by Meli Raine
“Only two of them. Lindsay killed Stellan all on her own.”
Harry grimaces. “Right.” He looks sick. “I’ve seen the video. Your drop kick helped.”
No reason to respond, so I don’t.
Monica nudges Harry, then looks around to see if anyone’s watching. “Did you thank Drew publicly?”
“Yes.”
“Now we have ample proof that Lindsay was drugged. Jane found the video Blaine Maisri made of that horrible night four years ago. The scheming little asshole had it as backup, just in case someone turned on him.”
A vision of Maisri on top of Lindsay as he attacked her in my bedroom makes my eyes move rapidly, my heart speeding up.
“Drew?” Monica’s manicured hand covers mine, the bite of her French-tipped fingernails cutting through memory. “Perhaps you need more time to rest.” She gives the door to Lindsay’s room a nervous glance.
“I’m fine,” I insist.
“No one is fine, Drew,” Harry declares, rubbing his palm across his chin. He hasn’t shaved, and his tie is loose. Monica’s the picture of perfection, but Harry’s unraveled a little. “No one.”
“Duly noted,” I say, relenting. “But I’m better than Lindsay. That damn gunshot. If John had better aim -- ”
“But he didn’t,” Monica says firmly. “He didn’t, and you saved her. We have a mess to wade through, but it’s a mess with a daughter who is alive.”
“They were so close,” I admit, my voice dropping as I fight the tightness in my throat. “Too damned close.”
Harry’s eyes go unfocused, the light shining on them. “None of that matters now. We have to deal with the situation at hand.”
Something in his words makes the skin around the base of my spine tighten. “What does that mean?”
“Lindsay’s up. Her reflexes are fine. She can answer yes/no questions. But she’s refusing to speak.”
“Did she have a brain injury?”
Harry shakes his head and blinks rapidly, shoving a hand through his hair. “No. Nothing that would explain this. According to the doctor who attended to her two hours ago, she made it clear she won’t talk. Not that she can’t.”
“What? Why?”
“We don’t know,” Monica whispers. “Shock? Trauma? She was kidnapped, hurt, stripped naked...” Her voice fades out, eyes hardening. “And then paraded all over every cable news channel, covered in blood and...well, you know the rest.”
I certainly do.
“The trauma from that would rattle anyone,” Harry rasps. “We’re hopeful she’ll ease her way into talking.”
That tightening in my back turns to a tingling warmth that sets off a hinky meter inside me. I think eight steps ahead, projecting what they’re saying.
“I’m sure she’ll recover quickly,” I say, more to myself than them. “A gunshot wound is no small experience.”
“You’ve been shot before?’ Harry asks.
I shake my head. “I’ve been damn lucky, but I know plenty of people in the field who have been. You don’t just magically heal. It’s a different kind of injury. Give her time.” I make eye contact with them both, pressing a point I can’t say. “Lots of time.”
“We’ll try, but the jackals are everywhere.” Harry looks pointedly down the hall, where camera crews crush the double doors leading to this ICU wing. “They’ve had two people slip in pretending to be medical staff already. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep her safe.”
“She needs time.”
“She needs privacy.”
“Silas and Mark are doing a great job,” I insist.
A tall doctor with brown hair, brown eyes, and the build of a hockey player appears. He has a nasty scar on one eyebrow, and he’s wearing scrubs, a lab coat, and a name tag that says JONAS in big letters.
“Dr. Jonas,” he says, reaching for Harry’s hand, then Monica’s, shaking them with great ceremony. “We’ll take you in to see Lindsay now.”
They go into the room. As I look around them, I see her on the bed, her right arm immobilized, her body covered in pure white sheets and blankets. Machines beep with soothing regularity, tubes connected from IV bags to her arm.
My phone buzzes. I damn near jump out of my own skin at the sensation, but shove my hand in my pocket and check, my broken finger forgotten momentarily. Gingerly, I use my other hand to find the phone. It’s Paulson.
Be at the hospital shortly. Have new information.
Silas approaches me with a tray of coffees, motioning with his chin for me to take one. I grab a white cup and sip, not caring what I drink. It’s black coffee. My tongue burns with the hot liquid, but I don’t care. Sensation of any kind that distracts me from Lindsay’s condition is good.
“Heard you signed yourself out of the hospital against doctor’s orders,” Silas says, setting the tray of coffees down, taking one for himself. Clearly, the other two are for Harry and Monica.
“You’re nosy.” I slug down more liquid pain.
“Just doing my job. My boss is a stickler for detail.”
“Which boss? Paulson or me?”
“Both.”
I raise an eyebrow and drink.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get there faster, Drew.”
“You did fine.”
“A few more seconds and we might have saved Lindsay from being shot.”
“No. A few more seconds and John might have grabbed her and played hostage with her. Those seconds before you crashed the place were unpredictable.”
“I saw the footage.”
“Who in the world hasn’t seen the footage?”
He shrugs. The entire nightmare has been played on international television for the past day. Post-mortem analysis follows the same basic news cycle script. It all becomes pretty simple once you know who was trying to destroy whom.
