Far and Away

by Fern Michaels

  “Lizzie!” the gang said in unison, their voices holding as much pain as her own.

  The men of BOLO, which stood for Be on the Look Out, had come immediately upon hearing the news. They had formed the group after years of working together, undertaking dangerous missions on behalf of those incapable of helping themselves. The group of friends never hesitated to help someone in need, and that went double when one of their own was in need. And they most definitely counted Lizzie as part of their surrogate family.

  Jack scooped her up into his arms, Harry at his side just as an ugly, fussy little man with a stethoscope around his neck and too much facial hair tried to shoulder the boys out of the way.

  “You people need to leave right now! How did you even get up here? Don’t make me call security! You need to leave right now. This floor is off-limits to visitors.”

  That was exactly the wrong thing to say to Harry Wong. Before he pivoted on the ball of one foot, he made sure Jack’s hold on Lizzie was secure before he reached for the ugly, fussy little man’s nose and tweaked it. “We walked up here. On our two feet. We came to see the patient in that room. Think carefully before you answer if there is any part of that you don’t understand.” The ugly little man dropped to his knees as he tried to figure out what had just happened to him.

  “I can stand, Jack, put me down,” Lizzie Fox said hoarsely. She turned as she struggled to focus on the ugly little man, who was still on his knees, sputtering and mumbling. “These people are my and my husband’s friends. That means they are family. They have every right to be here.”

  Fergus Duffy stepped forward, and announced, “I represent Countess Anna de Silva. She is a fifty-one percent owner of this private clinic. I can call her and have her speak with you if you like.”

  Out of nowhere, a tall string bean of a man, wearing a white coat with a stethoscope in the pocket, a pearl-white Stetson, and cowboy boots stepped through the gaggle of people. “That won’t be necessary, will it, Dr. Brackman?” There was a ring of steel in the string bean’s voice that did not go unnoticed by the others.

  “I’m the doctor in charge of Mr. Cricket. Do I need to remind you he is my patient? You are overstepping your bounds, Dr. Wylie,” the ugly little man barked.

  “The only reason you are the patient’s doctor of record is because I was half a world away and wasn’t here when the patient was admitted. By all rights, Dr. Simon Simmons is Mr. Cricket’s doctor of record since he is the one who performed Mr. Cricket’s surgery. We’re going to correct that as soon as we make sense out of what’s going on here. Lizzie, you need to go home and get some rest. You aren’t doing yourself or your husband any favors by staying here twenty-four hours a day. You need at least twelve hours of sleep, a good hot meal, and a steaming shower. Then and only then can you come back. I promise you I will stay with your husband until you return,” Dr. Wylie said gently.

  “My money is on the string bean, Lizzie,” Jack whispered. “Let’s take you home so you can follow the doctor’s orders, and we’ll bring you back when you’re ready. The others will stay here if Dr. Wylie says it is okay. You good with that, Lizzie?” Lizzie’s head bobbed up and down as her legs finally gave out. Harry scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Lizzie was finally out for the count.

  Jack looked around and shrugged. “Works for me.” He stuck out his hand, and Dr. Wylie grasped it. “We need to get Lizzie home. The guys will introduce themselves to you and will do whatever you want them to do. With the exception of leaving, that is.”

  “So you guys are Annie’s posse?” the string bean asked, a grin stretching across his face. “When she hired me, she also taught me how to shoot craps the same day. She told me all about you guys. It took only ten minutes for her to hire me, and then we spent the rest of the day getting to know each other. She’s one hell of a lady.”

  Jack laughed. “It figures. No grass grows under Annie’s feet. Next time you see her, ask her to teach you how to pick a lock or crack a safe. Take good care of our buddy in there.”

  “I will. You take good care of my patient’s wife, you hear. I meant it when I said I won’t let her come back here until she’s stable. She’s exhausted.”

  Jack gathered his group and spoke quietly. “We need to know what the hell is going on here. I want details, and I mean details. Once we get Lizzie settled, we’ll either come back or call, so be prepared to give me answers.” That said, Jack turned on his heel and raced after Harry, who was already at the elevator and about to step in.

