Chapter 5
Cecilia Rose has become a regular guest. Whoever's sitting guard outside his hospital room during her visits must not consider her a threat. Tim's amused. She usually brings a juice box and some chewy candies and she'll share with him but he gets the colors she doesn't like, the green ones and the yellow ones. He declines the offer of juice, though she persistently shoves the chewed straw near his mouth. He's trained her to fill his water glass.
He wonders if her mother knows where she sneaks away to. She must. It's been his experience that people tend to let their guard down in a hospital, calling sanctuary in their minds like they're in a church in the old days. But there's no sanctuary. Not really. He knows. He's read arrest reports of crimes in hospitals. No place is safe. No place. Maybe she knows that too. Maybe she likes that her daughter is in the room that's guarded 24/7 by federal officers with guns. And he admits to himself that he must look pretty harmless. It takes everything he has in him to sit up and eat his meals.
The little girl has brought something with her today and she shows him – a deck of cards that her mother bought her at the gift shop downstairs. It's a memory game with pictures of ponies and princesses.
"Let's play," she says, completely certain that there's nothing he'd rather do than match up unicorns and rainbows and diamond tiaras.
"Okay," he says, because what else does he have to do, and it beats remembering what got him here.
He works himself to one side of the bed to make room when she pushes the table over, then the chair. It looks physically impossible that something that small could move something that big, but she manages, keen to play, and then climbs onto the dull and stained cream-colored vinyl seat and gets comfortable. She kneels up to get high enough to rest her elbows on the tabletop, her knees making little pools of shadow in the seat cushion. The box of cards is opened and she slides the deck out, gives the box a firm shake to be sure all the cards are in play, peers inside as a precaution. When she's satisfied she looks at her opponent, her business face on.
"I'll shuffle."
He doesn't argue.
She messes the cards face down on the table, purple and pink and yellow and baby blue spreading out under her sticky fingers. Tim tries hard to keep his face straight. This is a serious card game. He doesn't want to get kicked out for laughing.
"I go first," she says, and turns over two cards – a bunny and a crown. She puts them back face down and frowns.
"Close," he says.
"No." She shakes her head hard, over dramatic, turns one card back over. "That's a bunny," she says then turns over another card but not the one she originally picked. This one's a unicorn. The cards are at fault and she huffs to let him know it's not her that got it wrong, then she turns over another one. It's a castle. "What the…?" she says, an adult expression from her world.
"Try this one." He points awkwardly with a splinted finger.
"Oh." She looks at it and he imagines she's wondering how it got there. It's the crown she was looking for. She turns it around for Tim to see. "See, it's a crown."
"Right, I knew that. Looked like a bunny to me."
"You're silly."
"Be nice. I'm sick."
Rachel pushes open the door later, stops with it just wide enough to frame her face when she realizes Tim has company. She looks a question at him, then tilts her head and raises both her eyebrows and grins, shoulders shaking quietly, suppressed laughter.
Tim ignores the interruption. He's concentrating. They're on their second game. The first game ended in confusion and near tears and only the promise of another could salvage the afternoon. The meltdown is on hold while they play this one out, hoping for a better ending. Tim is holding a princess awkwardly between a thumb and the two fingers of his left hand which aren't taped into submission. Cecilia is holding his second card - he points and she does the flipping - a castle. She's given up trying to steady it in his useless right hand.
"The princess lives in the castle," says Cecilia, pointing in order at the two cards.
"How do you know? She give you her address?"
"'Cause she's a princess."
"I suppose the prince lives there, too?"
"No. There's no prince. She lives with her mama and her grandma, dummy."
"I said be nice to me. I'm sick."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, he is," says Rachel and takes a step inside toward them.
Cecilia turns at the voice. One look at Rachel and she's down off the chair and out the door.
"Hey, you chased away my date. I didn't even get her phone number."
"Your date?" Rachel walks over to the bed and helps Tim collect the cards left behind in the haste of the princess's escape.
"She looks like you," he says. "Almost as demanding. It's the closest I could get since you won't go out with me."
"You never asked."
"Wasted effort."
She gives him an appraising look, searches for that Tim snark, or maybe regret. "You're smarter than you look," she says when she catches the smirk.
There's the flint he knows so well.
"She looks like Shawnee did at that age." Rachel turns back to the door where Cecilia disappeared, thoughtful, absorbed in memories.
"Sorry."
