Marcus: The M Series, Book Three (32 page)

“Were you considering leaving your wife, Dr. Cannon?”

I look at Ethan. He nods.

“No.”

“Were you having an affair?”

Ethan nods.

“No.”

Agent Fleming pipes in. “When was the last time you spoke to Dr. Elliott?”

Ethan nods.

“July 13th, 2011.”

“Very specific, Dr. Cannon. How do you know that date?”

“My client has an eidetic memory,” Ethan answers. “Photographic, you might say.”

Fleming: “Is that right? Then he should be able to tell us whether he's met Mr. Guzman before.”

Ethan nods.

“No.”

“Mr. Guzman is claiming you did.” She pulls out a note pad. “He says he met you on June 23rd with Dr. Elliott and a Mr. Flores to go over the plan for Mrs. Cannon's kidnapping.”

Yeah, right. If I’d met
that
fucker, I’d have been in jail already for taking his life.

Ethan blows out a deep breath. “You want to know where Dr. Cannon was on June 23rd? Go to the maternity floor, room 315. The woman in there can tell you exactly where he was, that entire day and what he did, along with everyone else in this room, including Agent Cannon. Ask Section Chief Collins, as well.”

“Okay, we will. But before I ask her or them, why doesn't Dr. Cannon fill us in?”

Ethan crosses his arms and nods. “Answer.”

“At home, helping my very pregnant wife prepare our home for one of her best friend's baby shower, all day.”

Agent Fleming frowns. “On June 23rd?”

“Yes.”

“And you never left?”

“No; I wasn’t even on call. My wife needed me, so I traded a shift with John Brewer.”

Agent Rhodes' cell goes off. He looks at the ID, and grimaces as he answers. “Rhodes.”

A man screams at him through the phone. He winces. “No, sir ... No, sir ... Yes, sir ... No, we didn't know that ... I see ... Right away, sir.”

He ends the call and folds his note pad. “Dr. Cannon, FBI Director Reed asks that Agent Fleming and I extend our apologies for disrupting you at this difficult time. Please be assured no one from the Bureau will take this line of questioning with you again during our investigation.” He stands. “Fleming?”

Agent Fleming scowls and leaves the room. Rhodes apologizes again and follows.

I turn to Lil. “Caspar is with the FBI, too?”

“Don't answer that,” Ethan says.

I look at Matthew. He looks around the room and whistles.

“This damn day is just full of surprises. Is there anything else I don't know?”

The door bursts open and Melvin looks around the room. His eyes are lit up and he's breathless.

“Marcus! Come with me! Come, Nathan! All the doctors!”

Nathan and I follow behind him. He leads us to a room where Mariah is lying in a bed. Her head is bandaged and she's covered from her neck to her ankles. We gown and mask then enter the room.

“Watch this,” Melvin says, excitedly. He knuckles her chest; she responds. We gasp. Next he moves to her feet and he scrapes the bottom of her left foot with a pen and she recoils.

“Why send us to the conference room, Melvin? What's the bad news?”

“Even though she's responding to pain, she wasn’t when I asked Dr. Wall to call you. She's still not ready to waken. Her latest CT shows minimal reduction in the swelling. Good news is that it's not increasing. Bad news is that it's not decreasing as fast as I would like. However,” he grins. “…do you notice something missing?”

I look at my wife for several moments then notice it: silence. “The vent's gone...”

“That's right!” Melvin grins wider. “She's been off for forty-seven minutes. She's breathing entirely on her own.”

Everyone cheers and hugs one another as I stare at my remarkable wife. She is one hell of a fighter.

“Her blood pressure is still low, but it's getting better. As you know, we wait for the brain to heal itself but I'm optimistic on the time, seeing that she's already responding to stimuli. She's scheduled for another CT at seven a.m. Go home and get some rest, Marcus. Come back in the morning. I'll stay with her and if anything changes, I will call you right away.”

I glance at my watch. I'm surprised to see it's two in the afternoon. I suddenly feel very tired and ravenous. I haven’t eaten since Saturday; it’s now Tuesday afternoon.

“I'm going to see our children. You should get some rest, too, Melvin.”

He nods. “I'm going to the on-call room in a few minutes. Dr. Wall is taking the first shift with Mariah. He’ll awaken me if something develops.”

I thank him again. Tom says he's staying with Dr. Wall and urges me to go. Ethan elects to go back to Alissa and says he'll take over for Tom at nine tonight, when Alissa's visiting hours are over, and will stay the night. I tell them I’ll return at eight in the morning, after I have breakfast with my kids. I go back to the conference room to tell our waiting family, who, after Melvin explains the significance of Mariah's reactions, shout for joy.

After getting back to Joshua's, and showering and putting on real clothes for the first time in two days, I spend some time with my children, who miss their mother horribly.

I tell them their mother is ill but assure them she is getting better.  They become sad, but perk up some when Uncle Josh tells them they can stay with his boys until their Mommy feels better. This goes over very well with Lila, who loves Joshua and Mandy's 'real' doll, eight-month-old Tyler.

The twins are not that easily distracted… until Uncle Josh brings out the water slide and Sidra passes out popsicles. I sit at a garden table and prop my head up on my fist, watching all the boys play on the slide and attempting to ignore the armed security guards Matthew still had stationed at Joshua’s.

“Marcus, go in the guest room and get some sleep. I'll charge your phone and come get you if it rings,” Mandy murmurs when I start to nod off.

I shiver. “Not that green room,” I mumble, standing.

She laughs and follows me inside. “No, Matthew is braving it in there. Try the blue room at the top of the stairs.”

I smile and give her my phone as Joshua enters. “Okay. Thanks Mandy.”

“Off for a nap, Cramp,” Joshua asks after he kisses his wife.

“Yeah,” I mumble again as I walk to the stairs.

