Nick glared at Miguel Diaz and tossed five bricks of heroin on the dining room table.
“Guess you didn’t hide it as good as you thought.”
“Man, that ain’t my shit!”
“I guess this ain’t yours either,” Gary jeered, dropping two more on the table.
“It ain’t,” Miguel clipped. “Y’all planted that shit!”
Nick chuckled. If he had a nickel for every time the target of a search warrant proclaimed their innocence by accusing the police of planting evidence, he’d be a rich man.
Miguel and his wife were sitting on the floor with their hands cuffed behind their backs. Nick stepped out of the dining room. His intention was to rejoin his team to help with the search, but the persistent buzzing in his pocket stopped him. When he pulled out his phone, he was surprised to see it was the hospital.
“Nick Cato,” he answered.
“Detective Cato, this is Sarah, your wife’s nurse.”
The fact that she was calling and her tone caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand.
“Sarah? What is it?”
“Sir, we need you to come to the hospital. Your wife has gone into labor.”
Nick frowned. “What do you meanlabor? We have a Cesarean scheduled for the beginning of the month.”
“Yes, but your wife has gone into spontaneous labor, and we’re worried about the baby’s heart rate. We need to deliver immediately.”
“I’m on my way,” he assured her before disconnecting the call.
He spotted Gary as he ran down the hall. “Got an emergency. Finish up here and then take it back to the station.”
“Got it!” Gary shouted at his back.
Nick ran from the house, jumped into his unmarked squad car, and sped with lights and sirens to the hospital.
KING
“Oh, God, this is amazing,”Paula mumbled while chewing.
“It’s a freakin’ salad,” Rebecca quipped with a frown. “Who the hell gets turnt up over a salad?”
“It’s jerk salmon salad,” Paula countered with narrowed eyes as if that made a difference.
Rebecca was aware she wasn’t the healthiest eater, but she’d decided if she was dying anyway, she was going to eat what she wanted. However, her traitorous body often disagreed. The spicy jerk shrimp was giving her killer heartburn. She grabbed her glass of water and prayed for relief as she drank.
“So, how are things with tall, white, and handsome?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’ll say. You’ve fallen for a prince who’s married to Sleeping Beauty.”
Rebecca sighed. “Don’t make jokes.”
Paula waved her hand dismissively. “You joke about your condition all the time. It’s how you cope with the scary stuff.”
Paula was right. She often did joke about her illness, but there was so much more than feeling bad about Nick’s dying or dead wife. What Jessica couldn’t possibly understand was the sadness and guilt she felt for allowing him to fall for her. But she wasn’t about to try to explain the complexity of her emotions. She simply nodded and grabbed her phone from the table. Time had gotten away from her. She stuffed her phone in her purse and pulled out two twenties.
“I’m gonna be late getting back. I gotta go.” She placed the money on the table.
