The Housewife Assassin's Garden of Deadly Delights (29 page)

While Kendra gets behind the wheel, Jared and Jason heave him onto the gurney, which is then rolled down the airport’s freestanding security ramp before he’s loaded into the ambulance. I jump in back too. Before they can say anything, I pull out my Acme ID, showing I have the highest level of clearance. Jason raps Kendra’s back window, and we’re off.

Jared taps an artery in Jack’s arm in order to insert a saline IV. Jason puts him on oxygen, then hooks him up to a heart monitor. I can hear Kendra calling the hospital’s trauma team in order to alert it that a GSW trauma is en route.
 

The first eight minutes of the ride go quickly. Jared is on constant vigil: checking Jack’s blood pressure, his pulse, and talking to him, to see if Jack will come to. At the same time, Jason has me filling in the blanks: about Jack’s age, health issues, allergies, medical status, and how he ended up in the path of a bullet while in midair.

As you can imagine, his eyes widen when I say, “I’d tell you, but because your security clearance isn't high enough, I'd have to kill you."

That would be a much-needed moment of comic relief if the next thing out of Jared’s mouth wasn’t, “Patient crashing!”

The next thing I know, Jared is placing a bag-valve mask over Jack’s mouth and nose to force oxygen into his lungs. He then positions himself over Jack and begins chest compressions, counting them off.
 

When this still doesn’t get him breathing, Jason goes in with the hardware. I turn my head when he attaches the electrodes of the defibrillator and hold my breath as he shouts out, “Clear!” And I hear the telltale sound of the electric shock from the defibrillator jumping Jack’s heart.

Finally, he yells, “Pulse!”

Jared and Jason slap high-fives.

Suddenly, the ambulance makes a turn so wide that the fluid bags are flung sideways on their poles. In anticipation of a quick stop, the EMTs brace themselves. Not me. I’m tossed forward and onto the floor. I look up to see Jack’s fluid bags spinning on their hooks.

“Women drivers,” Jason mutters. “Gotta love ‘em.”

How serene Jack looks, despite the chaos around him.

No, Jack, it is not your time to rest in peace.

Jack’s saviors fling open the back doors and shove his gurney into the waiting arms of his receiving party—four ER personnel, male and female, nurses and doctors—who swirl around him like desperate dervishes, whose liturgy is made up of their patient’s life support stats.
 

I run after them as they wheel him through the ER into a hallway leading to the surgery suites. I have to hold it together when Jason and Jared bar me from entering the OR, if only to ask, because I need someone to tell me something—anything, even if it’s not something I want to hear: “Will he survive?”

Their eyes meet over my head. “Miracles happen every day,” Jason finally mutters, dubiously.

That’s my cue to pray.
 

I guess this is one of those times where the least and most you can do are one and the same.

It’s a four-hour surgery. I’ve been told, “Make yourself comfortable in the waiting room.”

Talk about a poor choice of words. There is nothing comfortable about fear and anxiety and the interminable delay of knowledge. So, when I’m not praying, I’m pacing. And when I’m not pacing, I’m blaming myself for—

For what?

For falling in love with a man whose job always puts him in peril? Or for getting out of the line of fire instead of taking the bullet now embedded somewhere in his brain?
 

I collapse
 

 
a chair and bury my head in my hands. But I refuse to cry—at least, not until I know, one way or another.

I close my eyes and my mind to the inevitable: a life without Jack.

When I feel a tap on my shoulder, I practically leap out of my skin.

“Mrs. Stone?” I look up into a man’s face, fatigued and scruffy, above green surgical scrubs. The name tag reads
Mario Martinez, MD
. “I just wanted to let you know that we’ve done all we can.”

I collapse back into my chair. “So, Jack is…gone.”

My partner. My love.

My life.

“No—”
 

It takes a minute for the word to winnow into my subconscious.

There is hope.

“—But it’s still touch-and-go,” Doctor Martinez warns me. “When we saw that there was no exit wound, we feared the worst. During the operation, resuscitation was needed, twice. Frankly, it’s rare to operate when a patient has such a severe GCS.” He winces. “Let me put it this way—it helps that he has friends in high places.”

