A Gift of Time (The Nine Minutes Trilogy Book 3) (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Grizz

2001,
Somewhere between Louisiana and South Florida

He'd been sitting
in the small diner in Louisiana when he
saw on a national news station that Tommy had been shot. The fact that it made
national news hadn't surprised him much. After all, Tommy had been linked to
the arrest of Matthew Rockman, the prominent attorney who'd been arrested for
murdering a woman he'd put in the Witness Protection Program fifteen years
earlier. That story had made the national news so it wasn't hard to believe
that Tommy's shooting had been picked up as well. What did surprise him was
that he'd received no word from Carter. That is until he discovered that his
pager had been turned off and once turned on, it displayed the words his gut
ached to see. SHE NEEDS YOU.

So,
immediately after seeing the news report and receiving the page from Carter,
Grizz had laid a fifty on the lunch counter and headed for his bike—but
not before asking Edna for directions to the nearest highway. He realized he’d
found himself at The Green Bean diner by accident and wasn’t sure of the
fastest route back to Florida.

It was now
dark, and he knew he needed to stop somewhere and get some rest. He’d been on
the road for hours, and the immediate adrenalin rush that had come upon him had
long since waned. He was exhausted.

After
checking into the next chain hotel he came upon, he took a long hot shower. On
the bed, he flipped through some TV channels, ate a premade chicken salad
sandwich that he’d bought at the convenience store next to the hotel, and
washed it down with a beer. Nothing was on the news about Tommy’s shooting, so
he turned off the television and resigned himself to sleep.

But sleep
wouldn’t come.

He was
plagued by too many unknowns. What if this was a trap? He'd have to be extremely
careful. And, exactly what did he think he was going to do when he got to Fort
Lauderdale? Ride up to Ginny’s house or the hospital on his bike and walk in
the front door? That certainly wasn’t a logical option. Normally, he’d signal
Carter and have her set up a way to see Kit. But the longer he thought about
it, the more impossible it seemed that this could be arranged. He’d already
received another page from Carter letting him know Ginny wasn’t in any danger,
so he didn’t have the sense of urgency he normally would have. But she needed
him. That was all he needed to know for now.

Maybe he
could watch Ginny from a distance and look for an opening. No. She would not
only be surrounded by friends, but by law enforcement, as well. He chanced
being spotted by someone who might recognize him. He knew he’d have to wait.

In the
meantime, he’d want to find out everything he could about Tommy’s shooting, and
the only way he’d be able to do that was to trust someone other than Carter and
Bill with the truth concerning his execution. Or rather, lack of one.

Blue was his
first thought, but due to his personal relationship with a certain female
detective, it was too damn risky. Even if they were no longer together, it
wouldn’t be a smart move. No. He needed somebody who still had connections to
the biker world, but lived under law enforcement’s radar. A hardworking family
man who’d supposedly made a clean start on South Florida’s east coast more than
a year ago. Someone Grizz would trust with his life and this secret.

Anthony
Bear.

His mind
made up, he finally drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep. He was awakened
several hours later by a loud banging on his hotel room door. Housekeeping. He
told them to come back in an hour.

Less than
fifteen minutes later, he was on his bike. First, he had to ride a few hours
out of his way to a garage that he’d rented. He would retrieve the car he’d
left there, along with more clothes, personal items, cash, and a burner phone
he could use to contact Anthony. After setting up a way to see Bear, he’d toss
the phone.

He looked at
the credit cards that had been set up with his new identity and knew he’d never
use them. He was putting them in his wallet when he pulled out his license and
realized he no longer looked like the man in the picture. His hair had grown in
over the past several months, and he’d trimmed his beard significantly. Anthony
would be able to get a new picture for his new identity.

His new
identity. Another fucking name to have to answer to. Dammit. But at least they
gave him that. James Kirkland screamed “boring alias” as much as it screamed
average American Joe. It would do. Besides, they’d held up their end of the
bargain. He was told Jason “Grizz” Talbot’s DNA and fingerprints had been
replaced in the system by counterfeits. He was getting a clean slate, and if
James Kirkland’s DNA and fingerprints were run, the searches would come up
empty unless James Kirkland did something to get himself in trouble.

Point being,
if he found himself in hot water with the law, there would be nothing to
connect him back to a dead Jason Talbot. It wouldn’t be an issue. He planned on
staying clean.

