Читать книгу Killer Countdown - Amelia Autin - Страница 11

Chapter 1

Nurse Cindy Watkins handed Shane a little paper cup containing one lone pill and a cup of water from the fresh pitcher she’d brought in with his medicine. “Here you go, Senator.”

She waited patiently while Shane stared at the first dose of the medication he would be tied to—assuming this one worked for him without too many negative side effects—for the rest of his life. Assuming he had a rest of his life...with epilepsy.

He breathed deeply, then abruptly tipped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it with a swig of ice water. The nurse patted his arm in a motherly fashion, saying, “We understand, Senator. We really do. It’s not an easy diagnosis to accept. But you’re lucky—Dr. Mattingly is just about the best neurologist in the country. If she says it’s epilepsy, then that’s what it is.”

When Shane didn’t respond, she volunteered, “I think you share the general public’s misunderstanding about epilepsy. But look at it this way—at least now you know. And it can be controlled.”

“Yeah,” Shane agreed drily. “At least now I know.”

“Can I get you anything before I go? Do you want me to call one of your aides?” Shane shook his head. “Lunch will be here in less than an hour,” she added, patting his arm again. “Why don’t you try to get a little rest in the meantime? I know we didn’t let you get a lot of sleep last night, what with the stress test and all.”

“Yeah, maybe I will try that.” Shane lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes. There was no way he could sleep; he just wanted to be alone. And if that meant pretending to be asleep...

When he was finally alone, Shane opened his eyes and stared at the wall opposite him, his thoughts in turmoil. He gave himself ten minutes to feel sorry for himself. Then he ruthlessly shut down the self-pity, the way he’d ruthlessly shut down other emotions in his life when they’d threatened to overwhelm him—put them into a little box he could lock away and not think about. Including the devastating pain caused by the death of his wife fifteen years earlier. His pregnant wife. His unborn son.

He could still remember the last time he’d seen Wendy alive—seven months pregnant and glowing. Excited about the upcoming baby shower her friends on the base were throwing for her.

And he could still remember being called to the morgue when her body had been found—he’d barely recognized her.

He hadn’t cried, though. Not then, and not at her funeral. He’d turned that grief inward, into an implacable determination to find the terrorists responsible...and he had.

He absently rubbed his fingers against the scar tissue on the left side of his skull, until a friendly voice over the loudspeaker reminded him not to scratch his head. “Sorry,” he told the disembodied voice of the technician monitoring his room via the video camera mounted on the ceiling facing his hospital bed. “I forgot.”

He rarely thought about how he’d gotten the scar anymore—except when he’d been on the campaign trail and some reporter asked him about it point blank. He’d done his best to put the incident at the bookstore out of his mind for two reasons: it had just about killed him to lose the life he had in the Corps...and the pregnant woman he’d saved had somehow reminded him of Wendy.

Even waking up in the hospital afterward with his mother and sister dozing at his bedside was something he tried not to think about too often, because it reminded him of things he wanted to forget. His mother had reacted the way most mothers would when their firstborn child had done his damnedest to get himself killed—she alternately cosseted and scolded. His sister, Keira, on the other hand had smiled at him in perfect understanding of his actions. “Good job, Shane,” she’d whispered when their mother was out of the room. “Good job.”

But he couldn’t let himself dwell on what he’d done—and the unexpected aftereffects. What’s done is done, he reminded himself. Where do I go from here?

Back to Washington, DC, for now. The Senate was in recess this third week of February—which was why he’d picked this time to check himself into the Mayo Clinic on the advice of the doctors here—but it would be back in session next week. So far no news agency had discovered where he was, and he’d like to keep it that way. Not that he had any intention of keeping this diagnosis a secret from his constituency the next time he ran for reelection.

Assuming he ran for reelection.

In the meantime, the fewer people who knew about this, the better. He wasn’t even going to share the news with his aides, although he’d have to think of something plausible to tell them. Not that he would outright lie, but he didn’t want to put any of them in the position of having to prevaricate with the press, should they discover he’d been here in the hospital and besiege them with questions.

If any reporter asked him, he’d stonewall because it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own—unless and until he decided to run for reelection—and he didn’t want people looking at him differently. Didn’t want people making excuses for him or feeling sorry for him. The doctors had assured him the seizures could be controlled with medication, so there was no way it could impact his job—it hadn’t so far and that’s the way it would stay. He didn’t feel any different, and he certainly wasn’t planning to lower his expectations of himself as a result of this diagnosis.

In fact, the only change in his life was the damned twice-daily medication.

