Jay Giles

by Blindsided (A Thriller)

  Guardio, a big hairy bear of a man with a soft voice, shook his head. “We don’t believe so. There was significant internal bleeding and the back of the brain was bruised, but preliminary indications are that there should be no long-term debilitation.”

  “All the nurses have said she should be awake by now. Why isn’t she?”

  “Normally, yes, she should have regained consciousness by now.” He frowned. “However, comas caused by severe traumas such as the one she suffered often last for an extended period of time. The bruising of the brain may be the key here. She’ll return to consciousness once the brain has had a chance to heal sufficiently.”

  “Are we talking days, months, years? Help me understand.”

  Henry, slight, stooped, with thick glasses, fielded his one. “Impossible to say for sure. In most severe trauma cases, we’re talking in the range of five to seven days on the low end, twenty to thirty days on the high end.”

  “We’ve ordered some additional scans that may give us a better idea,” Guardio said. “The fact that she hasn’t responded quickly concerns me although the injuries don’t indicate the coma will last for an extended period. The additional tests should prove valuable.”

  That was all I got out of them. At eleven a.m., two orderlies came to wheel her bed to x-ray.

  “How long will this take?” I asked one.

  He checked his paperwork. “Doc’s ordered four scans—two regular, two with contrast. That’s gonna take awhile.”

  I was torn. I wanted to stay with her, but I needed to get organized, too. I couldn’t continue to live here like a homeless person. I opted for organized. If she was going to be gone and they didn’t expect her to wake today, it was the time for me to be gone, too.

  I followed them as they wheeled her bed down the corridor to the elevators, rode down in the same elevator. They exited on the second level for x-ray. I stayed to the ground level, feeling guilty for leaving her.

  I walked through the main lobby and out into the sunshine. It must have rained during the night. There were still big puddles on the ground. But that blindingly intense Florida sun was out. I used my hand to shield my eyes, looked for a cab. I spotted one, waved my good arm, and it pulled over.

  “Where to?”

  I had him take me to my condo. The ride seemed long and slow. When we finally made it to the Watergate, I paid him, rode the elevator up to my floor, unlocked my condo door.

  As I walked in, I had the feeling I’d been gone forever. It was replaced by a feeling of panic. All my family photos were in that police van. I went to the phone, dialed Ellsworth’s number. I got one of his assistants, Officer Tuttle.

  “We did find the van,” he drawled. “I know there were belongings in the back. Suitcases, I believe. We have them here. If you want I can check, make sure we have everything.”

  I thanked him, told him what I had. He went to check.

  “All here,” he said when he came back.

  “Good, I’ll be over to pick it up.” I thanked him again.

  That finished, I headed to the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, jumped in the shower. God, did that feel good! I shaved, washed my hair, put on clean clothes—shorts and a polo shirt. I packed as much as I could get in a carry bag, took the bag into the living room, and left it by the door. Next, phone calls.

  First call was to the Saab dealership. I arranged for my car to be brought to the condo.

  Second call was to Saul Badgett, my stockbroker friend who worked at Salomon Smith Barney, a bright kid, lost in their big organization. We’d talked about his joining my brokerage before. Now was the time to bring someone in. I knew just how to do it—equity.

  The phone at the Badgett house rang twice before a woman answered. I asked for Saul, and the woman—his wife, I assumed—went to get him.

  “Yeah,” he answered, “this is Saul.”

  “Saul, Matt Seattle. I’ve got a crazy idea I want to bounce off you. Got a minute?”

  He not only had a minute, he didn’t think the idea of starting work for me the next day was crazy at all. It probably wasn’t, at the salary level we agreed upon. What clinched the deal was my offer of a 15% equity position after the first year. Even for a bright future star like Saul, those offers don’t come along every day.

  An agreement reached, I top-lined my situation for him, explained I’d be working off site, gave him my phone numbers, told him I’d drop off a key to the office that afternoon.

