Woke

by Peggy Jaeger

  No, not suspected. Knew for sure. Phil wouldn’t be as terrified as she was if she only suspected something.

  My hunger finally got the better of me and I called Murphy to come and pick me up. In the car I texted Nick and Cade and invited them both to dinner so we could discuss what had happened. Telling my mother we were having guests for dinner again waited until I got home.

  “I tried to call Phillipa’s mother before, but it went direct to voice mail. I wanted to let her know we were thinking of her and her daughter.”

  “I don’t remember her mother being so gracious to you, Calinda,” Nick said.

  “She wasn’t,” Maeve said.

  My mother nodded. Her gaze moved to me and her eyes softened. “While that’s true, it’s also true I’m in the unique and unenviable position of knowing exactly what it feels like to be terrified you’re going to lose your only daughter. I called to offer her a shoulder if she needed it since I’ve been down that road. I had Maeve to get me through it. I don’t think Mary has anyone.”

  “Mom.” Touched, I stood, crossed to her, and threw my arms around her shoulders.

  “Well,” Cade said, “now I know where Aurora gets her forgiving grace. She inherited it.” He lifted his wine glass in salute to my mother.

  “Along with her beautiful skin,” she quipped. “Good genes will always out.” Then she dabbed at her eyes with her linen napkin and shooed me to sit back down. I was about to when the house phone sounded.

  “Goodness, no one ever call us on that these days,” Maeve said, ready to rise from her chair.

  “Stay,” I commanded. “I’m already up.”

  I made my way to the den and answered it.

  “Hi, my name is Chris Burrows and I’m a nurse at Park Side Hospital. I’m looking for Aurora Brightwell, please.”

  My heart tripled in time. “You’ve got her.”

  “I’m calling at the request of one of our patients, Phillipa?”

  Policy must have dictated she not say the surname, but she didn’t really need to.

  “Yes.”

  “She was admitted earlier today and we’ve been getting her all settled, but she’d like to know if you can come see her.”

  What?

  “I thought she was...I’m sorry. I thought she was… critical.”

  “So you know how she presented in the emergency room?”

  “Yes. She overdosed.”

  She neither confirmed nor denied it, again, following privacy protocols. “Anyone who comes in as she did is categorized that way. But she’s awake and aware now, and she’s asking for you. She’s very adamant about it, in fact. It’s against the rules, especially the first night of admission, but she insisted we get permission and her psychiatrist and Dr. Livingston, our administrator, okayed it.”

  God bless, Judah.

  “I’m on my way. Please tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I ran back to the dining room and gave them the news.

  “I’m going with you.” Cade stood.

  “I am, too,” Nick added.

  “We can take my car. My driver is just down the street.”

  And just like that we were speeding back to the hospital in Cade’s limo.

  I gave our names at the visitor’s desk, grabbed our temporary badges and then we alighted back on the same floor I’d been on earlier.

  “The only one approved is Miss Brightwell,” the same nurse who’d phoned told us when she answered the unit door buzzer.

  “We’ll wait here,” Cade said, giving my hand a squeeze and bussing my cheek.

  You’d think being a patient for over four years in this very same hospital would have made everything seem familiar instead of alien and stark. But I was still comatose when I’d finally been transferred home for long term care so I’d never actually seen most of the interior of the building.

  I imagine the rest of the hospital looked marginally the same as the detox wing, the differences being that there were no doors outside the patients rooms, merely curtains attached to rods on the ceiling and windows peaking into each cubicle affording the patients very little personal privacy.

  Chris escorted me to a room directly across from the nursing station. I could see straight into it and at Phillipa. She was sitting up in bed, on top of the covers, an intravenous in one arm, her hair shading her face. On the top part of her body she was dressed in a hospital issue gown, sweat pants covering her legs. Her feet were bare.

  “She had a tube inserted through her esophagus in the ER so they could neutralize the drugs and get them out of her system,” Chris explained. “Her voice is raspy because of it, so don’t be surprised when you hear her talk. I imagine it’s not her usual tone.”

  I thanked her for the head’s up.

  “Phillipa,” Chris said as she walked into the room ahead of me. “Your friend is here.”

  She tracked me as I came to the bedside, her eyes shiny with pooled tears.

  A chair had been placed close to the edge of the bed. I sat.

  “Rory.” The tears spilled down her cheeks as she tried to sit upright and cross her legs in front of her. “Thank you for coming. I wasn’t…sure, you would. Not after…”

  She dropped her chin, her hair shielding her face, hiding it. The nurse had been correct about Phil’s voice. She sounded a bit winded and her words were scratchy and weak.

  “Phil, look at me.” I didn’t even think as I reached over and slipped my hand into the one without the IV. Trey had smacked my attempt to touch him away. Would Phillipa?

  Her skin was as cold as a glass of ice cubes fresh from the freezer. When she didn’t shirk out of my grasp I slid my other hand on top, sharing my warmth.

  “No matter what’s happened,” I said when she finally dragged her gaze back to mine, “you’re my oldest friend. I’ll always come if you need me.”

