3 Savor (2 page)

Handel suddenly had a heroin addict
thrown into the mix of his trial. Not exactly someone above reproach, but that
wouldn’t stop the prosecution from using him to prove Kawasaki had motive for
killing his wife. Why hadn’t Manny mentioned this person before? Especially if
the man was seeing his sister romantically and he knew about it. He rubbed a
hand over his stubbly five o’clock shadow, thinking. “So you want me to believe
that Jimena, a beautiful woman married to a rich man, would leave all that for
you, a drug addict?”

“I quit eight months ago! I
promised Jimena I was done with the life.”

“And what were you doing at the
Kawasaki residence the night of the murder?”

“We were leaving for Mexico. She
finally decided it was time. I went to pick her up but he…”

A guy on a Harley flew by his door,
riding between lanes, and passing everyone with devil-may-care nonchalance in a
leather vest and red bandanna. The loud thumping of the exhaust pipes drowned
out the man’s words.

“… and when I woke up she was
dead,” he finished.

Red taillights flared on the pickup
in front of him as it suddenly came to a complete stop. Handel slammed on the
brakes. His dream of a getaway with Billie evaporated with a glance in the
rearview mirror. A truck was bearing down and there was no way it could stop in
time to avoid rolling right over him. He twisted the wheel hard to the right
and pulled into the next lane without knowing for sure if there was enough
space between vehicles. The screech of metal on metal as he slid past the edge
of the pickup’s bumper drowned out the last of the man’s words. Handel was
flung forward against the steering wheel when the truck slammed from behind. An
explosive sound reverberated in his head and glass exploded around him.

“Mr. Parker? Mr. Parker?” He
thought he heard a voice calling and then it faded away.

•••••

“You’ve been here for hours. I’ve
got a few minutes now. Why don’t you come and have a cup of coffee with me?”

Handel didn’t recognize the male
voice tinged with a slight accent. Southeastern? Virginia, maybe? He fought to
open his eyes but his lids were as heavy as bricks. There was a shuffling sound
beside him and his hand suddenly felt cold as though someone had released it.
He stretched his fingers, hoping to attract attention and let them know he was
awake, but instead fog filled his mind again.

•••••

The hospital cafeteria had the
worst coffee Billie had ever tasted. Or maybe she was just so burned out on
coffee that it all tasted like sludge. What she wouldn’t give for a bottle of
Margaret’s wine right about now. Anything to help her get through another
night. She automatically poured creamer and sugar into the murky blackness and
stirred, watching the swirl of white slowly disappear.

Dr. Teledaga was the surgeon who’d
performed emergency surgery when Handel was first brought in, repairing broken
ribs and a collapsed lung. Afterwards, he’d come by ICU to check on his patient
and they’d chatted for a few minutes. A couple days later she ran into him in a
corridor of the hospital when she was looking for a snack machine and they’d
had a light-hearted conversation about boating and his love of deep-sea
fishing. He wasn’t at all what she’d imagined a surgeon to be like.

He gently put a hand on her arm now
and led her toward a table in a quiet corner, then pulled out her chair with a
smile. “How’s this?”

“Fine, thanks.” She sat down and
tried to stifle a yawn as the doctor took the chair across from her. Lacing her
fingers around the cup, she sighed. “I don’t think I would have survived the
past week without your supervision, Doctor.”

“I’m sure you would have done fine,
once you found your way out of the custodian’s storage closet,” he said, in a
teasing tone. He lifted his cup and blew softly at rising steam before taking a
tentative sip. “I’m just glad I was there at the opportune moment to guide you
back to your husband’s bedside. It’s not often I have the pleasure of meeting a
fellow mid-westerner.”

“I don’t think West Virginia is
really considered mid-west,” she said with a slight quirk of her brows.

“No? Why is it in the name then?”

“You’re crazy. How did you end up
way out here in San Francisco anyway? You’re a long way from your mountain
mama.”

