Armed With Steele (5 page)

But I knew I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t turn my back on my bestie. I took a deep breath and knocked. A moment later the door opened a crack.

“Jessica!” Sharon opened the door wide and pulled me into a gentle bear hug. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Me, too.”

“Did Norm send you up? I’ve been trying to call you all morning, but I keep getting this strange screeching noise.”

“No, the receptionist gave me the room number.” I dug into my purse and flipped my phone open. No missed calls. “Odd. What number have you been dialing?”

“555-3322.”

“Ah, there’s the problem. Mine’s 3355. Sounds like you’ve been dialing someone’s fax machine.”

Sharon flashed a weary grin. “Oops.”

“If you’ve been trying to call, that means…”

The grin slipped from her face. “No, sweetie, she’s not awake. I was just trying to let you know they’d moved her into her own room. But I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear your voice.”

We stepped inside, and Sharon closed the door behind us. The sound of the latch catching in the door jam echoed through the room—a room that was silent, save for the light beeping of a heart monitor somewhere past the blue linen curtain that hung before us, separating the room from its entryway. The space was too cramped, too sterile. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on not hyperventilating. The last thing Grace’s mother needed was me passing out on her.

Sharon moved forward and swept the curtain aside. “Grace honey,” she said, her voice soft as a feather. “Jessica’s here to see you.”

The foot of a bed came into view, its beige cotton blanket molded around a set of still legs and feet. Yesterday, I’d done everything I could to be near her. Today, the prospect of actually seeing her had me rooted in place.

Sharon smiled at me, and reached for my hand. “It’s alright, Jessica.”

I met her gaze and nodded. Willed myself forward, and slowly turned my eyes upon the young woman in the bed before me. The shock of seeing Grace, lying there so peaceful and yet so bruised and battered, took my breath away.

Her arms lay carefully placed by her sides atop the bedcovers. Both wrists were wrapped, the neutral skin-toned bandages a stark contrast to the angry red scratches and purplish bruises that ran the full length of her arms. The faded, pastel hospital gown she wore offered my sweeping gaze a momentary reprieve. But once my eyes found her beautiful face, now swollen and nearly unrecognizable, my knees went weak.

Though I’d known she would be asleep, some small part of me had held on to the hope that I would walk in to find her inquisitive green eyes staring up at me. Instead they were closed, framed with several steri-strips helping to seal a cut along her left brow line. A handful of long, strawberry blonde hair peeked out from under the bandages around her head.

Tears of pity began to blur my vision. “Oh, Grace.”

“She had a pretty nasty gash on her forehead,” Sharon said after a moment. “One of Norman’s friends is a resident plastic surgeon. He assured us that with the small sutures they used, her scarring should be minimal.”

I blinked madly, determined not to cry. Because if I cried, that might lead to Sharon crying. And if that happened, we’d both end up crying ourselves a river.

“Can she hear us?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. But I’d like to think so, yes.”

I summoned what courage I had and took one tentative step forward, then another. My gaze shifted from Grace to her mother, who nodded in encouragement. I reached out and gently lifted Grace’s hand into mine. Cradled it, as if it were made of glass.

“Hey, Grace.”

Silence.

I shifted on my feet. Cleared my throat.

“I’d really hoped to walk in and find you awake this morning.”

This time her silence was answered by mine. I didn’t know what else to say with her mom in the room. Sharon must have picked up on my indecision.

“Jessica, do you mind if I go and grab a bit to eat? Norman was supposed to relieve me once he’d eaten, but it’s been a while now and I’d like to see where he’s run off to.”

I half wondered if she’d find him in the cafeteria, asleep with his face planted in a bowl of cereal. “No, by all means, go.” I looked from her to Grace. “I’ll stay with her.”

“Thank you, dear. But if you need to go before I get back…or if all this makes you too uncomfortable…”

“No, Sharon, really, I’m fine.”

Comfortable or not, I wasn’t about to leave the room. I needed some time alone with Grace. Time to come to terms with everything, and perhaps do a little begging for her to wake up. And besides, Officer Steele still owed us a visit.

Sharon gave my shoulders a squeeze, then collected her purse and walked silently out the door.

“You sure gave us one hell of a scare yesterday, Grace.” I shook my head slowly and tried to suppress the prior day’s memories. “But now that we know you’re okay, it’s time to wake up. So, come on. Just open those beautiful green eyes of yours. Come on. You can do it.”

Grace’s eyes remained shut, not a quiver or a blink.

“Aw, come on Grace. This is no time to go and get all stubborn on me.”

She answered me with nothing.

I spent the next half-hour trying to get her to wake up. I asked, begged, and pleaded. Even tried guilting her into it, but nothing seemed to work. She offered no changes in her facial expression, nor sound of any kind. Not anything at all, except the slow rise and fall of her chest with each breath.

The continued silence pained me, and I found myself filling it in with my own mundane ramblings. What I’d had for breakfast, who I’d seen in the lobby, what the weather was like outside. But eventually even I ran out of things to say and so, admitting defeat, I sat down and resolved to just quietly be there for my best friend.