  “I’ll do you proud, Matt,” he assured me before he rang off.

  I was sure he would. In fact, I only had one reservation about Saul. He was already a better golfer than I was.

  My third call was to Rosemary. I got their machine, left a message reinforcing that she should take some time off, however long she needed, that Saul would be starting with us tomorrow.

  I would have done a fax alert to the clients, but my computer was with my belongings at the police station. Not a big deal; I could swing by the office, send it out on my way back to the hospital.

  I grabbed a couple of books from the study, gathered up my carry bag, went down to the lobby to wait. I wasn’t there long. My Saab pulled up with a new black top.

  My first stop was Saul’s, where I dropped off keys. Second was the police station. They loaded the luggage in the Saab’s trunk and back seat. Third was the office. I faxed an announcement about our new associate. At my fourth and final stop, I picked up something I wanted to have—just in case—and returned to the hospital.

  Total elapsed time for my whirlwind outing was three hours, thirteen minutes. I stopped at the nurse’s station, learned Tory had only returned from x-ray twenty-minutes earlier.

  “The bruising is more substantial than Dr. Guardio thought,” Jane, an RN with short-cropped blond hair, told me. “The good news is they didn’t see any new bleeding. As soon as they can find a room, he’s going to have her moved to the neurology floor.”

  “How soon is soon?”

  “My guess is they’ll come get her around dinner time.”

  Dinner time came and went. It was closer to eight p.m. when they arrived to move her. Two orderlies wheeled her bed to a room on the seventh floor. It was a double, but Tory’s was the only bed in the room.

  Once she was settled, I introduced myself to the nurses and explained that I was going to stay, do whatever I could to help.

  Leah, a short, chubby nurse with straight red hair, said, “If you’re staying, we can get a sleeper chair for that room. Might make you a little more comfortable.”

  Around ten, an orderly came in with a chair that went flat and could be slept on. Most people would have found it uncomfortable, but after two nights of sleeping sitting up, it felt like heaven to me.

  The next day, we settled into a routine that would be repeated day after day. Guardio, occasionally with Henry in tow, did rounds between eight and eight-fifteen. Physical therapy came at nine-thirty and again at two-thirty in the afternoon. Around that schedule, I did my brokerage work. The cell phone seemed attached to my ear. I was either talking with clients or with Saul on executing the trades and running the office.

  When I wasn’t on the phone, I did as much exercising as I could. Walking and sit-ups, mostly. Did a little reading. In the evenings, Rosemary and Dan often stopped by, concern for both of us etched on their faces.

  Every morning at seven-thirty, I called Dr. Swarthmore. As the days slowly passed, each like the previous one, my phone conversations with her became longer.

  I was getting discouraged. Guardio and Henry didn’t seem to have any answers.

  As day seven turned into day eight turned into day nine, the feeling she’d never come out of the coma weighed more heavily on me. Adelle acted as my counterweight, kept me balanced, focused. Not an easy task as day nine turned into day ten turned into day eleven.

  Day eleven, the unexpected struck.

  Chapter 60

  Leah, the nurse on duty that day, broke the news to me. “Did you see the paper this
morning?” She asked, suppressing a grin.

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll get you one.”

  She was back two minutes later with the day’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune. On the front page, just below the fold, I read the headline, “Modern Day Sleeping Beauty and Her Prince Charming.” What followed was a two-column, four-inch story on the front-page, finishing with a two-column, eight-inch story on the jump page.

  It was a heavily romanticized version of what had happened. There was no mention of Wilder’s death or the kidnapping. As the newspaper told it, Tory had tried to save my life, taken a bullet, and was now in a coma. I, in turn, had saved her life by stopping the bleeding from her wound then wouldn’t leave her side at the hospital until she woke. Two young lovers sacrificing for each other. Written in a way to tug at those heartstrings, maybe even get you to shed a tear or two.

  “It’s so romantic,” Leah said as I finished reading.

