ALL THAT GLITTERS, chapter 1

chapter 13

Chapter 13

Cautiously, Lucky left the warm security of the hospital rest room, sliding her father’s cell phone into her jacket pocket again and thinking hard. Clearly, the phone call was a threat – whoever had shot her father meant to do it, meant to pressure him, and wanted something back. Fast. On top of all that, the caller – she decided to nickname him Grumpy – had just threatened to search her home.

As if she were outlining a college term paper, she listed actions and goals in her mind: (1) Make sure everyone in her family, and friends (!), stayed safe. (2) Find a way to protect the family’s apartment from any kind of invasion. (3) Do the same for both of her parents’ bookstores, if it wasn’t too late. And most important of all, (4) Figure out who was behind the shooting, who Grumpy was, and how to get him off their backs. Double fast on that one.

Which should also include, (5) Keep her mother from getting arrested again.

Lucky eased into the intensive care unit, senses on alert. She noted three other patients in the unit, judging by the smeared name signs at the half-open doorways around her. A nurse in a surgical scrub outfit printed with pink and purple flowers gestured at the sign-in log, and as Lucky scrawled her name, she checked the others ahead of hers: Anne Davila’s arrival from a couple of minutes ago of course, and it looked like Pauline from her dad’s shop had visited for a few minutes in mid afternoon. The state troopers hadn’t signed in or out. The other names on the clipboard matched names of the other patients.

“Psst!” Ann Davila stood at the doorway to Lucky’s dad’s hospital room, beckoning.

Into the extra warmth of the little room, the presence of more people than it could really hold – her mother, the lawyer, a nurse, and beyond all the women, her father – Luckytiptoed, listening in case footsteps followed her, sampling the scents in the air as if she were hunting (or being hunted, which is what it felt like). Iodine, bleach, a faint tang of urine, and abruptly she caught a sweaty, unpleasant odor that must be from her father.

The nurse rearranged a pair of tubes at Rob Franklin’s nose, checked a gauge, and stood back from the bed. “You can talk for five minutes,” she dictated, eyeing each of them in turn. “Then you need to wait an hour before you talk again. Healing from a gunshot wound, from surgery, and from that other little issue takes time and calmness. I expect you ladies to step out of the room in five minutes, with just Mrs. Franklin staying with her husband after that. Are we clear?”

The lawyer and Lucky nodded. Where was Jake? Never mind: What should she ask, with only five minutes to talk to her dad, and not upsetting him?

Her mother, ignoring the nurse calling her Mrs. Franklin instead of Ms. Benedict, hovered over the bed. “Does it hurt? Do you want some water? No, leave the tubes alone, Rob, they’re helping you breathe. You’re going to be all right.” Tears trickling down a puffy sleep-deprived face probably didn’t reinforce that message too well.

The lawyer gestured for Lucky to move close on the other side of the bed. “Dad, hi, glad you’re back with us,” Lucky whispered, and stroked her father’s rough-stubbled cheek, then cupped his left hand in hers, careful not to disturb the IV line there. “Mom’s right, you’re going to be fine. Probably by tomorrow they’ll even have you up and walking,” she added with a forced smile.

Her father watched her face closely, copied the smile uncertainly, and whispered, “Gunshot?”

“Somebody shot you, Dad. At the shop, last night. Do you remember who it was?”

Panic and confusion mingled on his face. “At the shop? Shot me?? Who?”

“We don’t know,” Lucky replied. “I was hoping you could tell us. Don’t worry, it’ll come back to you,” she said, although she knew she was just reciting the line from some TV show or film. “When you remember, you can tell us.”