“No. Grandpa and Mr. Frank are here, too. But Mr. Frank is downstairs talking to another cop and Grandpa is just outside, talking to a doctor.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been here?”
“Not too long,” Jeffrey said, breaking the hug. “Grandpa brought me in here this morning, when it was still dark outside. And we haven’t had lunch yet, so it’s still pretty early. Do you…do you want me to go get them?”
“No need,” came Frank’s voice from the doorway. “Thanks for looking over her, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey smiled and carefully sat down on the foot of the bed. Frank came to the bedside and took his spot. Without any hesitation at all, he reached out and took her hand.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said.
She nodded and said, “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t get it. How did you even know to be there?”
Frank grinned and looked quickly over to Jeffrey. Ava got the gist of what he was trying to communicate and though she hated to send Jeffrey away after he’d sat so vigilantly by her bedside, she felt it was necessary.
“Jeffrey, can you go hang with your grandpa out in the hallway for a bit? Mr. Frank and I need to talk about grown-up stuff.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. He seemed perfectly happy to oblige, maybe because he was simply glad that she was coherent and speaking.
She watched him go, struck with terror at the idea that she could have died last night, leaving him an orphan. Sure, her dad and Frank would help take care of him, but still…
“I was able to find you and that place,” Frank said when Jeffrey was gone, “because I’ve been looking into Clarence’s case, too.”
“What?” she asked, not sure how to feel about it.
“When I realized about a month ago that this was going to be a crusade for you, I wanted to help. But I also knew that you held what happened to Clarence very close…very personally. So I didit without your knowing. Over the last few days, I’d been looking into real estate deals that had anything at all to do with Jim Spurlock. There were four that I found and when I learned that three of the four were businesses that had been closed down, I started scouting them out. Funny enough…I was on my way to the furniture store last night when I saw you. I almost called out to you but…I don’t know. I didn’t think it was my place. I almost turned around, pretty sure where you were headed, but something told me not to. And then after you went in, I—”
“Thank you.”
“Well, sure. I wasn’t just going to let you wander in there and—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean looking into it all. For not giving up on me and…”
She trailed off, feeling the pain in her head starting to flare up again.
“Yeah, your head was sort of nasty. The doc put twenty stitches in. He said you lost a lot of blood and the swelling is going to be bad.”
“My goodness…and Jeffrey saw me like this?”
“Yeah, but he and your father both thought it looked great. A boxer’s mentality, I guess. You’ve earned your scars and bruises, for sure. Do you want me to get the doctor? I’m sure they’ll be able to give you something for the pain.”
“Yes, that would be great. Thank you.”
Frank nodded and walked to the door. Before he made his exit, though, he looked back at her. He simply looked at her for a moment and then smiled.
“What?” she asked.
“I love you, Ava. And so long as you’ll have me, I’m not going anywhere—despite what my attitude over the last few days might have said.”
She tried to return it, to tell him that she loved him, too. But the emotion of it lodged the words in her throat and by the time she could form the words, Frank was out of the door The smile was still on his face and Ava wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him looking so handsome.
***
Later that afternoon, after a nurse had come in to treat the wound and stitches on her forehead, Frank came back into the room. The smile on his face was even wider as he approached her bedside.
“The doctor says you can leave tomorrow. They think the blow might have scrambled your brain a bit, so they want to keep you overnight just to be safe.”
“Oh,” she said, slightly disappointed. “So then why are you smiling?”