Page 85 of Thicker Than Water
“Gavin came af-after me. For his phone. Got aggre-aggresssive. I took out my knife—to hold him back. Let him know I was… se-serious. But he laughed. At me, he laughed.”
“Jason.” It’s Sienna who says it now, concern about his choppy language, his near incoherence tugging her from despair.
“Then he ran at me. He—”
He’s interrupted by a shrill beep from his monitor. Sienna and I bolt up from the bed, sharing a wild look.
“I didn’t m-mean to, to st-stab him. Just wanted… take me seriously. Then I told M-Maeve to go. Drive away.” His chest works hardto expand. His words wind down. Too slow. Too slurred. “Told her I’d t-take care of it. Him.”
The door bursts open, two nurses whisking through it.
“Ladies, we need you to step outside,” one says. She heads for me first. She guides me toward the exit, then swings back around for Sienna. When she has us corralled near the door, she presses on our backs to push us through it.
“But—” we protest, looking back at Jason, who’s blocked by the other nurse.
“Outside,” the woman repeats.
Then she shuts the door in our faces—the barrier not enough to keep us from hearing the shriek of Jason’s alarm.
Panic pounds in my chest. We stare at the door, our noses only inches from the wood. And though things are messy between Sienna and me, raw and uncertain, the air feels so hazy that I fling out my hand to her—the same instant she gropes for mine—and it’s like we’re grasping for oxygen in a roomful of smoke.
When our fingers knot together, it feels more natural than breathing.
“Sienna,” someone says, and when she doesn’t respond, I turn to find Lou Ackerman behind us with Detective Beck, back from whatever call he hurried off to make.
“Not now,” Sienna says, voice weary.
“Is everything all right?” Lou asks.
Sienna shakes her head, holding tighter to my hand.
I answer for her. “We don’t know. Jason’s monitor started beeping and—”
The door opens, the nurses emerging. I crane my neck to peer beyond them, and what I glimpse hollows me out: Jason’s eyes are closed again; his head lolls toward his shoulder; his nostrils are plugged with tubes.
One of the nurses, the woman who led us here before, steps forward. “He’s okay.”
Sienna and I slump into each other, our shoulders pressing together, shoring us up.
“His oxygen level was down,” the nurse adds, nodding a dismissal to her colleague. “And his heart rate was elevated—which isn’t unusual in his situation.”
“But he’s okay?” I ask. I need to hear it again, my thoughts sprinting toward Aiden. I woke him before we left this morning, told him they were bringing Jason out of the coma, asked if he wanted to come. He said,I’m not ready to see him, and I’d allowed him his space—but what if that’s all he’ll have left of Jason now? Empty, endless space.
“He’s okay,” the nurse confirms. “We’ve got him on oxygen, and he’s resting.”
“Excuse me,” Detective Beck says. He’s trying to edge into the room, but the nurse—Diane, I read on her lanyard—puts her body in front of his.
“You can’t go in there,” Diane says, but Beck still tries to nudge forward.
“I’ve been held off long enough. And Sienna—” He turns to her. “I talked to Wyatt, who cleared everything up. I don’t appreciate you badgering my officers for information, no matter what personal relationship you have with them. It seems you could have saved yourself, and me, quite a bit of time if you simply left the investigation to the police.”
“What does that mean?” Sienna asks—but the fire’s gone out of her. Whatever theories she came here with, they’ve blown away like ashes.
“Now, Mr. Ackerman,” Beck says to Lou, “I’m sure you won’t mind explaining to everyone”—he gestures to me, Sienna, Diane,encompassing the three of us with one lazy sweep of his hand—“that I have a right to serve the warrant.”
He attempts another step into Jason’s room, but Diane stands firm. “Do you typically serve warrants to people who are unconscious? We’ve given Mr. Larkin a sedative.” She closes Jason’s door, then pivots toward me and Sienna. “It’s just to let him rest.”
Beck throws up his hands. Frustration fumes off him as he backs up to pace the hall. I look at Sienna, expecting to find a flicker of triumph—Beck’s been thwarted for now—but instead, she appears tortured, like she’s waiting for a knife to slice into her, inch by unhurried inch. I squeeze her hand, reading the nuance of her expression. She finally understands that Jason’s arrest is inevitable. And worse, so much worse: she believes now that it’s justified.
