Choosing Happiness (15 page)

"How did all this happen in the first place?" Charles wanted to know.

"There was a robbery and hostage situation at the bank this morning," Jake said. He told them what had happened this morning, including his theory that she’d been shot for sending pictures.

"Didn't she tell you anything?" Ben asked.

"By the time they got her out of the bank she was on the edge of consciousness.” Jake shook his head. “She had enough energy to talk to the EMT, but she passed out on the trip." Jake saw the look of panic cross their faces.

"Not from anything serious as far as the ER doc could tell. He said that while the bandage was make-shift, they'd managed to stop the bleeding before she lost too much blood, though she’d lost plenty. She was weak from blood loss and had found enough of a strong painkiller to take the edge off. She told the EMT what they’d done and what she’d taken. She took my hand and passed out." The four around him nodded and Jake continued.

"They pulled her out of the bank and loaded her into the ambulance. I took one look at her and didn't care if it cost me my job. She wasn't going anywhere without me, not in that condition. I climbed into the back of the bus and rode in with her. As soon as I talked to the doc about her condition and they told me they would be taking her into surgery soon. I stepped out and called Ben. I have no idea what's been done on the case, what has been determined about the gunmen, and who exactly shot Andy, or why."

"Totally understandable, dear." Sophia leaned into Charles's side, both of her hands clutching his arm.

"I have a few friends on the force, I'll talk to them. I'm sure you won't lose your job over this." Charles pulled his arm free from Sophia and wrapped it around her, running his hand up and down her arm, reassuring himself as much as her.

Jake shrugged. “They knew she was in there and my relationship with her long before she came out of there. It shouldn’t be a huge ordeal but I’ll deal with whatever the consequences are.”

They talked quietly as they waited, antsy and not wanting to be there but not willing to leave either. Some time later, a doctor came down the hall wearing a full set of hospital supplied green scrubs. He stopped in front of the waiting area.

"For the family of Andrea Higgins?" He glanced around, looking for someone to step forward.

As one, all five stood. "Yes," Sophia said.

The doctor came a little closer. "Everything looks good. We set her shoulder and made sure there was no more damage needing attention. She came through the surgery beautifully. She's healthy and should have no complications. She's going to need to be careful for a while and let the bone heal, but unless there's some kind of secondary complication she should make a complete recovery."

"How soon can we see her?" Sophia asked.

"She's in recovery now. In thirty to forty-five minutes they'll move her to a room and you can see her there."

"Thank you, doctor." Ben shook the surgeon's hand then the surgeon left. They all took a deep breath and let it out, a lot of the stress they'd been holding in since they’d gotten there going with it.

"Let's all go down to the cafeteria and at least get something to drink while we wait," Sophia suggested. "She's out of surgery and we know it will be at least half an hour until we can see her. I bet some of us could actually eat, too." She eyed Ben and Jake, knowing their appetites and that they should have been hungry long ago.

***

A
s eager as Jake was to see Andrea, he knew Sophia and Charles were near frantic with worry. Since he'd seen her before they took her into the operating room he stopped at the nurse’s station while her family went in to see her.

"How is Andrea Higgins?" He asked the nurse at the desk. She hit a few keys on the computer in front of her and looked up at him.

"She's awake, but groggy. She may not be able to answer your questions, Officer Walters," she said, reading his name tag.

"I don't want to question her." Jake was reminded again that he was still wearing his uniform. "I'm not here in an official capacity." He didn’t want any confusion later. "I'm sure there will be someone in later to question her."

"Well, then..." the nurse gave Jake a questioning look.

"She and I are involved," he explained. "I was at the scene and rode in with her in the ambulance. She was taken into surgery so quickly that her family hasn't had a chance to see her yet."

She nodded. "She came through surgery fine and should recover with no problem."

"Thank you." Jake saw Ben step out of her room and look around so he headed in that direction.

"There you are," Ben said, gripping his shoulder and guiding him into the room. "She's asking for you." Surprised, Jake let Ben steer him toward the bedside.

