With Mac getting quite a considerable amount. Then she noticed a number that concerned her. “Why would you only get twenty-five percent of your bank account?”
“Because I only contribute approximately twenty percent. He was generous. I was willing to settle for a flat sum, or even something like ten percent. He wanted to make sure we split it fairly. Between his pension, benefits, writing, and speaking engagements, he makes a helluva lot more than I do in a good year, sugar.”
“What’s all this stuff mean?” She closed the folder and set it on the table.
“I wanted you to see that this isn’t all it appears to be on the surface. He went through a lot of trouble to make sure I was protected. That’s why he got the life insurance. Again, Sully did that, not me. He wanted to make sure that if something ever happened to him, I was protected and no distant relatives could swoop in to try to take over. That’s the only reason I’m on the properties and the trust. I didn’t want to be. I wanted him to totally own everything, but the lawyer said with properties that it would be better if we were both on them because it would save the other on IRS crap in case one of us died, and it would help prevent any other issues.”
“Relatives like who?”
“Sully’s ex-wife, for one. She’s friends with a cousin of his. I wouldn’t put it past them to try something. Fucking bitch.” His expression darkened as he took another pull on his beer. “My brother’s cool with it. He wouldn’t try something.”
“Ex-wife?” She didn’t realize Sully had been married.
“Yeah.” He leaned back, crossing his legs. “She presented him with divorce papers while he lay in the hospital after the shooting.
Could barely open his eyes, and she forced him to sign everything.
Fortunately, I helped him get that overturned because he wasn’t coherent.”
Rage built inside her. Despite her stubborn, lingering reservations about Sully, the fact that someone would take advantage of him like that boiled her bacon.
Mac hadn’t finished. “He told me I could tell you about how we got together,” he softly said. “I think you should hear it.”
Clarisse nodded.
“It started almost nine years ago.”
Mac sat at the lunch counter with the paper opened to the want ads. His mood darkened with each failure. He didn’t want to reenlist, even if the Army would take him back. He’d end up in the brig after punching some CO out, without a doubt. Since Betsy’s death, he struggled every day just to get out of bed, and then it was a fight not to kill someone until he went to bed every night. He couldn’t get rid of the anger.
The guilt.
The waitress, Lisa, walked over and refilled his coffee. “Real fucking shame, isn’t it?”
If she wanted to bust his balls, today was not the day to do it.
“What is?” he growled.
She gave him a strange look. “Didn’t you hear?”
He slammed his pen onto the counter. “Hear what?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! You haven’t.” She set the coffee pot down, her mood totally changed. “Sweetie, there was a shoot-out last night. A drug bust at some bar went bad.”
A chill washed down Mac’s spine. He didn’t want to hear, but he asked anyway. “What happened?”
“That detective friend of yours. The one who worked your sister’s case. He’s in Harborside’s ICU. They don’t know if he’ll make it.”
Mac didn’t remember the drive to St. Pete. He knew the way to the ICU and fortunately recognized two of the officers standing vigil outside the unit. They found their supervisor, who spoke to the nursing staff and got Mac in. HIPAA be damned, Sully was a cop, one of their brothers, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
There was no one else there, no family, no friends. One of the other detectives walked in with him, a friend of Sully’s, and explained the basics.
Mac remembered how hollow, nearly dead he felt as he forced his feet across the room to stand beside Sully’s bed. Unconscious, on a ventilator, tubes, and IVs and monitor leads all over him.
For a moment, he flashed back to when Betsy lay in a bed in this very unit, then he shoved that away.
Mac didn’t want to admit what he felt. He’d meant to call Sully several times over the past few months, just never got around to it.
He’d thought about him a lot, especially over the past several weeks as the anniversary of Betsy’s death drew near. They’d talked all the time in the beginning, several times a week, sometimes several times a day after Betsy’s funeral. Then Mac let things drift, didn’t return all of Sully’s calls.
Didn’t want to admit he struggled with his anger, grief, and guilt.
Didn’t want Sully to think he was looking for a handout or pity.
And here he lay in a bed with fucking tubes and wires in him. The only person who seemed to understand him, who’d had the right words, and knew what he had gone through because he’d lost a loved one in a similar way. The anger.
The guilt.
Love. He wanted to break down and cry and hold Sully’s hand and confess that yes, maybe it was weird and strange, but he loved him.
The detective who stood on the other side of the bed while helpfully droning details about Sully’s condition made that impossible.
So did the wedding band on Sully’s left hand.
Mac didn’t even know what that meant for him. He wasn’t gay, yet here lay a man he’d gladly spend the rest of his life with if given half a chance. A man who’d talked him out of killing himself, who’d spent more than one night sitting with him, watching him until he sobered up. The man who’d called 911, rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital, and stayed there three days with him, then drove him home and stayed a week with him after he’d decided to chase fifty Tylenol PM with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s following Betsy’s husband’s conviction.
A man who’d given him hope. Friendship.
Who had faith in him even when his own had shriveled and died.
After their fifteen minute visitation ended, the detective led Mac back to the waiting room. He asked to speak to Sully’s wife, he thought he remembered her name was Cybil, but he’d never met her.
After some of the officers exchanged uncomfortable looks, they told Mac she wasn’t there and probably wouldn’t return.
Protective rage surged within Mac. He pulled Sully’s partner aside to talk with him privately. He’d been helpful with Betsy’s case but Mac didn’t feel a fraction as close to him. “What’s going on?”
The detective, Jason Callahan, glanced around and lowered his voice even more. “She’s on the way out, okay? He didn’t know it, but she was planning on filing for divorce next week. She’s met someone else.” He looked disgusted. “She told us all of that while we waited on him to make it through surgery. Once he was out and stable, she took off. We got the impression she’s hoping he doesn’t pull through because it would make her life easier. Bitch.”
“Who’s taking care of him?”
He shrugged. “We’re here for him.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“He doesn’t have any close family, if that’s what you mean.”
“Can I stay and help? Please?”
Jason’s expression softened. He knew Sully and Mac were close friends. “He wouldn’t expect you to do that.”
“Please?”
“Okay. We’ll talk to the staff for you.”
Jason convinced Cybil to sign permission forms allowing Mac to be there in her absence, to help care for Sully.