Nolan Corning decided four years ago, when Harry was making his bid for a second Senate term and also clearly shoring up a path toward the White House, that this would not do. For all of his political career, Harry had been a Teflon man, impervious to scandal.
Corning needed a news story so big it would bury Harry forever.
How he reached out and found Blaine Maisri is anyone’s guess, and I know we’ll find out in the coming days and weeks. Killing all three attackers was, in retrospect, terrible for investigating what happened, but in the life-or-death heat of the moment, you don’t pause to consider the future.
And Lindsay’s moves against Stellan were self-defense. The video makes that clear.
Even if the knife plunge made every man who’s watched it sit with his legs crossed.
Silas snaps his fingers in front of my face. “You there?”
I ignore him and drink half my coffee, staying quiet.
“That video Jane released to the media, the one with Blaine, John and Stellan not wearing masks? It’s been proven to be legit. She hacked into John’s hard drive and got it somehow, along with some coded notes between Blaine and an aide in Corning’s camp. The rest will fall in place as the search of all their electronic records unfolds.”
He’s trying to reassure me.
I can’t stop staring at Lindsay’s door.
“Drew?”
“Heard you. Good. I want the least bureaucratic mess for Lindsay. Her recovery is more important than media time or interrogations.”
“Investigators have to interview her eventually.”
“Not without me present.”
“You’re still not cleared yet,” says a deep voice from behind me. Paulson appears, wearing a crisp suit, a well-ironed shirt, a dark purple tie with gray accents, and a look that says he wants to kill me or give me a medal.
Could go either way.
“I don’t give a shit about being cleared. I’m staying here until she talks to me. If that were your woman in there, you’d do the same.”
He nods. “I would.”
“Any news?” Silas asks Mark, finishing his coffee and tossing it in the trash bin l
ike a three-pointer. He misses, makes a face, and bends down to throw it away properly.
“Yeah,” Mark says, anger evident in the way his nostrils flare, the posture he assumes. “This thing goes all the way to the top, and has tentacles everywhere. When Galt and I tried to get you released, Drew, turns out NSA, CIA and FBI operatives were all part of the effort to help set you up.”
“I got the full alphabet thrown at me,” I say, impressed.
“Galt figures someone finds you to be very, very dangerous,” he adds, eyebrows up. “That’s high praise from him.”
“And you outsmarted them all,” Silas intones, voice low.
“We still don’t understand how the hell Corning has that kind of reach, and -- ”
Just then, Monica and Harry emerge from the room, eyes hollow.
Oh, no.
Mark stops talking and gives Harry a worried look.
Monica grabs my hand, and says softly, “You can go in now. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did.”
What the hell does that mean?
Lindsay
I am turned slightly away from the door. I smell Drew’s aftershave before he even sets one foot inside the room. My stomach flip-flops.
Not yet.
Not now.
I’m not really here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want him to see me like this.
I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
No. Scratch that.
I don’t want anyone to see me ever.
Too much of me has been seen. Too much of me has been stripped naked before the world, bloodied and bruised, my fury worn as my only weapon and exposed for consideration and judgment. John didn’t just kidnap me. He stole me. He stole me and delivered me to Stellan and Blaine and they took my humanity – again – and turned me into an animal.
Only this time, I was awake for all of it. Aware. Sentient and breathing and afraid and terrified to the point where I just can’t be who I was before.
He stole who I am and scraped it clean off me, like a car stripped of all its value, the important parts gleaned, the rest an empty shell no one wants.
A nuisance.
A pile of non-functioning junk.
The sound of Drew’s even breath makes me close my eyes and slow my own respiration. If I pretend to be asleep, maybe he’ll go away.
His scent gets stronger. I feel heat to my right, like he’s radiating it outward.
Even though my eyes are closed, I can tell when he’s next to me. He doesn’t touch the bed. A shadow changes the light behind my eyelids, and his heat intensifies. There’s more than simple warmth there. It’s a kind of compassion that takes on temperature, as if goodness can be calibrated to produce light.
I don’t deserve that.
I know he’s in pain. I know I should reach out, should heal, should work together with him.
If nothing else, he should be thanked.
But the thoughts tumble together with hard, sharp edges of memory. The shards of terror embed themselves in my bloodstream, floating like inner tubes on a lazy river, waiting to be caught on rocks and long, thick logs made of dead trees that just haven’t rotted to pulp yet.
If memory is a mother, protecting us from the worst the world throws our way, then the present – the achingly slow now that rolls out second by second, never rushed by intent or desire – is a bully.
The present hurts me right now. It hurts to be here, to be aware, to be so close to Drew and yet so far away.
He has no idea how distant I really am.
And frankly, neither do I.
“Lindsay.” My name coming from his mouth brings me back to his bedroom, a place of sanctuary and passion that was destroyed by Stellan, John and Blaine. When I hear his voice, all I can see is Blaine on top of me, groping, his hand a final insult as I gave up on Drew.
