Eve - Iris Johansen [131]
“I’ll know it.” She was stripping her own jacket off to help form a makeshift blanket. “Why did you do it, Catherine? Why bring him here?”
“Blame me, if you like, but he wasn’t going to have it any other way. I could at least keep an eye on him if he was with me. I did what I thought best.” She looked down at Black. “Joe killed him?”
“Gallo.”
“Where is Gallo?”
“Gone.”
“Why did— You can tell me about it later. I have to get to that cabin.”
Eve didn’t watch her leave; her gaze was on Joe’s face. She lay down beside him, her hand keeping pressure on the wound while she cuddled close to try to share her body heat.
“You’re going to be fine, Joe,” she whispered. “You can’t leave me. You’ve got to get well and strong and let me tell you how much I love you. No, that’s all for me. Get well so that you can live life to the fullest, be what you want, take what you like.”
He didn’t stir.
Was he growing colder?
Panic was rising, and she held him tighter.
“Live, Joe. Hold on…”
St. Joseph’s Hospital
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
“Open your eyes. Coffee,” Catherine said.
Eve opened her eyes and straightened in the waiting-room chair. She took the Styrofoam cup. “Thanks.”
“Though maybe I shouldn’t have bothered you if you were dozing.” Catherine sat down beside Eve. “You’ve been living in this room for almost two days.”
“I wasn’t dozing. I just wanted to close everything out for a while.” Stark, shining corridors, doctors, nurses, worried family members.
Joe in ICU.
Death hovering, ready to reach out and take him.
“No word yet?” Catherine asked quietly.
Eve shook her head. “Still critical. They don’t know whether he’s going to live or not.” Her hand clenched on the steel arm of the chair. “I know. He can’t die, Catherine. Not for me. Not because I won’t let my Bonnie go. He’s so strong. He should live to be an old, old man. If I hadn’t come into his life, he would have.”
“We all make choices.” Catherine took a drink of her coffee. “Joe chose you. He didn’t regret it. The first time I saw you with him, I realized you had something special together. If there were bad times, then he thought the good times balanced them out. That’s all anyone can ask.”
“No, it isn’t,” Eve said fiercely. “You can ask for the best, the ultimate, if you care about someone. That’s what Joe should have.” Then she wearily leaned back against the wall. “But I couldn’t give it to him.”
“Your coffee is getting cold,” Catherine said. “Stop all this emotion and drink it. You need the caffeine if you’re going to spend any more time here.”
That was like Catherine, Eve thought. Blunt, authoritative, cut to the chase. But on occasion she could be as warm and comforting as a hand-stitched blanket passed down through loving generations. Lord, she was glad she’d had Catherine beside her for the last few days.
She lifted her cup to her lips and tasted it. “It’s not cold yet.” She asked, “How is Cara?”
“Short-term, fine. No physical damage but a few scratches. I hired a nice motherly woman who had nursing experience to take care of her in a small house near St. Louis County Hospital. Judy Clark is getting better, and Cara will be able to go to see her mother every day. I think that’s what she needs.” She grimaced. “Long-term, who knows? She’s going to have nightmares for the rest of her life thanks to Black.”
“Love can do a lot to heal wounds. I’ll bet on Judy Clark to bring her through this.” She didn’t speak for a moment. She took another sip of coffee. “Have the police found John Gallo yet?”
“No, it’s as if he disappeared off the face of the earth.” She paused before saying, “You haven