“Okay.” Jase stepped back from the end of the bed as Mary Ann rounded the bed, but never broke eye contact. His eyes were bloodshot, underscored by dark circles. His curly hair stood up in tufts, as if he had been pulling on sections of it.
“You look like crap,” Bree said. He grinned and winked.
“I told him to go home and take a shower,” Denise said.
“He wouldn’t leave your side,” Mary Ann added. “Called in the big guns when we tried to kick him out.” Her look was disgruntled as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Bree’s good arm.
“Big guns?” Bree asked.
“Gran,” Jase said.
“Where is she?”
“She’s coming back this evening,” Jase said.
“Open back up.” Mary Ann stuck a digital thermometer in her mouth. “Close.” The machine beeped twice and Bree opened her mouth.
“I’ll be right back with clean bandages.” She patted Bree’s uninjured arm.
“How long have I been here?”
“Three days,” Denise said.
“Three days?” Her head rose from the flat pillow, but dropped again immediately.
“How much do you remember?” Jase asked.
“All of it. Right up until Tim and Detective Johnson stormed in. How’s Katherine?”
“She was stabbed twice in the stomach,” Denise said. “I think the doctors had to remove a kidney, but she’s conscious. They have her a couple rooms down the hall.”
“I’d like to go see her when I can.”
Jase crossed his arms. “I’ll wheel you down when the doctor says you can move around.”
Bree glared. “My arm is cut, not my leg.”
“Did Cindy—?” Mary Ann’s arrival cut Denise’s question short.
She carried an assortment of bandages on a stainless steel tray. “The doctor’s right behind me. He’s going to take a look at your arm before I wrap it back up.”
Bree nodded. Mary Ann held her left arm in one hand while she gently unwound the gauze. The yellow-stained skin from the disinfectant… the purple-and-blue bruising around the edge of the gash… finally, the wound itself. The cut was almost straight across the fleshy part of her inner arm, the edge on the pinky side of her arm slightly higher than the edge on the thumb side. The tiny, black stitches were tight, precise, and evenly spaced. She stared at it dispassionately. As long as she didn’t pull the wound open, the scar would be thin.
“How many stitches?” She didn’t want to take the time to count them all.
“Thirty-two.” Bree looked toward the door. An average-looking man in a white lab coat stood in the threshold. “I’m Doctor Walsh. How’re you feeling?”
“Weak. How deep was the cut?”
“Quarter of an inch at the deepest.” He pulled his hands out of his lab coat pockets and joined them in the room. It was getting crowded in the small space. Mary Ann stepped back to give him access to the bed. Denise shuffled to the side and joined Jase at the end of the bed.
“Radial artery?” she asked as he picked up her arm and palpated the edges of the wound.
“They warned me you were a medic. Radial artery. Do you remember telling the police you needed a tourniquet?” He squeezed her fingernails and released them.
Bree furrowed her brow and shook her head.
“It saved your life. Without it, you would have bled out before EMS got there. Squeeze my finger.” He put his index finger under all four of her fingers. She tried to close her fingers around his, but hissed as pain shot through her arm.
