Page 136 of Forever Gone

Kelly pressed two fingers against her neck, then reached toward Deb.

“Kelvin, get EMS in here now,” she said into her radio. “Two gunshot wounds, one stabbing victim, and an agent with a possible head injury and broken wrist. Cellar entrance off the rear hallway.”

The ceiling shifted above Selena.

Kelly’s voice came closer.

“Stay with me, Selena. Don’t close your eyes.”

Selena intended to obey.

The strip of light on the cellar wall narrowed to a thread, then disappeared.

EPILOGUE

Five days after Carol Fen pushed her down the cellar stairs, Selena had learned the precise number of cracks in the ceiling above her hospital bed.

There were seven.

Three ran from the corner above the window. Two branched near the sprinkler head. Another ended beside a water stain that resembled Kentucky if the eastern counties had been removed. The final crack was so thin that Selena could only see it when the morning light reached across the room.

She had counted them before breakfast, after breakfast, and during the physical therapist’s visit.

The television remained off. Every program seemed to involve hospitals, violent crime, or people renovating houses they could never afford. The paperback Arnold had brought the previous day lay unopened on the bedside cabinet. Selena had read the first page four times and remembered none of it.

Rain traced narrow paths down the window.

Her left wrist rested across her middle inside a rigid splint and layers of bandaging. Two fingers remained swollen, their tips yellowed by bruising. A hinged brace supported her right knee beneath the blanket. The fall had done some serious damage. Torn ligaments. A broken wrist. A knee that might never quite be 100% again.

A knock came at the door.

Connor entered carrying flowers.

Selena let her head fall back against the pillow. “Please tell me those aren’t for me.”

“They’re not.”

“That’s reassuring.”

He placed the arrangement on the windowsill beside two others. White lilies and purple irises crowded a glass vase wrapped with a ribbon from the hospital gift shop.

Connor had changed out of uniform. A dark sweater covered a pale shirt, and rain marked the shoulders of his coat. He had shaved, though a patch near his jaw suggested he had done it in poor light.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m bored.”

“That’s an improvement. Yesterday you were angry.”

“I can be both.”

Connor pulled the visitor’s chair closer. “One more day, and I think they’ll send you home.”

“Back to the Wilson Motel isn’t home.”

“Then they’ll send you somewhere you can complain in private.”

“That’s what they said yesterday.”