Page 40 of Savage Row

He huffs. “Well, I’m not just going to sit here.”

“Greg—” I walk over and lean against the door. “Come on,” I whisper. I try to embrace him. He pulls away. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

But my husband doesn’t calm down. He does exactly what I’d been contemplating. He rushes into the hall and demands answers.

Not long after Greg returns, escorted by a nurse and a security guard, a doctor appears and delivers the news. Blair has a basilar skull fracture. She is leaking cerebrospinal fluid from both ears and one nostril. She fractured her tibial plateau on the growth plate, and her left arm is broken.

They will monitor her for several days to see if the CSF clears up on its own, otherwise surgery will be required. Just hearing the words “brain surgery” causes me to grip the elbow rest. The room spins. I am going to be sick.

The doctor goes on to explain how the surgery might work and our options, involving a synthetic graft using a piece of her own tissue, taken from either fat or muscle. If her brain continues to swell, he has not ruled out placing a lumbar drain in her lower back to decrease intracranial pressure. The tibial fracture will require surgical repair as well.

Later, after Blair is moved from the ER to a room, and Naomi has gotten the chance to see her sister, Greg takes her to stay the night with Dana in case things take a turn for the worse during the night.

When he returns, he looks weary. His shoulders slouch, and he doesn’t readily make eye contact when he hands over a bag of takeout. I set it aside. The smell makes me nauseous. I can’t even think of food. He plops down on the fold-out sofa beside me. “The bolts were removed from the swing set on purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. It wasn’t an accident Blair fell. Someone did this on purpose.”

I rest my face in my hands. A knock at the door causes me to look up. Alex texted earlier, asking if I could talk. I texted back saying I was in the hospital with Blair and nothing more. He’s the last person I expect to see standing there. Clearly, my husband too. He doesn’t say it, but his body tenses, and his jaw twitches, and all the signs are there. When you've been with a person as long as I’ve been with Greg, you don’t have to look hard. Outside, he’s calm and mostly collected. Inside, he’s fuming.

He treads carefully, Alex does. Walking into the room as though on a tightrope. “I’m sorry to barge in like this.” He glances at Blair lying motionless and then at the monitors that display her vital signs. “How is she?”

I give a small shrug. “Okay, I guess.”

“I just wanted to let you know they picked Mooney up two days ago for public intoxication.”

“What a relief,” Greg says, glaring at me. His face conveys everything he’s thinking but not saying. He’s thinking, what is he doing here? And how does he know about Jack Mooney? And what else has my wife not been telling me?

Alex’s brow raises. “Except they let him go.”

I wish he hadn’t come. “They what?”

“Yeah. They questioned him about breaking into your house. He has an alibi.”

“Of course he does,” I snap. “But is it legit?”

“Probably not. Though it’s hard to say. And without fingerprints or any kind of evidence…”

Greg shakes his head and then stands and walks over to the bed, turning his back on me.

“Did they search the place where he’s staying?”

“No. He wasn’t picked up there. They’d have to get a warrant…and again, without evidence…it’s hard—”

“How are they supposed to get evidence if they aren’t looking for it?”

“They’d need probable cause.”

“Right.” Alex might as well be speaking gibberish. I hear what he’s saying, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense.

Greg steals a glance over his shoulder. “I thought you were a divorce attorney.”

When Alex doesn’t respond, I thank him for coming. He stands and walks to the door. “I shouldn’t have interrupted,” he says, glancing at my husband, who is facing the other way. “I’ll keep in touch. And please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“You’ve done plenty,” Greg remarks flatly, pivoting on his heel.

With a nod, Alex leaves just as quickly as he’d appeared.