First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [11]
The ambulance came to a stop, and the EMT woman opened the rear doors. Jack was rolled out of the ambulance, wheeled through the automatic doors of the emergency room.
I'LL HANDLE all the paperwork," Bennett said to the admitting attendant.
"But the patient has to read and agree to—"
"I have power of attorney for the patient," Bennett said in his brook-no-argument tone of voice.
The attendant bristled, gathered herself around her ample bosom. "Do you have proof?"
Bennett whipped out a pad and pen, stared at her ID tag. "Ms. Honeycutt, is it?" He scribbled on the pad. "Gimme the name of your supervisor."
Ms. Honeycutt's glare was as sharp as a scalpel as she handed over the clipboard, but whatever was on her mind she kept to herself, which was all Bennett required.
Jack was sent down for X-rays and a CAT scan. Then his laceration was cleaned and dressed while he was hydrated intravenously.
When Bennett pulled aside the opaque curtain that had been drawn around Jack's cubicle, Jack said, "No breaks, no concussion. Are you satisfied now? Can I get the hell out of here so I can get back to work?"
"In a minute," the chief said. "Your ex is here."
Jack sat up in the bed. "Damnit, not now."
"Too late," a husky female voice said.
Jack, sliding off the bed and onto his feet, saw Sharon appear like a fallen angel.
She smiled. "Hi, Roddy."
"Sharon." The chief leaned forward, pecked her on the cheek. "Good to see you again."
Looking at Jack frown, she said, "I'm glad someone thinks so."
She made her way past Bennett, who behind Sharon's back, gave Jack a small nod of encouragement before disappearing back into the holy hell of the ER, although at this precise moment, Jack didn't really know which was more of a holy hell, outside the curtain or inside.
It was as she stood silently contemplating him that Jack became acutely aware that he was without trousers. Her hair was lighter than it had been when they were married, and she wore different makeup. She looked both familiar and strange to him, as if she had gone through a mysterious transformation.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Rodney called me." She ran a hand through her hair, golden highlights glinting in the overhead fluorescents. "He said he thought you were okay but maybe I should come down and see for myself."
There was some shouting and the hasty squeaks of doctors' rubber-soled shoes on the ER's rubberized floor. The curtain rippled behind him as a patient was wheeled into the next cubicle. From the raised, rushed voice, Jack gathered that there was a lot of bleeding that needed to be stopped, stat.
"I don't know why you bothered," Jack said. "Aren't you too busy fucking Jeff?"
Color rose to her cheeks. "Your best friend is still in the hospital."
Jack felt the muck that had lain on the streambed of his mind being stirred up once again, and his heart began to shrivel. He could end this fight now, before it escalated out of control, but some part of him that was not finished punishing himself goaded him on. "He stopped being my best friend when he took you to bed."
"Neither of us meant it to—"
"Bullshit! Those things don't just happen. You both wanted it."
Her gray eyes stared placidly into his. "I wanted a shot at happiness, Jack. Something I came to realize you know nothing about. After Emma died, I spent six months in mourning. I went on Prozac so I wouldn't tear my heart out."
He stood, stunned, rooted to the cold linoleum. "What? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you needed Prozac even more than I did. The difference is, you didn't get help. You wallowed in your pain, the self-flagellation became your reason to live. You became a black hole. I had to get out before you sucked