In other words, God. Well, and Ryan.

“The fact that the caliber of the bullet was small—a twenty-two—saved his life. It penetrated both the skin and the scalp, but luckily, not the skull.”

I can’t believe my ears. “That’s good, right? But, all that blood loss—”
 

“One of the superficial external carotid arteries was nicked.”
 

He holds up a .22 bullet. It is somewhat flattened, but intact. “It was buried just beneath his scalp. His skull is fractured, but the bullet didn’t penetrate it.”

“Will he…survive?”

“We don’t know yet. He’s still in a coma. Even if he wakes up, the massive concussion he incurred may lead to a lifetime of tremors, or even brain damage. It’s a waiting game.”

“Doctor, may I go to him?”

He nods. “Follow me.”

Jack is my sleeping prince.

I force myself to block out the bandage wrapped around his head, and the fluid tubes and monitors attached to different parts of his lifeless body. Instead, I make myself remember his dry, cutting wit, and his boundless courage, and his deep, resonant voice, especially when he said, “I love you.”

His eyes are closed, which is good, because I’d hate for him to see the tears flowing down my cheeks. I must keep it together. They say that it helps if you talk to coma patients. But since there’s no manual listing other do’s and don’ts, I have to wing it. I don’t know whether or not it’s okay for me to smother him with kisses, but that’s what I do.
 

He can’t comment back, so my non-stop chatter becomes a confessional. Whether Jack can hear me or not, I tell him how relieved I am that he’s still alive, and that I feel guilty for having ducked without first checking to see if he was out of the line of fire, and that I’m sorry for all the times I should have listened to him but didn’t.
 

I come clean with all the mistakes I know I’ve made in our relationship, no matter how big or small. More to the point, I promise that in the future I won’t wait until he’s in a coma to tell him when he’s right.

And for that reason alone, he should wake up.
 

Until death do us part.

I wonder if I’ll ever get to say those words to Jack.

In truth, the phrase does not conjure up fond memories. I shivered when I said it to Carl on our wedding day. The phrase, in French, was how Jack’s wife, Valentina, chose to reach out to him after running off with Carl.

Now that both Carl and Valentina are dead, Jack and I were ready to move our lives forward, together.

Just thinking about it reminds me of Catherine’s ring, deep in my pants pocket. I pull it out and stare down at it. Its large round-cut diamond is raised above the smaller stones, which are encrusted around the antique gold band. From its age, I presume it’s a family heirloom.
 

For the first time, I notice that the diamond is a bit loose. It doesn’t come off, but can be raised just enough to hold something within its prongs—

Something very thin—

A slim metal disk. It is a microdot.
 

Catherine’s last words to me were
You’ve now got what you need.

This must be what she meant.

She also said,
Remember—you promised.

I was too late for her.

I hope this isn’t the case for Jack too.

I reach for my phone and call Ryan.

“How is he doing?” Ryan’s voice sounds anxious.

“They have him stabilized, but he’s still in a coma. The bullet was found under his scalp—almost as flat as a pancake.”
 

Ryan’s attempt at a chuckle is weak. “He’s lucky he’s so hard-headed.”

“I’ll be honest with you—there’s no telling how long he’ll stay this way. When he wakes up—”
 

“You mean,
if
he wakes up.” Ryan isn’t expressing despair. As always, he’s preparing for the worst-case scenario.

“No, Ryan! I mean what I say.
When
he awakens, they don’t know what condition he’ll be in.” I try not to choke on my words. “There could be permanent brain damage. Or he could suffer tremors. In any regard, I’m staying by his side.”
 

“Of course.” He pauses, then adds, “I’m sure Aunt Phyllis and the children will feel the same way.”
 

“One more thing, Ryan. Catherine gave Evan her wedding ring. She slipped a microdot under the setting. From what she hinted at, it may have concrete evidence to implicate President Chiffray as a member of the Quorum. And before Liang Xia died, the statements she made seem to add credence. She claimed that Lee sent her to exterminate Catherine for that very reason.”