Andrea looked better now than she had before surgery. Her skin was pink instead of the pale gray it had been when she’d come in. The head of the bed was elevated and a pillow was wedged behind her head so she could see everyone without having to hold her head up.

"Hey, doll, you look much better." Jake smiled to hide how worried he'd been.

"Jake." She smiled, her speech slowed by the medication being dripped in to her veins. She lifted one hand and reached for him, Jake moved close and took it. On the other side of the bed, Sophia sat in a chair her face drawn and worried as her hand rested on Andrea’s leg. Charles stood behind Sophia, his hands on her shoulders while Ben and Jeanie stood together near the foot of the bed. "Did you get them? The pictures?"

"Shh... save your strength." Jake squeezed her hand. "Yes, I got them. The first one before I realized you were in there. We sent them to the lab and they identified them. It made the difference in ending the situation with no one dead. Though, my heart almost stopped when they brought you out."

Andrea smiled weakly. "Sorry about that. I was glad to see you, but I didn’t have the strength to stay awake after I finished briefing the EMT." Jake rubbed his thumb back and forth over the hand he was holding. A knock sounded on the open door and they all turned to see Jake's partner standing in the doorway.

"Ramon, come on in." Jake turned to Andrea and her family. "This is Ramon Hernandez. He's my partner and training officer."

"Hello, Officer Hernandez." Ben extended his hand to Ramon. "It's good to meet you. I'm Ben, Andy's brother. I've had Jake as partner before, maybe sometime we can compare notes." Ben shot Jake a teasing grin as he spoke.

"I didn't realize you were in law enforcement." Ramon frowned and looked from Ben to Jake and back.

"I'm not, Jake and I served in the Army together. We were battle buddies." Ben grinned with his usual easy going attitude.

"Ahh, I get you, I may take you up on the offer. Another time of course." Ramon turned back to Andrea, still laying back in the bed. "Miss Higgins, I'd like to know if you feel up to giving a statement."

"If you don't mind my laying here without moving much and my mental slowness, I don't mind."

"That's fine," he assured her. "Do you want to wait until you have some privacy for this?"

"No, this is my family. Anything I say to you I'll tell them about anyway."

"All right, why don't you start off by telling me what happened and then we'll go over anything I have questions about."

Andrea started from where she walked into the bank. She went through the whole story, in as much detail as she could remember. Ramon took notes through the whole thing. She only had to stop occasionally as Ramon asked her questions, clarifying a few things.

When she'd finished telling him what she remembered, Ramon nodded. "That will do for now, thank you Miss Higgins. If there are any more questions, we’ll come back later. I'll let you get some rest now." He turned to Jake. "Can I have a word with you, outside?" Jake nodded and Ramon headed for the hallway.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, Dee." Jake bent to kiss her on the forehead, before following Ramon from the room.

"L
et's step down this way a bit," Jake suggested, motioning toward the nurses' station. "What did you need?" he asked, once they were several steps from Andrea's room.

"You're going to need to write a report about everything, every detail, and as soon as possible. The sergeant understands the situation and isn't going to reprimand you for leaving the scene without permission, at least as things currently stand. We've all thought about how we might have reacted if it was someone we cared about inside the bank or in that ambulance. You handled it better than I probably would have and I have twelve years on the job."

"All right." Jake looked down the hall toward Andrea's room. "She's exhausted. I'm sure she'll sleep soon. When she does, I'll get Ben to drop me at the station. I'll write up my reports, see about some time off and pick up my truck."

"Sounds like a plan. Normally, we don't give chunks of time off to anyone as new as you are, but there's nothing normal about this."

"Yeah," Jake replied, his attention still on the door several feet away.

"I just wanted to give you a heads up. Remind you about your report. You go back and stay till she falls asleep, with the drugs they'll have her on for a couple days, it won't take long."

"Thanks, man, I appreciate it." Jake clapped the older man on the shoulder.

"No problem. Let me know how things are going,"

"Will do." They clapped each other on the back again and parted, each moving a different direction down the hall. Jake went back to Andrea's room, returning to the spot where he'd been standing earlier.

