When she opened her eyes more than fifty minutes had passed. Across the room, reading a fresh copy of
Golf Digest
magazine, sat a sandy-haired man who might have stepped from its pages. He was dressed in khaki slacks with acute creases, cranberry silk shirt, and a fine tweed sport coat. His shoes were shined to a reflective gloss and worn with socks perfectly matched to trousers. His brows seemed to disappear into his lightly freckled face and his lashes were so pale the brilliant blue eyes looked naked.
His precise grooming reminded her how long ago she'd last showered. She'd been wearing the same clothes for almost twenty-four hours.
Jess sat up a bit straighter, crossed her legs and ran both hands through her curly hair to fluff it up. That was the best she could do. She'd left her bag in the car and she had no idea where the nearest restroom with a mirror might be. She pretended to watch the inane television commercials and waited for news that would bring her up to date on the Sullivan ranch fire and the Tommy Taylor execution.
Eventually, a nurse poked her head into the room and told the distraught threesome that they could visit their patient. The group shuffled out quietly.
The golfer looked up from his magazine after they'd gone. He blinked his near-naked eyelids as slowly as a turtle might. He glanced toward Jess as if he expected her to initiate conversation.
She said, “I hope their mother's going to be all right.”
“People in this section are usually pretty sick,” he replied. Although his tone was quiet, his words seemed harsh, since she too might have had family in ICU, at least as far as he knew.
“Yes,” she said, and looked up at the television to discourage further interaction.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “In my line of work, I find it's best to deal with hopeless situations as honestly as possible.” He smiled at her, maybe attempting to convey sympathy, presumably for her sick loved one, an act that made his earlier comments all the more disturbing. “I'm Dr. Benjamin Fleming. I'm a grief counselor. I spend a lot of time in places like this. How about you?”
Jess looked down at her hands, stalling for time, hoping he'd think she was sad or depressed or something. Should she lie? Or tell some version of truth?
“A family member?” he asked. “It's hard to lose loved ones, I know.”
She looked up at him then, mesmerized by perhaps the most direct gaze she'd encountered in a long time. Most of the subjects she interviewed didn't meet her eyes for fear that she'd learn more than they wanted to reveal. But Dr. Fleming's gaze made him the interviewer, the eager intruder into the other's most private thoughts.. “Uh, no, not a family member. A friend.”
He nodded, continuing to watch her. “What's wrong with your friend?”
Whoa.
This guy was pushy. She looked down at the carpet, to prevent him from divining too much. “I don't know, exactly.”
“I see,” he said. And she worried that he actually could see exactly what she was doing here, so unnerving was his intensity.
“Is there any way I can help?”
“No, no. I don't think so. But thanks.” She squared her shoulders and returned her attention to the television, which was showing footage of the fire at the Sullivan ranch earlier tonight. She watched until she saw the film of Oliver being wheeled out on a gurney, Helen walking alongside, and the helicopter lifting off to the hospital.
“Do you know the Sullivans?” Fleming asked.
Fully wary, she asked, “Do you?”
“That's why I'm here. You?”
Jolted again by this stranger's bald directness, Jess said, “Not personally,” and again looked away.
She glanced at the clock. The passage of time pressed her nerves like an anvil. Tommy Taylor's execution was tonight. The governor could keep Taylor alive simply by signing her name at the bottom of an order right up until the moment before he died. But she would only do that if Jess could reach her.
As the stranger started to speak again, a young nurse walked into the room with Mike. “Lydia,” read her name badge.
Lydia beckoned Jess over. “Come with me.”
“Lydia?” Dr. Fleming rose from his chair and limped slightly toward the open doorway. He spoke with the assumed authority of a man higher up the chain of command, though he couldn't have physician privileges at the hospital or he wouldn't have been sitting in the waiting room with Jess. “How is Oliver Sullivan coming along? He's my patient, and I need to see him as soon as possible.”
In a manner of subservience to a powerful physician that Jess had observed too many times from hospital nurses but had not expected from spunky Mike's girlfriend, Lydia bowed her head and said, “His wife is with him and she asked not to be disturbed. I promise to let you know as soon as she's finished. Um, sir?”
Fleming had pushed past Lydia and moved down the hall before she could stop him. She turned and looked helplessly at Mike, who turned to Jess.
“Well, that's just great,” he said. “Now what do we do?”
Chapter Fifteen
Tampa, Florida
Friday 2:30 a.m.
HELEN STOOD NEXT TO OLIVER'S BED in the dimly lit room, holding his hand, talking softly as if he could hear her.
“Oliver, I know you can hear me. You'll wake up soon. You'll be fine.”
She had changed from the hospital gown into a pair of green scrubs and slippers one of the nurses offered. After they allowed her to shower away the stench and grime from the fire she would dress in the clothes Frank Temple brought from the ranch, but for the moment the scrubs would have to do.
She felt a little like the bride of Frankenstein. She touched the cuts on her face, those with tiny stitches the plastic surgeon had artfully sewn and smaller ones dressed with ointment and bandages. Her burned right arm still throbbed, but she continued to refuse the pain meds they offered, preferring to stay as alert as possible. Given the physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, she desperately needed sleep, but she couldn't make herself leave Oliver, even to the watchful eyes of the ICU staff and security.
“We'll both be fine,” she whispered soothingly to her husband. “Don't you even think about leaving me now. I need you and you know it. Don't leave me, Oliver. I don't think I can stand it.”
He gave no sign that he heard or understood what she said, but she kept talking to him anyway. Both of his arms lay flat on the bed punctured by tubes flowing into his veins. Someone had cleaned the soot from his body and dressed him in a hospital gown that matched the one she'd exchanged for the scrubs. He smelled almost as bad as she did, but she didn't care. He was breathing on his own. He even looked peaceful, if he might be sleeping, and she could almost make herself believe that he was.