* * *

Investigative television reporter Carly Edwards stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor of the Mayo Clinic’s main building, turned left, and confidently strode toward the neurology wing—5 West—as if she knew where she was going. She didn’t. The hospital would say she had no business here, and in a way that was true. She wasn’t a patient’s relative. She wasn’t visiting a loved one. But she did have business here. A source had told her Colorado’s junior senator was here—Senator Shane Jones—somewhere on the fifth floor. And Carly was going to track him down if she could, get an exclusive interview, and be the first to break the story. Whatever the story was.

She saw the attendant at the outer desk, with a sign that read Desk 5 West. Before anyone could challenge her, she turned right, again as if she knew where she was going, into a corridor marked 5 West Pod A. The patient rooms—all private rooms, she knew, from the research she’d done—were arranged around the nurses’ station and the various rooms behind it in a square. Some of the doors to the rooms were open, but some were closed. And Carly cursed internally when she realized the patients weren’t listed outside the doors—not even their last names—the way they were in some hospitals. Which meant she had no idea if Senator Jones was in any of these twelve rooms. Had no idea if he was even in Pod A.

“May I help you?” the nurse on duty behind the desk politely asked Carly.

“I’m looking for...” She quickly amended Senator to Shane and finished, “... Shane Jones.”

“That patient specified no visitors except those on a very short list—and all those names are male. Are you a relative?” the nurse asked pointedly.

Busted, Carly thought. She smiled her best smile. “Not exactly.”

“If you’re not a relative and you’re not on the list, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The nurse’s hand went to the phone, and Carly knew the other woman wouldn’t hesitate to call Security to escort her out, if necessary. But Carly wasn’t about to get this close to her prey and give up meekly. She hadn’t gotten where she was in her career by being faint of heart. She glanced down at the prop she’d donned before she came here—the diamond engagement ring Jack had given her over eight years ago. She tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder, suppressed the brief memory of Jack and the expression on his face when he’d placed it on her finger, and smiled brightly. “He didn’t want me to visit him in the hospital. That’s probably why my name’s not on the list. But I wanted to surprise him.”

“You’re Senator Jones’s fiancée?” the nurse asked.

Not willing to out-and-out lie, even for an exclusive, Carly didn’t confirm or deny, just beamed at the nurse and let her smile work its magic. That smile had gotten her into—and out of—more dangerous places she had no business being than the Mayo Clinic.

The nurse stood up and started out from behind the desk. “Let me see if he wants to see you.”

Uh-oh, Carly thought. “I wanted it to be a surprise,” she demurred.

“Yes, but sometimes the patient is sleeping or just isn’t in the mood for visitors.” She smiled at Carly, inviting her to understand. “Since you’re not on the list, maybe he didn’t want you to visit for a reason—because of the way he looks with all the electrodes attached. You know how vain men are. Especially a man as handsome as the senator.”

Carly’s ears perked up when the nurse mentioned electrodes. Electroshock therapy, she quickly hypothesized. Now that would be an exclusive, indeed. Colorado’s hero senator—a former United States marine—needing electroshock therapy for a mental illness. She suppressed the little nudge her conscience gave her that people were entitled to their privacy and reminded herself that Senator Jones was a public figure. If he were mentally ill, that could impact his job performance, and his constituents had a right to know about it. His constituents and the entire country.

“Hang on,” the nurse said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

Carly watched as the nurse walked into 5W-10, making a mental note of the senator’s room number, then turned to make a run for it. She wasn’t Senator Jones’s fiancée—he didn’t have one, as far as she knew—and when he told the nurse he wasn’t engaged, the nurse would probably call Security. Carly would need to do some fancy explaining—if they caught her.

She was already heading down the corridor, nearly past the outer desk, when the nurse called her back. “Miss? Miss? You can see him now.”

Carly hesitated. Was this some kind of trick? Maybe the senator had asked the nurse to bring her back to his room, but to call Security so she could be arrested for trespassing. Either that or the senator was so mentally out of it he actually imagined he had a fiancée? If that was the case, could she snow him into thinking she was? Again her conscience gave her a nudge—harder this time. But that didn’t stop her feet from turning around and heading back toward room 5W-10.

Carly put her hand on the door latch, then pushed. The door swung open noiselessly, and she entered the room. And caught her breath as a set of stern brown eyes zeroed in on her face. She knew what he looked like—of course she knew. Handsome as sin, with a face carved in granite, and chocolate-brown eyes that could be warm as fudge or cold as a frozen Eskimo Pie...which they were now. Six-foot-two with broad shoulders tapering to a waist and hips that hadn’t an ounce of flab anywhere. Long, long legs—of course, you idiot, he’s six-two!—that seemed to dwarf the hospital bed on which he lay in a semireclining position.

