“Yes, no problems.”
I can’t help but ask: “Why is he shackled to the bedrail?”
Charlene shrugs. “Hunt came in here before he went home yesterday and put the cuffs on him. I don’t know why. He’s mostly just been sleeping. He only woke up for breakfast. I gave him some Tylenol for a headache, and he was really nice. Very polite.”
“Good,” I say.
“He’s cute too, isn’t he?” She giggles, then her face turns red. “I need to get out more, huh?”
“Yeah…”
She looks at the third bed, where Shane looks like he is still asleep. “I wonder what he did to end up here.”
Charlene is young enough that she wouldn’t remember the excitement around Shane’s trial, even if she is from the Raker area. But I’m not going to be the one to clue her in. “I… I don’t know.”
“I used to look them up on Google,” she goes on. “A lot of these guys have done something bad enough that it was in the news. But it was always such a bummer to find out. I’d rather not know.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know what you mean.”
I leave Charlene to her paperwork and walk over to the bed where Shane is still asleep. I watch him for a moment, blowing air softly between his slightly parted lips. I had been hoping that my hovering over his bed would wake him up, but it hasn’t. So I reach out and touch his shoulder.
Shane’s eyelids flutter, and he reaches out and rubs them with the balls of his hands. When he takes them away, he blinks up at me. His eyes widen and he sucks in a breath. “Brooke…”
“Shane?” I say.
He blinks again. “Oh, sorry, I… it was just weird waking up and you’re there. It was kind of like, you know, déjà vu a little.”
“Yes, I get it.” I grimace. “How are you feeling?”
He yawns as he uses the button to lift the head of the bed. “Kind of like my head got slammed into a desk.” He offers me a weak smile. “I’m okay. Just a headache.”
“How bad on a scale of one to ten?”
“I don’t know. Four maybe. Five?”
“Nausea? Dizziness? Confusion?”
“No, I’m okay.” He struggles to adjust his position in bed, thwarted slightly by the cuff holding his right ankle in place. “Just the headache. That’s it.”
I look down at the shackle on his ankle. “I can tell Officer Hunt to take that off.”
“Nah.” He waves a hand. “Honestly, I’m used to these things by now. It’s not a big deal. And if you push the issue, he’s just going to hate me more.”
“Fine. If you say so…”
I perform a neuro exam, verifying that there’s nothing concerning that would require me to send Shane out for a scan of his head. He looks fine though, like he said. Just the bruise on his head. Although I notice the way he winces when I shine my penlight in his eyes. He has a worse headache than he’s letting on.
“Do you want anything stronger for that headache?”
He massages his fingers into his temple. “No, it’s fine. I had a Tylenol. I can manage.”
I have no idea why Elise wrote “drug-seeking” in his chart. The guy is clearly in pain and he doesn’t even want to ask for anything. “You look pretty uncomfortable. I can give you a Fioricet, if you want?”
He nods gratefully. “Okay, sure, I’ll have some of that.”