Helen held Oliver's left hand loosely in her right one and continued to look at him as if to memorize his dear face. She heard someone enter the room behind her, but she didn't turn around.
“Is he awake?”
Anger flared when she recognized Ben Fleming's rich baritone, a voice she couldn't help but associate with Eric's funeral and Oliver's crippling depression, not to mention her own weaknesses in the face of her husband's grief. But she kept her voice calm.
“He's going to be fine. He's going to wake up and be just fine. Aren't you, Oliver?” Her voice quavered. She could hear the falseness in her tone and prayed neither Ben nor Oliver could detect it.
Ben put his hand on her shoulder for comfort, but the weight of it reminded her again of matters she preferred to forget. She knew her dislike of Ben Fleming was not rational. He had done nothing but help her and try to help Oliver. Her feelings were a projection of her own helplessness. That's what Ben explained and she knew he was right.
“What did the neurologists say?”
“They said he'd be awake and back to normal soon.” Helen embellished the prognosis a bit for Oliver's sake, but she thought he would forgive her when he woke up.
“That's great, Helen. Really great. I'll leave you alone and see you outside when you're done here.” Ben reached over and patted Oliver's shoulder. “I'll be back, Oliver. See you soon.”
Was it her imagination, or did Oliver twitch when Ben touched him? She placed her hand on his throat and felt his pulse. It seemed faster to her. The heart monitor had sped up, too. That Oliver might respond to Ben Fleming when he hadn't responded to her broke Helen's heart. How could Oliver be closer to his grief counselor than to his wife?
Helen looked up as a different nurse entered the room.
“Good evening, I'm Lydia.” She glanced at the chart, then at Oliver's monitors. “Well . . . What did you say to our patient to get him so excited?” Lydia checked his IV drips and felt his forehead. “He seems a bit warm to me, too. I think you should wait outside until we get him calmed down, okay?” Lydia reached over and picked up the telephone to contact the attending physician.
Helen bent down to whisper into Oliver's ear, putting a stern note into her voice that she didn't really feel. “Don't leave me, Oliver. Don't you dare leave me.” She kissed him on the cheek, stood up and said, “I'll be right outside if you need anything.” She squeezed his hand one more time and imagined that he squeezed back. Then she squared her shoulders and left the room, walking into a knot of people in the corridor that she'd hoped to be spared for a few hours yet.
Frank Temple and Ben Fleming were talking quietly. When they saw Helen, Frank said, “How is he?”
“He'll be fine.”
Ben seemed to see right through her bravado. He came over to her and put a hand on her uninjured arm. “Helen, it's all right to cry. You've been through a lot tonight. You don't have to be strong for us. Let's go back into your room and talk.”
His touch drained every ounce of her will to fight. It seemed so long since she'd been touched simply for solace. She held herself so rigidly in check that she'd almost forgotten how welcome such a gesture could be. She allowed him to lead her away because it was easier. And in truth, she was tired. So tired.
“I know,” murmured Ben, as if she'd told him how she felt. “You're exhausted. The world won't come to an end if you just take a little break. Oliver is in good hands. I know you're worried,” he said as he led her back to her room and helped her onto her bed. “I'll sit here with you for a while. Go ahead and cry. Get it all out. You'll feel better after you do. And then you can rest.”
His quiet voice lulled her as she lay back on the pile of pillows. But despite his best efforts to persuade her, she would not cry. Instead, disheartened and spent, she descended into oblivion.
Chapter Sixteen
Tampa, Florida
Friday 2:30 a.m.
OLIVER WAS ENJOYING A PLEASANT DREAM. He floated in what he recognized as near consciousness, on the edges of deeper sleep. He felt light, weightless. A whiff of jasmine carried on the breeze that feathered beneath his nose. He inhaled its sweet scent deep into his lungs. Jasmine meant springtime, Oliver's favorite season on the ranch.
In the way of dreams, he saw Eric on his tenth birthday, waving his right arm above his head, the lime-green cast covering his skinny forearm and wrapping around his hand, perpetually dirty fingers exposed. Oliver laughed and lifted Eric up to pet the new foal born earlier that morning. Helen stood outside the stall, a bright smile on her face, too.
“Is he mine, Daddy? Can I have him?” Eric's pure joy infected them, all the more welcome because of the scare he'd delivered when he fell from the oak tree six weeks ago.
“Yep,” said Oliver, “he's yours, buddy. What's his name gonna be?”
Eric hugged the horse with both arms and rubbed his nose deep into the stiff hairs. “Jake.”
“Jake it is, then,” Oliver managed to say before Eric turned around in Oliver's arms and nuzzled his dad the same way he'd nuzzled the horse.
Oliver squeezed Eric so tight he yelled, “Hey! Do you think I'm a toothpaste?” The quick flash of Eric's anger shocked both his parents, although such flashes had come with alarming frequency since he'd fallen from the tree and hit his head.
The memory jolted Oliver then and now, jerking him out of his gauzy joy.
Next, he heard his wife's broken heart, her voice, but in the way of dreams, the words made no sense.
“Don't leave me, Oliver. I don't think I can stand it.”
Another voice, deeper, more soothing. “Is he awake?”
He remembered the voice, but couldn't quite identify the speaker.
Who is that? Who are they talking about?
Oliver felt a pat on his shoulder and his pulse rate increased at the new stimuli, not just the touch, but also a memory. Or maybe not a memory, but something his subconscious had pulled up, he thought in the dream, even as he realized he was dreaming.
Was he dreaming? The scene confused him, made his heart beat faster. He felt warm all over, pain in his head, his movement restricted.
“Relax, Oliver. Relax,” he thought, for now he couldn't speak. “It's just a dream. Go back to sleep.”