He was now a
widowed father of two non-existent children who’d made a living as a heavy
equipment operator until he suffered a back injury on the job. Shit, they even
had the government sending disability checks to James Kirkland’s bank account.
You couldn’t get any more vanilla than that. He’d tested his new identity early
on when he purposely ran a red light somewhere in Georgia. The cop ran his
bike’s license plate and came back with a warning. He checked out. He was James
Kirkland.

He turned up
the radio as he drove south and pondered whether he should do anything to get
Blue out of town for a while. More than likely, Blue would be concerned about
Tommy and Ginny and might even put a detail on them to make sure they were
safe. Grizz still had no way of knowing if Tommy’s shooting was random or
planned. He heard them mention on the news that Tommy was supposed to testify
in Rockman’s trial, but Grizz was certain it wasn’t a testimony that would make
or break Matthew’s case. Blue had made sure the evidence planted in Jan’s
murder pointed to Rockman.

He shook his
head as he remembered another detail. When he’d questioned Tommy’s loyalty at the
end, he’d allowed some evidence to look like it could’ve pointed to Tommy. He
was going to drop the ball on him if he thought he’d been deceitful, which he
hadn’t been. Fuck me. Why couldn’t I have just left it alone? What if Tommy was
shot because of something to do with Rockman’s trial? Shit.

He allowed
his mind to wander back to what, or rather who, he’d found in Louisiana. He had
no doubt he’d met Kit’s twin sister. He smiled when he thought about the note
he could have Carter anonymously deliver to Blue: “Grizz’s last order before
the execution, specifically to be delivered to you several months after his
death. He left something for you in a diner called The Green Bean. You will
find this diner in Chinkaw, Louisiana, and you’ll know the package and what to
do with it when you see it.”

Grizz
laughed when he thought about Blue meeting Kit’s twin sister, Jodi. But he also
knew he’d never have the message sent. The last thing he needed to do was have
Blue drag Jodi back to Fort Lauderdale to meet Ginny while he was trying to see
her. No. He’d save this surprise for a future day and for now do everything he
could to avoid Blue.

He was
listening to Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” and enjoying the rumble and power of
his 1967 Chevelle when he was hit with a wave of grief so profound it almost
took his breath away.

He let up on
the gas and turned down the radio. He’d never experienced anything like this
before, and he didn’t know how to react to it. He slowly took in his
surroundings. He was on a stretch of highway that was desolate. He couldn’t see
any cars in front of him or behind him. Cows grazed lazily in green fields
dotted with patches of dry, dead earth. He felt a weight so enormous, so thick,
he wondered for a second if he was having a heart attack.

No. He
wasn’t feeling a physical chest pain. It was a pain of the soul. A pain of
loss. He hadn’t even felt this at his own execution.

Kit.

He pressed
down on the accelerator.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Tommy

2001,
Fort Lauderdale

He could hear
her. Her voice was breaking through his
consciousness.

Where am I?
Why couldn’t he answer her? He thought he felt a gentle caress on his hand. It
was so light it felt like a dusting of air. Her voice was doing battle with
some other noise. It sounded like a hiss. And the beeps. What were those beeps?

He tried to
let her know he could hear her. He was certain now she was holding his hand and
lightly stroking it. He wanted to reach for her, but his arm felt like it was
encased in cement. Ginny, I can hear you! I can hear you telling me you love
me. I love you, too. Why can’t I say it? Why can’t I reach for you?

The memory
came back then. The gas station. Coffee. A robbery. He’d been shot, and now he
was in the hospital. He felt an incredible weight as the reality of what had
happened to him started to sink in. His mind was starting to clear. Remembering
the gunshots, he wondered how he could be semi-conscious and yet feel no pain.
Must be the miracle of modern drugs.

Then he
heard another voice. One that concerned him. Sarah Jo.

“Why don’t
you take a quick break and let me stay with him a minute, Gin?”

“Thanks, Jo,
but I can’t. I think he might be coming around. I swear he tried to squeeze my
hand before.” He could hear the hope in Ginny’s voice.

“Oh, Gin,
that’s wonderful news!” Jo said.

If Tommy
didn’t know Jo so well, he might’ve thought her response was sincere.

“I know you
haven’t left the room in hours. Why don’t you at least go use the bathroom and
grab a coffee. Stretch your legs. I promise I won’t leave his side.”

“Yeah, maybe
you’re right. Jennie promised me another piece of banana bread. Maybe I’ll run
to the restroom, then grab a coffee. Oh, you got your mother’s necklace back!
Carter told you Bill would get it fixed for you.”