  She repeated my name on a wail and in the next moment we had our arms around one another. I held her as she cried, her sobs painful to hear. When they subsided, she swiped at her face with the edge of the gown.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop crying.”

  “It’s okay, Phil. I figure you’ve got something to cry about.”

  With a final sniffle, she sat back against the pillows.

  I gave her a few moments. Concentration lines furrowed on her forehead as she bit on a corner of her dry lips.

  “I have to tell you something and I don’t know how. I’m so…ashamed.”

  I reached over and took her hand again, squeezed it like Cade was wont to do to mine. “You can say whatever you need to, Phil. I not going to judge you.”

  She dropped her gaze to our hands and nodded one more time.

  “You wanted to know if I had any idea what happened the night of the party, of who drugged you.”

  She dragged in a huge breath and kept it contained for a moment.

  “It was… Trey. He put the drugs in a glass of champagne.”

  Shock impaled me. While Trey was a loose cannon, I never thought he’d do something so horrible, especially to someone he called a friend,

  “Phil, why? What did I ever to do him to make him want to hurt me that way?”

  “It was a mistake,” she said shaking her head.

  “Drugging me was a mistake? You just said he intentionally put the drugs in my glass.”

  “He put the drugs in a champagne glass but he thought it belonged to someone else, not you.”

  “Who, then?”

  Her lip was in danger of bleeding if she kept biting down on it so hard.

  “Kincade Enright.”

  “What?”

  “Trey found out from one of his college friends I was seeing Cade. He made some remark about me to Trey when they were out one night about us being broken up. Trey asked him what he meant and the guy said he’d seen Cade and me at a bar the night before, making out.”

  A pop of pink colored her pale sunken cheeks.

  “Trey and I had a find-your-friend
tracker on both of our phones that I’d forgotten about. He clicked on it and followed me for a couple of nights, saw the two of us out, clubbing.”

  “He never asked you about it? Confronted you?”

  “No. He’s…sneaky, that way. He always was, even when we were kids.”

  Another facet of his personality I hadn’t known.

  “You remember how weird he was acting at your party—”

  “No, I don’t. I have no memory of that night. It was wiped clean from the drugs.”

  “You don’t remember…anything?”

  “Snippets have come back lately, but I don’t have anything clear or in a timeline of that day.”

  She dropped her chin to her chest as the tears started again.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I pressed her hand again. “Tell me about that night and Trey.”

  She hauled in a few deep breaths, then starting coughing. The sound was raw and painful to hear, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it was for her. Feeling useless, I filled the plastic cup at her bedside with water from the pitcher I found there.

  With her hands shaking, she was going to spill it all over herself, so I wrapped a hand around hers and helped her take a few sips from it.

  After a few moments, she calmed again and drank the rest of the water.

  “Sorry.” She had to clear her throat once or twice before she could continue. “Trey was following me around, wouldn’t leave me alone for a minute, even when I went to the bathroom. He never asked about Cade but I got suspicious because he kept asking me who I was looking for whenever I panned the room. It was like he knew but wanted to hear me say it.”

  She swiped at her dripping nose with her free hand.

  “When Cade finally got there, late, I dragged him into a corner when Trey went to the bathroom. I told him he needed to leave and that it had been a mistake for me to invite him. He got…pissed. I spotted Trey come back so I walked away from Cade. I didn’t see him again that night. And hadn’t until I saw him with you in the coffee shop.”

  “But why do you think Trey tried to drug Cade?”

  “I don’t think he did.” She shook her head, her hair swishing against her face. “I know he did because he told me what happened. After you’d been taken to the hospital and we heard it was a drug overdose, Trey knew he’d made a mistake. He’d been watching Cade at the bar and saw him having champagne from the never-ending supply the bartender kept pouring. I don’t know how, but he managed to drop the drugs in the glass he thought was Cade’s.”

  “How did I wind up with that glass?”

  “I don’t know, but there were glasses everywhere, on every table, Rory. You were on the dance floor more than at your table. Maybe Cade picked it up and walked around with it, then put it down. I don’t know, but after we knew what happened and that Trey was responsible he went…crazy.”

  “How so?”

  “He told me what happened and was terrified he was going to be arrested. It didn’t matter that the wrong person had gotten the drugs and nothing happened to Cade. You’d taken the drugs and he was responsible for putting them in a drink, whether it was yours or someone else’s.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “It was. Then, he, well, he convinced me it was my fault, too.”

  “What?”

  “He said if I hadn’t been cheating on him with Cade he would never had tried a prank like drugging him. All he wanted to do was make Cade sick, or make him act out. To try and show me what an asshole he was. Trey called him an asshole, not me. He wanted to embarrass Cade in public. He thought I’d stop seeing him then.”

  “He actually called drugging someone a prank?”

  She lifted one bony shoulder and averted her gaze again.

  “He did it for me, he said.”

  “No, Phil, he did it for himself. Because he’s a selfish, jealous prick. Where on earth did he get the drugs? The detective in charge of the case told me one of them was an anesthetic found in veterinarian’s offices.”