  She wasn’t the only one who thought so. Flowers started arriving. The phone started ringing. By day twelve, the room was so filled with flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals it was hard to walk. The nurses had pinned a copy of the article to the bulletin board across from Tory’s bed. That evening, I asked Doctor Kline if she’d leaked the story to the press. She denied it, of course, but her protests weren’t very convincing.

  On day thirteen, Guardio picked his way through the flowers for his morning examination. Tory’d been experiencing muscle spasms, some head movement. “She’s fighting to regain consciousness,” he said encouragingly. “It could be any time now.”

  I watched and waited for the rest of the day, pretty much ignoring everything else. At five that afternoon, her eyelids opened and she mumbled something unintelligible before slipping back to sleep. At five-forty, her eyes opened again and stayed open. I called the nurse who brought some ice chips. Tory sucked on a couple of them for a minute and closed her eyes again.

  She didn’t wake again until nine-thirty. This time she stayed awake a little longer. She had a few more ice chips, managed to say a few words before slipping back to sleep.

  At eleven-forty-five, she woke again, her eyes clearer this time. “Matt,” she asked hoarsely. “Where am I?”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, held her hand. “Sarasota Memorial Hospital. You’ve been here for almost two weeks.”

  “That long?”

  “We’ve been worried about you.”

  “What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I remem—” Her voice trailed off as she slipped into unconsciousness.

  She didn’t wake again that night. For me, it was a night of fitful sleep. Half listening for her. Wanting to be there when she regained consciousness. When I woke in the morning at six-thirty, she was asleep, but it was a restless sleep. There was movement. Her hand. Her lips. I sensed that her eyes might flutter open at any moment. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

  Mid-morning, her breathing changed, she gave a little gasp, and her eyes blinked open. She looked at me and smiled.

  “Morning,” I said, smiling back.

  “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed this moment for anything.”

  For the first time, she seemed to see the flowers that filled the room.

  “What’s all this?”

  I got up off the edge of the bed, took the newspaper article off the bulletin board, and handed it to her.

  She took it, looked at it, shook her head, handed it back to me. “I can’t see to read it. The type is all blurry.”

  I read it to her. Halfway through, she started to cry. When I finished, she said, “Oh, Matt, hold me. I was so afraid I was going to lose you.”

  “I’ve been afraid I was going to lose you.” I held her tightly, reluctantly pulled away to get something from my carry bag. I brought it back to the bed. I opened the

  little black felt box in front of her. It was the diamond ring Luis had saved for us. “I don’t want to lose you ever. Tory, will you marry me?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, Matt,” she said, her lower lip trembling, “I knew I was falling in love with you, but I didn’t want to be hurt again. Before, I would have told you no.”

  Her hand touched the newspaper article; her gaze took in the flowers in the room. “Now I know you’re the one.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. She reached out and hugged me to her. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  The next morning’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune carried the front-page headline, “Sleeping Beauty Wakes. Says Yes To Prince.”

  Epilogue

  I expected to talk to Fish after he and Janet returned from their honeymoon, but I couldn’t reach him. I tried calling his doublewide, Janet’s place, work. Didn’t get an answer at either residence. A co-worker told me Fish hadn’t returned. When I checked with the airlines, I learned that the tickets for their return flight from Miami had gone unused.

  In October, I got a postcard from him with a Davenport, Iowa, address and phone number with the message: Call and I’ll fill you in. I called and learned that Janet had greedily signed all D’Onifrio’s documents in the limo following the wedding. Their first night on board ship, she’d tried to get him exceedingly drunk. When the alcohol didn’t leave him at death’s door, and after Fish insisted on, as he described it, non-stop sex, Janet must have realized she’d been had and jumped ship at first port.

  Fish was a little bummed by her departure, but hooked up with one of two sisters taking the cruise together. Fish and the sister were living happily in Davenport. He didn’t know what happened to Janet. But he cleaned out all her bank accounts before D’Onifrio had a chance to get to them.

