Free Winter Moon by Dean Koontz

doctors exchanged a glance again.
    Delaney said, “Heather, I’m not sure you understand what lies ahead for Jack and for you.”
    “Tell me.”
    “He’ll be in a body cast between three and four months. By the time the cast comes off, he’ll have severe muscle atrophy from the waist down. He won’t have the strength to walk. In fact, his body will have forgotten
how
to walk, so he’ll undergo weeks of physical therapy in a rehab hospital. It’s going to be more frustrating and painful than anything most of us will ever have to face.”
    “That’s it?” she asked.
    Procnow said, “That’s more than enough.”
    “But it could have been so much worse,” she reminded them.

    Alone with Jack again, she put down the side railing on the bed and smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead.
    “You look beautiful,” he said, his voice still weak and soft.
    “Liar.”
    “Beautiful.”
    “I look like shit.”
    He smiled. “Just before I blacked out, I wondered if I’d ever see you again.”
    “Can’t get rid of me that easy.”
    “Have to actually die, huh?”
    “Even that wouldn’t work. I’d find you wherever you went.”
    “I love you, Heather.”
    “I love you,” she said, “more than life.”
    Heat rose in her eyes, but she was determined not to cry in front of him. Positive thinking. Keep the spirits up.
    His eyelids fluttered, and he said, “I’m so tired.”
    “Can’t imagine why.”
    He smiled again. “Hard day at work.”
    “Yeah? I thought you cops didn’t do anything all day except sit around in doughnut shops, chowing down, and collect protection money from drug dealers.”
    “Sometimes we beat up innocent citizens.”
    “Well, yeah, that can be tiring.”
    His eyes had closed.
    She kept smoothing his hair. His hands were still concealed by the sleeves of the restraining jacket, and she wanted desperately to keep touching him.
    Suddenly his eyes popped open, and he said, “Luther’s dead?”
    She hesitated. “Yes.”
    “I thought so, but…I hoped…”
    “You saved the woman, Mrs. Arkadian.”
    “That’s something.”
    His eyelids fluttered again, drooped heavily, and she said, “You better rest, babe.”
    “You seen Alma?”
    That was Alma Bryson, Luther’s wife.
    “Not yet, babe. I’ve been sort of tied up here, you know.”
    “Go see her,” he whispered.
    “I will.”
    “Now. I’m okay. She’s the one…needs you.”
    “All right.”
    “So tired,” he said, and slipped into sleep again.

    The support group in the ICU lounge numbered three when Heather left Jack for the evening—two uniformed officers whose names she didn’t know and Gina Tendero, the wife of another officer. They were elated when she reported that Jack had come around, and she knew they would put the word on the department grapevine. Unlike the doctors, they understood when she refused to focus gloomily on the paralysis and the treatment required to overcome it.
    “I need someone to take me home,” Heather said, “so I can get my car. I want to go see Alma Bryson.”
    “I’ll take you there and then home,” Gina said. “I want to see Alma myself.”
    Gina Tendero was the most colorful spouse in the division and perhaps in the entire Los Angeles Police Department. She was twenty-three years old but looked fourteen. Tonight she was wearing five-inch heels, tight black leather pants, red sweater, black leather jacket, an enormous silver medallion with a brightly colored enamel portrait of Elvis in the center, and large multiple-hoop earrings so complex they might have been variations of those puzzles that were supposed to relax harried businessmen if they concentrated totally on disassembling them. Her fingernails were painted neon purple, a shade reflected slightly more subtly in her eye shadow. Her jet-black hair was a mass of curls that spilled over her shoulders; it looked as much like a wig as any Dolly Parton had ever worn, but it Was all her own.
    Though she was only five three