Chapter 13

Morgan arrived at the hospital before visiting hours and was refused admission to Andrea’s room. Of course, she would be. It was before the sun was up, and it was only at the triage nurse’s insistence that Morgan got to see Andrea at all. Morgan wondered if the nurse ever went home. She seemed to be on duty day and night. Slipping into Andrea’s room in her new loafers, Morgan scuffed the floor slightly as the new footwear kept tripping her up. Between that and the new bra, she was feeling like a fish out of water. She stood at the foot of the bed, nervously shaking a bouquet of flowers in her good hand. An unused vase sat on the window ledge, and she shuffled around the bed to claim it. She filled the vase with water, removed the paper from around the stalks, and tried to arrange the blooms. She placed her small offering back on the window sill, pleased to see the color brighten up the otherwise drab white of the room. Carnations. Morgan had thought about bringing red roses, but she thought roses were too personal. For the umpteenth time, Morgan debated what exactly she was doing. She looked over at Andrea’s still body in the bed and studied her without the distraction of being watched. Morgan’s gaze grazed the mass of white gauze that covered Andrea’s right shoulder. She watched the soft skin of Andrea’s throat and saw her pulse throbbing in a calm, even beat.

Morgan involuntarily licked her lips at the thought of kissing Andrea’s throat and feeling Andrea’s skin against her mouth as she caressed it. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to dispel the sensual images, but despite her best efforts, she couldn’t. It was at that point that Morgan fully understood the predicament she was in. If she tried to deny her attraction to Andrea any longer, she was not only lying to those around her, she was also lying to herself. Damn it, Henry was right. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

Several moments went by before she was aware Andrea was looking up at her, a smile on her lips. “I didn’t know you had a key to my apartment,” she said in a quiet rasp. Morgan smiled back. “We’re not in your apartment.”

“Where are we?”

“You’re in the hospital.”

Andrea’s brow furrowed. “I am? How did that happen?”

“You had an accident.” Morgan nervously sank her good hand into her pants pocket.

“Accident?” Andrea’s eyes glazed over.

“You sort of... well, you got shot.”

“Shot?” Andrea looked confused.

“Yes. With a gun. You have a hole in your shoulder.”

“I do? Huh. Well, I’ll be damned.” Andrea turned her head to look at her shoulder. “How about that?”

Morgan stifled another smile but allowed relief to flood her senses. “That painkiller must be some pretty good stuff, huh?” She was almost tempted to plug herself into the pain meds. She could use a little break from reality right about now.

“I’m glad you came to visit...” Andrea’s words drifted off as her eyes closed. Her final words were slurred as she fell asleep, and Morgan barely heard them.

Morgan came away from the hospital feeling restless, anxious, confused, and tired. Extremely tired. All that was going on in her life was wearing her down. She stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. Ha, what a laugh that was and most unexpected. Who would have thought her future was being built around two Big Macs?

As she ate, Morgan tried to think about work. Who was she kidding? Home, work—whether asleep or awake—her mind was occupied with thoughts of Andrea. This had been Morgan’s opportunity to shine at work, and nothing had gone right. She’d use this morning to get her mind back on track, to make some phone calls, organize interviews and statements, and basically get herself back into gear. She hoped.

She entered the squad room and headed to the coffeemaker, putting on an air of nonchalance at her tardiness. Looking around, she could see that her co-workers didn’t seem to care.

“O’Callaghan.”

She looked up to see Markham beckoning her to his office. With coffee in hand, she made her way through the quiet room.

“Take a seat.” His voice was calm and friendly, one that she didn’t hear very often. “How’s Andrea?”

Morgan shrugged. “She’s about as well as can be expected. She’ll probably be in the hospital for the next two days, but I don’t know how long it’ll be before she’s back at work.”

“How are you coping?”

“Me?”

His steady stare asked more than he was voicing.

“I’m okay.”

“What do you want to do about the case?”

“Do?” She looked at him, puzzled.

“Do you want me to find someone else to take over the McManus murder now that you have Andrea’s case as well? I have the DA’s Office breathing fire down my neck about this.”

Morgan nearly said yes, but then she thought of Arthur. Her replacement would most surely lock him up as the first item of business. She weighed her options carefully, one life against another, and despite her heart crying out to protect Andrea, her head took the tougher route. “No. No, sir, I’m good to go.”

Judging from his expression, her response surprised him.

“Why?” She balked at the question. “What? Is there something I don’t know about?” He waited a moment or two for a response, but when none came, he said, “Maybe you’re a little too close to the case. Chang is your second. I’m sure he can handle it.”

She was caught between a rock and a hard place. The case was slipping though her fingers as priorities were changing rapidly, so maybe this would be the only chance she had to express her concerns. She steadied herself. “It’s not that, Captain. I can handle the pressure just fine. It’s just...” She hesitated.

“Come on, Sergeant, just spit it out. Off the record.”

“I’m worried about the Vaughan case.” She breathed deeply and willed herself to calm down. “I’m sorry, Captain. The evidence alone has eliminated him. No gunshot residue and the blood spatter suggest he wasn’t the shooter.”

Markham thought for a moment “All right. Are we dismissing him as a suspect?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Besides no new information to point to our killer?” she said, almost sarcastically.

“What about the wife?”

“Either she’s just plain stupid or too smart for her own good. We’ve hit a brick wall in that line of investigation for the moment. The money trail’s gone cold, but everything’s telling me the location of the money is the key.”

“Okay, what about the shooting?” he asked, changing focus.