  The churning accusations against me were dismissed by the N.A.S.D. arbitration panel. The faulty financials Nevitt delivered and Janet’s failure to appear helped, but basically the panel recognized there was no merit to the charges. Fowler even came close to an apology for what they’d put me through.

  Nevitt, however, didn’t give up. He tried to press forward with his lawsuit to recover commissions and damages. Armstrong heard about it, arranged a hearing before a judge, had the lawsuit dismissed. Even better, he started proceedings to have Nevitt disbarred.

  Ellsworth’s belief in D’Onifrio’s habit of burying bodies in vacant buildings panned out. It took four digs before he hit the mother lode. The first three all had bodies, but not the bodies he wanted. Hole four yielded Enrico, Little Ernie, Eduardo, Raines, and two other D.E.A. agents. Until the discovery of the bodies, it looked like D’Onifrio’s lawyers might be able to get him off. As details of how Raines and the other D.E.A. agents had been tortured and killed appeared in the press, his lawyers began plea bargaining with Armstrong. Ironically, D’Onifrio ended up serving a life sentence in the same prison where his father died.

  Angel, the mole in Raines’ organization, was arrested following a routine border stop. In the false bottom of the van she was driving, patrol agents found half-a-million in cash, fake Columbian and Mexican passports, and two handguns. She was extradited from Texas to Florida and tried as an accessory to murder.

  Saul proved a great addition. His energy and enthusiasm were contagious. I made another smart business decision, too. With more business coming in, I hired a new receptionist, made Rosemary our business manager, gave her a five percent equity share in the business. The tin can became close quarters, but I had an architect’s drawings for the new building, construction due to start.

  Tory and I? A year after I proposed, we were married in a small private ceremony that included the two of us and our new little addition. Tory had given me a Springer Spaniel puppy as a wedding present. We named him Brock, in honor of Ellsworth, who served as my best man.

  Other Books from

  Reagent Press

  Scott Madison Evers is the son-in-law of the Chairman of the National Security Council. His wife is pregnant with their first child. While in Munich conducting a rendition of a known terrorist, Scott’s cover is blown. Before Scott can get away, his
entire operations team is wiped out, and he alone escapes into the night. When he returns to the US, he finds himself a wanted man, and must go on the run from the agency that is trying to convict him of high treason. Now Scott conducts secret surveillance of those he thinks can give him a way out while slowly getting drawn into a web of deceit. Ruthlessly, the other side draws his wife and unborn child into the struggle. Scott’s only hope to save them and himself is to do the unthinkable, and that is what he sets out to do.

  About the Author: Robert Stanek has written over 50 books. His books are sold all over the world and have been translated into many languages. His distinguished accomplishments during the Gulf War earned him nine medals, including our nation’s highest flying honor, the Distinguished Flying Cross.

  When two New Jersey policemen mistake author Jack Shepherd for an underworld drug dealer as he drives home from a meeting with his publisher, they chase his truck on the New Jersey Turnpike and use an unauthorized procedure to stop him. The actions of the police backfire when they realize that Jack is not the notorious drug dealer, but by then it’s too late to undo the damage and the only way out for the police is to suppress the evidence and fabricate a story that implicates Jack based on his drunkenness.

  Jack’s attorney advises him to plead guilty to a lesser offense, which would result in a short stay at a minimum-security facility. The sentencing judge accepted the plea bargain, but uses Jack’s case as an example and sentences him to the maximum sentence.

  While in prison, a hardened criminal named Salvador Salinis thinks Jack is an acquaintance and yells the name “Parodi” before attacking him. This attack is the first clue as to whom the police thought he was and the first clue to Jack’s freedom.

  Miles Marin, adventure junkie and Mercedes-Benz sales representative, has an expensively dressed, striking blond woman offer to buy the most expensive car on the Mercedes lot—if—Miles will do one favor for her. Miles senses this woman is trouble but his boss wants the sale.