I say nothing. I’m dying a thousand deaths inside. I slow my breath. Maybe if I slow down enough, I’ll just stop on my own, winding down like a toy that finally rests, tilted toward Mother Earth, inertia drawing it to a close.
“I know you’re here.”
No, Drew. You’re wrong.
I’m not.
The pain medication button is in my hand. I press it so hard the first joint of my thumb turns cold.
“I am so sorry,” he whispers. I can’t look at him. If I did, I know I would see tears.
I can’t look at him because that is what a whole person would do.
And I am just a shell.
“I am so proud of you,” he adds. The scrape of a chair against the tile floor tells me he’s here to stay. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard. I don’t react.
How can I?
I’m not here.
“Please open your eyes.”
I don’t.
“Lindsay. I know it hurts. I know you feel like you are dying inside, like you’re trapped in a big black hole with nowhere to grab. I know it. Grab onto me. I’m here. Grab onto me. Take whatever part of me you need and hold on to it, baby. Borrow a piece of me until you can find that part of yourself. Please. Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for your parents. Do it for you.” He doesn’t touch me, but his hand goes on the bed, next to me. It’s shaking.
His voice is trembling.
My soul is an earthquake.
My heart is a tsunami.
And like any force of nature, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop this. It just is.
I fade out, the medicine doing its job, thank God. My eyelids crack open slightly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his head bent down, broad shoulders in a suit jacket, the fabric stretched tight.
His hands are clasped on the bed next to me.
Like he’s praying.
Chapter 12
Drew
“I brought you maple creams,” I say, holding out a five-pound box of chocolate-covered candy for Lindsay to ignore. For the last three days, I’ve visited her every day.
And for the last three days, she’s refused to communicate. Eyes closed, breathing slow, body tense. She has no idea that I understand. I do. I get it more viscerally than she could possibly know.
And that’s why I’m not giving up.
She can ignore me.
But I’ll keep coming back until the day she doesn’t.
When I woke up in my own hospital bed four years ago, sore and bruised and in denial, I let that dark slimy part of my soul take over. It’s the insidious voice that tries to convince you that life is nothing but an endless, monotonous series of seconds you have to endure because you have no value. By letting yourself be victimized – yeah, I said it, victimized – you’re forever tainted. Weak. Stupid and foolish, easily suckered.
And that will never change.
Physical pain is bad enough. Time halts in place when you’re experiencing it, as if being graciously polite, giving pause to recognize the searing interruption. You can’t rush time. You can’t get through being at the receiving end of someone else’s intentional pain because you don’t count.
You’re not important.
You have no will.
It’s not even about losing control, because everyone loses control. All of us have moments where we are at someone else’s mercy. You have two choices:
Reduce the opportunity for that to happen or hope that when it does happen, they aren’t evil.
And if they are?
Well...I don’t know.
I still don’t know.
I wish I had the answers. I’m just a guy showing up day in and day out to pry his girlfriend out of the little fortress she’s hiding in, hoping a five-pound box of sugar might help.
You think I have the answer?
I’m as clueless as anyone else.
And that pisses me off.
I set the open box next to her, down by her thighs. Her gunshot wound is healing enough that the dressing is smaller, less bulky, and it looks like she has more mobility. There’s a deck of cards sitting in front of her on the bed tray, a rubber
band around them. A cup of red juice and some of her favorite potato chips sit there, tauntingly normal.
“If you don’t eat one of those, I’ll have to give them to the nurses, and they’ll flirt with me. Please don’t make the nurses flirt with me, Lindsay. One of them looks like she’s a box of chocolates away from pinching my butt.”
Nothing. No response.
I know from the doctors that she communicates with nods. Makes noise when she’s in pain. Harry and Monica talk about her “choice” not to talk, but I know better.
There is no choice here.
She can’t.
If I’m right, Lindsay is on her own, an astronaut adrift in space, enough oxygen to make it through each day but with the lonely terror of the unknown gaping before her, so silent it’s piercing, so darkly beautiful it hypnotizes you at the same time it paralyzes.
You just float.
But you float in a bleak abyss. It’s a painful infinity, numb and cold, blinding and agonal.
And I have to break her out of that internal jail.
She’s a prisoner of circumstance, locked away in her own mind. No one can pull you out of it. You have to decide for yourself.
But I won’t stop offering her a hand.
I won’t stop offering her a lifeline.
I won’t stop, period.
I sit on the edge of the bed, the closest I’ve come to her since I began visiting every day. She tenses even more. Her eyes are closed. I know she’s a box full of emotions. With her eyes closed, I have the luxury of studying her face, unhurried. The bruises are a motley explosion of haunting shades of blue, purple, and a yellowing edge on one, her black eye fading slightly. Tiny cuts cover her face, neck, and the skin leading to her bandaged shoulder. She’s so ethereal, even with so much injury.
I want to hold her. Wrap myself around her and wait her out. I want to be the shield for her.
I got there in time. She’s alive.
But was I somehow still too late?
“I love you,” I say with a reverent heart, closing my own eyes, my hand inches from hers. All the movement has to come from her. I can’t pull her to me. I can’t push myself on her, emotionally or otherwise.