What Ginny
was saying about Jo’s necklace didn’t make sense to Tommy. Even though he
couldn’t see her, he was certain Jo was clutching the pendant nervously. He’d
watched her do it a thousand times.

“And Carter
was right. I got it back after just a few hours. It’s right as rain. Now, go.
I’ll stay and talk to him.”

“I’ll be
right back. Do you want something?”

“I want you
to take a break and know I won’t leave his side until you come back, okay?”

Tommy
couldn’t hear Ginny’s response so she must’ve nodded. He felt her lift his hand
to her mouth and softly kiss the inside of his palm.

Don’t leave
me, Ginny. His mind was racing, yet a calmness and peace he hadn’t expected
settled over him. He felt his other hand being lifted and heard Sarah Jo’s
voice.

“Stan and I
had just returned from Sydney and were visiting friends in Atlanta when Mimi
called me. I was doing what you said. Pushing Stan to interview in other
countries. But, circumstances change, don’t they?” There was a pause. She
couldn’t possibly have expected him to answer her. “Tommy, do you know how easy
this would be for me? All I’d have to do is squeeze one of the tubes on your
ventilator and stop the air flow.”

He realized
then that he wasn’t breathing on his own. The hiss he’d woken to was a
ventilator machine.

“Or I could
slip a syringe out of my pocket and inject insulin right into your IV. I’d have
my back to the nurses, and they wouldn’t know what I was doing. You’re already
being given a certain amount of insulin, so if they ever did an autopsy, which
I doubt they will because of the seriousness of your wounds, they’ll never look
for an insulin overdose. It would be so easy. Too easy.”

Tommy knew
he should’ve been panicking at what Jo was saying, but he wasn’t. He felt a
peaceful bliss come over him. He’d never felt anything like it. It certainly
wasn’t earthly. Jo was standing over his hospital bed threatening his life, and
he knew with every fiber of his being she could get away with it. She was the
director of nursing, and her husband was the chief of surgery. They were close
personal friends. Nobody would suspect or even guess that she had caused his
death.

He should’ve
cared. He should’ve been frightened. But oddly, he wasn’t.

He felt an
unexplainable pull. A calling. He felt like he was being called somewhere. He
suddenly became aware of a light and wanted to be near that light more than
anything he’d ever wanted in his life. Even his lifelong quest for the woman
he’d always been in love with didn’t tug at him like the light did. The woman
he loved. Ginny. His children. Mimi and Jason. He could see them now.

As he
reflected back on the life he’d lived, he was given the gift of feeling every
joyous moment he’d ever experienced with all of them. It was beautiful, and it
almost pulled him back, but it didn’t compare to the light. A light that was so
brilliant it should’ve blinded him.

Ginny.

He couldn’t
leave. Wouldn’t leave. They needed him. He needed them. He tried to turn away
from the light then, and that’s when he saw it. Just like the gift of
instantaneous joy he’d felt seconds earlier, he saw a glimpse of a future for
his family. He saw their grief about his death. And as much as it pained his
heart, he knew it would be replaced with eventual acceptance and peace. He knew
they would be cared for. He knew they would live happy and full lives. He knew
he would always have a special place in their hearts.

And he knew
in his own heart he needed to let them go. To let her go.

Ginny.

He’d forced
something that wasn’t meant to be. Did he think saving a pair of potholders or
stamping her initials on a Bible would carry any weight in deciding their
future? Did he really believe anything he did, calculated or otherwise, was
because he was in charge of a fate that could be manipulated to his advantage?
Should he have moved on after Grizz married her? Should he have gone on with
his life and given another woman a chance?

He knew the
answer was no. He’d spent the best fifteen years of his life married to Ginny.
Being her husband and raising their children was a privilege, and he wouldn’t
have traded it for anything. He now believed with all of his heart that, for
the short time he’d had her, she was his. Ginny loved wholly, honestly, and
unconditionally, and he knew that if he woke up, she would spend the rest of
her life with him. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up.

Ginny.

The shooting
was random. What spiritual force had pushed him to convince her to wear the
bandana the day before? His mind wrestled with his motive. He even remembered
questioning his own sanity when the idea came to him, but he couldn’t let it
go. Was it his final move in the chess game he’d started so long ago and later
abandoned? Was he so prideful that he couldn’t just accept Ginny’s word that
she wanted to be with him? He’d forced the last move to prove what? To have the
satisfaction of looking Grizz in the eyes and seeing the pain that Ginny’s
rejection would inflict?