A shrug, defensive. "It's okay." She takes over straightening the cards after watching Tim fumble with them, his fingers not any help. She slips them neatly into the box and sets them down. "She really does look like her. Who is she?"
"Princess Cecilia Rose."
The eyebrow arches high. "Oh my."
He's sitting up and texting a friend when Art walks in. "Could've used a rifle today," he says with no preamble and glares at Tim in a way to suggest that he's to blame for the shortage.
"Hostages?"
"No. I was stuck doing your job, sitting in the van out of sight watching Raylan talk up someone for information. I wanted to kill him."
"Which one?"
"Raylan. Who'd you think?" Art gives him a 'what, are you stupid?' expression. "He went way outside our agreed upon script...again. Chasing his own agenda."
He feels like he's onstage in a sixties sitcom. The same small cast of characters, the same room, the same furniture, entrances and exits on cue. Day after day into weeks. The room is so lacking in color it might as well be black and white. He imagines a canned laugh track while Art goes through the same motion of pulling the same chair over to the same spot so he can face Tim and talk. He settles into the chair with the same sigh, a penned character.
"What's so funny?" Art catches the half-grin on Tim.
"Nothing." He shifts his eyes in case Art can read what's in them. "It's just nice not to cough till I puke anymore. It'd make anyone happy." Again the imagined laugh track.
"Apparently that's true. I was just talking to your doctor and he seems happy too. He says the infection has cleared up."
Tim grunts in response.
"You'll be heading home soon, he tells me. Tired of this room?"
"Tired of this entire year."
"It hasn't even been a month...or has it?"
"It feels longer." He rubs his fingers into his eyes and appreciates the sensation of freedom. No splints. It's still novel enough having fingers that don't hurt. He clenches his hands into fists and then stretches them out as far as he can. Mostly straight.
"Rehab," says Art, eyeing the reluctant digits. "How's the knee?"
"All this rest, it's healed fast. I can walk on it."
"Good."
He tries stretching his fingers again; his face knit in concentration.
"You be okay with a gun?"
He holds out a hand and Art obliges him, reaches into his jacket to unclip his holster, passes over his service weapon. "Don't shoot anybody with it. I have a reputation to uphold."
"That pussy reputation?" His right hand wraps around the grip, his left comes up instinctively to support it. He holds his arms out and lines up the sights, index finger stretched as straight as he can make it over the trigger guard. He smiles.
"No, asshole," says Art. He's watching Tim intently. "Bring 'em in breathing. That's my motto."
"You really want to be labelled with that?"
"Yes."
"Then why bother with the gun?"
"Makes me look cool."
"If you say so." Tim turns the Glock in his hands and offers Art the grip. "I'll be all right." He says it but he's not sure he believes it.
Art takes the weapon gingerly, puts it to bed in his shoulder holster, tucks the jacket around it nicely. Pat, pat. He points an accusing finger at Tim. "I didn't like the smile when you were aiming. It had purpose in it. You have a target in mind?"
"Three, actually."
The breath that Art holds is quick and sharp going in, long and slow when it's let out. "I've been working on a little speech for you, for when they finally let you out of here."
"Boss…" Tim holds up a hand to stop him.
"I think I might just give it to you right now since you're a captive audience."
"Chief…"
"So here it goes. You are not to chase this. In no way are you to investigate any aspect of Sandoval's past, present or future. You are a victim in this crime, not an investigator, not a vigilante, not a posse of one effing pissed-off Deputy US Marshal. You are not to cajole, guilt, threaten or bribe any member of the United States Marshals Service, including me, into giving up any information on the ongoing investigation, nor follow any new line of inquiry that might come to you as you remember details of your captivity or your conversations with Sandoval. If anything pops into that vengeance-filled little brain of yours, the only place it will see air is in my office, spoken out loud, to me, and I will forward it to the investigating team. The penalty for disregarding this advice…"
"Advice?"
"The penalty for disregarding this order will be immediate suspension, or possible termination of a promising career. Are we clear?"
"You should've been a fucking lawyer."
"Tim, are we clear?"
"Fucking crystal. Now what do you think the odds are of my complying?"
"Tim…"
"Seriously, Chief. If this was you lying in this bed, still cringing with each breath, unsure you'll ever be able to hold a firearm properly again when it was your whole fucking life, still feeling like some piece of shit scraped off the bottom of some fucking loser's fucking shoe, what would you do? Am I coming in clear?"
