Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (children's books read aloud TXT) 📕

But everyone was quiet by the time the doctors came out.

Phoenix and I knew them both from my recent stay in Buffalo General. Dr. VanBeek, a prominent trauma surgeon, was a tall man with pouched eyes and blond hair going to gray. The foot-shorter attending physician was Ayodele Ibazebo, a Nigerian woman and former student of Bobby’s who had stitched up my head nearly two months ago after a SWAT cop hit me with his rifle stock. Both had been part of the surgical team that extracted the bullet from my shoulder.

Smiling as he moved toward us, the lead surgeon showed no recognition of me, a man he had saved and later spoken to for only a minute. His colleague, however, had told me to change my line of work for the sake of one of her favorite professors. Dr. VanBeek, the residue of a Dutch accent in his voice, explained to Winslow that Mona had survived the removal of the bullet and a wedge resection from her right lung and was now in recovery. But Dr. Ibazebo glared at me the entire time with bright amber eyes that would have reduced me to ash if they had been lasers.

22

The doctors expected Mona to be in recovery for three or four hours.

Winslow and Dr. Markham were allowed to see her for fifteen minutes. After they returned to the waiting room and the minister took his leave, a still worried Winslow sat down and described the tubes and machines connected to his wife. She was groggy and unable to speak with a mask and tube, he said, but perked up at the sound of Dr. Markham’s prayer. She was still being monitored and nurses needed to get her up for short walks. It would be a while before anyone could go back and sit with her again.

At five Louisa announced she was ready to drop Phoenix home and take Winslow to Walmart. Phoenix pecked me on the lips and followed the others to the exit. When the doors slid shut behind them, I texted Ileana and Cassidy to say that if they were free, it was a good time to make stops at their assigned shelters. In a separate text, I asked Yvonne to sit on the address I’d given her. Trying to sound urgent but saying nothing of the shooting, I told them to call me at once if they saw Keisha.

An hour after Louisa and Winslow got back with KFC dinners, Bobby sent me a text. His long weekend of shows, museums, and walking around Manhattan had exhausted him, so he would see me tomorrow—maybe for lunch. I replied Yes. Phoenix called to say she was going to watch Netflix but her phone would be right on the coffee table if I needed her. Two hours in, Winslow was permitted to return to recovery to spend the rest of the time there with his wife. Louisa drifted off to sleep with her head against her husband’s shoulder. Oscar and I chatted in whispers to keep from waking her.

Around eight Mona was moved to the surgical ICU on the fourth floor.

ICU staff was diligent about limiting the number of visitors to two. Winslow was disappointed to learn he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep beside his wife, so he sat at her bedside until visiting hours ended. Oscar, Louisa, and I rotated in and out of the other visitor’s chair.

When it was my turn to step past the sliding glass doors, I put a hand on Winslow’s shoulder before I sat down next to him. Despite being a combat veteran and having been shot myself, I was stunned at how diminished Mona looked in an elevated hospital bed, with an NG tube in her nose and a trach tube in her mouth. In addition to the susurrating ventilator near her head, there was a ton of other machinery and more wires and tubes than I could count. I remembered that the only other time I had seen this woman, I’d been struck by the contrast between the warmth of her smile and the grief in her eyes. Her smile compromised, her eyes now held an undiluted mixture of grief, pain, and fear that made me silently promise to find the person who had done this to her. She saw I was there and blinked at me. Minutes later, when I stood and shook Winslow’s outstretched hand, she blinked at me again. I left Mona’s room wanting to believe she had read my mind and given me permission to do whatever I must to get justice for her family.

In the softly lighted waiting room, Louisa was in the recliner we took turns saving for Winslow so he could sleep there through the night. Oscar was on a padded bench seat beside her, their overcoats piled beside him. The only others in the waiting room were three men who had taken turns saving the other recliner—an elderly man now nodding off in it and his two middle-aged sons. They were on a death watch for their wife and mother, two rooms away from Mona. Volume inaudibly low, CNN played on the wall-mounted flat-screen TV.

“Visiting hours are almost over,” Oscar said.

“Let him spend his last minutes alone with her,” Louisa said to her husband. “Then we can say goodbye and you can get him in the morning. He’ll want a real bed by then.”

Eyes tired and shoulders slumped, Oscar looked at me.

I said, “Walk with me. I need some coffee. Louisa, you want anything?”

“Lord, no. It’s been a long day, and I’m going straight to bed.”

Oscar and I rode the elevator to the first floor, where there was a 24/7 Tim Horton’s in the corridor that linked the medical center to the vascular institute. As we took our places in a mercifully short coffee line, I said to him, “You’re whipped. Go home. Get some rest. I’ll stay here tonight. In the morning bring Win a change of clothes and I’ll