The mesh cap covering his head—and the electrodes she could see attached to his skull beneath it—should have made him look ridiculous, but somehow they didn’t. Not when his bare, muscular legs, clad only in a pair of running shorts, were right beneath her eyes—legs that were perfectly visible because the sheet that might have been covering them had been restlessly tossed to one side. Not when his impressively muscled chest, covered only by a short-sleeved button-down shirt, rose and fell with his steady breathing, drawing her attention there. She didn’t know why he wasn’t clad in traditional hospital garb, but he wasn’t, and she couldn’t help the way her gaze was riveted on his impressive physical attributes. Then the legs, the chest and the rest of his perfect body faded into obscurity as her eyes met his again, and she floundered helplessly beneath those dark orbs.

“Do you know who I am?” Carly blurted out, then felt foolish.

The gravelly voice she recognized from hearing him on the Senate floor giving impassioned speeches spoke. “Oh yeah. You’re my fiancée. I didn’t quite catch the name, but...” He looked her over from head to toe...twice. His eyes lingered—obviously—on her breasts. Both times. “I have good taste.”

It was crazy. Stupid. She wasn’t the kind to get flustered by a man. Any man. Even one as blatantly masculine, sexy and irresistible as the senator was. Carly didn’t have a shy bone in her body, unlike her younger sister, Tahra. But...she blushed under his pointed stare. The kind of thing Tahra did a lot, but Carly never did. Until now.

She resisted the urge to cross her arms across her chest, and instead moved farther into the room, closing the door behind her with a little snick as the latch clicked shut. When she looked at the senator again, she realized with a tiny shock that he was strapped into the bed. And if she didn’t miss her guess, that was a lock on the strap.

Electro-shock therapy. Mental illness. Violent mental illness? she wondered. She couldn’t keep the question out of the eyes she raised to his.

To her surprise, he laughed suddenly, a booming sound that reverberated around the room. “No,” he told her, humor lightening the rather severe expression he usually wore. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked quickly, her hand reaching for the door latch.

“The strap is for my protection,” he told her. “To make sure I don’t get out of bed without a nurse in attendance. To make sure I don’t fall.” He hooked a thumb over his right shoulder, and for the first time Carly saw the harness hooked to an inverted T bar. She followed the strap upward, to the mechanical device that seemed to run on tracks throughout the room, and into what she figured was a private bathroom.

“What in the world?” Carly had never seen anything like it.

“It’s actually quite ingenious. And if I really needed it, it’d be a lifesaver. But since I don’t—I never fall when I have an episode, never lose consciousness—it’s a damned nuisance. But it’s hospital policy.”

“Episode? Fall? Lose consciousness?” Carly felt stupid for repeating his words, but she had no idea what he was talking about. Her first supposition—that he was mentally ill—seemed to be all wrong. He certainly came across as being all there. Except for accepting her as his fiancée...which he knew she wasn’t. So why had he let her in his room? Never shy, she asked, “Why did you allow me in here?”

“Because I was sick of my own company and looking for a diversion.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“Well...” He drew the word out. “Anyone with the nerve to claim she was my fiancée—”

“I never actually said I was,” Carly quickly pointed out. “I just didn’t correct the nurse’s erroneous assumption.”

His smile was cynical. “As I started to say, I figured you had to be a reporter, Ms. Edwards.” She jumped when he said her name. “And if you tracked me down at the Mayo Clinic, the only thing to do—the only smart thing to do—would be to tell you the truth and ask you to keep it to yourself. For now.”

“How did you know who I was? I thought you said—”

“I didn’t know. Not until I got a good look at you. You used to cover the Hill.” His eyes conveyed it wasn’t just her face he recognized, but Carly appreciated he was enough of a gentleman not to actually say her figure had betrayed her. She couldn’t help the way she looked, and she’d learned early to dress to downplay it as best she could professionally. Her private life was a different story, but she’d taken enough grief in her career over her curves, which tended to make men think of her as nothing but a pretty face with a bombshell body. Good in some ways, she admitted to herself, because men sometimes grew careless of what they said to her. And that had led to her breaking more than one explosive story.

“But when I let you in,” the senator continued, interrupting her thoughts, “I was praying you were a legitimate member of the Fourth Estate.”

“The Fourth Estate? I haven’t heard anyone refer to the news media by that title in forever.”

One corner of his mouth curved upward in a rueful grin. “I’d rather refer to the members of the media by that term than a few others I could think of, including ambush journalists and sleazy paparazzi.”

