Evidence of Mercy (7 page)

Waiting anxiously beside the elevator, Lynda glanced up the hall. Nurse Jill stepped out into the hall from someone's room, and Lynda turned her head away. The elevator doors opened, and quickly she rolled on.

She pressed the button for the next floor up and waited, trying to fight the pain sending clouds circling through her head. The elevator stopped and she got off, careful to avoid the nurses clustered at the coffee pot near the elevator.

She was growing fatigued, and she pushed more slowly, wondering whether she'd made a mistake. But the doubts fled when she caught sight of the glass doors to the Intensive Care Unit.

A sign warned against unauthorized personnel entering ICU, and she knew that in the wheelchair she'd never get through that door and to Jake's bed. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself against the pain, she got to her feet.

Slowly, she opened the door and slipped inside.

A nurse was on the phone, and another one bent over a monitor. Stepping carefully, and battling the dizziness threatening her again, she made her way past them.

A little girl lay in an oxygen tent behind one curtain, and further down she saw an old man. She reached out to steady herself against the wall and checked a file on a door. Heather Nelson and then Lawrence Sims—

She froze as she came to the next room. Inside was a man with a bandaged face lying still on his bed, tubes and wires attaching him to the monitors and machines that hummed and beeped.

She searched for the name on the file on his door.

Jake Stevens.

A sob choked her, and she stumbled into the room. He was as still and pale as death. A bandage covered one eye and half his face, and large patches of skin were scraped from his arm, his hand. . . .

“Jake?” she whispered.

He didn't stir. Muffling another sob, she stood over him, thinking how carefree and healthy he had looked this morning, driving up in his Porsche and irritating her with that lethal grin.

“Jake, I'm so sorry.” Clutching the bed rail, she leaned over him. “I don't know how—”

“What are you doing here?”

The voice startled her, and she swung around and saw one of the nurses she'd seen outside, a black woman, standing in the doorway. “How did you get in here?”

“I—I had to see him,” Lynda wept. “I had to.”

Instantly, the nurse was at her side. “It's all right, child,” she said, putting her arms around her and guiding her back to the door. “You're the lady who was in the crash with him, aren't you?”

Unable to speak, Lynda nodded her head.

“Honey, I'm so sorry,” the nurse said, taking her to her wheelchair and lowering her into it. “But you shouldn't be out of your room. You should be in bed. Jake will still be here tomorrow.”

“Will he?” Lynda asked, looking up at her. “He looks like—like he may not make it.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” the nurse said. “I don't know you, but I'd say you've probably looked better yourself.”

“But he's still . . . unconscious. What if he doesn't wake up? And what's wrong with his face? It's all bandaged.”

“He was in a plane crash, darlin'. His face is the least of his problems.”

Lynda grabbed the nurse's arm and started to stand, her face pleading for the truth. “Just tell me if—if he's expected to die.”

The woman gently lowered her back to the chair. “I can't lie to you. It could go either way. But if he makes it through tonight, I'll feel a lot better about his chances tomorrow.”

Finally leaning back, Lynda wailed into her hands.

“I'm gonna take you back to your room now, darlin', and tomorrow, if he wakes up, I'll make sure you get to see him. My name's Abby, and you can call me anytime tomorrow to get a report.”

Lynda couldn't talk as the nurse rolled her back to the elevator.

CHAPTER NINE

P
aige lay still as she heard a car door slam in front of her motel room. Footsteps passed her door, and then she heard the door to the next room open and a woman's shrill laughter.

It wasn't Keith. She turned onto her side and looked at her daughter, sleeping only in her underwear since they hadn't brought any extra clothes with them. The child slept soundly. Why not? She feared her father, but she didn't understand that her father was stalking them, threatening to take her from her mother and make her little life one nightmare after another, just as Paige's marriage had been.

What was he doing right now? Was he still waiting at her house, expecting Paige to breeze in and confront him? Or was he at his own apartment, devising another way of getting close to Brianna, inventing more lies about Paige's being an unfit mother, a child abuser, and a general danger to society?