  “He would never tell me when I asked, so I don’t know. Trey knew a lot of people, though. They could have come from anyone.” Another shoulder lift. “He didn’t want me to come to the hospital to visit you, or call your parents to find out how you were. He was afraid I’d see you, get upset, and say something about him being responsible.”

  “So that’s the real reason why you cut me off?”

  She nodded. “When the police questioned me Trey always insisted he be there so he could make sure I kept my mouth shut about what I knew. I was surprised the detective in charge never called him on it.” She leaned back and closed her eyes, the pallor returning to her skin. “I’ve been living with this secret for fifteen years. Seeing you again on the street…it was just too much.”

  I leaned in closer and said, “But it’s not worth taking your life over, Phil. You need to know that.”

  She opened her eyes, those grooves appearing across her brow again. “What are you talking about?”

  “The reason you’re here. You tried to kill yourself. I’m telling you nothing is worth taking your own life over.”

  “I didn’t try to kill myself.”

  “But you’re in here for an overdose.”

  “Yeah, because I haven’t been able to sleep since seeing you again. I took three of my prescribed sleeping pills and had a glass of wine to help them along. I just wanted to sleep, Rory, not die. I’m a mess about this whole situation, but not suicidal. Why do you think that?”

  “Trey told me.” I explained about seeing him earlier in the day and what he’d said to me in the hallway.

  “Don’t you think I’d be in a locked psych wing if I tried to off myself?”

  In truth, I hadn’t considered that. Thinking back now, Nick hadn’t mentioned it was a suicide attempt, just an overdose. And apparently, an accidental one.

  “Trey lied to you,” she said, drawing her legs up to her chest and folding her arms around her knees.

  I was about to say he’d lied to more than me, but I was stopped when the alarm bell blared through out the P.A. system.

  Security Stat. Detox. 4th floor.

  The announcement was repeated three times.

  “What’s going on?” Phil sat bolt upright as staff members flew by her room.

  “Stay here, I’ll go find out,” I told her.

  Two of the nurses stood inside the opened double doors, a loud commotion in the hallway shouting through.

  “Oh, my God.”

  I pushed by the nurse and through the door when I spotted Trey and Cade grappling on the floor, Nick and another man trying to separate them.

  Both men had blood spurting from their faces. Trey landed a punch in Cade’s flank just as Cade landed a hard right to Trey’s jaw. It must have stunned him because the other man, now with two hospital security guards arriving, managed to get hold of him and pull him away from Cade.

  I ran to Nick who was now holding Cade back from delivering another punch.

  “Easy.” Ramon said.

  “What happened?” I cried.

  Cade accepted the handkerchief Nick offered and placed it against his dripping nose.

  “I got sucker punched is what happened,” he said. “Bookman got off the elevator, spotted us and then shot straight to me, fists cocked and eyes blazing.”

  Trey was now being held by the security guards, fighting against them and cursing a blue streak while the third man secured handcuffs around his wrists.

  When he started to read him his Miranda rights I asked Nick who he was.

  “My friend from the precinct. He was coming by to follow up on your friend.”

  “Get these off of me!” Trey screamed as he struggled against the guards holding him. “This is all your fault.” He thrust this chin at Cade.

  “Keep telling yourself that, asshole,” Cade shot back.

  Nick placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. Cade shook his head and turned his back on Trey.

  “And y
ou.” His wild gaze landed on me. “You’re the reason my wife tried to kill herself. This is your fault as much as his.”

  “Shut up, Trey.”

  Stunned, he did.

  With all eyes on me, I sauntered over to him.

  “Aurora,” Nick cautioned.

  “He doesn’t scare me,” I said over my shoulder. “You’re pathetic,” I told my one-time friend. “Phil didn’t try to kill herself. That’s a lie you’re telling to cover your sorry ass and avoid arrest for what you did at my party. You’re trying to make her look like she’s depressed and suicidal, when she’s not. She just wanted to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in fifteen years because the weight of keeping your secret has been killing her. She told me everything, Trey. Everything.”

  “You’re lying. Phillipa would never say a word against me. She’d never betray me.”

  “And you’re lying to yourself if you believe that.”

  His feral eyes turned sly again, just as they had earlier in the day. “It doesn’t matter what she said to you. There’s no proof I did anything and besides, a wife can’t testify against her husband. That’s the law.”

  “Is that why you were so quick to marry her after what happened? You really are an asshole.”

  His lips pulled back in a snarl and it was a wonder his shoulders didn’t dislocate he was pulling so hard against the security guards.

  “Bitch. I wish you had died.”

  “That’s enough, Bookman,” the detective said.

  While he and the guards escorted Trey into the elevator, all the while Trey still acting out and fighting against them, Cade turned to me.

  By now the detox wing staff had closed the doors and gone back to their patients so it was just the three of us in the hallway.

  “Let me see.” I shoved Cade’s hand aside and examined his nose. “It doesn’t look broken, just bloody. Maybe you should get it looked at.”

  “It’s fine. Noses always bleed a lot. Jerk punches like a girl,” Cade mumbled.

  “Hey.”

  “Present company excluded,” he added, covering his nose again.