"Is everything all right?" She looked up at him with worried eyes as he took her hand.

"It's fine. He was reminding me of some paperwork and letting me know I screwed up by leaving the scene without getting permission from the on-site commander, but it'll be fine. I'll work it out."

"If you have things you need to do-" She said.

"Not at all. I'll go once you're asleep. While you're awake I'm staying right here, assuming you want me here?" He lifted his brows at her.

"I do. Jake, we need to talk but I'm so tired." She gave his hand a weak squeeze.

"I know we do, Dee, and we will, later. You rest for now. I'll leave for a while and get what I have to done. Then I'll be back, I promise." He looked in her eyes as he made the promise.

"All right." She closed her eyes and moments later her even breathing told them she was sound asleep. Jake laid her hand down gently and turned to his best friend.

"Ben, I hate to ask you to leave, but I need a ride to the station."

"No problem. I'll run you over there and then come back."

"Actually, if you're going to make the trip, you can take me home so I can get the car. Then we can take shifts staying here with her," Charles put in, looking down at Sophia. Her eyes never left her daughter’s face. "You want to stay with her while I go get the car?" Sophia nodded, still watching Andrea sleep. Ben turned to Jeanie.

"You wanna stay with Mom or ride with the three of us?"

"I'll stay, thanks," she said.

T
en minutes later, Jake was sitting in the rear seat of Ben's double cab truck. Charles sat in front of him with Ben driving.

"I'm sorry to drag you out of there before you were ready," Jake said.

"Ready?" Ben looked at him in the rear view mirror. "I wasn't sure how much longer I could stand it. Once we talked to her and could see for ourselves that she’ll be okay, I was ready to get out of there."

"I thought you'd want to stay with her." Jake looked at Ben.

"Someone will stay with her and I'm sure I'll take some shifts, but after waiting for surgery and recovery I'd hit my hospital limit for a bit." He glanced at Jake again. "If you hadn't needed to go I would have found an excuse to go for a walk or something, so don't feel guilty about dragging me out of there."

"You didn't drag me, I volunteered, remember?" Charles put in. "Don't get me wrong, I love that girl with everything in me. But the waiting and the tension gets to me. Sometimes I just have to get out, away from it for a bit.

"I get it," Jake said. "From the time they took her into surgery until you guys got there I paced. I couldn't just sit there and wait."

Ben and Charles nodded.

They pulled up in front of the police station and parked the truck. Before Jake opened the door Ben turned to look at him.

"What are your plans?"

Jake looked at him a second, momentarily unable to put his thoughts into words. "I'm gonna go write and file my report, then change out of my uniform. I thought I'd go back to the hospital and sit with Andrea a while."

"Sophia's gonna try to have someone with her round the clock," Charles said.

"I know, but you have warm beds and people to share them with. I thought I'd stay with her overnight. Let you guys go spend some time with your wives, hold on to them and be thankful it isn't them."

"You don't have to do that." Ben frowned.

"I know, but I want to. Especially since the one I want to go home to IS in that bed"

"I can’t argue with that," Charles admitted.

"All right then, I'll go back and get Jeanie. Dad will stay with Mom until you get there. Then Jeanie or I will relieve you in the morning," Ben said. "Sound good?" He looked back and forth between Jake and Charles.

Charles nodded.

"That's fine,” Jake said. He got out and watched as they pulled away.

Inside, he made his way to the back of the station, found an empty desk and started on his report of the day's events. Later, when he'd finished and turned in the report, he talked to his supervisor about getting some time off. He went to the locker room and changed out of his uniform, leaving his service weapon on the shelf in his locker, but keeping his backup in the holster on his ankle. Hanging his uniform neatly before closing and locking the door, he headed out to his truck.

On his way back to the hospital, Jake detoured through a drive-thru window and ordered something to eat. Not bothering to eat it first, he carried the bag with him to Andrea's room. He knocked softly on the open door before stepping inside. When he got past the bathroom he could see that Andrea was sleeping, Sophia and Charles were seated to one side, quiet as they sat watching their daughter.