  “Just out of curiosity, how are we going to get Lizzie home? Do you have her car keys? And where the hell is her car? Jack, what the hell happened back there?” Harry demanded.

  “I have her purse right here. The car has a keyless gizmo. We’ll find it, don’t worry. As to what happened, I’d say some kind of turf war between the doctors. Annie told me about this place five years ago when it was being built. The casino owners all got together and decided to build a state-of-the-art clinic. She said the trauma center here is better than the one they have for the president. Top-notch doctors. The best of the best. This place cost millions, high millions. Annie agreed to help finance it only as long as she had the controlling interest. It’s private in the sense that the owners and their families get first dibs, but they take outside patients. They also have a free clinic, something Annie insisted on. That guy Brackman, she said something about him, but right now I can’t remember what it was. It was nothing positive, though.”

  “Okay, we’re in the parking lot. Which one is Lizzie’s car?” Harry asked.

  Jack pressed the fob in his hand and waited for a sound that would tell him which car was Lizzie’s. A silver Mercedes sedan chirped to life. He led the way.

  It took both Harry and Jack to get Lizzie settled on the backseat and buckle her in. She didn’t resist or even move. “I think that’s good enough. One seat belt should do it. Lizzie lives only about eight miles from here. You driving, or you want me to drive?” Harry shrugged. “Okay, then I’ll drive. Just punch in the GPS and hit Home and we’re good to go.” Harry did as instructed.

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Harry, because it’s scaring me shitless. So let’s talk about something else. You should probably get in touch with your guys and tell them what’s going on. We promised to show them Vegas. I liked those guys a lot. You really have a great bunch of friends. Did I tell you that Annie arranged for suites for all of them at Babylon? For all of us, actually. Hell of a perk, wouldn’t you say, plus all the chits for free food and drinks.” Jack was babbling, more to have something to say so he wouldn’t have to think about Cosmo Cricket and Lizzie and what the future might hold for the two of them.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll do that, but Jack, what the hell happened to Cricket? I need to know.”

  “I don’t know, Harry. I heard it on the TV this morning when I was shaving. They didn’t mention a name, but from what they said, I knew it had to be him. He got shot in the head, back, and shoulder. They said some VIP at the Gaming Control Board. Now you know as much as I know. We left right away. You were with me, and we had the radio on, and nothing else was said on the drive here from Reno. I guess that ditty about ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ is true.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Harry grumbled. “Cosmo Cricket is no schmuck. How would he allow himself to be in a position where he could get shot; plus, Lizzie told us a while back he has security when he’s out and about.”

  “I don’t know, Harry. When Lizzie wakes up is when we’ll find out. It could be something as simple as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Okay, we’re here. How do you want to get her out and into the house?”

  “I’ll carry her. You go ahead and open the door. What are you going to do if there’s an alarm?”

  Jack grinned. “The code is Little Jack’s birthday, so I know it. Okay, let’s do it,” Jack said as he sprinted to the front door of a low, sprawling, gorgeous Mediter
ranean-style house. He unlocked the door and immediately hit the code for the alarm system, right next to the front door. The armed red light turned green the minute he pressed in the code. Jack let out a sigh of relief, glad that Lizzie hadn’t changed the numbers.

  “Do you know where the bedroom is?” Harry asked as he marched into the house, carrying Lizzie like a baby.

  “Actually, Harry, I know that, too; it’s down the hall, and the master suite is at the end. I used to play hide-and-seek with LJ when he was little, and he’d always hide in his mother’s closet. Yep, here it is.”

  Harry gently lowered Lizzie to the bed.

  “Whoa! Whoa! We have to turn the bed down first, take off her clothes, and get her under the covers. How do you expect her to get twelve hours of sleep on top of the bed?”

  Harry turned to leave. “Have at it, Jack. There is no way in hell I am taking off Lizzie Fox’s clothes.”

  “No, no, no, it doesn’t work that way, Harry. We gotta do it. Now come on and help me.”

  “NO!”

  “C’mon,” Jack wheedled. “We can close our eyes and do it. I won’t tell Yoko, and you agree not to tell Nikki. Deal?”

