Chapter Eight
Jordan was well enough to go home in a few days...save a few stitches and some aches and pains. The doctors had armed her with medication and instructions on how to deal with her discomforts. She was ready to get out of the hospital and go back to work...back to a normal routine.
The only problem with that was the Boston PD and the MSBI didn't want her to.
Eddie Winslow had shown back up in her hospital room, demanding that she be taken to a safe house, under his jurisdiction. "Look what happened when she was with the Boston PD," he had said. "She nearly got killed."
The chief of Boston's police department wanted her firmly in his care...under his watch. It was a Boston case...she needed to stay under Boston's jurisdiction.
Nobody was asking Jordan what she wanted to do – which was really to go back home to her apartment, curl up in the fetal position, and wait until this whole thing was over. She hated that she was on call that day that Buchanan was found. She hated she had found that damn microchip. She hated she was shot.
She hated that one more chance of womanhood had been taken out of her hands and she was powerless to do anything about it.
So she did the only thing she could do...she ran.
Not far...not long...she just talked Garret into taking her back to his house after the doctors had told her she could leave the hospital. She reasoned that it wasn't her apartment...and it wasn't the morgue...so maybe Cynthia Hough and her cronies wouldn't find her. She just needed a little time to get her mind together. She was tired of Eddie's and the chief's constant bickering over where she needed to go and what she needed to do. She was well aware of the fact she wasn't safe at work or at her home...but she didn't want to go with Eddie. She really didn't want to leave Boston. After all the years she had spent away from the city, she didn't want to leave it again.
But she didn't like the chief's suggestion, either – that she be put up in a hotel or a local safe house and watched 24/7. She wanted some kind of normal routine. She was still having to work with Woody. A normal routine would help keep her sane.
So it was at Garret's that Woody finally found her...later that same day. He had gone to the hospital, only to find she had checked out. He went to her apartment...Max's house...and then nearly went crazy trying to find her. It was only after he had gone back to the morgue for the third time and Garret had returned from taking her to his house that Woody discovered where she was at...and that she was safe.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he had driven to the chief ME's house and let himself in with the key that Garret had loaned him. He found her curled up on the couch in Garret's sunny study, sound asleep...dressed in her sweatpants and a tank top, her hair loose and wavy, laying on her good side. Her incision site on the other side was still covered with a bandage, as well as the wound on her shoulder. Garret said she had taken pain medication before he had left her...and she was probably out of it. "Go in and make yourself at home...just let her rest. She's hurting...in more ways than one. When she wakes up, you can talk to her." He had handed Woody his key. "I won't be home until after midnight. Just...if you move her....be careful with her....and call me and let me know. I worry about her."
Woody sat down in Garret's easy chair beside the fire place and watched her sleep. He stayed there most of the rest of the afternoon, making a few phone calls...until he heard her begin to stir in her sleep, making small sounds of discomfort. She was hurting. He got up and went over to the couch. Sitting beside her, he gently shook her and tried to wake her. "Jo...Jo..." he said softly. "Honey...look...are you okay?"
She slowly opened her eyes, still a bit dazed...still in pain...not quite sure where she was. "Woody?"
"Yeah, it's me. I finally found you...you had me worried sick. Are you okay?"
Jordan grimaced. "The pain meds are wearing off...and I guess I sort of over did it today."
"Why did you leave the hospital without tell me?"
Jordan sighed and tried to sit up, but the pain in her side and shoulder caused her lay back down. "Oh," she said, biting her lip at the discomfort that sliced through her body. Woody helped her to prop up on the couch, easing her back down on the pillow he moved to the arm of the couch. "Why Jo?" he asked again,
"I was tired of all the bickering. I just needed to get away for a few hours and try to decide what to do – go with Eddie, or allow the Boston PD to put me up in a hotel for a few weeks."
"Which do you want to do?"
"Neither."
Woody smiled to himself. He had figured that. It was because of that issue, and the fact that he had heard her groan in pain a few times while she slept, he had made a decision.
"Jordan...I have a beach house. It's small, but it's secure. Let me take you there for a couple of weeks...until things cool off...and they find Cynthia Hough. We can work on the case from there. You can rest and get your health back."
He took her totally off guard. Alone with him for two weeks....she couldn't even begin to imagine being alone with him again. Her heart was jumping at the chance...her head was telling her no...but compared to the other two alternatives, it was the most palatable. She would just have to be careful. Very careful....with her heart most of all.
"Would it really be safe?" she asked.
"I wouldn't ask you to come if it wasn't."