“What am I gonna do?” she whispered to the darkness.

Brianna muttered a string of nonsense words under her breath. Turning on her side, Paige pulled her daughter against her. “It's okay, sweetheart,” she said softly. “Mommy's here.”

Brianna's breathing settled back into a peaceful rhythm, and Paige checked the clock. Only three hours before she had to be at work, she thought. What was she going to do with Brianna? She couldn't take her to day care again. Keith could come back and intimidate Brianna's teachers into handing her over. No, she couldn't take that chance. But she couldn't call in sick, either. She'd used up all her sick days earlier in the year when Keith had broken her arm and blackened both eyes. The shame of going to work like that had kept her home until makeup could disguise her bruises. But there were no sick days left.

There was no choice, she told herself. She would take Brianna to work with her. Brianna could sit on the floor and color as Paige typed; maybe if she explained it to her boss, he would understand. Maybe, just this once, fate would have a little mercy on her.

CHAPTER TEN

S
omeone had driven a stake through his temples, Jake thought as he opened the eye that wasn't bandaged. And if his pain was any indication, that someone had done the same through his cheekbone, his neck, down his arms, and across his shoulders. Had some woman's angry boyfriend or husband beaten him to a pulp? Had he been in a car accident?

He opened his eye, and a cruel, blaring light forced him to close it. Confused, feeling the beginnings of panic, he squinted the eye open and tried again to orient himself. Before his eye was able to make out the room, his other senses detected the smell of iodine and alcohol, a soft beeping, and the electrical hum of machinery. Focusing, he saw the white walls of intensive care, the camera in the corner with which he was monitored, and the impressive machinery around his bed.

Yes, he thought through the haze in his brain. He'd been in an accident. But not a car crash.

A plane crash.

Catching his breath as the horror of his landing came back to him, he tried to sit up, but something held him down, and the pain stabbing through his face and head warned him not to try again.

His throat felt as if he'd swallowed a bucket of sand. He needed a drink, he thought desperately. He needed a drug. He needed to die.

“He's waking up!”

He looked up to see a pale, skinny nurse standing over him on one side, and a man with a stethoscope on the other.

“Jake, can you hear me?” the man asked in a voice so loud it thundered through his brain. “Jake, you're in the hospital.”

No kidding
, he thought, but when he tried to speak, his throat rebelled. The nurse set something cold against his lips, something wet—ice chips—and he opened his mouth gratefully and let the cold water ooze into his throat.

“How long?” he asked in a raspy whisper.

“Since the crash?” she asked. “Almost twenty-four hours. How do you feel?”

He thought of the worst hangover he'd ever had and decided it was a mere annoyance compared to this. “My head,” he said, raising a lead-heavy hand to touch the bandage covering his eye.

“You have a gash down your face, Jake,” the man said gently. “Your eye was pretty badly injured.”

Jake looked up at him with horror. “My eye?”

“Yes. Do you have any feeling in your legs yet?”

His legs. There was no pain in his legs, he realized for the first time. They were numb. He tried to slide his leg up, to feel his toes, but it wouldn't move. Closing his eye, he wished he could block this out, that he could have stayed asleep, never to wake up and face the ways his body was failing him.

“Jake?”

“Tell me about my legs,” he whispered, looking up at them with dread.

The doctor laid his hand on his shin. “Can you feel me touching you, Jake?”

“Yes!” he blurted, as if that proved that things weren't as bad as they seemed. “I feel pressure. Weight.”

“That could be a good sign,” he admitted weakly. “We need to run some tests.” He started listing orders for the nurse, but Jake grabbed the sleeve of his coat and stopped him.

“What's broken?” he asked desperately. “My legs? My neck?”

It was obvious the doctor wasn't ready to be pinned down. “No broken bones, Jake, but you have deep lacerations in several places. The numbness is probably a blessing, considering the pain you might be feeling.”