“Like a bad country song, I left
home right after high school. Hitchhiked for a year or so, seeing the country,
working odd jobs. When I got to California I realized I couldn’t walk on water
so I enrolled at the university and decided to become a doctor. Of course, now
that I
can
walk on water I no longer
have a desire to travel further west,” he brushed a hand over close-cropped
hair, more silver than black and his lips thinned thoughtfully. “I liked the
bay area, so I decided to stay.”

“You don’t miss your home? Your
family?” she asked, leaning one elbow on the table to prop her chin on her
hand. Exhaustion seeped all the way to her toes. She could fall asleep where
she sat if she didn’t keep talking.

He took another gulp of coffee and
shook his head. “Not much family to speak of. None that I want to acknowledge
anyway.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I didn’t invite you to coffee to
depress you.” He tipped his head to the side and his eyes narrowed. “I thought
you might need a break from this unrealistic, self-imposed vigil you’ve set
yourself on.”

There it was. Out in the open. The
elephant in the room.

He’d already told her she should go
home and rest. Handel’s neurologist, Doctor Chao, had said the same. There was
no reason to believe her husband would wake up anytime soon. He was still in a
coma and there had been no improvement since his last surgery. They said he was
lucid when they first brought him in after the accident but he’d suffered brain
trauma along with all his other injuries and the ER nurse said he lost
consciousness soon after.

Billie hated that she wasn’t here
in time to tell Handel she loved him, to hold his hand, to reassure him that…
She rubbed her nose and sniffed. “There’s nothing unrealistic about staying by
Handel’s side until he wakes up. He needs me.” She argued half-heartedly,
cringing inside at the unthinkable – that he might never need her again.
The lovemaking they’d so recently enjoyed, sharing things with one another that
they’d never share with another soul, planning their future together… could all
be over. The thought was intolerable. She couldn’t bear losing him.

She’d taken to falling asleep in
the chair beside his bed. The nurses had brought her a cot but she seldom slept
on it because whenever she lay down she tended to dream. And dreaming never
ended well. She’d dream Handel back to health, and then she’d wake up.

Dr. Teledaga reached across the
table and brushed her arm with the tips of his fingers. She jerked away as
though he’d prodded her with a red-hot poker. It suddenly felt traitorous to be
sitting here enjoying coffee with a handsome doctor while Handel lay
unresponsive in ICU. She had no business talking and laughing as though life
could go on as usual.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset
you.” He slowly pulled back and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his white
coat. “I know you want to believe and I’m all for holding out hope as long as
humanly possible, but at some point you’re going to have to take a step back
and reassess your options.”

She shook her head, anger surging
up from under the surface. Unaware until now that it was building, she had
thought she was taking this whole thing fairly well. How dare he? He had no right.
The chair made a loud racket, scraping against hard tile as she scooted back
and jumped up. “Handel is going to wake up and I’m going to be there beside him
when he does. Thanks for your input but you’re a cold, insensitive bastard and
I don’t think you understand what normal people go through after you cut their
loved ones up and sew them back together. We don’t just go on with our lives
while the person we love lies there…” she choked on the words and turned away.

Dashing at her eyes with the long
sleeve of her t-shirt, she blindly dodged tables in her rush to leave the
cafeteria. After a near collision with an elderly woman holding a full tray,
she was through the doors and into the hall, sucking in a deep breath to
prevent sobs from pushing their way out. She ran into the nearest women’s
bathroom, slammed into a stall and locked the door. Tears coursing down her
cheeks, she leaned against the stall partition and sobbed.

After a couple of minutes, the
outside door opened with a soft squeak as someone entered. Billie held her
breath and rubbed tears from her cheeks with the pads of her fingers.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Parker?” a
hesitant voice asked. “Dr. Teledaga asked me to check on you.”

She opened the door and stepped out
to face a young blonde nurse in cotton candy pink scrubs. Her nametag said,
Annie. Billie didn’t know what had come over her. Tears and drama were so
not
her thing. She smiled at the young
nurse, hoping she looked calm and collected now that the storm was past. “I’m
fine, thanks,” she said and began washing her hands at the sink.

