Tribute

here pretty soon, so . . .”
    The fingers twitched, curled. The lightest of pressure on hers.
    “Okay, okay, stay there, don’t go anywhere.” She reached for the call button, held her finger down on it. “Steve, come on, Steve, do it again.” She lifted his hand, pressed her lips to it. Then, narrowing her eyes, bit. And laughed when his fingers twitched and curled again.
    “He squeezed my hand,” she called out as Mike came in. “He squeezed it twice. Is he waking up? Is he?”
    “Talk to him.” Mike moved to the side of the bed, lifted one of Mike’s eyelids. “Let him hear your voice.”
    “Come on, Steve. It’s Cill. Wake up, you lazy bastard. I’ve got better things to do than stand around here and watch you sleep.”
    On the other side of the bed, Mike checked pulse, pupils, BP. Then pinched Steve hard on the forearm. The arm jerked.
    “He felt that. He moved. Steve, you’re killing me. Open your eyes.” Cilla grabbed his face, put her nose nearly to his. “Open your eyes.”
    They fluttered, and she felt another flutter on her chin. More than his breath, she realized. A word.
    “What? What? Say it again.”
    She leaned down, her ear at his lips. She caught his slow, indrawn breath, and heard the hoarse, raw whisper of a single word. He said, “Shit.”
    Cilla let out a sob that choked into a laugh. “Shit. He said shit!”
    “Can’t blame him.” Quickly, Mike strode to the door to signal another nurse. “Page Dr. North. His patient’s waking up.”
    “Can you see me?” Cilla demanded when his eyes opened. “Steve? Can you see me?”
    He let out a weary sigh. “Hi, doll.”
    SHE SPOKE to the doctor, even managed to smile genuinely at Steve’s mother before she locked herself in a bathroom stall for a jag of weeping relief. After she’d washed her face, slapped on makeup and sunglasses to hide the damage, she went back to the nurses’ station.
    “He’s sleeping,” Mike told her. “Natural sleep. He’s weak, and he’s still got a lot of healing to do. You should go home, Cilla. Get a good night’s sleep yourself.”
    “I will. If he asks for me—”
    “We’ll call you.”
    For the first time Cilla stepped into the elevator with an easy heart. As she crossed the lobby, she pulled out her phone and called Ford.
    “Hey, beautiful blond girl.”
    “He woke up.” She moved down the sidewalk toward the parking lot with a bounce in every step. “He woke up, Ford. He talked to me.”
    “What’d he say?”
    “ ‘Shit’ came first.”
    “As it should.”
    “He knew me, his name and all that. His left side’s a little weaker than his right, just now. But the doctor says he’s looking good. They have to do tests, and—”
    “Looking good works. Do you want me to come by, bring you some dinner?”
    “No, I’m heading home now. He’s sleeping. Just sleeping. I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to say that I saw your sketch, and I was teasing him about it right before . . . I think it might have done the trick.”
    “Nothing stops Con the Immortal for long.”
    “You are so— Oh God! Son of a bitch!”
    “What? What was that?”
    She stared down at the door of her truck. “I’ll be home in a few minutes. I’ll come by.”
    She clicked off before Ford could respond. And read what someone had written on the driver’s-side door in black marker.
    WHORES BEGET WHORES!

THIRTEEN
    F ord watched Cilla take digitals of the pickup’s door. His rage wanted to bubble up, but he couldn’t figure out what he’d do with it if he spewed.
    Kick the tires? Punch a couple of trees? Stalk around and froth at the mouth? None of the options seemed particularly helpful or satisfying. Instead he stood with his hands jammed in his pockets, and the rage at a low, simmering boil.
    “The cops’ll take pictures,” he pointed out.
    “I want my own. Besides, I don’t think Wilson and Urick are going to make this a priority.”
    “It could be connected. They’ll be here in the morning.”
    She shrugged, then turned the camera off, stuck it in her pocket. “That’s not coming off. The sun baked that marker on so it might as well be paint. I’ll have to have the whole damn door done. I haven’t had this truck three months.”
    While he watched, she kicked a tire. He decided he’d been right. She didn’t look satisfied. “You can use my car until it’s fixed.”
    “I’ll drive this.” Both the defiance and the temper glared out of her eyes. “I know I’m not a whore.