The hospital was quiet, nowhere near visiting hours by the time Nash went in search of Rowan. He got the hairy eyeball from the nurse he asked about Robert, until he explained he was here to pick up the woman who’d ridden with him in the ambulance. Then she relented and gave him the room number. He took the stairs, remembering the other hospital stairwell he’d climbed with her in Lawley and that moment she’d let him comfort her. He wondered if she’d let him do that again or if she’d snap back at him still. She needed someone’s support in all of this.
Robert’s room was predictably dark and quiet, lit by the faint glow of light from the bathroom and the LED displays on the assorted machines the older man was hooked up to. Their beeping and readouts seemed calm and steady. That was good, rig
