Chapter 26

Jess sobered. "You took 3 shots. I got one in my bicep." She lifted her sleeve to let Nicole see her newly stitched arm. "Unfortunately, you got the worst of it."

"You always said you'd take a bullet for me. I guess you did."

Jess blew a raspberry. "Occupational hazard. But seriously, I'm just glad you survived this. I wasn't sure you were going to."

"That bad?"

"That bad. You lost a lot of blood. I only know that because I was wearing half of it."

"Sorry about that," Nicole apologized.

"Don't be sorry. It's all good. You're here living and breathing and not lying on a slab in the morgue."

"Thanks to you."

"Thank the doctor, not me."

"I already did."

Jess looked at her watch. "I have a feeling Henry James is going to be walking through the door any second now."

"What makes you say that?"

"I know him too well. He's probably bored down at the 21, so he's gonna make the rounds, which means he will show up here soon."

Nicole looked at the clock on the wall. "Ok, let's make it a game. Let's see how long it takes before he walks in."

Ten minutes later, the door opened and Hank walked inside.

"Ten minutes," Nicole giggled.

Voight looked at her, eyes taking her in. He noticed she was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. She didn't look too bad for almost bleeding out in her office. He walked over to her. "Nicole, I'm Hank Voight."

Nicole reached out and extended her hand. "Hank, it's nice to finally meet you. I've heard plenty about you from Jess. And thank you for catching Jeremy."

"You're welcome. It's what I do."

"And take care of Jess."

"And take care of Jess," he echoed. "Do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

Jess rose from her chair. "I'll let you two to chat. I'm going to go for coffee." She walked over to Hank and gave his cheek a kiss. "Go easy on her. Remember she just took 3 bullets and she just woke up a couple of hours ago."

"I promise I'll go easy on her," Hank told Jess. "Get something to eat too. You're getting too skinny."

Jess reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opened it up, and pulled out a 20. "Thank you kindly," she said as she stuffed the wallet into his back pocket and left the room.