Chapter Twenty Nine:

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – 3:08 a.m.

Inez returned from the kitchen with a bag of frozen corn. "Peas would work better, but this is all I could find in the freezer."

Reaching out to pull his hands away from his face so she could apply them to his right eye, she saw the steady stream of blood coming from his nose and collecting around the black button studs on his dress shirt. "Holy hell, E."

With his head back, the blood was streaming over his lips and down into his mouth. He didn't seem to have noticed. Gently coaxing his head back to rest on the back of the couch and shaking her head disapprovingly, she gingerly laid the frozen veggie bag across his nose and right eye.

"Now, hold that in place and don't move," she demanded. Once she was sure he was going to cooperate, she hurried back into the kitchen to get a clean dish towel out of the dryer and the first aid kit from the pantry.

Enos did as he was told without protest. He was too out of it to do anything else. When she returned, he had not moved, his hand still on the bag of corn.

"What the hell happened?" she asked, while removing the three top studs from the buttonholes on to his shirt, the collar of which was now soaked with his blood.

Enos's hand fell off the bag and slumped down to his side, the bag falling after it. The blood had stemmed slightly but the swelling around his eye seemed to be blackening while she watched.

"Too bright…" he mumbled and tried to sit up.

"E, you have to stop moving around." She picked up the bag and tried to replace it but he was trying to shove her hand away.

"Have to fin…"

"You don't have to do anything but just stay right there while I get my phone to call 911. You may have a concussion."

She gave up trying to apply the frozen bag.

"But there's nothin'…need to find Soo…"

"Dammit, E! Please, stop moving and stop talking," she shouted at him, angry tears welling up in her eyes.

How the hell had he driven here? She climbed onto the couch and nearly straddled him, trying to keep him still, afraid to shake him or pat his face to keep him awake; afraid she would make it worse.

Because he was not in any shape to put up much resistance, she was able to hold him in place with her body and one hand, and reach for the phone with her other. His eyes were fluttering by the time she dialed in 9-1-1.

"No, E, you can't go to sleep. Look at me. Look. At. Me. You have to stay awake."

By the time the paramedics arrived eight minutes later, Enos was bordering on unconsciousness.

"Can you tell us how this happened?" The EMT pulled off Enos' tux jacket and started to pull his ID from the pocket.

"He's Detective Strate. I'm Detective De Pina. Both LAPD." Inez reached down to Enos's right leg and removed the pistol from his ankle holster to check if it had been fired. "And, I don't know how this happened. He just showed up at my door with a black eye and then ten minutes later he's bleeding from the nose and acting like he's been concussed. I can tell you he hit his head in a car crash two days ago but Cedars didn't find any sign of concussion and released him. This is not from the accident. This is new. Had to be within the last eleven hours because he was fine when he left the station at four."

Before getting behind the wheel of E's truck, Inez inspected the exterior for any signs of damage but found none, then followed the ambulance to Cedars.