyes were closed. He looked so small in the bed.

“He’s been sleeping most of the time,” Mickey whispered. “The staff have been good. They understand the situation and have agreed to let us have someone with him twenty-four hours a day until he’s released.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“I’d hoped they’d put him in a private room, given that the guy who did this is still on the run, but the hospital’s full. In the meantime, I’m not leaving the boy alone until we find out who did this.”

“I don’t blame you, Mickey.”

“We have a roster now. All of the Kids from the bar have signed up. I’m paying them for four-hour shifts. They may not be able to physically defend him, but they can scream loud enough to wake the dead if someone comes in that shouldn’t be here.”

Declan nodded. “The cops still think this is a random attack, but I’m going to have a talk with my old partner and let him know what we found on the CCTV footage. I have the screencapture of the suspect on my phone. I was hoping if Angel was awake, he could take a look at it and maybe ID the guy.”

Mickey looked toward the bed. “He woke up for a few minutes, and then went back to sleep. I’d prefer that we let him wake up on his own.”

“Hey,” a voice whispered. It was Angel.

“Hey, buddy,” Declan said, leaning over the young man. “How are you doing?”

“Been better,” he managed to get out. “When I get outta here, you really gotta teach me how to defend myself.”

“It’s a deal.”

Declan gently patted him on the back of the hand, the least damaged of all Angel’s body parts.

“We’re trying to find out who did this to you,” Declan said. “Are you up to looking at a picture of a suspect?”

“Sure. I’ll give it a try.”

Declan pulled up the image on his phone. Angel stared at it for a minute. “That’s him. I recognise that weird beard. And that hat. It has to be him.”

Angel leaned back into his pillow.

“Thanks, Angel. That’s great,” Declan said. “Now, do you remember anything else about him? Did he say anything?”

Angel closed his eyes like he was trying to focus on what had happened.

“He seemed to like beating me up,” Angel said, with a wry smile.