Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

face. “Am not.”
    Even outside, the smoky odor was oppressive. “That’s obnoxious. What do you want?”
    She huffed and dropped the nearly-new cigarette onto the concrete porch, where she used the toe of her shoe to smash it. Then she edged it forward, under the railing, until it fell. We watched it disappear into the shrubbery below.
    “What’s up with you two?” she finally whispered, nodding toward the door.
    I felt my shoulders sag. “I don’t have energy for this.”
    She put a hand on my arm. “I’m not imagining it, am I? Something’s going on.”
    “Maybe there could have been,” I said. “That talk we had ended badly. I can’t look at him now, much less talk to him.”
    She brushed a wisp of bangs away from her eyes and studied me for a moment. In her gentle look, I found the unwavering support of a lifelong friend.
    “You don’t need this today. We should go.”
    I nodded.
    “I’ll get Richard.” She gave a weak smile and went inside.
    I stayed on the balcony, trying unsuccessfully to think about one thing at a time. I rehearsed what I’d say to the police. When I came to the part about Trish’s money, I remembered the bag of cash was still on David’s sofa. I opened the front door to grab it.
    Jeannie and Vince were together in the living room. They looked at me, startled, and the moment was as awkward as if I’d found them naked.
    “Richard’s wrapping up with David, in the office,” Jeannie said.
    I looked down, snatched my bag off the sofa, and left.
    For the next half-hour, I couldn’t speak to Jeannie about it because Richard was with us in the car. We were headed toward the Texas Medical Center, a virtual kingdom of hospitals inside Houston’s I-610 loop. An HPD buddy had told Richard where Clement was being treated for his gunshot wound. Jeannie figured we could double up our mission and get my leg fixed too.
    We parked in the garage and found our way to the congested emergency room. An old man with an oxygen mask sat beside a father pressing an ice pack onto his son’s arm. In the corner, a toddler wailed in long bursts. Another was drooped eerily across his mother’s lap. Both children were still in pajamas at one o’clock in the afternoon.
    “This looks bad,” I said.
    “Check in and ask about the wait,” Richard said. “There should be time to hit the cafeteria before you get called.”
    “Time to eat
and
speak to Clement, I’d say.” Jeannie cast a sideways glance at a woman coughing into a bloody rag. “Go check in, Em. These people freak me out.”
    I filled out the requisite paperwork. A chorus of elevator dings echoed in the halls behind me. Persistent crying seemed to carry from all directions in the vast hospital. I wondered about Casey. Wherever he was, was he crying too?
    When I finished, we followed signs to the cafeteria and passed an information desk. Richard wanted to ask about Clement, so he got in line behind a group of disoriented visitors and waited. Jeannie and I took the opportunity to visit the nearby gift shop. Balloons and flower arrangements crowded the entrance to the small, over-stuffed store and I almost knocked over a vase of carnations.
    “I should get him something,” I said. “What do you get for a guy?”
    Jeannie surveyed the arrangements and shook her head. “Not flowers. Do they sell any porn here?”
    She laughed. I scanned the room for irritated parents.
    “You know,” she said, turning toward a shelf of candy, “I think he likes you.”
    I picked up a basket of gourmet coffee samples and walked toward the counter.
    “He’s FBI, Jeannie. I don’t think he’s supposed to like anybody.”
    She met me at the counter and added a pack of Wrigley’s to my coffee basket.
    “Not Clement, you screwball. Vince.”
    The clerk rang us up. Jeannie, restless in the smoke-free environment, tore open her gum with particular zeal.
    “What were you guys talking about at David’s?” I asked.
    We turned for the exit and found Richard walking toward us, struggling through a jungle of ribbons hanging from a collection of helium balloons.
    “There you are,” he said. “I have Clement’s room number. Had to say I was his brother.”
    I stole a glance at Jeannie. Our conversation had been put off again. She folded a piece of spearmint gum onto her tongue and winked.
    ***
    After lunch, it seemed nothing had changed in the E.R.’s waiting room except the numbers on its clock. Everything else was as we’d left it, with the