Chapter 14: The Cut Hand

I got Colt out of the lobby before anyone could ask him a second question.

The security guard let Camille through to the cameras and let us through to the back corridor.

I took Colt to the nurses' lounge, because it had a sink and a lock.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the arm of the sofa with the handkerchief still wrapped around his hand.

It had gone dark red and heavy.

I washed my own hands to the elbow, the way I had done a thousand times, and pulled the kit from the cabinet over the sink.

Gloves, saline, gauze, closure strips.

"Give it here."

He held the hand out, and I peeled the cloth back.

The cut ran from the base of his first finger across the whole palm, deep at one end.

"You need stitches," I said.

"Then stitch it."

"I can't, I'm suspended. I can close it and send you to urgent care."

"You can do anything you like," he said.

I flushed the cut with saline and he flinched once and went still.

His hand lay open in mine, warm and heavy, and I had held a hundred hands that way.

None of them had been his.

I laid the strips across the cut one by one.

"Hold still."

"I am."

"Your pulse is going hard."

"I lost blood," Colt said.

"You lost about a cup."

"Then I lost a cup and a half."

I looked up.

He was looking at my mouth, and then he was looking at the wall.

I went back to the strips and pressed each end down with my thumb.

My thumb stayed on his wrist a little longer than the strip needed.

"Dean's letter," I said.

"Let me see it."

"Where is it?"

He reached into his shirt pocket with the good hand and pulled out the cream envelope.

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