The euphoria
that felt like liquid peace being poured into his soul gave him the miracle of
seeing into his own heart. No, his insistence that she wear the bandana one
more time wasn’t his pride or a challenge to Grizz. It was something bigger.

Grizz. His
nemesis for as long as he could remember. But all of a sudden, Tommy no longer
saw him that way. It was as if a veil was being lifted, and instead of the
heartless criminal, Tommy saw the man who’d come back, if Ginny allowed it, and
care for and protect his family. The man that one day Mimi would accept and
Jason would look up to. Tommy knew his earthly self would have been appalled by
that thought. But his soul knew differently. Was he seeing truth, or was he
seeing what his subconscious wanted to see so he could step over into the light
and not take guilt or fear with him? He then realized there would be no fear or
guilt inside the light.

Ginny.

Every
negative feeling he’d ever experienced was instantly gone. There was no
jealousy, no despair, no depression, no grief, no fear. No hatred. Even his
newfound disdain for Sarah Jo had evaporated. Extinguished itself. She was
still standing by his bedside talking, but he was no longer hearing her. He
caught a glimpse of the little girl he remembered from their childhood. He saw
her sloppy pigtails and freckled nose and, more than anything, he saw her
grief.

Then he felt
something he hadn’t expected. He felt the pain she’d endured at the loss of her
mother. He felt the little girl who’d cried so long and so hard her eyes
swelled completely shut. He could hear Fess’s gentle voice as he held his only
daughter. “You’re my number one girl now, Sarah Jo. Now that Mom is in heaven,
you’re my best girl, and nobody will ever take your place.” No matter how
misguided, Tommy now understood why she’d done the things she had. And he
forgave. How? How was he seeing and feeling these things?

Ginny.

The light
was warm. It was beautiful and inviting, and he no longer wanted to resist, but
he felt he needed to. Because of her. Because of his children.

Then he
heard a voice.

“Tommy.”

It was a
voice he’d only heard over the course of a few weeks, and that was more than thirty
years ago, but he recognized it as if it’d only been yesterday. A voice that
had once been snippy and pushy and mean.

“When you’re
finished folding towels you need to clean Grizz’s bathroom and write down
anything he might be running low on,” she’d snapped. Yes, he remembered that
voice.

He looked to
his left and smiled.

Moe.

She reached
for his hand, and he gave it to her. He looked down then and saw the commotion.
The people standing over him trying to bring him back to life. Even Sarah Jo
looked like she was trying to help. He peered through the glass walls of his
hospital room and saw two men holding Ginny back. He could hear her screams,
see the coffee that had been splattered on the floor.

“He squeezed
my hand! He heard me talking to him! He squeezed my hand!” she was screaming at
the top of her lungs. Tears were streaming down her face. She was taking on two
large orderlies and winning as she clawed her way back into his room.

He
immediately felt her world, the one he was leaving behind, and sensed he was
moving back down toward the hospital bed. Toward the cold reality and harshness
of an earthly life. He gazed upon the sterile hospital room. The cold metallic
sharpness that was in complete opposition to everything he knew to be within
the light that awaited him. His heart ached for the reality that Ginny would be
facing without him. The grief she would experience with his passing. But with
that knowledge came the peace that this wasn’t the end for them. Something deep
inside him stirred, and he knew Moe’s next words to be true.

“She’ll find
you. They’ll all find you, Tommy. They’ll find us.”

“How do you
know?” He didn’t actually speak the words, but he heard his own voice asking
her.

“Because I
found you,” was her reply.

He looked at
Moe and started to feel himself being pulled back up, away from the hospital
room and toward the light that was eternal life. The light that was full of an
unconditional and all-encompassing love. Love. He thought he knew about love.
He had been wrong.

“She’ll be
okay, Tommy. They’ll all be okay.”

It was then
that he thanked God for the miraculous gift of tranquility and complete
knowledge that what Moe said was true. It was then that he told Ginny one last
time that he loved her and their children. It was then that he resigned himself
with a peace beyond human understanding that it was his time.

Then, he
reached into the depths of his soul and allowed himself to see a truth he’d
always avoided. She was never meant to be just his and he realized, as Moe
subtly nodded toward the light, that for the first time in his entire life, he
was finally at a place of acceptance, peace, and pure love.

“He’s
waiting for you,” Moe whispered.

He nodded
and smiled at her. He was ready.