Double the Trouble (Texas Trouble 3) (34 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Although he was glad to see his sister
and
Cole, an hour after Karlie had left him to let them visit, he wanted her back at his side.  Wondering where she was, he asked Cole, who was seated beside the bed in a chair, "You seen Karlie?"

"Saw her earlier in the waiting room, but not since.  She said something about going
to
check on Sarge
...
she'd left him in the car.  I'll check on her, when I head out.
" Cole
told him
distractedly
, then
added
,
"
I'm meeting that snake guy at your
place
, so he can
find
that other snake
, and I
want to
look at those tire tracks
and
take pictures. 
Maybe I'll dust for prints too
.
  I called the Rangers ealier, but until I can give them some hard evidence, they can't help
.
"

"Thanks, man..." Gabe had a bad feeling in his stomach, and it wasn't from the snake bite, or the Jello he'd forced down.  "Could you go find Karlie now?  I'm worried about her."

"Sure, I'll be right back...I'm sure she's either with Sabrina in the waiting room, or down in the parking lot."

"With
Johnson
still on the loose, I'd just
feel better
if she
stayed close
.
..h
e's a lunatic," Gabe told him seriously.
 

Being in this bed and hooked up to all this crap was driving
Gabe
crazy.
  He wanted to get up and move around.
  The swelling
in his arm
had gone down
some, and
they'd cleaned up the wounds and put on a dressing. 
Off and on, it still hurt like hell, but he was sure
the worst of the venom had been counteracted by the anti-venom they'd given him
,
so Gabe was ready to get the hell out of here.

Gabe laid there and stared at the ceiling,
counting the white tiles to pass time,
while he waited for Cole to find Karlie and send her in. 
Laying
here
was as exciting as watching paint dry, and he'd about had enough of it
after twenty minutes had passed and Karlie still hadn't come back.  Instead, a
nurse came in and checked his IV, then reset the pump and took his vitals
.  While she worked, he asked her,
"Have you seen my tall blond friend or his pregnant wife outside?

"I saw him walk to the elevator about twenty minutes ago, but not again since," she said.

"What about the tall woman with the red hair?" Gabe asked, knowing she
couldn't have missed
Karlie's hair.

The woman smil
ed,
then said,
"Oh, you mean your fiancé?  She hasn't been back up here in an hour or so...she'll probably be back soon, I'd guess...she was pretty worried about you."

Gabe didn't think snake bites a
ffected your hearing, but maybe they
did! 
His
fiancé
?
  Gabe didn't correct the nurse, figuring Karlie must have an explanation for telling them that, but he couldn't imagine what it could be. 

Confusion, then fear surged up to his throat and he broke out in a cold sweat.  He
sure hoped that wasn't what Karlie expected out of him, because it wasn't going to happen.  Hell, he'd had the struggle of a lifetime with himself, before he decided to ask her to move in with him!

Gabe had decided a long time ago that he was never getting married.  And he was going to have to explain that to her. His mother leaving his father high and dry when Gabe was six, had about devastated the hardworking farmer.  There was no way in hell he was going to put himself in the same position, even if he knew in his heart Karlie wasn't like his mother.
 

Cole walked back into the room and his pale face was a mask of dread, and Gabe's stomach pitched.  "What's wrong?"

"She's gone..." Cole said then shoved a hand through his hair.  "There were Henrietta cops downstairs and a lot of confusion, but from what I could gather someone saw a man fitting Jake's description drag Karlie and Sarge across the parking lot
.  A witness said he shoved her into a
big black truck with a bull on the grill
,
then
slap
ped
her around."

Gabe vaulted up out of the bed and threw his legs over the side, forgetting he had tubes and cords attached to him.  Monitors started beeping wildly and he fought the tangle of cords to get them off of him.  Cole ran over and shoved him back to the bed, holding him there, as a nurse ran in and started shutting off machines.
"Be still!  You're going to hurt yourself!" Cole shouted at him.

Looking at the frightened nurse, Gabe said through gritted teeth, "Get these
o
ff of me
now
, I'm leaving."

"You can't leave, the doctor is keeping you overnight...maybe a couple of days," she told him, then tried to re
affix
the oxygen tube under his nose.

"I'm fucking leaving...
now
...so you can get them off of me, or I can do it for you!" Gabe shouted then struggled against Cole's hold.
  "Where are my fucking pants?" he asked looking around the room.

"You'll be leaving against medical advice, which means we're not responsible if your condition worsens."

"I get that and I don't care!  Just get this shit off of me now!" he shouted and shoved against Cole again
.  When Cole finally let him go,
Gabe started pulling the wires and pads off of his chest,
then
stood up too quick
and
got dizzy
.  He
wobbled
on his feet
, then sat back down
, as the nurse
pulled off the tape securing the IV and extracted the needle then held pressure there
.  She
got a
Band-Aid
out of her pocket and put it over a cotton ball there.

