A Gift of Time (The Nine Minutes Trilogy Book 3) (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Tommy

2001,
Fort Lauderdale

“
I think you
are being ridiculous, but you know what? If it’s
so important to you, if it’s what I need to do to prove I’m over him, then I’ll
do it. But let me make it clear, Tommy. I’m not doing this for me. I know my
heart. I’m doing it for you.”

Ginny had
done as promised and put her hair in a high ponytail, wrapping the blue bandana
around it, and wore it that way throughout Jason’s basketball game.

Tommy
noticed Carter’s discreet trip to the ladies’ room.

It was done.
No going back now.

To a casual
observer, Tommy and Ginny appeared to be the epitome of happiness. Only Tommy
sensed the undercurrent of her attitude. She was upset with him, and he
couldn’t blame her.

Ginny had
said very little to him since the game that afternoon. He’d trudged up the
stairs that night alone and after waiting up for her until after midnight,
finally decided to turn the light off and try to get some sleep. She’d told him
she was going to watch TV in the den and would be up shortly. She was either
still upset or had fallen asleep.

He was
awakened by his cell phone buzzing on his nightstand. He looked at the clock.
6:45 a.m. He picked up his phone, and not recognizing the number, answered it.
It could’ve been one of the kids from the shelter where he volunteered.

“Yeah?” he
mumbled.

He looked to
his left and realized Ginny had never come to bed.

“It’s Blue.
I need to talk to you. I’ve heard something on the street. Don’t know how much
truth there is to it, but I want you to know what I heard.”

“What is
this about?” Tommy was fully awake now.

“It’s
something I heard about your daughter. About Mimi.”

“Tell me.”
Tommy sat straight up. “What is it? Is she in danger?”

“No. She’s
not in danger. At least not anymore. It’s been a few months, but I need to know
if you want anything done about it. I don’t want to go into it on the phone,
and I’m trying to stay away from this type of shit, but I think this is
important. Can you meet me?”

“Yeah. I’ll
meet you. I was going into the office today for a few hours, but I’ll meet you
first.”

Tommy was
already out of bed and heading for the shower.

“Do me a
favor. Don’t bring Ginny. I don’t think this is something she’ll want to know.”

Then it’s a
damn good thing she wasn’t lying next to me. Tommy hung up. How would he have
explained an early morning call from Blue? Blue should’ve known better.

Less than
twenty minutes later, Tommy headed downstairs. He found Ginny asleep in the
den. The TV was still on.

“Gin. Gin,
wake up.” He gently shook her.

She groaned
and opened her eyes.

“Uh, I guess
I fell asleep. I meant to come up. I—”

“I can see
that. You’re still in your clothes,” he told her.

“You look
like you’re ready to go somewhere.” Her brows knitted together. It was
Saturday, wasn’t it?

“I forgot to
tell you I need to meet with Phil and Brody. I need to go over some plans
they’re working on for a new client who’s coming in on Monday. Do you want to
meet me for lunch somewhere? Bring the kids with you? Jason doesn’t have any
games today. Maybe we can take them to a movie matinee afterward. That is, if
you think you can find something everybody wants to see.”

He was
surprisingly calm and his emotions were steady.

“Yeah,” she
said in a groggy voice, sitting up. “Yeah, that sounds good. Even if we can’t
agree on a movie, they have to eat.”

She rubbed
at her eyes and stifled a yawn. “I smell coffee.”

He kissed
her forehead. “I just turned the pot on for you. It’s still brewing. I’ll grab
some on my way to work. Call me about noon. We’ll make a plan.”

At 7:30 a.m.
on a Saturday morning, the streets of South Florida were already alive and
busy. His meeting with Blue wouldn’t take him too far off his regular route to
work. He pulled into a convenience store that also had gas pumps.

He left the
nozzle running as he headed inside to grab a coffee to-go. He’d said good
morning to the clerk behind the counter and headed toward the rear where he saw
a coffee station. The clerk glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and
grunted. Tommy was the only one inside the store and had just made his coffee
when he realized there was something sticky on the handle of the carafe he used
to pour the cream. Dammit. He left his cup on the coffee station and headed for
the restroom to use the sink.

The moment
he exited the men’s room, he felt the tension in the air. The atmosphere had
changed. He felt uneasy. Quietly, he made his way through the aisles. He could
see his car at the gas pumps. He didn’t see any other cars in front of the
store.

