Page 166 of Dirty Eoin

He stops in his tracks, and his eyes flit between me and Dylan. “I need to speak to Mr. O’Connell’s next of kin.”

“That’s me,” I reply, and he switches his full attention back to me, coughing nervously as he stands there all blonde-haired and boyishly handsome.

“And your relation?”

“I’m his wife.”

He stares at me, likely wondering why Eoin, who could take his pick, would willingly choose to marry a woman as clearly unaccommodating as I am.

“We’re waiting, Doc.” I want to give him a goddamn shake and tell him to get on with it, but I don’t want to scare him.

“Mr. O’Connell’s been shot, as you know. In the abdomen. Fortunately, it went clean through and miraculously missed any vitals. If it hadn’t, well….” His voice fades.

Relief floods through me, but it doesn’t last long as he’s still looking worried, and it must be over what he’s about to say next.

“Is there abut, Doc, or does that mean he’s going to be okay?” I know there’s a but. I’m just trying to encourage him along in as non-threatening a way as I can.

His face pales. “Unfortunately, when the bullet impacted, he fell backward down some steps. He banged his head. There’s significant brain swelling. Thankfully, he was brought in just in time. I was on standby, and we drilled into the base of his skull to release the buildup of fluid as soon as he arrived. Unfortunately, we had to do that without permission. If we hadn’t acted with haste, he could have… We’ve also had to place him in a temporary coma….”

“The prognosis, Doc.” I interject his ramblings, my words still quietly spoken. I’m grateful that he’s alive, but I now want to know how much of the old Eoin is going to come back.

“We don’t know for sure. At the moment, he has machines doing everything for him to allow his brain the chance to heal. There’s activity, so he could make a complete recovery, but it’s just too early to say. We’ll know more once we have the swelling under control and once he wakes up.”

If he wakes up.

He doesn’t say the words aloud, but we all know they’re silently implied.

“We did everything as quickly as we could, so the prognosis is as good as can be expected. I’m sorry I can’t give you any more than that.”

I glance around the clinical corridor that stinks of Lysol and coffee and is decorated with white boards and fancy charts.

“So, what do we do now?”

“All we can do is wait.”

“Can we see him?”

He nods slowly. I’m guessing he’s not a pretty sight. Given that I saw Malky McGrath with an axe lodged in his skull not so very long ago, I’ll take my chances that I’m able to cope with the visual.

We follow Dr. Kelly. Dylan walks beside me and takes my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Is it to give me strength?

I want to pull it away because it’s not making me feel stronger. It’s making me feel weaker.

He’s offering me reliance, but I don’t want reliance because when you rely on someone else, it just opens up the doorway to being let down. In the end, I don’t pull my hand away.

Maybe it’s him who needs my strength.

We enter the white hospital room.

They’ve tried to disguise the smell of death behind some fancy vanilla-based air-freshener. It hasn’t worked. It just makes the stench even more noticeable.

You can’t hide the smell of death from a serial killer.

I look around. I wanted to see him, but my reluctant eyes now want to look anywhere but at him.

State of the art machines beep and flash, all competing with each other to keep the man on the bed alive.

I finally look at him.

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