“I'm off too, Mandy. I need a couple of hours. Will you be all right?”

“Just fine, babe. You better go and make sure Marcus doesn't pass out on the stairs.”

After that, all I remember is taking off my shoes in the blue room.

May 11, 2018

I searched the fridge. I wasn’t hungry but I sure as fuck didn't want to have this conversation. Think...

“Where is everybody?” I managed to get out.

Mariah sighed. “I gave Sidra the night off because Mom has the kids.”

“When are they coming back?”

“They'll be here before you come home tomorrow. You're changing the subject, Cannon. You're not listening to me.”

Shit. 'Cannon.' Not Good. Ever.

“I heard you, baby.”

Mariah became quiet and I turned to her. She had her arms crossed while glaring at me.

“Do this for me. Do you really want more kids after this?”

“If you feel that strongly, why don't you have a tubal ligation?”

“Don't you think my body has been through enough,” she screeched, sweeping a hand over her growing belly.

“Baby, do you realize what you're asking? I'll be giving up the ability to make babies. Forever.”

“Listen to me! I don't want any more children!” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you planning on leaving me, Cannon? You have an eye on some young chick to make five more babies with, already?”

Instant rage boiled in my blood. I slammed the fridge door then glared at my beautiful wife.

“That is NOT funny, Hollander,” I shouted. “You will not even think that ever again, let alone say it! Understand?”

Mariah startled when she heard my tone and her maiden name. She knew she went too far with that statement and I was ready for a fight. On cue, she left the room, stormed up the back stairs and a minute later our bedroom door slammed.

I texted Rockford/ooVoo to all the men so we can chat in video messaging.

“Make it quick, Cramp. I'm a little busy here,” a bare-chested Matthew says as a woman giggled in the background.

“This is personal, Toad. Can you leave the room or something? And put a fucking shirt on!”

“Fine! I'll be right back, sweets. Don't move from that spot. I like that position you're in.”

The woman giggled again as Matthew grabbed a shirt and stood. We were given a full frontal view of him, to the groans and protests of everyone logged on.

“Matthew,” Tom shouts. “Damn it!”

“Come on, man,” Ethan laughs.

“I'm about to have my dinner, jackass,” Nathan yells.

“I'm fucking blind now! I really did not need to see your junk,” Rob snapped.

Matthew laughs. “Jealous much?” He picked up his tablet and went into another room. “All right, what is it, Cramp?”

“Wait... Russell hasn't joined on yet.”

“Damn it, she's getting cold in there, fucker!”

“Pay your gas bill and she won’t,” I retorted.

Russell finally joined the chat. “Hey, what's up, guys,” he says, grinning and adjusting his shirt. “What did I miss?”

“Matthew, full frontal,” Ethan snorted.

“I saw that enough when we were dorm mates. Fucker and his ‘air-drying’ while primping.”

All of us managed a chuckle.

“Mm-hmm… Let’s get this done, guys,” Russell murmurs while grinning and looking away from the camera. “My wife is waiting for me. Damn, girl… whoo… I’ll be right back. Talk, Cannon. Now.”

That’s not my sister! That’s not my sister! He was so dead!

“Damn it, am I the only one
not
fucking right now?”

Nathan, Tom, Joshua, Matthew, Russell, and Ethan all look away from the cameras at the same time.

“You all are a bunch of horn dogs.”

“I'm not. I'm still at work.” Rob says, laughing. I can see him going over paper work on his office desk. “Babies don't come on a nine to five schedule, as you all know.”

Russell chuckled, walking to another room. “Our kids are at Rachel's and you and Cookie aren't taking advantage of that? Like we all are?”

“Dead, Stretch,” Matthew murmurs. “Still my sister.”

“Mariah and I had a fight,” I confessed, trying to forget that Russell… touches… my sister.

“A fight? On kid-free night,” Joshua laughed.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, why?”

I took a deep breath. “She asked me to...” I pinched my brow.

They stared at me. “What?” Rob says, frustrated.

“Yeah, what, damn it,” Joshua asked, impatiently.

“Marcus, it's okay to use your mouth. They love that.”

“Fuck you, Matthew.”

“She wants a three way? I know a girl that likes–”

“Damn it, Toad! A vasectomy, all right? She wants me to get a fucking vasectomy!”

Most of them exclaimed 'ooh' and frowned.

“And,” Tom asked. “I had one. It's no big deal, Marcus.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am, Ethan. We have three boys. Monica doesn't want any more and I agreed.”

“Thanks a lot, Tom. That's why Mariah brought it up.”

“Look, Marcus, you guys are on your fourth child and Cookie's tired. It's an hour long procedure, a two-day recovery, tops. They recommend some sort of protection against pregnancy, just for a few weeks but after that, there's no reason for that worry, ever. I could give you the number to my doctor. She's very good and was highly recommended to me.”

“Hold it! You let a woman snip you, Tom?”

“Yes I did, Matthew.”

“You let a chick fiddle with your junk and take away your masculinity?”

“It wasn't my masculinity, fucker. I can still get it up with no problem. It was my right to procreate and my wife and I decided we were done with that phase in our lives. Sounds like Cookie feels the same way.”

“I don't know, Tom.”

“Me either,” Russell said, shaking his head. “It sounds extreme, not being able to use your boys again. And who's to say Cookie won't change her mind later? Would you be willing to have it reversed?”

“I doubt it. Do you hear how skeptical I am to have it done? Nathan? You're kinda quiet.”

“I'm having it done,” Nathan said quietly. “I have an appointment next week.”

“You're kidding, right,” Ethan asked.

“No. Lisa's pregnant again. It's also our fourth, Marcus. She thought we were done but... I made the consultation appointment the day we found out. This way, we make sure this is the last one. No more accidents.”