The waiting room is as quiet as a crypt until the elevator slides shut behind them.
“That was good work, Chief,” Caputo says.“Mr.Ferro will be pleased.Now go back to the office and make sure this all goes away for good.”
The chief doesn’t look happy, but whether it’s because of Caputo’s condescending tone or something else, I can’t tell.He doesn’t say anything, just leaves.And again, no one speaks until he’s gone.Goldie is shaking again, looking at the door that leads to the operating room where her sister is.
I follow her gaze.A doctor is coming out, his mask hanging off his face, and his scrubs rumpled and wrinkled like he’d been in a fight.He’s looking right at Goldie and she stands up, my jacket sliding off her shoulders.She walks towards him as though she’s moonwalking.I follow.
“You’re the sister of the woman who’d been shot?”the doctor asks and she just nods.
“We’ve managed to stabilize her and fix most of the damage,” he says.“The next few hours will be critical, but the prognosis is good.”
Goldie’s knees buckle and I catch her just in time.It’s as though whatever had been holding her upright has vanished.
“She’ll be… she’ll be fine?”she mutters.
“Too early to tell,” the surgeon.“But I am hopeful.”
I could punch the guy, teach him to show more sensitivity because he’s delivering this good news with all the feeling of a stone.But it is good news, and I know from experience that surgeons usually have no bedside manner to speak of.
“Can I...Can I see her?”Goldie asks, trembling in my arms.
“Just for a few minutes,” the surgeon says.“Follow me.”
Then he turns and strides back to where he came from, walking fast as though Goldie is in any condition to keep pace with him.But with my help she manages it.
I hope she’ll stop fighting me so hard from now on.Because I’d like nothing better than to help her from now until eternity.Help her with whatever she needs.
Chapter39
GIANNA
Chiara is lyingin a room by herself, hooked up to many beeping machines and surrounded by yet more of them.It looks like she’s in a spaceship or something, the machines feeding off her, making her sleep while they feast.I always hated sci-fi movies.Almost as much as I hated ones where people die.
“She’s doing good,” Matteo says.“Her blood pressure is steady and good.So’s her heart rate.I think she’ll be just fine.”
“Fine?She was shot.How can she be fine?”My words don’t have any kind of bite to them.They’re like that soft cold breeze that sometimes blows on summer evenings reminding you of winter.
“How do you know so much about these things anyway?”
I glance at his face and it’s as though watching a reflection in glass, his features are all there, but there’s no expression.
“Because I spent days by my brother’s hospital bed hoping he’d wake up,” he says.“He didn’t and his vitals were never this good.”
There’s so much I don’t know about him.So much I wanted to know.But then decided I want to know nothing.But this… this is something we share.
“How did your brother die?”
“He was shot.By our enemy.”
It sounds like it hurts him to say the word enemy like it’s someone he hasn’t dealt with yet.
“So this is almost the same,” I mutter.“My sister was shot by her enemy too.My dad too.I guess you must really know exactly how I feel.”
This time I do manage to get the sarcasm out.
“I do,” he says quietly.“And I really didn’t want it to come to this.Maybe one day you’ll believe me.There’s nothing worse than watching your loved ones die and being powerless to stop it.”
The beeping around Chiara just keeps getting louder and louder in my head, even though it’s all been the same since we got here.I want to go in, sit by her bed, hold her hand, tell her everything is going to be all right again.That everything will be as it was.That we’ll spend summers at the family beach house again, go shopping with my mom, argue, laugh, drive in speedboats, play monopoly until one of us loses it.That she’ll live.
