“Yeah. Let him come in.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to go home with the family?”

“No,” her daughter replied in her all-business tone. “And Mr. Crushek has until I get back before he has to leave, too. No canoodling.”

“Canoodling?”

“You know what I mean.”

“But do you know what you mean?”

“Of course, I do. I read.”

Cella ordered herself not to laugh because her daughter was as serious as a heart attack.

“I’ll ask Aunt Jai to stop in, too.” Hand now on the door, Meghan warned, “And, Ma, do not move that leg.”

Staring at her daughter, Cella sat up a bit and jerked.

Gold eyes narrowed on her. “Ma.”

The kid was so easy!

“I’m not moving my leg. Besides, right now I’m so high on whatever painkiller they’re giving me that I feel like I’m floating anyway.”

“I’ll be back,” Meghan threatened.

Once her daughter walked out, Cella relaxed back in her bed and stared across the empty room. After a minute, she announced to no one, “I am so high.”

“So,” Dez reasoned, “basically, her leg will be stronger than it was.”

“Yeah.”

“And she’ll be, without even any physical therapy, back on her feet in like three to four days.”

“Pretty much.”

“And yet they’re all acting like they’re mourning her death.”

“Just the death of her career.”

“One of them. I mean she’s in KZS. I’m relatively certain the half-a-mil they pay her per year—”

“Wait. How much?”

“Oh, yeah. KZS pays really well. They tried to hire Mace when he left the Navy but he had plans with Smitty.”

“So even though we’re paid better than any full-human on the force, no matter the rank, we’re still paid less than everyone else?”

“Civil servants, baby.” Dez stared at Crush for a moment and he tried not to hide from her straightforward gaze. Finally, after a moment, she told him, “It’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault. I should have known Baissier was going to do something like this.”

“That she’d hire hyenas to break your girlfriend’s knee at a hockey game? I don’t think anyone would see that coming.” She pointed her finger at him. “And you’re not that guy.”

Confused, Crush asked, “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I mean, you’re not that guy who takes revenge on his foster mother by cutting her throat while she sleeps.” She pointed at the door. “Dee-Ann’s that guy. She’ll do that shit in a heartbeat. Cella, too. Notyou. You do that shit, you’ll never live with yourself. And then you’ll drive me, your partner, crazy with your Mr. Depression act. So let’s not pretend that you’re the guy who can hunt someone down and exact revenge.”

“So just let it go?”

“Look, I get it. What happened to Cella sucks. And this ... uncaring bitch deserves some pain. But I’m not sure what she did would be considered a mitigating factor for her eventual murder in a court of law. And, yeah, you have claws and fangs, you’re a predator, yada yada—”

“Yada yada?”

“—but at the end of the day, my friend ... you’re still a cop. Old school. You’d never let anyone get away with exacting revenge, either, no matter who or what the hell they were or their perfectly good reasons.”

“But I feel like I owe it to her. I feel I owe Cella.”

“All you owe Cella is flowers, maybe some festive balloons, a ride home from the hospital, and nuzzling. You know, bear love.”

“Bear love? Something else you saw on National Geographic?”

“Or Animal Planet. Both are very helpful in dealing with my husband and my new crop of friends that aren’t canines.”

“I just ...” Crush stopped talking, lifted his nose, and sniffed. Reaching over, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Cella’s daughter stood on the other side, Dr. Davis’s daughter right next to her. It looked like the two girls were in a heated discussion about something, but when the door opened, both froze. He felt like he’d caught them doing something, but he didn’t know what.

“Hi, Meghan. Everything okay?”

Wide-eyed, the girl nodded while she shoved her friend away. The kid took off and Meghan stepped closer. “Mom’s awake.”

Cella yawned and looked up at Jai. Once again, she was writing on a chart attached to a clipboard. What was the woman’s obsession with clipboards?

“Are you all right?” Cella asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Jai lifted her gaze to Cella’s and glared.

“I had no idea everyone was so invested in my career,” Cella muttered. “That they’d all be so upset.”

“Can’t we just be empathetic?”

“What is that word?”

Before Jai could hit her with her clipboard—she was clearly thinking about it—the door opened and Josie ran in, stumbling to a stop by the bed.

“What is it?” Jai asked her daughter.

“Detective Crushek ...”

“What about him?”

“Meghan and I went to find him and he was talking to Detective MacDermot and ... he wants revenge.”