“Keep your
hands above the counter! Just give me the money. Put it in here.”

A robbery.
Tommy could hear the criminal’s hand hit the counter hard as he slammed down
what must’ve been a bag.

“If you try
and reach for anything below the counter, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Got
that?”

Tommy ducked
low as he surveyed the store. He reached for his cell phone and remembered he’d
left it in the console of his car. Fuck. He raised his head slightly to see
above the shelves. The thug was now waving the gun around. The nervous clerk
was doing as he was told, but Tommy could tell he was shaking. Should he intervene?
Should he stay put?

He glanced
out the front window then. Another car had pulled up, and an elderly man was
leaning against his car as his tank was being filled. He more than likely paid
with a credit card and wouldn’t be walking into the store. Good.

“You
purposely dropped it, motherfucker!”

“No. No, I
didn’t drop it on purpose.” The clerk’s voice was desperate. “You’re scaring me
waving that thing around. It could go off.”

“Yeah, well,
it’s going to go off now.”

In two swift
movements, the thief shot the clerk in the face and jumped over the counter to
retrieve the bag of dropped money.

Time seemed
to stand still. As if in slow motion, Tommy saw the man climb back over the
counter. He had a plastic grocery bag, and Tommy could see through the thin sack
that there was money in it. Tommy hadn’t realized it, but he’d been slowly
inching closer down the aisle toward the cash register. He could make one quick
lunge from behind and knock the thief to the ground. Or he could let him leave
and not take any risk.

Tommy and
the man spotted her at the same time. A young woman approaching the door. The
criminal started to raise his gun. He was going to shoot her when she came
inside.

Tommy didn’t
have to make a decision. It had been made for him.

He started
to leap at the man from behind, but something must have caught the guy’s
attention because he turned just in time to avoid Tommy’s grasp. The gun went
off, and Tommy felt a quick stab of pain in his stomach.

They were
wrestling for the gun now. A split second seemed to play out over the course of
an eternity.

Even in the
midst of the trauma, a Scripture verse came to Tommy’s mind.

“With the
Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

What an odd
Scripture to remember at a moment like this, but it was exactly what he was
feeling. In this case, a few seconds seemed to slow down and stretch out. As
they wrestled for the gun, time ground to a halt. His mind was cluttered with
thoughts trying to grapple for his attention, yet they all came to him in a
proper and succinct order.

How odd that
he hadn’t heard from Blue in ages and yet, on the morning they were supposed to
meet, Tommy had come upon a robbery. Was this a setup? Was he the actual
target?

He could
answer it as quickly as he thought it. No. He had randomly selected this store.
If he’d stayed in the restroom longer, the perpetrator might’ve been gone
before he came out. The criminal hadn’t been looking for Tommy, had just been
heading for the exit.

He looked
into the face of the man and stared into dull blue eyes that hadn’t seen sleep
in days. Eyes that were looking for their next fix. There was fear mixed with
anger and hopelessness in those eyes. He was probably not even twenty. Had he
killed before? Did he have a family? Did his parents know what their son was
doing?

Even with
all of these things racing through his mind, Tommy managed to glance at the
door. He saw the girl come in. He saw the recognition and fear of what was
happening on her face, watched as she turned around and ran, arms flailing
frantically has she headed toward another motorist who’d just pulled up.

He looked
back into the eyes of the man who’d gambled his entire life away with one bad
decision.

Tommy felt
the gun loosen from the man’s grip, but not before it went off a second time.
As he fell to the ground, another bullet lodged in his chest.

The gun now
tightly in his own grip, Tommy’s last conscious thoughts were of her.

“Ginny.
Ginny. Please forgive me,” he whispered.

And then his
world went black.

**********

Ginny stared at her reflection
in the bathroom vanity.

After Tommy
had woken her up, she’d made her way to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of
coffee. She took her cup back into the den, sat down.

Sipping her
coffee, she’d quietly reflected on the last two weeks. The visit with Sister
Mary Katherine and Sister Agnes. The detour on her way home that brought her to
the place where she thought she might find some of Grizz’s relatives. Could the
elderly nun’s memories and Ginny’s suspicions be confirmed?