  “When Lizzie wakes up and wants to know who undressed her, what are you going to tell her?” Harry demanded.

  “The unvarnished truth. We did it together and kept our eyes closed.”

  “I hate you, Jack,” Harry seethed, as Jack rolled Lizzie over so he could pull down the covers.

  “Yeah, yeah, and I love you too. Okay, on the count of three, you work her skirt and . . . any anything else. I’ll do the . . . top. I think we should leave the . . . the fancy stuff on her. We’re just taking off the top layer. Okay?”

  Four hands fumbled and fluttered as both men squeezed their eyes shut, their breathing ragged and raspy as they stripped Lizzie of her outer garments.

  “Done! We did it! Good job, Harry! Look at me, I’m shaking. You look kind of funny, Harry. Are you okay? See, see, you’re shaking too.”

  “I’m going to kill you, but first I am going to make you suffer, you . . . you . . .”

  “Shhh,” Jack said. “Lizzie is mumbling something. Listen.”

  “What’s she saying?” Harry asked, forgetting for the moment that he was going to kill Jack.

  “Sounds like she’s saying something about chicken soup. Noodles. That must mean she wants chicken soup with noodles when she wakes up. Chicken soup always makes things better. Do you know how to make chicken soup, Harry, because I sure don’t,” Jack fretted, his face twisted in panic.

  Harry clenched his teeth and stared at Jack. “I know how to make tea.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get that, Harry. I can grill, that’s it. Maybe we should call Charles and ask him how to make it. We don’t want Lizzie to be disappointed when she wakes up, and there’s no chicken soup. Do we?”

  Harry gave Jack his evil eye and refused to comment.

  “I have an idea. We could go to some Chinese restaurant and get some of that soup they put wontons in. Throw in some veggies and voilà, chicken soup. Do you think that would pass muster?”

  “What about the noodles?” Harry asked, intrigued at the lengths Jack was willing to go for Lizzie. Not that he himself wouldn’t, it was just that he didn’t know how to cook. Nor did he want to learn. Making tea was taxing enough.

  “Ah, now that might pose a problem,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Maybe when you go to the Dip Sing, you can ask them to make you some noodles.” Seeing the murderous look on Harry’s face, Jack hastened to add, “Or I can go. It’s just out on the main drag, I saw the sign when I turned off to come down Lizzie’s street. I think we should get that out of the way first in case Lizzie wakes up sooner rather than later.”

  The murderous look on Harry’s face turned even more dangerous. Jack quickly scooped up the car fob and beat feet to the door, calling over his shoulder for Harry to get in touch with Charles to find out what the hell was going on.

  Harry’s foot shot out, knocking over a chair the minute the front door closed behind Jack. “Chicken soup, my ass,” he muttered as he turned on the television set on the kitchen counter. A commercial for repairing broken windshields set his teeth on edge. He hated television. He looked around the state-of-the-art kitchen, comparing it to the kitchen in his apartment over the dojo. Yoko would love this kitchen even though she said she loved their cramped apartment with its outdated kitchen. Women were known to lie. At least according to Jack, who said he knew everything there was to know about women. Harry didn’t believe it for a minute. Men, and that included Jack, were dumb as dirt when it came to women.

  Harry rummaged in his pocket for a handful of the seeds and sprouts that he nibbled on constantly and pulled out a little pouch with his special brand of tea. He put water on to boil and waited until he saw the bubbles before he dropped the mixture into the little pot he found in one of the cabinets under the counter. He stirred it, waited for all the bits and pieces to sink to the bottom, then let it steep for five minutes before pouring it into a cup.

  Harry turned down the volume on the TV and pulled out his cell phone. He punched in the number 3 and waited for Charles to pick up. He explained about Lizzie and Jack’s going for the soup before he asked if Charles had any information on Cosmo Cricket’s condition. He listened for a solid ten minutes, his eyes widening from time to time at what he was hearing. He was so caught up in what Charles was saying that he had let his tea cool to the point where he grimaced when he took a sip.

