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

Chapter Sixty-One: Lauren, Monday

"Lauren?" 

She groaned in irritation. It had only seemed seconds ago that she'd finally fallen into a fitful doze after staying up all night sitting tightly wound in her hospital bed, worrying about what Joe had been getting up to out there, hoping he'd found Sunny, and hoping that both of them hadn't gone and gotten themselves killed.

"Five more minutes," she slurred. "Need more sleep."

"Babe, it's time to go, they're releasing you. You can sleep in your own bed, if you want."

Her eyes cracked open, and there stood the love of her life. He looked exhausted. "Babe?" she asked. "Have you been up all night?"

Joe nodded and said, "You wouldn't believe the adventure I had. My truck's a write off. We now have only the Versa to get us around."

Her eyes opened wide at that. "What the fuck? What happened?"

"I'll tell you everything on the way home. Tej was good enough to drive me back here with her van. We can take you and Tosh home and then go to Royal Columbian." 

"What? Why are you going to--" she gasped. "Sunny?!"

"He's all right. He took a bullet in the shoulder but he'll heal in time." He chuckled. "Jesus Christ, I don't think we've ever had three members of the LSDC in the hospital at the same time."

"Forget about taking me home. I want to see Sunny."

He sighed in frustration. "Lauren, come on, you can barely get around. They're going to mistake you for one of their patients if we take you there."

He had a point. She sighed and said, "Fine. But you promise he's all right?"

"Yeah, I made sure he was stabilized before I went back to his house with Naira Sandhu."

"Wait, what? Which one?"

"The real one, Birinder's ex, the one on the run, except I'm not sure she's really on the run anymore, but she's staying with the Parhars until this whole thing blows over." He shook his head and peeked his head out of her curtained room before looking back at her. "Man, oh man, Tej is a saint for letting her stay with them after what she put Sunny through, or, well, us through, but since it all worked out in the end--"

"Is Tej here?"

"Yeah, just paying for parking. I think they're just getting the discharge papers ready, and then a nurse will be by with a wheelchair to take you to the van." He paused before saying, "Gary Somers was right. The other Naira legally changed her name from Jasminder. She was an escort before becoming a police informant."

"What happened to her? Did you find her?"

"Yeah. Long story short, she was arrested but is going to testify against her colleagues to get a lighter sentence. There isn't a lot they can charge her with, in the end, and if she cooperates, they might be merciful. I think she and her husband are done, though, after what happened last night."

"You're going to have to tell me everything. This is exciting!"

"Yeah." He looked preoccupied, though.

"What is it?"

"She said something that made me wonder. She said something along the lines of, 'I helped Al, more than you can know.'"

"What?!" she squawked. "So, she did do something to him while she was in his room! Are they going to charge her with that?"

"I don't know. Has anything changed in his condition?"

"When Rachel left late last night, everything was the same."

"Huh. I just can't help thinking about why she was so sure she helped him. What could she do for him that the doctors can't? I can understand her doing something terrible to him; all it would take is one or two plugs ripped from the socket and suddenly the ventilator's off."