Page 90 of Manner of Death

“Bashir! You need to—”

“Are you okay?”

“Honey.” Sawyer reached in through the window and pressed his good hand to Bashir’s cheek. “You’re amazing, you just saved my life and I love you so fucking much, but you’ve got to back the car up. Right now, before he dies.” If he wasn’t dead already. “We need him alive.”

“We—” Bashir looked down and swore. “Fuck, right, hang on.” He put the car into reverse and backed up, and a second later he was out and crouching down beside Boyce, who appeared to be unconscious. He ripped off the face mask, and—

Sawyer breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Andy Boyce behind the mask. He’d known it ought to be, it had to be, but there had been just enough doubt in his mind to make him wonder whether they were doing the right thing. Now, though…

Now he wasn’t wondering anymore.

His ears rang as he sank down next to Bashir, forcing his fatigue back in an effort to help Bashir keep this worthless asshole alive. They rang and rang…and then the room was filled with cops, and there was Nan, and Sawyer realized that it wasn’t ringing in his ears, it was sirens.

“What the fuck,” Nan exclaimed, and Sawyer chuckled as he let her pull him away from Boyce.

Then the room went dark, and he sank into that darkness gratefully.

Sawyer opened his eyes, focused on a familiar water stain on the ceiling, and groaned. Shit, he was back in the hospital again.

“We ought to just put your name on this door from here on out,” Nan said from somewhere close by. Sawyer grimaced as he turned his aching neck to look her way. She was sitting in a chair beside his bed, a cup of water with a bendy straw in her hands. She held it out to him. “Drink. Slowly, though.”

Sawyer did so, grateful to get the taste of dust out of his mouth. Dust…plaster, the kitchen, Boyce, Bashir, oh shit—

“Whoa, it’s okay!” Nan put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down onto the bed when Sawyer made to get up. “You need to calm down. You’ve still got an IV attached, Sawyer.”

“Is Bashir okay?” he demanded. “What happened to Boyce? Is he alive?”

“Dr. Ramin is fine,” Nan assured him. “He’s a little bruised from the confrontation in the house, but he’s going to be just fine. He’s actually here in the hospital, but he’s filling out paperwork in the cafeteria.”

Paperwork? What paperwork? “I’m so confused,” Sawyer confessed.

“Yeah, I bet.” Nan sighed and sat back. “The short version is this: Dr. Boyce is alive, but in critical condition. It’s too soon to say whether or not he’ll live. And Dr. Ramin isn’t under any sort of arrest, so get that look off your face,” she added. “The evidence against Boyce is overwhelming now that we got a warrant to search his home, not to mention he tried to kill the two of you and is undoubtedly responsible for killing the cops we had stationed outside Dr. Ramin’s place.” Nan closed her eyes for a second. “The son of a bitch cut their throats.”

“I’m sorry,” Sawyer said softly.

“Me too, but we’re not the ones who did it, so.” She stared blankly at the wall for a second, then refocused on Sawyer. “Anyhow. We’ve got Tami Glen back in interrogation, only she refuses to talk until she can see Bashir, and Bashir refuses to leave the hospital until he can see you, which you’d think we’d be able to argue about but the man is vicious when it comes to hitting soft spots. So, we called a compromise: as soon as you wake up he gets to see you, and then it’s back to the station to talk to Glen.”

“I can go with him,” Sawyer said.

“Bullshit you can.”

“I’m fine!” Her glare could have peeled paint. “I’m not perfect, but I’m no worse off than I was before.”

“You collapsed on the scene, and you expect me to believe that?”

Sawyer sighed. Sure, he might have gotten a little dehydrated, maybe a little out of balance with electrolytes or woozy from compounded head trauma, but he really didn’t feel worse now than he had the last time he was let go from the hospital. And there was no way he was leaving Bashir to handle seeing Tami on his own, especially after what Boyce had done to them. “I’ll check myself out if I have to.”

“Sawyer…”

“Don’t tell me not to. I don’t care. I’m going with Bashir.” He smiled. “In fact, if you could let him know I’m ready to go, that would be great.”

Nan rolled her eyes but got to her feet. “Fine, but when he tells you you ought to stay here, I hope you listen to him.”

“I will.” I absolutely won’t.

Sawyer managed to detach the IV and monitoring equipment, use the bathroom, and soothe his irate nurse in the time it took Bashir to join him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed brushing tiny remnants of plaster out of the nooks in his cast when Bashir came in, looking like he’d just run up from the cafeteria. He’d changed into different clothes, but judging from the dark circles beneath his eyes, he hadn’t gotten any sleep in the—Sawyer glanced at the clock on the wall—four hours since his home had been invaded by a maniac.

“Hey.”