She’d been
surprised by what she’d found there. A tight-knit community of people who had
roots going back before the Civil War. She was quickly directed to the local
historian, and he was more than happy to spend the morning with her sharing
local legends, myths, and memories. He was also able to share some facts. He
knew exactly who Ginny was asking about. As a matter of fact, he had a surprise
for Ginny.

Ginny was
shaken out of her thoughts when Spooky jumped up on her lap, almost causing her
to spill her coffee.

“You little
stinker. Where did you come from?” Ginny asked the cat as she laid her mug on
the end table and started to stroke her soft fur. She smiled to herself as she
thought about how Jason had insisted on being allowed to name her. They all threw
suggestions at him, but he was insistent on Spooky.

“It just
fits her,” Jason had told them. “She’s like a mystery gift since you don’t know
who the present was from. And she’s black. It’s all kind of... spooky.”

Well, Tommy
and Ginny had known who the gift was from. Tommy had assured her then that it
was Grizz’s way of saying from the grave that he was happy for them. And she
now knew, after talking to Tommy on the beach last weekend, that it was
somebody else’s way of letting them know their home was no longer under
surveillance. She and Tommy knew that “somebody” was Carter’s husband, Bill.

She shook
her head at the thought of everything she’d learned. Tommy had told her he was
tired. She could understand why. She was tired, too. But she was still also
more than a little miffed about his insistence that she see Grizz again. How
would she feel when she saw him? She almost hadn’t recognized the Grizz she’d
seen at the execution. She wondered if he’d shaved his head or if he was
naturally going bald. And that beard! She never remembered him wearing one that
long.

“Oh,
Spooky!” she cried. The kitty had tired of her company, and in her haste to
jump off Ginny’s lap, had kicked the cup as Ginny was picking it back up off
the end table.

Ginny now
stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, dabbing spilled coffee off her shirt.
No harm done. There hadn’t been much left in her cup to clean up, anyway.

She’d passed
Jason coming down the stairs as she was going up, told him Tommy wanted to meet
later for lunch and a movie, and he should plan on talking to his sister after
she woke up.

“You look
like crap, Gin,” she said to herself. A long hot shower will feel good.

She lifted
both hands to remove the bandana and take out her ponytail when she was
interrupted by a loud banging on the bathroom door.

Jason.

“Mom. Mom!
You need to come downstairs, now! Some cops are here, and they want to talk to
you.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ginny

2001,
Fort Lauderdale

“
Mrs. Dillon. Mrs
. Dillon, I know this is a shock, and I know
you’ve been severely traumatized, but please try and concentrate. Please answer
my last question.”

“I need to
see him. They need to let me see my husband!” I couldn’t breathe. “My children.
Oh, my God, my children. Where are they? They need me!”

I was at the
hospital sitting in a small office with two detectives. How I got there was a
bit of a blur. I remember them showing up at the house and asking to speak to
me without Jason present. I remember his curious and frightened look as I led
them into Tommy’s office and shut the French doors behind us.

I remember
hearing what they told me, that Tommy had been involved in a shooting and was
in critical condition at the hospital. I remember telling Jason to wake up his
sister. Surprisingly, Mimi had the foresight to reach for my purse and phone as
we followed the men out the door and into the back of the police cruiser. I
remember clinging tightly to Jason and Mimi as I explained to them the little I
knew. I remember hearing Mimi using my phone to call Carter, Christy, and Sarah
Jo, and she asked each of them to meet us at the hospital. She told me Christy
and Carter were on their way and that she’d left a message for Jo.

“Your
children are fine. They’re with your friends. You can’t see your husband. Not
yet, he’s in surgery. Please—answer the question, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry.
I can’t remember what you asked me,” I said honestly before blowing my nose.

“You said
your husband was on his way to work. Can you think of any reason why he
would’ve strayed from his normal route?” the older of the two detectives asked.

I stopped
blowing, my fingers still pressing the tissue tightly to my nose. Tommy was at
a gas station that wasn’t on his way to work? I had an instant and roaring
headache.

“No,” I
whispered. “I don’t know why he would’ve been there. You told me you thought it
was random. That there were witnesses that said it was a robbery. They saw the
guy running off.”

“We do think
it’s random, but after finding out your husband is supposed to testify this
year in a trial, we have to ask. We have to check every possibility. We need to
make sure it wasn’t a setup. That’s why we’re asking you if you know of any
reason he would’ve strayed from his normal route.”

