Evidence of Mercy (11 page)

Jake sat silently for a moment, trying to make sense of that. “It could have torn-”

“There's more. We've gone over all of the airport's security videos, and on the night before the crash, it caught someone tampering with that plane.”

“Who?”

“We can't tell exactly,” Malone said. “All we were able to make out was a penlight around the wheel well and the vague shape of someone under the plane. We can't rule out that the plane's owner might have set up the crash to collect the insurance.”

Jake was getting angry. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You think she would sabotage her own plane and stage her own crash just to get the money when she could just as easily have sold it to me for full market value?”

“Maybe she didn't plan to fly with you,” Malone said. “Or she didn't anticipate such a dangerous landing. After all, she did survive.”

Jake gaped at him for a moment, unable to believe what he was hearing. “That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. Lynda Barrett had nothing to do with that crash. She was as surprised as I was when the landing gear didn't go down. And she was scared to death. She could easily have
died
in that crash. What good would the insurance money have done her then?”

“All we know is that somebody did it.”

“Then stop trying to pin this on her and find out who really did it and why.” He struggled to sit up, but dropped down, defeated. “And when you do,” he said through his teeth, “you tell me who they are. If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure they pay.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I
don't
believe
this.” Lynda sat in a vinyl chair that hadn't been made for comfort, watching the parking lot below through her hospital room window as the insurance investigator cut between the cars. “He thought
I
had something to do with the crash.”

“Don't sweat it,” Mike said from where he sat by Lynda's bed. “Between Jake and me, we convinced him you didn't. But the question is, who did?”

She turned back to Mike, the light from outside casting a shadow on one side of her face. “Why would
any
body want to sabotage my plane, Mike? Wouldn't they know that the next time I flew it—?”

Mike only looked helplessly at her.

“That's it, isn't it? Someone was trying to kill me.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It could have been a random act.”

“Were any of the other planes tampered with?”

“No. We've inspected all of them and checked back over the videotapes for anything out of the ordinary. It looks like it was just your plane.”

She leaned back in the chair and looked out the window again. “How could I have made such an enemy and not known it?”

“I can't believe you did,” Mike said. “Maybe it
was
random, Lynda. Random acts of violence happen all the time. People break into houses randomly, shoot at passing cars—”

“Some world we live in, huh?”

“You're right; it's not a pleasant thought—but it's better than thinking someone tried to kill you.”

“What if they're still trying?” she whispered. She felt fear rising inside. “I mean, they failed, didn't they? What if they haven't given up?”

Mike got up and came to lean against the windowsill. “Think, Lynda. Is there anyone in your life who hates you enough to want to kill you?”

“Well, I didn't
know
there was, but obviously—”

“Not so obviously. I mean, yes, there's somebody out there who was trying to get his kicks, but that doesn't mean he's after you.”

“Kicks?” she whispered. “Causing a plane crash gave him his kicks?”

“There's a lot of evil around us, Lynda. We don't have to let it consume us.”

“What if we don't have a choice?” she whispered. “They're probably going to let me go home tomorrow. Am I gonna be a sitting duck? And what about Paige and Brianna? They're staying in my house.”

“If he'd wanted
you,
whoever it is, he could have found you at home before, don't you think? That's what makes me think it's random.”

Lynda shrugged, unconvinced.

“Anyway, the two cops who are working on it are planning to come by and talk to you today. If there
is
someone after you, they can get to the bottom of it.” He leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead and wiped a stray tear off her cheek. “It'll be okay.”

“I just need some time alone to think about it, I guess.”

“I'm going,” he said. “But first, I want to tell you that the cops who are investigating this are Tony Danks and Larry Millsaps. Larry's a buddy of mine from church. I've known him for years. You can trust him.”

She felt some comfort in that. “Thank you, Mike,” she whispered.

T
he two people assigned to rehabilitate Jake—Allie Williams, a 120-pound dynamo who approached occupational therapy with a determination that rivaled Jake's determination to sink into depression, and Buzz Slater, a former paraplegic who'd become a physical therapist after learning to walk again himself—didn't seem to care that Jake's head was still on the verge of bursting with pain or that nausea was hiding just below the surface, waiting to assault him at any given moment. Since he awoke from the accident, their hands had been all over him, poking and prodding, flexing and massaging, despite his venomous verbal resistance.

Nothing he said daunted them, no insult offended them, at least not enough to make them leave him alone. Every two hours they came in and turned him over, massaged him, and bent him this way and that until finally he'd vowed to learn how to turn
himself
over just to get a little peace.

“That's not all you'll learn to do today,” Allie said brightly as she wheeled a gurney into the room. “Today you're going to the tilt table in the rehab room. We're going to get you sitting up, so you can get out of bed.”

That sounded easy enough, and Jake was almost hopeful as they wheeled him down the hallway, flat on his back to the big room where a dozen or more people like him worked—on mats, in a pool, on parallel bars, with walkers.

He didn't object when they transferred him to the flat table, but when they began strapping him down, he got worried. “What are the straps for?”

