Backfire

She closed her eyes, and her voice was starting to fade out. “I don’t think I want to stay here, Dillon. The light’s too bright and I don’t know anybody and my head hurts. Well, maybe I’ll stay if you stay with me and bring me birthday cake.” She attempted a grin. “I’ll share it with you.”

Savich smiled. “You know what? I’m going to see if you can’t camp out with Ramsey. Would you like that?”

“I like Ramsey,” Sherlock whispered. Her words sounded like they were floating up from the bottom of a well.

Harry said, “Sherlock, do you remember chasing Xu down? Tackling him?”

“Yes, of course I remember Xu. I got him on his stomach, and he was bleeding all over the place and I was cuffing him and then—” She frowned. “I saw a really bright light, it was beautiful, and then, all of a sudden, I was here getting stitched up and waiting for my birthday cake. Do you really think they’ll let me camp out in Ramsey’s room? I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“I’ll see if you can sit with him by the campfire.”

“Please tell me Xu didn’t get away. Please.”

Eve said, “He did, but not for long. Now neither will the man who shot you.”

Sherlock couldn’t say anything because it was suddenly all too much. She closed her eyes again and breathed deeply. The orderly said, “We need to get her to CT now, Agent Savich. You’ll have to clear it with admissions if you’d like her to stay in the Taj with Judge Dredd. You really know him?”

There was a bit of laughter, which felt very good to everyone. Cheney said, “I think it’s a great idea, her rooming with Judge Hunt. Dr. Kardak might go for it, if only to keep even more law enforcement officers out of the hospital. There’s already a battalion of marshals and SFPD officers hovering on that floor. We can fit her in without adding a single man, and still be sure she’s safe.”

Eve said, “Ramsey can get her into their poker games. Does she play?”

Savich smiled at Eve. “She’s a killer at Texas Hold ’em.”

Cheney said, “Okay, listen up, everyone. There’s no way Xu gets away from us. We’ll have his picture all over the news in an hour. He’s wounded, and he needs medical care. He’s in a stolen white Infiniti with an APB out on him. All he’s got with him is what he was carrying in his pockets. A passport, if he’s lucky. But he’s not going anywhere until he gets his wounded arm taken care of. That’s got to be where we focus.”

But it wasn’t Xu who had shot Sherlock, Savich thought.

San Francisco General Hospital

Tuesday evening

Sherlock’s head thrummed to a steady beat. If she tried to move her head, it felt like electric jolts were frying her brains. The stitches felt like they were pulling her scalp too tight. On the other hand, she was alive, and breathing trumped everything.

Savich had kept her parents away with the promise she’d be home tomorrow. Really it was Sean who’d kept them away. Her parents had looked at him and known to keep still, and put on a good show. Savich told her he’d lied clean, telling Sean his mother was staying with Molly and Emma because they were scared. Sean had listened thoughtfully to this smoothly delivered lie, Savich told her, and said, “But Papa, I want to protect Emma. Can’t I go over and stay with them, too? We can have cocoa and I can show Emma Flying Monks, my new computer game.”

Sherlock’s mother said, “But Sean, you promised to go with me to the movies tonight to see Rory and the Last Duck, don’t you remember?”

Torn between impressing Emma with his computer game and the movie, Sean was seriously conflicted until his grandfather said, “Your grandmother promised to buy me kettle corn, Sean; that’s my favorite. Yours, too, right?” and so Sean’s conflict melted away. He did think to ask, “Papa, are you coming with us?”

No, Savich told him, he was going to help his mother make Emma and Molly and the twins feel all secure, but not to worry, he’d be back to tuck Sean in. Since Sean was five years old, matters of life and death and hospital stays with a huge white bandage around a parent’s head weren’t about to be a part of his reality. When they’d wheeled Sherlock into the room, Molly had been there with Ramsey. She was horrified at what had happened, and question after question came pouring out until she saw Sherlock had gone quietly to sleep, providential, since the last thing she needed was Molly hovering over her.

When Sherlock woke up, the nurse gave her two Tylenol, a net, the nurse told her, to keep her safe, the only pain meds she would be getting for now. Hence the dull roar in her brain when her dinner was delivered thirty minutes later.