The girl continued to stand behind
her, watching. “I just wanted to let you know that we do have grief counselors
available if you’d like to speak with someone. Religious or non-religious.”

Billie looked up from drying her
hands and met the other woman’s eyes in the mirror. “My husband isn’t dead.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply…”

“Please leave unless you’re here to
pee. I don’t need a keeper.” She threw the wadded paper towel into the trash.
“And by the way,” she said when the girl opened the door to leave, “you can
tell Dr. Teledaga that if I need a Doctor’s advice, I already have plenty of
them on call.”

The door swung shut and Billie blew
out an angry breath. The gall of some people! Insinuating themselves into her
life as though they knew her. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and
turned it on to check for messages. They didn’t like her to use her phone in
ICU so she’d taken to shutting it off while she was in the room.

Sally had left a couple of texts
relating to one of their regular customers who wanted to double their order for
the year. They owned a high-end restaurant in Billings, Montana and apparently
Fredrickson’s Wine was a big hit in cowboy country.

She replied to the winery messages
and then flipped back to read the last message Handel sent her right before he
got onto the freeway that afternoon. Her eyes filled with tears and she bit her
lip to keep from crying.

Be
home soon, babe. I got big plans for tonight. Gonna memorize your curves till
morning light. Don’t start without me.

She couldn’t bear to delete it.
After seven days, she’d probably read it a hundred times. Handel was always
sending her funny texts. Whenever he’d get a break during the trial or late at
night in his hotel room, he’d type her a note. Silly, romantic, sexy…

If only she could rewind to the
moment it came in and pick up the phone, instead of ignoring it because she was
busy yelling at Adam about the financial statement for the bank. She pressed
reply
as she had every day since then
and typed another message for him to read when he woke up.

You’ve
been sleeping for seven days, Handy. Please wake up so I can feel whole again.
Don’t leave me without you.

•••••

Margaret and Davy stood outside
Handel’s room when Billie returned. In a hot pink sundress and flip flops, and
her long blonde hair pulled up off her neck with a silver comb, her
sister-in-law looked much too young and beautiful to be the mother of a
ten-year-old boy. Every male that passed by turned to stare but Margaret
managed to appear oblivious to the attention.

Billie glanced at her watch. Eight
o’clock. Her days and nights were beginning to blend together. She’d actually
started thinking it was morning when it was obviously evening. Margaret had
promised Davy she’d bring him in on Friday after work. And here they were.
Visiting hours were until 9:00 p.m. but the nurses usually let Margaret stay
longer knowing she had such a long way to drive.

Davy hadn’t been to the hospital
since Sunday, two days after the accident. Another five days had passed since
then and although the swelling around Handel’s face and head had been greatly
reduced, he still looked pretty awful. Billie hoped his nephew wouldn’t be
frightened at the sight.

She forced a smile and gave him a
hug. “Good to see you kiddo. How was school today?” she asked, hoping to avoid
the kind of piercing questions that only a kid would dare ask. But Davy was
more than a kid. Some days he was a wise old man in a child’s body. Not always,
but he had his moments. Maybe because of what he’d lived through just a few
months ago; kidnapped by his own grandfather, drugged, and left alone in a dark
shed. That sort of experience would either turn you into a pile of mush or
strengthen you for the long haul. Like they said,
what doesn’t kill you…

He shrugged. “School’s out for
summer, Billie. Remember?”

“That’s right,” she said, flicking
a glance toward Margaret. “I forgot.”

“That’s okay. You have a lot on
your mind.”

Margaret put a hand on his shoulder
and glanced toward the door of the room. “How’s he doing today?” she asked.

“About the same. Doctor Chao was
here a couple of hours ago to check on him. He said there was no change. Handel
should be waking up by now, but for some reason his brain is refusing. He said
there are some drugs they can try but he wants to give Handel a couple more
days to see if he wakes on his own.” She forced another too-bright smile. “Why
don’t you go on in and talk to him a minute? I think he’s sick of hearing my
voice.”