The Good Race

Chapter 11

 "WELL, McKENZIE, YOU'RE the last person I ever thought would become an officer of the law."

Danny looked up and arched an interested brow at his most recent visitor and old rival. "And you, Willis, are the last person on Earth I thought would come visit me in the hospital. I must have been extremely close to death."

"Jackie came bursting into my place crying her face off. I haven't seen her cry like that since she got left high and dry on prom night."

"Well, that's one of the things I hoped to be able to explain to her. I figure the Hippocratic Oath is the only thing that's preventing her from punching me in the face right now."

"I never took to the Hippocratic Oath," Ryan shrugged with a smirk.

"You punching me in the face would be a violent act that risks causing significant bodily injury to a police officer, Willis—a little thing we like to call a felony," Danny smirked back. "I'd tolerate it coming from her. You, not so much."

Ryan began to wander around the room. Hospitals were so depressing. The ugly salmon color they all seemed to be painted did nothing to cheer anything up. "She knows why you didn't show up."

"She what?" Danny perked up.

"I went to your room that night with Cooper intent on beating the shit out of you. The resident advisor told us what happened. Jackie knows you didn't mean to stand her up."

Danny dropped his head back and blew out a breath. "Good." Ryan wasn't sure if Danny intended him to hear that or not, but chose not to respond.

"I was able to translate from all the sobbing and blathering that you agreed to convalescence in New Hampshire with her, that true?" Ryan stopped his wandering and turned to face Danny, arms crossed over his chest.

"Yes."

"If you have second thoughts, now would be the time to voice them."

Danny glared at Ryan, clearly deciding on how best to word what he wanted to say. He settled on, "You know what? Fuck you, Ry. I may be too weak to pound you into the floor, but my trigger finger works just fine, and I have no compunction about popping a fucking slug in your sorry ass."

"Hold on a second," Ryan said, holding his hands out in a sign of peace.

"No, you hold on for a fucking second," Danny snapped back. "I got news for you. I was taking your sister to the prom because I liked her. You get that? Everyone at that school thought she was weird, but I understood her and she understood me. She's the only one that ever did. And it may blow that fucking stuck up, pea-sized brain of yours, but I respected her, which was fucking nuts for me because I didn't respect anyone. It took me a while to figure out what that even meant. So take your better than everyone attitude and shove it up your ass."

Ryan raised his eyebrows at Danny's tirade. For a guy that just had surgery, he still was quite a formidable force. "Okay, I may have had that coming for past transgressions, but you jumped the gun here. I came here to talk to you specifically when Jackie wasn't around."

"Why?"

"You might get more than you bargained for going to New Hampshire."

"I seriously doubt it, but explain."

Ryan let the first part of that retort go by and addressed the second. "Do you remember what we once talked about in your dorm room?"

"About her dad's death being suspicious?"