  The moment Charles wound down, Harry said he would explain everything to Jack on his return, and the moment Lizzie was good to go, they would head for Babylon and meet up. “How are my boys doing?”

  “Ted and Espinosa are showing them around Vegas. Ted’s going to incorporate their impressions in the article he’s writing for the Post. They love playing the slot machines and spending their winnings from the trials.”

  “Did Abner arrive yet?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t seen him yet.” Abner was always the last to arrive because he couldn’t fly due to eardrum problems and drove wherever he needed to go. “Young Dennis has volunteered to stay here with Fergus and me until Dr. Wylie has time to sit down with us for a long talk.”

  Harry broke the connection and stared at the gleaming SubZero refrigerator. Even from where he was sitting, he could see his reflection. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He needed to think.

  He was still in thinking mode when Jack returned with a huge container of soup and a second one he assumed held noodles from the Chinese restaurant. Jack rummaged for anything in the cabinets that resembled a soup pot and poured the contents from the containers into it.

  “That’s enough soup for an army. Who’s going to eat all that?”

  “I had to order three quarts for them to make me the noodles. Lizzie said noodles. I didn’t want to disappoint her. Smells like chicken soup to me. All we need to do is toss in some carrots, celery, parsley, and maybe an onion. That’s what they told me to do. Want some?”

  “Maybe later. What did you do with the wontons?”

  “See, that was the problem. I tried to cut a deal with them—keeping the wontons in exchange for the noodles. No deal. They made out, that’s the bottom line. What did you find out from Charles?”

  Harry repeated his conversation with Charles. “Then I called back, but nothing. It just rang and rang and didn’t even go to voice mail. I had some questions after I thought about what I had been told. I called twice more, and it went to voice mail again. I called back, and Charles said he would get back to me because he couldn’t talk just then. So far, nothing more than what I’ve already told you. Now that you have the chicken soup thing going on, do you want to go back to the clinic? I just looked in on Lizzie, and she’s good for many more hours of sleep.”

  “It’s getting late. I say we stay here. Charles will call when he has something concrete to tell us. Let’s go into the family room and chill out. This whole thing is making me c
razy.”

  “This is a fabulous room, isn’t it, Harry?” Jack said, looking around at the beautiful room, with its vaulted ceilings, tasteful artwork by local artists hanging on the walls, the highly polished floors, and the comfortable but worn furniture that adorned the room. It was definitely a room that a family lived in on a daily basis. It was clear to both men that the room was divided and yet worked as a whole at the same time. One section screamed it was Lizzie’s space, and another section left no doubt it was Cosmo’s area, because all of the furniture was oversized and custom-built. The third section belonged to Little Jack and held all the stuff the kid had collected in his happy little life. And then there was the family section, with one huge—as in huge—chair with matching ottoman that was obviously Cosmo’s and a deep comfortable recliner both men knew was Lizzie’s. The last chair was a scaled-down version of Cosmo’s chair, but not so small that it wouldn’t hold an adult. Kids didn’t stay little for long. The family unit. This unit was where Jack and Harry headed, with Jack taking Lizzie’s chair and Harry Little Jack’s.

  “Now what?” Harry asked, knowing full well Jack was going to turn on the huge television, which took up the entire wall in front of them.

  Jack shrugged. “I’m not much in the mood for TV. If you want to watch it, it’s okay with me. I can tune it out. I need to think, Harry. We both need to think.”

  Harry settled himself into the depths of his chair. He looked over at Jack and was about to ask a question when Jack said, “I don’t know, Harry. It’s at the top of my worry list.”

  “What the hell, Jack. How do you know what I was going to ask you?”

  “Because I know you as well as I know myself, and I’m wondering the same thing. You were going to ask me what Lizzie will do if things go south for Cosmo. If ever there were two people meant to grow old together, it’s Lizzie and Cosmo. Yeah, she’s tough, but that’s the career part of her. That’s the part the world sees, not what the girls and we guys see. She’s first a mother and wife or maybe wife and mother. I’m not sure which takes precedence. Knowing Lizzie, I guess it would be equal. You want me to guess, is that what you’re asking, Harry?”