"Tim…"
"I want my life back. Do you think that's going to be possible without some hands-on fucking retribution for all this pain and suffering? I don't. I can't see a future without that happening. You want some out loud intel? Well, here it is. Sorry we can't do this in your office, but..." Tim waves a hand, a sharp flick of frustration, to indicate the hospital setting.
"Tim, I…"
"I'm going to find the fuckers who did this and show them what happens when the playing field is leveled out. Three against one. All of us in the know. Me not taped to a chair. I'm going to fucking destroy them. I'm going to pay them back in kind, or at the very least shoot every last fucking one of them and I don't care if…"
"Tim…"
"What?!" He's coughing now, anger like grit in the air rushing from his chest and into the room, catching on every bit of scarred, inflamed, enraged tissue on the way. Coughing, and he can't stop it and it burns, but no worse now than the anger. He focuses on that. He thinks he hears Art saying something, something like: "Just don't get caught. Jesus Christ. I can only cover up so much."
He's stopped consciously trying to think about it. It hits like a gust of wind when you round a corner of a building and find yourself in the path of a storm that's been brewing while you were texting or sipping your coffee or just mindlessly walking. Knocks you off balance, unprepared. It takes a minute or two to button up your jacket properly and prevent it getting under your skin, or maybe you just lean into it and head for quick cover, or maybe you turn your back to it, unable to face it at that moment. It hits him often enough, the cold memories of a vicious beating, that he doesn't want to call it up on purpose anymore.
Fuck you, chair.
Fuck you, begging.
Fuck you.
Cecilia Rose skips into the room and the wind dies down. He sits up a little straighter and wipes the wet anger off his cheeks and smiles for her.
"Hey there, little miss. I saved your cards for you." He points with his chin. "They're on the window ledge."
He watches her look around the room, everywhere but the window.
"By the window," he says again, points this time with a finger. Then he notices the woman standing in the doorway. He's glad he bothered to put on clothes today - a t-shirt and another shirt on top that he hasn't bothered to button. Too much work.
She smiles. "I understand you've been entertaining Ceci." She takes a step further into the room. "My mother had a stroke." She turns part way to the door, waves vaguely. "I've been visiting and…"
He looks over at the little girl. She's found her cards and is crouching without ceremony on the tile floor, sorting through them and pairing them up, making sure none are missing. She's holding a unicorn and searching the pile on the floor for its mate.
"Actually, she's been entertaining me," he says, and means it.
"Sorry."
"No, it's alright. Really."
There's a box in her hand, a bakery box, complete with string tied. She seems to become aware of it, holds it up to show him then takes a step or two more but not far enough, has to lean a little to set it on the table by the bed. "Ceci picked them out. I hope you like pink icing."
"I'll take it. Beats chocolate pudding…again. Thank you."
She smiles and it's shy and pretty and he is suddenly very interested to know who would dare hit her. He would very much like to meet him.
"You look better," she says then appears embarrassed to have said it. "Since the last time…I saw you."
"I think they'll let me go home some day." He doesn't say that she looks better too.
"Were you in a car wreck?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"I shouldn't pry."
"Then I won't either, unless you want me to."
The comment takes her by surprise and she takes a step back toward the door. "Cecilia Rose, what stories have you been telling?"
"She didn't say anything. Honest. I work in law enforcement. You get good at spotting the evidence. That's all."
"We should go." She's not looking at him anymore. "C'mon Ceci, honey. Time to clean up. Mama's waiting."
She hurries across the room and crouches down and starts picking up cards. Cecilia complains that she's not done. Tim wants to complain that he's not done either. They just got here. He feels responsible for the argument that's brewing between the girls. He slips awkwardly off the bed holding himself stiffly and limps over to help, sits on the floor with Cecilia because bending or crouching is more than he can manage. His fingers don't work well but he tries to pick up a card or two and eventually the woman leans across him for the errant cards and adds them to the deck then the cards are tucked away and Cecilia's mad and she whines that she hasn't played a game with Tim yet today and then begs, mama, please, and that's when Tim knows for certain the relationship. She looks young enough to be a sister - you never know. He can't tell. She's got a firm hold on Cecilia now and is pulling her toward the door while he works to get up onto his feet again.
"I didn't get a cookie." The little girl is working up to tears.
"My name's Tim," he says, turning to look for the bakery box, trying to keep them a minute longer.
"I know," she says and reaches for the door handle and swings the door wide, pushes Cecilia through first.
He stands lost, watches the door close behind them.
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