89

I finally clawed my way to the surface of consciousness, fighting through the nightmares I had been slipping in and out of. I was still disoriented. My head felt like it might explode. I was lying in a hospital bed in a dark room with the television on. I had no idea what time of day or night it was. There were IVs hooked up to both arms, and my thoughts felt like they were wading through quicksand.

I tried to blink my eyes a few times so I could bring my memories into focus, but it wasn’t happening. How did I get here? How long have I been passed out? There were fragments of memories—Aaron Gillespie at my house, images of my parents covered in blood, a visit from Mace James.

I turned my head slowly to the left, but the dizziness and pain came charging at me. I closed my eyes, blinked slowly, and opened them again. Bill Masterson was sprawled out in a chair, mouth open, snoring loudly. I had no idea why he was in my room.

I tried to talk, but my mouth was dry as cotton. I needed something to sip on but felt like my muscles were paralyzed and wouldn’t respond to my brain’s commands. I managed to murmur something and thought I saw Bill start in his chair. But then he settled back into a rhythmic snoring, and I realized there was no use fighting the sleep. I closed my eyes, relaxed, and let the nightmares take over again.

Mace came out from under the anesthesia feeling groggy but ready to answer the nurse’s questions. “What’s your name? Where are you? What kind of surgery did you have?” His words sounded a lot like grunts, but he apparently got all the answers right, and she offered him water and some crackers.

“The doctor will be here in a few minutes,” the nurse told him, “but he says you’re a lucky man. The bullet tore into your quadriceps muscle, but it didn’t hit any bone. It’s a good thing you’re a weight lifter.”

As Mace gathered his bearings, the events of the last twenty-four hours settled back in his mind, creating a sense of sadness and apprehension. He needed some answers.

He asked for his BlackBerry, but the nurse said he didn’t have one when he came in. He wanted to use the phone, but the nurse told him he needed to wait and talk to the doctor first. “After that, there’s a Detective Finnegan who wants to talk to you.”

“Is there a Jamie Brock in the hospital?” Mace asked.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give out that kind of information. Why don’t you relax a little bit? If the leg starts to hurt, you can push this button right here, and it will release another shot of morphine.”

Mace grunted in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. He waited patiently for his surgeon to make the rounds and then threatened to check himself out of the hospital if they didn’t get him a cell phone. A few minutes after his display of belligerence, Detective Tyler Finnegan came into the room and gave Mace an update on Jamie Brock and David Brewster.

“We found Brewster in the trunk of Rivera’s car,” Finnegan said. “Tied up but basically unharmed. They were probably going to dispose of him later.

“Jamie’s okay too. Gillespie gave her a drug called ketamine, a fast-acting narcotic sometimes used as a date rape drug. It’s hard to detect in the system and can cause some short-term memory problems. Jamie’s coming around, but she probably won’t remember much.”

Mace had a thousand questions, but Finnegan had a few of his own. He pulled up a chair, crossed his legs, took out a notepad, and began asking. Thirty minutes later, with Finnegan still probing about details, Mace drifted back to sleep.

I opened my eyes again, encountered the lights in the room, and closed them. My head was still throbbing, and I felt like throwing up. I felt numb, and I couldn’t seem to get out of the haze. I started drifting away again.

“Jamie?” A familiar voice cut through the fog. I felt a touch on my arm, an insistent shaking, and then heard the same voice. “Jamie, can you hear me?”

I tried to reach out for him, squinting to bring into focus the silhouette standing over me.

“Thank God,” Chris said.

He bent over and gave me a gentle hug, and I raised my arms to hug him back.

He offered me something to drink, and I sipped it gingerly through the straw. He propped my head up with the pillow. I looked to the other side of the bed and found LA sitting, watching me intently, a thin smile showing his relief.

I struggled to form some questions, but my tongue was thick and uncooperative. I couldn’t remember how I had gotten here or what had happened, but I had this strange sense that whatever it was, it wouldn’t go away. Images started creeping into my mind.

“How . . . how did I . . . get here?” I managed to stammer.

Chris pulled a chair up to the side of my bed and slowly, in a soft voice, started telling me everything that had happened. I tried to absorb the news as best I could, but I couldn’t wrap my stumbling mind around the notion that Gillespie had been working with Caleb Tate the entire time. I shook my head as if I could change what had happened by a sheer act of will.

I wanted to understand, but my body needed to rest. I asked a few questions, but it all seemed like a terrible nightmare. When Chris finished updating me, he told me how thankful he was that I was still alive. He said that God was looking out for me, that God must have big plans for my future.

I closed my eyes with Chris holding my right hand and LA holding my left. I felt secure between these two men and safe here. And I knew, on some level, that Chris was right. The same God with whom I had been angry, for whom I’d had so little time, had now spared my life.

The pillow was soft. The bed was warm. And my body needed its rest.