He took in my appearance and gave me a solemn look. He was an older cop and I probably looked like I was jones-ing for methadone.
“How old are you son?”
“I’m forty,” I replied and tried to avoid looking him in the eye. Most addicts couldn’t look you in the eye, I’d seen a few to know it. “Just trying to get some help.”
“I have a daughter…I understand what you’re going through,” he said then cleared his throat. “But access is cut off at this entrance. Try the north side.”
“Thank you, officer,” I nodded, my eyes still averted.
He waved me on, and I shook my head. Cops really wouldn’t give a white male dressed in dark clothing to much thought. I could have been the bomber and I would have gotten a free pass. Once I was inside the hospital, I went to a desk just to see if they had a patient. The receptionist eyed me suspiciously.
“We do have a patient in the emergency room, but I can’t give out room numbers at this time,” she frowned at me.
“Understood,” I spun away and headed straight for the stairwell.
Fuck,I thought.
The baby…
My feet carried me up the stairwell until I reach the fifth floor. Peaking my head out, I searched for a sign to point me in the direction of the emergency room. Like a beacon guiding wisemen across a dessert of sand, the sign showed me the way.
Eventually I maneuvered myself to the right side of the building. There were cops milling around everywhere and nurses not paying attention. When they weren’t looking I pulled a room chart and found her listed under Ivy Scarpetta and in room 1129.
A smirk played on my lips and I slipped my hood up and maneuvered around people. As I was approaching the room, I saw Enzo and Treyanna leave out.
I froze inside and dashed inside of another room. There was a patient looking at me strangely but I held my fingers to my lips and she went back to watching t.v. She was elderly and the fact that I had a hood up, she’d probably thought death was dropping in on her.
A couple of nurses bounded down the hall and when they were out of sight and there were no signs of Enzo and his wife returning, I slipped into Diamond’s room. She was on the phone talking with an I.V. hooked up to her arm and an oxygen mask hanging to the side. A blanket was around her legs while she looked beautiful in hospital couture. The yellow hospital gown gave her a glow.
When she realized I was in the room, she ended the phone call.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too, wife. Thought you might have gotten injured.”
She flung the phone downward. “Nice of you to care now.”
I paused. Her words stung like a bee kissing my flesh. “I haven’t stopped caring, Diamond. Were you injured in the blast?”
She huffed. “Considering it was my car that blew up?”
In a moment I was there by her side, terrified. “What?”
“Yes, it was my car that blew up!”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s footage. The only reason I’m alive right now, the only reason my son is alive right now….is because of the PUSH START button. Otherwise, they would have been scraping us out of the parking deck.”
She pulled the oxygen mask over her face. I watched her hand go to her stomach and it seemed to sooth her. However, her words had filled my ears and I couldn’t believe it.
“We’re having a boy?”
“Correction!” She snapped moving the mask away. “I’m having a boy.”
“Diamond…” my tone was a warning.
“You need to go.”