In the silence, my mind drifted back to the state of her purse. I tried to come up with possible scenarios for why it’d ended up in its current messy state. And no matter what angle I started from, I kept coming back to the same sneaking suspicion that someone other than Grace and Officer Steele had been in that bag.

But why? What had they been after? And had they found what they were looking for?

I hugged my knees to my chest and looked back over at my peaceful, battered roommate. “I swear, I
will
get to the bottom of this.”

* * * *

Grace’s parents returned an hour later.

“We bumped into Officer Steele when we were downstairs,” Sharon said as she stepped around the curtain once more.

“Oh? Is he on his way up?”

“No,” Norm replied. “He was on his way out. He’d been dispatched to some accident nearby. Asked us to relay his apologies.”

My germaphobia stretched to its limits, and my main reason for an extended visit gone, I decided it was time to head out. I gave Grace’s had a tiny squeeze and promised to come back the next day. Or sooner, I told her parents, if her condition changed. Sharon hugged me good-bye, and Norm made me promise to drive safely. I said I’d do my best.

But as I steered my car out of the parking garage, my thoughts weren’t on the road—they were on Grace and the prior day’s accident. Preoccupied, I missed my turn off East State. Passed through the intersection of North Coliseum Blvd. and kept right on going. I zoned everything out until I came to the turn off for Maysville Road and saw a slew of caution tape wrapped around a damaged pole ahead of me on the left.

But it wasn’t just any damaged utility pole, it was
the
damaged utility pole.

My breathing quickened as I drove past the accident site, made a careful U turn at the next neighborhood entrance, and then maneuvered my car onto what little shoulder the road offered. The first break in traffic, I scrambled out of my car to take a look around.

There was a path worn into the grass not far from where I stood, presumably from foot traffic the day before. The image of what it must have looked like, with first responders rushing back and forth from ambulance to car with their supplies and gurney, was almost too much for me to bear. But curiosity soon won out over grief, and I found myself headed down the footpath.

While the slope of the embankment wasn’t un-navigable, it wasn’t an easy walk, either. I stumbled along as best I could, choosing each footstep carefully. I sure as hell didn’t want to end up in the hospital room next to Grace.

A few feet back from the infamous, door-jamming pole, I stopped. The grass all around it seemed to glow, lit up by the scattering of tiny glass fragments twinkling in the afternoon sun. I looked back up to the roadway, and tried to picture her car careening off the road, rolling down the hill, and landing against the pole before me. All that careening and rolling had my breakfast threatening to make an encore appearance. I took several quick gulps of fresh air and pleaded with my stomach to settle.

Nauseous or not, after another minute or two of self-inflicted torture, I’d had enough. I turned back and headed for the car, no longer bothering to stick to the path. I reached the top of the hill, and continued along the shoulder toward my Civic.

But halfway back, something in the grass a short way down the hill caught my eye. Something outside the well-worn path. I carefully made my way back down the slope and squatted down to take a better look.

At first glance, I thought it might be some sort of gold-colored trinket. And judging by its semi-brilliant sheen, I suspected whatever it was hadn’t been there long. I reached down with a shaking hand and retrieved it from its grassy lair. The golden object weighed next to nothing. Three tiny chain links dangled from one end.

“Huh. Just a broken key chain.” I turned the trinket over in my hand and brushed away a fine layer of dust that covered its other side. My eyes widened as a company logo came into view.

Maxwell Office Solutions.

Chapter 4

“I’m telling you, something is
not
adding up.” I paced back and forth across the living room floor, cell phone jammed to my ear with one hand, the trinket in the other.

“So you found a key chain? Heck, it could have been Grace’s. Probably flew out of her car when it rolled down the embankment.”

“No, it wasn’t hers. I’ve never seen this key chain before.”

“Maybe because she’d just gotten it yesterday?”

“Matt, this thing has
24K
stamped on its back. No one at that company gets a gold key chain for reaching their five-month mark.”

“Well, I don’t know, Jess.” Frustration crept into his voice. “So the key chain was there? Maybe it belonged to someone else. Why are you so up in arms over it?”

I thumped a fist to my forehead. “Because! It proves someone from her work was at the scene of the accident.”

“Lots of people were there!”

“Okay. And where were all these people standing?”

“Back by the road. Look, maybe the person who lost their key chain recognized her car and pulled over to see if she was okay.”

“Sounds logical. Only, I found this key chain stomped into the ground well away from the edge of the road.” Matt remained silent, so I pushed on. “But that’s not the only thing that worries me. Last night, after I got home, I took another look inside Grace’s purse. And you know what I found?”

“No,” he said, his tone flat, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Grace’s notepad, with a sliver of paper tucked in its binding.”

“Tucked in its binding,” he echoed. “And that would be suspicious because...”

“You know how meticulous Grace is with everything she touches! In all the years I’ve known her, I have never, ever seen Grace tear off a piece of paper and not make sure that she got every last little bit of it free from its binding. It…it just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Okay, I finally agree with you on something.”

My chest swelled with hope. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. That it doesn’t make sense. Any of it. Why can’t you just accept that this whole thing was a fluke accident and let it go?”

I could feel my blood pressure rise. “Because I know it wasn’t.”

“Look, I love you to pieces, but this is crazy talk. And even if your ideas had a sliver of truth to them, who’s gonna believe you?”