I shook my
head slowly. “No. I can’t think of any reason. I saw him this morning before he
left. He mentioned stopping for coffee on his way to work, but he never said
where. We were going to meet later for lunch. There was nothing out of the
ordinary.”

My body
stiffened as I realized there absolutely was something out of the ordinary. I
had worn that bandana to signal Grizz. The next morning Tommy had gotten shot.

But I
wouldn’t let my thoughts travel that path.

“Are we
done? Please, I want to see my children. I need to be with them.”

“Of course.
We need to be able to stay in contact with you,” the younger, more reserved
detective answered. “We need to know the best way to contact you.”

“That won’t
be a problem. I’m not leaving this hospital,” I told him as I made my way past
them and to the waiting room set up for families of trauma victims.

**********

The next couple of hours
dragged. A doctor called me aside and attempted to explain that Tommy was still
in surgery due to the severity of his wounds. It was still too much to retain,
and the only thing I can remember from that conversation was, “Two bullet
wounds. One in the abdomen and one in his chest, and he’ll be in surgery
awhile.”

It wasn’t
until Sarah Jo had shown up and ushered me into Stan’s office that I was
finally able to understand some of it. Apparently, she and Stan had been out of
the country and were visiting some friends while on a layover in Atlanta on the
return trip. They’d boarded a flight after getting Mimi’s message and were back
in Fort Lauderdale in less than two hours.

“You’re the
chief of surgery, Stan,” I said to him through blurred vision. “Shouldn’t you
be doing his surgery or in there to make sure it’s done right?”

“Ginny, I
did go in, and he has our best team in there. I would’ve stayed and taken over
if I thought otherwise. It’s going smoothly. It’s extremely difficult because
it’s basically two separate surgeries to remove two separate bullets.” Stan’s
voice was calm and even. Reassuring.

He was
sitting behind his desk. Jo and I sat in wing chairs facing him. She reached
for my hand. I noticed her absently grab for where her mother’s pendant
normally would’ve been dangling. It wasn’t there. Right after Jo had showed up
in the waiting room, Carter was walking toward us to say something when she
tripped. As she was falling, she grabbed for Jo and accidentally ripped the
necklace from Jo’s neck. She apologized profusely and promised Jo she’d send
Bill off to have it fixed and returned to her within hours. I saw the concern
in Jo’s eyes—she was never without that necklace—but I calmly reassured
her that Carter and Bill could be trusted with her mother’s pendant.

“But it’s
been hours.” I clutched Jo’s hand. “It just doesn’t seem like it should be
taking this long!”

“Don’t think
like that, Ginny,” Sarah Jo said. “It doesn’t mean something is going wrong with
the surgery. It means they’re being thorough. Like Stan said, it’s two separate
surgeries, and the seriousness of each can affect the other.”

“Exactly,”
Stan said. “Each wound has its own separate and serious complications and needs
to be treated as such.”

I took a
deep breath and sat up straight.

“What
complications? Tell me.”

Just then
there was a knock at the door. Two men came in. They were Tommy’s surgeons, and
they told me he came through the surgery fine, and he was in recovery, but as
Stan explained, his wounds were critical. Now the only thing we could do was
wait. I looked up at them and waited for them to continue.

“As you
know, he suffered two bullet wounds,” said the doctor with the silver goatee,
whose name I’d already forgotten. “The one that struck his lung caused air to
escape, and the lung collapsed. We put a chest tube in to remove the air and
blood in his chest cavity. His lung expanded, and the bleeding has apparently
stopped.”

I let out
the breath I’d been holding.

The second
surgeon cleared his throat. “The second bullet, the one in his abdomen, damaged
his spleen and his liver, which caused a severe amount of blood loss. We
removed the spleen and part of the liver. The blood loss was tremendous. We had
to give him thirteen units of blood.” His eyes were gentle. “Because of his
shock and the massiveness of the transfusion required, his blood won’t clot,
and we’re trying to correct this by giving him various clotting elements.”

I started to
shake. Jo gripped my hand tighter.

“We anticipate
eventually being able to control this failure to clot, but his kidneys and
brain have gone through a protracted period of time without being adequately
supplied with blood. And there has been damage to the tissue to those two
organs, as well as others. Whether those organs will recover, we don’t know.
Only time will tell.”

I went back
to the waiting room in a daze and found my children. I took them both into the
small hospital chapel and explained everything I could.

