The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Forty-Seven: Sunny, Sunday

Sunny and Tori walked into the Emergency Department of Burnaby Hospital, after a tense drive in which both of them had been constantly checking their rearview and sideview mirrors for any cars following them. Neither of them had told the other what they'd been doing, but they could both see the other doing it. How else could Sunny reconcile Lauren getting into a car-flipping accident mere minutes after leaving a place that had been harassed by drones? Sure, it could have been terrible luck, or a wet highway, but Sunny knew his friend to be a fantastic driver, simply because she used her car for so much of her work. If she'd been followed, though, that left the question of why Sunny and Tori hadn't.

"We need to get the story from Lauren before we start speculating," he said. "If she's awake, that is."

They approached the reception area of the Emergency Department, with its harried looking nurses answering phones and checking computers, and Sunny almost felt guilty for asking one of them where Lauren was. It took no time at all for her to give them the information, though, and they navigated the maze of curtained rooms until they found it. 

Sunny peeked through a gap in the curtain, and was immediately met with the wall that was Joe's enormous back. "Permission to come aboard, Captain?" he asked.

Joe turned around and saw him peeking. "Sunny!" he said, looking almost pathetically glad to see him. "Come in, it's a bit tight, but we'll make room."

"I brought Tori with me, if that's okay," he said as he opened the curtain wider and saw Joanie standing beside Joe. He noticed the curtain to the bed beside theirs was also open, and Tosh lay there with his arm in a cast and gauze wrapped around his forehead, and Naomi sitting on the edge of his bed. Sunny wondered if the emergency room staff had arranged for them to be side by side by moving patients around. "She drove," he went on, "because I was in no condition to drive when I heard the news, I was just too distraught."

"Aw, you big softy," he heard Lauren say, and his confession, made partly in jest, turned out to be completely in earnest when his face crumpled at hearing her voice, because she was okay, more than okay if she was joking with him, and the relief he felt was overwhelming.

He tried to pull himself together by the time Joe moved aside for her, but when she saw his face she began to cry, too, and by then he was helpless. "Jesus," he said as he kissed her forehead, as gently as possible because her neck was in a brace and he didn't want to cause any further damage. "Oh, Lauren, what happened?"

She cleared her throat to compose herself, and quickly wiped a tear from her eye. "Someone was following us," she said, her voice all business now. "Dark green unmarked car with long antennae and a ramming bar. It looked police-like, but there were no lights and sirens. It tried to run us off the road, and in my efforts to evade it I made a swerve for the turnoff, you know, just at the last second so it couldn't get on and follow me. In retrospect, the swerve was ill-advised. It was too wet, and I flipped the Highlander." She closed her eyes and sighed, and her chin quivered again. "And now, because of me, my son is in the next bed over, and Al is in a coma, and I don't know if he'll ever wake up."

Hearing Lauren confirm Al's diagnosis made Sunny's heart sink. "I haven't been to see him yet," he said.

"He's in the ICU," Joe said. "They might not let you in his room if you're not a relative."

"Can you try, though?" Lauren asked. "Can you tell him I'm sorry?"

Her desolation broke his heart. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault," he said. "You were just trying to get away from whoever was chasing you. If anyone's to blame, it's the person behind the wheel of that car; they obviously meant you harm."

"Who would it have been, though?" Tori asked behind him. "And how can we report them?"

"I don't know," Lauren said. "I didn't get a plate number, I was too busy trying not to get hit."