"Gabe you need to stay here and let them take care of you, I'll find Karlie..." Cole told him, but Gabe wasn't listening.  There was nobody on this Earth who would look farther or long
er
to find her.  He wasn't putting her safety...her
life
in anyone else's hands.

"
Now
, you have your evidence that he kidnapped and assaulted her, get the fucking warrant for him and put out the BOLO.
..and an Endangered Missing Persons Alert if you can get them to do it."

"I'll call the Rangers back, but
we don't have his plate or driver's license number to issue either of them, and
it's in Henriett's jurisdication
...
you know how fast things work here.
"

Standing up, Gabe held onto the bed rail for a second
,
until he was steady then walked over to the small closet and opened it
to
pull out his jeans and boots.  He sat down in the chair and pulled them on, then stood up again.  He didn't have a  shirt, since they'd cut his off, but he didn't care.
  'I'm going to fix the information problem right now.  Can you give me a ride to the station?  I can't drive as hopped up as they have me."

"Sure, that's not a problem, but you need to get some clothes on, man. 
You look like you have the mange with a
ll that missing hair on your chest and the welts where you pulled off those wires," Cole told him with a grin.

"I'll get you a scrub top, give me a second," the disgruntled nurse told him.

Gabe felt a vibration in his pocket and stuck his hand inside and pulled out Karlie's cell phone.  Dammit, she didn't even have her phone!  He'd forgotten to give it back to her, after he used it when they wrecked.  He answered it, "Yeah?"

"May I speak to Karlie Upton?" a cultured, but definitely southern voice asked.

"Who's calling?" Gabe asked curiously.

"This is the attorney handling the Joseph Johnson estate, I forgot to tell Ms. Upton something when she called a few minutes ago about Sarge."

"She called you?  Just now?" Gabe asked with hope filling him.

"Yes, isn't this her phone number?" the man asked in confusion.

"She's been abducted by Jake Johnson...what did she want when she called you?"

"Oh, no..." the man said, then cleared his throat, "
um...t
hat's privileged information, Mr.?"

"Gabe Kelley, Chief Deputy with the
Bowie
Sheriff's Office.  This is a matter of life and death here--can you
please
tell me what she said when she called?"

After a brief hesitation, the man told him, "She wanted to tell me she'd made a mistake about Jake abusing Sarge and wanted me to reinstate him as guardian..."  The man cleared his throat again then said, "I thought she sounded funny...like she'd been crying or something."

"He took her from the parking lot of this hospital and beat her in the truck, before he took off," Gabe told him in a choked voice, the
n asked, "His grandfather was your client right?"

"Yes...I'm the administrator of Joe Johnson's estate," the lawyer verified.

"Then you have no client privilege where Jake Johnson is concerned, correct?" Gabe asked hoping this would work.

"That's correct.  He's just the guardian appointed by the estate to care for Mr. Johnson's pet."

"Good--I need to get all the information on Jake Johnson that you have.  Social Security number, Driver's License number, address, cell phone number...anything you have.  We need to issue a warrant for his arrest."

"Certainly, that's not a problem, one second..." Gabe heard him flipping through papers then he gave Gabe all the information he requested and then some.

"Thank you so much, Mr.?" Gabe asked.

"Barney Carroll...and please let me know what happens with Ms. Upton.  She sounds like a really lovely young lady.  I
hope you find her
.
..Jake is a little, um...odd.
"

"
That's putting it mildly...I'll let you know when we find her
," Gabe said then turned off the phone and finished writing on the small pad on the table beside the bed. 

He looked at Cole and smiled then said,
"Bingo, we have everything we need," then put on the shirt the nurse had left for him on the bed.  She walked back in with a clipboar
d and made him sign himself out, then gave him two prescriptions, one for pain and the other an antibiotic.
 
Gabe shoved the paper into his pocket then
looked up as Sabrina walked into the room.

"What're you doing out of bed, Gabe?" she asked him sternly, her face not happy.

"I'm getting the hell out of here and going to find Karlie," he told his sister decisively.  She wasn't going to chan
ge his mind, that was for sure.

She looked up at Cole and he shrugged and said, "He signed himself out..."

"Ugh, you're going to kill yourself, Gabe..." Sabrina told him shaking her head.  "I guess I need to help so you don't," she said with a grim smile.

"I don't want you involved, Sis...and I know Cole doesn't either.  We've got this," he told her then grabbed his arm as a pain shot up it to his shoulder.
  "Let's get going..." he gritted through his teeth and walked to the door.