“I don't need any blessings like this,” he bit out. “Besides, my head is enough to do me in.”

“Well, if you need a stronger painkiller—”

“Yes,” he cut in. “I need it.”

“All right.” But he didn't rush off for a hypodermic, as Jake had hoped. “Jake, your chart says you're new in town and no relatives have been notified. Is there anyone we could call for you?”

He thought of the one relative he still had, the one he'd woven stories about to make his past sound charmed, the one he had pretended was dead. “No,” he said finally. “The last thing I need is people crying over me, waiting like vultures to see if the new me will have any resemblance to the old one.”

“It wouldn't be like that, Jake,” the nurse said. “You need the support of people who love you.”

“I've never needed it before,” he whispered as he closed his eye to dismiss them. “And I'm not about to start needing it now.”

I
f you'd wanted a vacation, Lynda, all you had to do was say so.” Sally Crawford pulled a chair up to Lynda's bed and set the bag she'd brought on the table in front of her. “I could use one, too, but you don't see me crashing a plane to get one.”

Lynda was tired—her sleep last night had been restless and plagued with nightmares—but she managed to smile at her secretary. “Looks like I'm gonna get a longer vacation than I need. That blasted doctor said I have to stay out at least a month. Honestly, I feel like I'll be as good as new in a few days, but—”

“Lynda, you have injuries you can't even see. You have to let yourself recover. Besides, I'll be in the office taking care of the day-to-day stuff.”

“But I have cases pending. Court dates. . . .”

“Some of them can be postponed, and the ones that can't are going to be divided among the partners and associates. We went over all of them this morning. Your cases are in good hands.”

Lynda sank back onto her pillow. “Well, I guess that's something.”

“There's just one thing.”

Lynda looked up. “What?”

“The Paige Varner case. No one wanted it.”

“No one?” she asked.

“There's no money in it,” Sally reminded her. “And it's a real shame because she came in yesterday all upset because her husband had shown up at her daughter's day care and tried to take her.”

Lynda closed her eyes. “It's my fault. I've been putting her off.”

“You've been busy. When you reach for a handout, you have to wait your turn.”

That had, indeed, been her philosophy, Lynda admitted, but hearing it now, she didn't like the way it sounded. “She can't help not having any money. And that man. The restraining order obviously hasn't scared him at all. I was afraid it wouldn't. He's fearless. He'd
have
to be—he's suing
her
for custody, claiming
she's
the one who's abusive.”

“She's anxious to get the case resolved so she can leave the state.”

“I know. The judge has ordered her to stay in town until after court. Do you have her file with you?” Sally reached for her briefcase and pulled it out, and Lynda took it. “So nobody wanted her, huh?”

“I'll just tell her she'll have to find another attorney.”

“No, she's tried.” She studied the file for a moment, then glanced at Sally again. “Sally, am I really that mercenary?”

“How mercenary?” Sally asked, not following.

“So mercenary that I would push this case to the bottom of my priority list just because the hours I spent on it weren't billable?”

“Lynda, you did what anybody would do.”

Lynda sighed and closed the file. “I'm keeping this case,” she said. “I'll handle it.”

“But Lynda!”

“It'll be all right,” she said. “Just call Paige and tell her to come by to see me here.”

Sally held back her protest, but her disapproval was apparent. “All right, Lynda. If you say so. I'm gonna go now. You look like you need some rest. A lot of it.”

Lynda dropped the file onto the table next to her. “You think
I
look bad. You should see the other guy.” But the words weren't said in humor, and that haunted look passed over her eyes again. “At least he's alive. I've been calling ICU every hour. As far as I know, he's still not awake, though.”

“They're saying he may never walk again.”

Lynda snapped a look back to Sally. Slowly, she sat up. “What? Where did you hear that?”

“On the news,” Sally said. “Last night they did a report about the crash. Apparently he has a spinal cord injury, and he lost one eye.”