Chapter 27

All they could do was wait. They had heard more than one uniformed person tell them that today: First, the police, and now, the nurses and doctors. Phillip and Linda paced the living room, then the kitchen, then the dining room and finally the waiting room at the hospital. They checked the home phone a dozen or more times to make sure it was still working. Then they checked their cell phones and waited. They prayed, they cried and they waited some more.

When they received the call that her bike had been found, they were hysterical. They rushed to the scene and helped search for their only child. They looked everywhere for Cat. Without knowing what to say, they made the calls to Susan and Sullivan and waited while the Oklahoma Highway Patrol was called in to investigate the collision.

When the trooper showed up in his brown uniform and round, Smokey the bear hat, he didn’t appear concerned about the missing rider. He said someone probably stopped and rendered aid to her and had probably given her a ride to the hospital. His nonchalant attitude rubbed Phillip and Linda the wrong way. They tried to get the young trooper to understand what Cat had been through recently. He seemed oblivious to what they said as he got his large roll-a-tape out of the trunk of his patrol car and started taking measurements. He finally got into his car and started typing on his computer that was mounted on a black metal stand in the center console of his black and white Dodge Charger.

When Sullivan arrived he took Phillip and Linda aside. He put an arm around each of their shoulders. “Let me talk to the trooper and see what I can find out. My dispatch is already making calls to all the local hospitals. If she was taken to a hospital, we will know about it soon. Why don’t you guys head back to your house and I will be right behind you.”

Phillip thanked him profusely, but Linda just stared at him as if he spoke another language. Phillip guided her back to their car. When they got to their house there was already a police car in the driveway.

“Please, God, no!” Linda shrieked.

She clutched her chest as she got out of the car and stumbled towards the police officer. He was standing on the porch talking on his hand-held radio. He saw them park next to his patrol car, so he replaced the radio on his gun belt and readjusted his hat. He walked down the sidewalk to meet Phillip and Linda. He saw the fear in their eyes.

“Good afternoon, my name is Officer Weatherly. I’ve been sent here by Detective Sullivan. He said he will be here shortly, but he wants me to wait with you until he arrives.”

“Has something else happened? Did they find her out there after we left?” Phillip asked. He put both hands on his head, waiting for the bad news.

“No, Sir, nothing like that. You probably know more about what’s going on than I do. I’m just suppose to wait here with you.”

He motioned for them to continue up the path to the front door. They walked together to the front door and were surprised to find it unlocked. Had they really run out of there earlier and forgotten to lock the door?

“I thought you locked this, Babe,” Phillip looked accusingly at Linda.

“You were the last one out. Remember?” she replied defensively. “I was already in the car when you came out.”

Phillip looked at the police officer and held a finger up across his lips to motion for them both to be quiet. He had started through the door when the officer grabbed his arm and pulled him back outside.

“Wait a minute. You stay out here with your wife. I’ll call for backup, and we’ll search the premises. If someone is in there, you don’t want to confront them unarmed.

“Who said I was unarmed?” Phillip said as he slid his fingers around the stainless .380 he had tucked into his waistband.

“You got a permit for that thing?” the young cop asked. He smiled when Phillip didn’t reply. “Come on, keep your head down,” the officer said.

The police officer radioed in to his dispatch that they would be searching the house and then turned his radio off. Phillip looked at Linda and said, “You stay here. We will check the house.” Phillip pointed at the porch swing with his non-gun hand and bent his elbow, raising the pistol skyward. He motioned for the officer to follow him, and they crouched down as they silently swung the door open and crept inside.

Linda walked to the end of the porch and sat in the swing. After searching the house and finding it as they had left it, Phillip returned to the porch and pulled Linda to her feet. He took her inside, laid her on the couch, covered her with a blanket and sat beside her. He rubbed her shoulders gently as he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “She’s going to be all right. Rest now, rest.”

He got up, walked slowly to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of cold water and offered some to the police officer who paced the floor while looking out the kitchen window periodically.

When Sullivan arrived, the young officer walked out to meet him. Phillip watched as the two men talked briefly by Sullivan’s car. Then Sullivan turned and made his way up the walk and to the door. Phillip opened the door as Sullivan’s hand was in a mid-air knock.

“Come on in Detective and tell us what you know.”

Sullivan motioned toward Linda, “Get Mrs. Carlyle. We are heading to Baptist Hospital. Cat’s in the emergency room there. She is pretty banged up, but she’s alive.”

Phillip rushed to Linda’s side while Sullivan was still talking and shook her shoulder. Cat had been found.

Cat was conscious and screaming when they rushed into the emergency department. They could hear her all the way down the hallway. She settled down a little when her mom and dad pushed past the half-drawn curtain and up to her bed.

The only place on her body not scraped up was her head. Even her chin had suffered some abrasions. She was a pitiful sight. The large male nurse with an evil looking rubber scrubber had been cleaning her up. Between the iodine bath, the blood, the torn biking clothes and the obvious struggle Cat was putting up, the place looked like a war zone.

Linda held her hand over her mouth and tried unsuccessfully to stop crying. Several times, she tried to speak but only a sob would emerge from her thin, tight lips.

“Try to relax, I know it hurts. Here hold my hand,” Sullivan said, trying to soothe Cat. He held a burly hand out for her tiny one. “Go ahead and squeeze when it hurts.”

“It hurts constantly,” she said, almost screaming.

“Tell this barbarian to stop,” Cat yelled, but the nurse continued to scrub her wounds. It appeared to Phillip and Linda that Cat’s skin looked more like hamburger meat. It was more than either of them could stand.

When Phillip’s legs quit holding him up, he leaned side-ways and hit the wall before Sullivan grabbed the back of his jacket and eased him gently to the floor. Another nurse came running in and rolled him over. She checked his vitals, determined he had fainted and asked for Linda to help her get him up and out into the waiting room. Linda gave Cat a pitiful glance and did as she was asked.

Sullivan continued to hold Cat’s hand and tried to get her to look into his eyes so that she wouldn’t watch what was being done to her. Cat didn’t seem to notice that Sullivan saw her wearing only her panties and bra. She tried to recall everything that had happened and all that she had seen and felt. She gave a description of the man who had hit her. The police had recovered the sedan with her in it after it crashed into a bus at the red light. She was taken by ambulance to the burn center because her injuries essentially were burns. After discovering that her left leg, right arm, two ribs and collar-bone were broken, they began the process of splinting, cast-ing and scouring the wounds.

“I’m going to kill him with my bare hands when we find him,” Cat swore through clinched teeth.

She squeezed Sullivan’s hand hard and looked directly into his eyes. His words were like balm to her soul and she allowed herself to get lost in his eyes as he clasped his other hand on top of hers.

There would come a day when she would be safe again, Sullivan vowed to himself. He would do everything possible to ensure it. He would capture or kill whoever had done this or he would die trying.