“Ouch.”

“I didn’t say you were, I just said some are.” He indicated the chair set against the far wall. “Would you like to sit down? You’ll pardon me if I don’t rise.” He touched the strap belting him into the bed. “I’d have to call the nurse, and she’d have to strap me into the harness, and frankly, I’d just as soon avoid looking any more ridiculous than I already do.” He touched the mesh cap on his head.

“You don’t,” Carly said. “Look ridiculous, that is.”

“Yeah, right.” Disbelief was evident in his tone.

She laughed. “Really,” she assured him before she sat in the chair, crossed her legs, reached into her capacious purse and pulled out her notebook. This was followed by her mini recorder, which she switched on. She glanced up at the senator and asked, “May I? I like to have a record of what people say. That way they can’t claim I made something up.”

His expression turned serious again. “No, I don’t mind. But I want you to understand up front that what I’m going to tell you isn’t something I want to publicize to the world. I can’t prevent you from broadcasting it. I can only state this is off-the-record for now, and rely on your journalistic discretion after you hear what I have to say. Deal?”

Carly considered this for a moment. “I can’t agree not to report what I uncover, not without knowing more. If it’s something that impacts your ability to carry out the duties of your office—you have to see how that would be news, Senator Jones, and I’d have no choice. It would be my responsibility to report it.”

“Agreed. But this doesn’t have a damned thing to do with my job as a senator. It’s personal. And very private. If I were running for office...maybe it would be relevant and the voters would have the right to know. But I’m not—not yet, anyway. If I do run for reelection, or if I go public with the story, I promise you’ll have an exclusive. Deal?”

“On those terms...deal.” She leaned forward, her mini recorder in one hand. “So can you tell me exactly why you’re here, Senator Jones?”

He drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “One word,” he told her, and his dark brown eyes were the saddest things Carly had seen in a long time. “Epilepsy.”

* * *

“Epilepsy?” Carly Edwards’s brows drew together in a frown. “How is it this is the first time anyone has heard of this, Senator?”

“Because I just found out.” Shane waved a hand that encompassed the room. “It wasn’t until I came here that I learned—” He broke off, fighting down the sudden upwelling of emotion. Guess I still haven’t quite accepted it, he told himself. When he finally trusted his voice, he said, “Apparently the head wound I received a few years back caused damage to my left temporal lobe. I knew that at the time and so did my surgeons. But no one knew the TBI—that’s short for—”

“Traumatic brain injury,” she finished. “Yes, I know.” For an experienced reporter—which Shane knew she was—Carly’s reaction was unexpected. She’d lost all color and her eyes had widened...in what looked like shock. Shock, and recognition.

He paused a moment, waiting for her to say something more, but when she didn’t he said, “No one knew the TBI would eventually cause focal seizures. It doesn’t happen in every case, but it did in mine.”

“Focal seizures?” The question came automatically, but for some reason Shane felt she wasn’t really focusing on his answer...and that intrigued him.

“The official term is focal seizure without dyscognitive features.” He grinned suddenly. “That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? All it means is that it’s a small, localized seizure in one hemisphere of the brain—kind of like an electrical ‘short’ in that area—which doesn’t cause any loss of consciousness, loss of memory or anything like that. In my case it manifests itself with a symptom that can best be described as a sudden chill...accompanied by goose bumps.”

She seemed at a loss for words. “Is that all? Just goose bumps?”

Shane allowed his eyes to wander from her face down to her legs—long, lovely legs, he noted—then back up again. And he felt a twinge in his groin he hoped wasn’t too obvious beneath his running shorts. “That’s all. I feel cold everywhere, as if I’ve walked into a freezer. And the goose bumps on my arms, my legs, make it very real. For about thirty seconds. Then the symptoms go away.”

“But you don’t lose consciousness?”

“No, and my memory of each episode isn’t affected. I can walk and talk normally while the symptoms are occurring, as well.”

“That doesn’t sound like epilepsy to me.”

“You’re thinking of what the general public knows of epilepsy—which isn’t a heck of a lot. I didn’t know any better, either, until the doctors here diagnosed me.”

All of a sudden Carly clicked the button to turn the mini recorder off. She swallowed once—visibly—then said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. This is personal and private. I don’t need to hear any more to know it’s not news. Not the kind of news I report on.” She stood up abruptly, shoving her notebook and mini recorder into her purse. “I’m very sorry, Senator. Not just that it happened to you, but that you had to share this with me, when it’s really no one’s business but yours.”

Without another word she walked out of the room.