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Prescott shook his head. "I've talked to a contact I have at the police department. They held Dillon based on the evidence and testimony they've got, but their evidence is in conflict. Depending on the angle you take, both Jon and Dillon look guilty. They're just waiting for Victoria to wake up to hear what she has to say."
"Is that the only reason you're entertaining the thought? Because of the evidence?"
"No."
"Say it for me, Prescott," Benjamin demanded, leaning forward. "Say you believe my father is responsible. Say you believe my father shot my sister."
Prescott flinched at the words, but he didn't look away. "Benjamin, I believe Jon drew a weapon with the intent of making Dillon Ferguson leave, and when they struggled over it, the weapon went off. He may not have pointed a gun at Victoria," he emphasized with a jab of his finger, "but he is responsible."
Benjamin looked quickly between all the Prescotts at the table, including Logan's wife Patricia. Every one of them looked at him with the same conviction. Jewell's hand tightened on his under the table. He shifted and cleared his throat, holding his gaze on Prescott, watching for the slightest flinch. But his godfather didn't waver.
"That's your business partner of nearly forty years you're calling an attempted murderer, Prescott," he finally said, waiting for the reaction.
Prescott simply nodded, a slow and deliberate movement of his head.
"We're going to watch out for her," Logan said, leaning slightly toward his father to draw Benjamin's attention away from Prescott. What had been a light, casual expression on his face when the conversation began was now serious, unwavering. "We'll watch out for her, and when the doctors are ready to let her wake up, we'll let you know. We'll make sure she's never alone until she comes around and tells the police what happened. Dad has already worked it out to have someone there. He told Jon it was to protect Victoria since Dillon has been released on bail."
Benjamin gritted his teeth and released Jewell's hand under the table, bringing his hands together in front of him with his elbows on either side of his plate. The idea of leaving Hartford twisted in his gut like an angry snake.
The subject was dropped for the rest of dinner, and Benjamin focused on catching up with the people who had been more like a family to him than his own. Logan was only slightly younger than him, and they had attended Bridlethorpe together until Benjamin accelerated his education and graduated early. They had roomed together, and while Logan hadn't learned to sign, he had assisted Benjamin with his speech therapy and lesson notes. Every year, the Prescotts invited Benjamin to their home for the holidays. The only reason he turned them down was because he wanted to go home to Victoria.
Abigail was younger, just a fraction older than Victoria, so the two Prescott children fell between the Roth children in age. It was difficult for Benjamin to look at the beautiful young girl sitting beside him, and reconcile her with the little girl who followed him and Logan around, constantly asking them to play dolls or come to her tea parties. He wished now he'd agreed more often than he did. She was a college graduate and working as a paralegal at the Law Firm of Roth, Prescott, and Heinlein. She was engaged, and Logan and Patricia were expecting their first child.
Life moved on.
He just wondered if life had left him behind.
* * *
The hospital was still and quiet, the only sound of the occasional nurse speaking to another or the distant beep of a life monitor. The lights were dimmed in the ward, giving the illusion of rest. The sound of the bottle of juice dropping through the vending machine seemed intrusive, and Jewell looked down the hall to see if anyone had been disturbed. The hallway was vacant save for the one nurse at the main desk who stood on the hall side, writing on a clipboard.
Visiting hours had ended long ago, but the nurses didn't say anything when Jewell and Benjamin arrived at nearly ten o'clock. They just smiled and nodded and motioned toward Victoria's room. Comparatively speaking to Jon Roth and the rest of the family, Benjamin had to be easy to deal with.
Jewell walked back down the hall toward Victoria's room, offering a smile to the nurse on duty as she passed. She paused outside the door, bracing herself before she went inside.
Victoria's doctors had moved her from the ICU to a private room with pale green walls, intended to soothe, with watercolor landscapes framed on the walls and carpeting on the floor instead of cold linoleum. A heavy stillness filled the room, and the burn of antiseptic tingled her nose down the back of her throat. The air was thick, humidified, but cool.
The narrow hospital bed engulfed her. White sheets and pale blue blankets blended with her too-pale skin, her dark brown hair a sharp contrast to the lack of color and life. While the image of her newest friend lying so still and pale always made Jewell's chest tighten, it was the tableau of the man seated beside the bed that gripped hardest at her.
He had pulled one of the two visitor chairs to the side of the bed, as close as he could get. His head was down, his arms folded on the edge of the mattress beside Victoria's hip, his hand covering hers. Benjamin looked broken and tired, hunched in supplication to something greater than himself that Jewell doubted he even understood.
They'd been given the medical rundown. The bullet had punctured Victoria's liver and perforated her intestines. It had ripped straight through her thin body from back to front, leaving vicious gashes in her abdomen. The skin would heal, and the scarring could be reduced with proper plastic surgery, the liver would repair itself. It had been the perforation of her intestines that had caused the most concern.
The doctor told them any injury to the digestive tract could be deadly. Sepsis and infection could run rampant through her body and kill her within a couple of hours of an injury like this, but the doctors had hit her with massive doses of antibiotics before she even went into surgery. The first few days everyone had held their breath, waiting for signs that infection had taken over her body or that it had been beaten back in time. After only a mild fever, all signs indicated she'd gotten past the worst threat.
Now, she rested in a drug-induced coma while her body healed. The doctors told them that the pain would be very bad, and she could recuperate faster if she just slept through the worst of it until she could better cope with the pain of healing.
But, her recovery would be complete.
Now, they waited…and Benjamin watched.
Jewell set the bottle of juice on the rolling bedside table and walked around the foot of the bed to his side. She laid her hand on the back of his head, combing her nails through the soft waves of his hair. With a heavy sigh, she looked up to Victoria's surreal, serene face.
"He's trying to decide if he can leave you, or not," she said softly, knowing that perhaps her words would carry through the silence in Victoria's sleeping mind. "He's afraid to leave you alone but knows he can't do anything here until you're awake. I know you won't hold against him whatever he does, he just doesn't know that."
Benjamin shifted his arms so his forehead rested in the crux of his elbow and reached around his head to take her hand from his hair, folding his fingers around hers. His lips brushed her knuckles and he pulled her closer. When her legs hit the side of the chair, he sat up and turned into her, resting his temple against her stomach. He wrapped his arm around the back of her legs, pulling her as close as he could with the chair arm as a barrier between them.
"We'll go back to Boston tomorrow morning," he said after several minutes in that position.
