Page 78 of Things We Hide from the Light
The cat lazily threaded its way between her bare feet. Piper cowered behind my boots and pretended she was invisible.
“I don’t know if you remember me—”
“Chief Nash Morgan, age forty-one, two gunshot wounds to the shoulder and torso, O negative,” she rattled off.
“I guess you do remember me.”
“It’s not every night a girl finds the chief of police bleeding out on the side of the road,” she said, flashing me a quick grin.
Piper chanced a peek around my boots. The tubby tabby hissed, then plopped its ass down in the doorway and started licking its butthole.
“Don’t mind Gertrude the Rude,” Xandra said. “She’s got attitude for days and no sense of propriety.”
“These are for you,” I said, shoving the bouquet of sunflowers at her. “I should have come by earlier to thank you. But things have been…”
She looked up from the flowers, the smile fading to a sympathetic grimace. “It’s tough. Seeing it on shift isn’t easy. I’m sure living through it is no picnic.”
“Feel like I should be kind of immune to it,” I confessed, looking down at Piper, who had once again glued herself to the back of my legs.
Xandra shook her head. “When you start being immune to it, that’s when it’s time to get out. It’s the hurt, the caring that makes us good at our jobs.”
“How long have you been in the emergency department?”
“Since I graduated with my RN. Eight years. Never a dull moment.”
“Ever wonder how long you can afford to care?”
Her smile was back. “I don’t worry about things like that. It’s one day at a time. As long as the good balances out the bad, I’m ready for the next day. It’s never gonna be easy. But we aren’t doing this for ease. We’re doing it to make a difference. Things like this? A thank-you from one of the ones who made it? That goes a long way.”
I should have gotten her a card.
Or something that would last longer than a pile of sunflowers.
But I had nothing but words. So I gave her those. “Thank you for saving my life, Xandra. I’m never gonna be able to pay you back for that.”
She hitched the bouquet up on her hip. Her earrings caught the light and glittered. “That’s why you just keep payin’ it forward, Chief. One day at a time. Keep doing good. Keep balancing those scales.”
I hoped to hell removing Dilton from duty was a step in that direction. Because right now, like everything else I did, it felt like not nearly enough.
“I’ll do my best.”
“You know, having something besides the job helps. Something good. Me? I date inappropriate men and make jewelry,” she said, sweeping a hand over her apron full of tools.
Right now, I felt like I didn’t have a damn thing besides a needy foster dog and a hole or two that would never be healed.
There was a resounding crash next door followed by a loud, long wail. I jolted, my hand automatically moving to my service weapon.
“Don’t,” Xandra cautioned briskly. She stowed the flowers and the cat inside and made a move to push past me.
“You need to get inside,” I insisted, nearly tripping over Piper as I hurried down the steps. Nolan was hustling up the walk, his holster unsnapped.
“Wait! It’s my nephew. He’s nonverbal,” Xandra explained, following me next door.
The details of her statement came back to me. She’d been running late to work because she’d stayed to help her sister calm her nephew.
I paused and shared a look with Nolan. I let her pass me on the steps.
“He has autism,” she said, letting herself in her sister’s front door.