I was
holding them tightly and sobbing when I felt arms wrap me from behind and a
familiar voice said, “I’d have been here sooner, Ginny. I had the boys out on
the boat.” It was Alec.

I can’t
remember details after that. Who came. Who went. Who offered to help with Mimi
and Jason. Who offered to keep us fed and our clothes clean. Who would notify
their schools and our church. Like a well-oiled machine, the acquaintances we’d
made over the years, who came from vastly different walks of life, all melded
together to make sure my children and I were cared for.

I was in too
much shock to realize I’d never really let myself get close to people who
weren’t inside my tiny circle, yet the support they showed me and my children
was beyond heartwarming and appreciated, even though I wasn’t in a good enough
place emotionally to express that gratitude. I was in a fog.

That first
day, the three of us were led into the ICU and allowed to stand at his bedside
for just a few minutes. I’d been warned that the trauma of seeing his father
might be too much, but the ICU nurses gave into my pleading after seeing how
badly Jason was taking the news.

They’d been
right. The tubes, machines, and wires were too much for him. Jason broke down
when he saw his father and started crying. I clung to him and wanted to console
him but couldn’t bring myself to leave Tommy’s side. What if this moment was
the last one?

One of
Tommy’s nurses, Jonell, recognized the need in my eyes, and she gently pried
Jason away from me and guided him out to our trusted friends in the waiting
room. Mimi took my hand and quietly sobbed, never taking her eyes off Tommy’s
face.

I don’t know
how much time passed. Someone, I think it was Christy, brought me a change of
clothes and toiletries. I was allowed to shower and sleep at the hospital. I
wasn’t sure if that was a privilege given to all family members of trauma
patients, or if I was given special treatment due to Stan’s status. I made sure
my children knew I loved them and wanted to be with them, but I couldn’t leave
their father’s side. They both understood and chose to stay at our house with
Carter instead of being sent to stay with different families.

Now my
children were back, and we stood huddled in the small ICU room watching Tommy.
After the shock of seeing his father that first time, Jason approached Jonell
all by himself and said he was ready to see his father again. She looked at me
with a questioning glance and I nodded. We all linked hands, talking to him and
looking for any sign that he’d heard us. An eyelash flutter, a change on any of
the various monitors. We were desperate to know if he would wake up.

“Does he
know I’m here? Do you think he can hear me?” I asked Tommy’s second nurse. Her
name was Jennie, and she was changing his IV bags. The kids had returned to the
waiting room. “It’s been more than two days.”

She smiled
kindly at me. “It’s possible. He’s still under sedation, but they changed his
medication. It should allow him to have some awareness soon without dulling his
pain medication. He should be able to open his eyes or squeeze your hand soon.”

Her eyes
scanned me with concern. “Have you eaten? I know you don’t have an appetite,
but you have to eat something, even if you force it down. You need to be strong
for him—and them.” She nodded her head toward the path the kids had followed
out.

“I’m not
hungry.”

“My grandma
made the best banana bread this side of the Mississippi, and she left me the
recipe. You know what that means?”

I shook my
head.

“It means
that now I make the best banana bread this side of the Mississippi. Now, I
brought a piece in for Jonell, but she’s always saying I ruin her diet, so how
about I go swipe that piece I brought her and bring it to you?”

I smiled and
nodded, gratitude washing over me. She finished what she was doing, then I
watched her walk toward the telemetry station and say something to Jonell, who
looked up, smiled at me, and gave me the thumbs-up.

I turned my
attention back to Tommy. Taking one of his hands in both of mine, I softly
caressed the top of his, doing my best to avoid the IVs.

“Tommy, your
nurse Jennie, one of the nurses who’s caring for you, well, she said you might
be able to hear me now. I hope you can. I hope you can hear me tell you how
much I love you.”

He wasn’t
responding, but that didn’t keep me from talking.

“So many
people are praying for you. I’ve been praying, too. I know we’re supposed to
pray for God’s will, but I can’t help myself. I’m praying for my will. And my
will wants you back, Tommy.”

I leaned
over and whispered in his ear. “I tried to tell you that day on the beach.
There was never a choice to make. I’m never leaving you, Tommy, so please don’t
leave me. Please wake up.”

I was almost
positive I felt him gently squeeze my hand. My heart thudded and my soul was
filled with hope.

He was
coming back to me.