“This is twice now that Andrea has been involved in an incident that seems specifically directed at her. The first one we might have been able to overlook. The second incident was an attempted assassination. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m—hell, I don’t know.” Morgan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I, ah, got a call yesterday warning me to drop the Vaughan case,” she said, drawing a surprised reaction from her boss. “It’s a stupid move really, except to try to distract me. We just can’t drop the case. Whoever it is must know that. Anyway, it seems the hit-and-run was a warning to me, not Andrea. I can only assume that the guy doing it is stepping up his campaign with the shooting and that he wants my attention. If that’s his reason, then it’s a bit of overkill.”

Markham studied her for a moment. “So are we looking in the wrong direction here? Is this about you or about Worthington? And why in the hell is this the first I’m hearing of this?” His voice steadily grew louder with every syllable.

Morgan stared helplessly at him. What could she say? She should have told him. “I’m not sure,” she said quietly. “If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said that the hit-and-run was a fluke, but now...” She trailed off for a moment. “I can’t afford to not take the warning seriously. If he wanted to get my attention, he did.”

Morgan had another theory, but she wasn’t going to air it. Morelli had been acting strange ever since she had broken her wrist. Had he arranged the hit-and-run? He seemed to know things about it that she hadn’t mentioned, and despite his vehement denial, he seemed inordinately pleased about the outcome. Still, the shooting seemed a bit drastic even for him. Morelli was pissed at being made the butt of a joke. He wanted to shake the counselor up, not kill her.

“So, you’re telling me these two cases are connected? Andrea’s in the hospital because of you and the Vaughan case? And not only that, this asshole has the balls to do it on my own goddamned front porch!” Markham paced erratically around the room. “The fucking ADA, O’Callaghan. How could you let this happen?”

“Let it happen? Now hang on one goddamn minute. I’m not a friggin’ mind reader. I can’t be everywhere at once, or I would have taken that hit for her. I’m just trying to do my fucking job, Captain.”

She enunciated every word with anger. “If it’s not good enough for you, you can—”

“Whoa. Slow down.” Markham sat back down in his chair and took a deep breath. “Look,” he said, “all I’m saying is that you ignore nothing, okay? Everything is important here. Everything. Including you. No Lone Ranger shit. I need to know. The DA’s Office needs to know.”

“Fine.” Morgan said nothing further, fearing she might say too much. It was probably already too late.

“We’ll get him and he will pay. Got me?” Markham’s hard stare seemed to nail her to the chair. “So the bottom line is if you don’t drop the case, Andrea’s going to pay.”

“It’s beginning to look that way.”

“Okay. So why her?”

“I really don’t know.” Why indeed? Hadn’t she been asking herself that question since the hit-and-run?

“Okay, so here’s another one for you,” Markham said. “If we still ignore his warning, then what?”

“I suppose he’ll try again.” The thought chilled her soul. Would the shooter take that final step and kill Andrea?

“I’ve got a couple of uniforms outside her room around the clock. I want you and Chang to keep an eye on things.”

Morgan nodded. “I’ll take care of the visitors’ list.”

Markham sat back. “Now, what about the Vaughan case? What’s the status?”

“I reinterviewed the daughter yesterday morning and cleared up a few anomalies in her statement. The final results from forensics are in on that as well as the report on the search through Mrs. Vaughan’s financial records. We know the money went into the account, but we don’t know where it went when it was transferred out of the account. We’re still trying to track down the accountant, Perkins. We’ll also begin background checks on the rest of Vaughan’s employees today. That should keep us busy for the next twenty-four hours.”

“You’ve got a long day ahead of you, Sergeant. And what’s your opinion on this case?”

“That someone was trying to stop Vaughan from changing his will, unless there’s another explanation that we haven’t found yet. We hope Perkins will clear up that point when we find him. Going on what we know so far, things are pointing toward Vaughan’s wife setting up her husband.”

“I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” he said with a little smile. She smiled in return. “But it’s like the entire case. It all just seems too perfect to be true. Only a fool would siphon off money like that just before she sets him up for a murder, and Connie Vaughan isn’t a fool.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that this case isn’t over yet, and I think there are going to be some more surprises before it’s finished.”

“And Andrea?”

Morgan dropped her head at his frank perusal. “I was going to visit her on my lunch break.”

“Her family should have been notified last night, so they’ll probably be there when you go. Oh, and do the ‘department’s best wishes for the recovery’ thing, okay? And tell her for me, we’ll get him.”

Oh, just great. The in-laws, a small voice inside her whined. Did I just say “in-laws”? God. Clearing her voice, she said, “Yes, sir, I will.”

“Good. Now get out of here and catch some bad guys.”

As she moved to leave, another thought crossed her mind.

“Any news yet on the, ah, home front?”

His apprehensive expression made her wish she hadn’t asked.

“Not yet, but I should know in the next day or so.”

“I’ve got my fingers crossed for you.”

“Thank you, Morgan. It’s good to have a friend here. Not many of them, I’m afraid. Keep that in mind. The higher up you go, the fewer friends you have.”

“About that, Captain. I’m having second thoughts.”

“Why? You’d make an excellent lieutenant.”

“And the farther up the ladder I go, the less chance I have to leave the office. I don’t know if I could stand being tied to a desk up to my neck in crap paperwork everyday,” she said with a wink.

“Why am I not surprised? All right then, Sergeant, I’ll put your application on hold. Let me know if you change your mind. Again.”

A quiet chuckle escaped his lips as she left his office.