“To keep you from sliding off, Jake,” Buzz said. “You've been flat for three days. We have to get you upright gradually. You may have some problems.”

But Jake couldn't imagine ever having problems being upright. “Try me,” he said.

They finished strapping him on then slowly began to tilt him up.

He felt a cold sweat prickling his skin; his head pounded. Though the table inched upward at a snail's pace, he grew increasingly dizzy, nauseous, weak. . . .

“I'm gonna pass out!”

Instantly, they lowered him flat again.

“That's all right, Jake,” Allie said. “You made it to thirteen degrees.”

Jake looked at her. “That's all? Why did I react like that?”

“It's called orthostatic hypotension. You've been lying down for a while, so your circulation is weak. Your blood pressure drops when you're upright. We just have to keep trying it, getting a little higher each time, until you get through it. Ready to go again?”

He wanted to scream out that he wasn't, but instead he said, “No. I'm thirsty.”

“We can give you some ice chips,” Allie said, “but you won't be able to keep anything else down.”

She put an ice chip in Jake's mouth, then allowed a few seconds for it to melt. “Ready now?”

Jake cursed as the table tilted again. As the blood drained to pool in his feet, the world threatened to turn black.

“Just get through this, Jake,” Buzz said when he was flat again. “After this, we'll start you on traction.”

Two hours later, they wheeled him back to his room in time for the bland lunch that awaited him, the lunch he couldn't eat. His skull felt as if it had intercepted the pain from all the places on his body that he couldn't feel. His stomach was empty but still threatened to turn on him, and the worst part was that for all his work, he'd only made it up to twenty degrees on the tilt table. At this rate, he'd be flat on his back for the rest of his life.

And the traction had been another nightmare. They had hooked him to the pulleys and turned the machine on, making it pull for twenty seconds, then release for five, then pull again. . . .

Jake's hope as he endured the pain was that the pulleys would relieve the compression in his spine, free the nerves to function again, and bring the feeling back into his legs. But when the exercise was over, he was as numb from his hips down as he had been when he'd gotten here. It would take time, Buzz told him. Lots of time.

And time was something he had more than enough of. He had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing to do with it but endure more torture, more terror, more disappointment.

Yanking at the sheet the nurse had laid over him, he tried to fling it off the bed, but it was attached somewhere. Instead, he grabbed a glass of watery tea and hurled it across the room. It shattered and left a stain on the wall, but that did nothing to appease Jake's rage.

L
ynda heard a crash as she reached the door of Jake's room. Stepping out of her wheelchair, she pushed the door open. A tray of food flew against the wall, and plates and food and a cup went crashing to the floor.

“Jake! What are you—?”

She ducked out of the way of the plastic pitcher.

Jake's face was red, and his bandage was wet with tears. Randomly, he reached for something else to throw. The phone book sailed across the room and then the tissue box. When he grabbed the phone he had already broken the other day and tried to yank off the cord, she dove for him.

“Stop it!” she cried, wrestling the phone from him and grabbing his flailing arms. “Jake, stop it!”

He fought for a moment more, and then, sobbing and cursing, finally gave up and let his arms fall across his face.

Lynda stood next to the bed, staring down at him, feeling helpless. Where were the people who loved this man? Where were the ones who could fight this battle with him? Was there really no one?

But there
was
someone, Lynda thought, succumbing to her own tears.
She
was here, and Jake needed her probably more than he'd ever needed anyone in his life.

She leaned over him and slid her hands to his shoulders. Somehow as he sobbed and shook and wailed, she got her arms around him, and suddenly he was clutching her like someone hanging from a cliff, about to fall to his death.

Maybe she was the only one who could pull him back.

He held her while he wept out his last ounces of strength while she cried against the bandage on his face.

“It's okay, Jake,” she whispered. “I promise it's going to be all right.”

But they were empty words. She could make no such promises.

When his grief had run out of strength for the moment, he loosened his arms.

Slowly, she let go of him.

He looked like a little boy in a broken man's body, she thought as she stroked his hair back from his damp forehead. Tears still rolled slowly down his temple, but he was too exhausted to wipe them away.

She stroked his forehead until his wet eye finally closed, until she felt the last ounce of fight seep out of him, until she heard his breathing settle into a relaxed cadence.

When she was sure he was sleeping, she went to get someone to clean up the mess he'd made.

But she didn't leave him until someone from her floor came and forced her to.

For it was only now that she realized just how alone he was. As much as he might hate her, she was all he had.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

H
e fingered the newspaper photo of the crashed plane, still amazed that anyone had survived. It should have been a sure thing. He'd snipped the hose with such precision, leaving it partially intact so that it wouldn't be noticed on the preflight. When the landing gear engaged, the pressure in the line was certain to tear it the rest of the way. The gear would go partially down without locking—a deadly combination of problems. They should have been the last ones she would ever encounter.

But Lynda Barrett had a way of getting around sure things.

He clenched his jaw in frustration as he picked up the phone and dialed the number he had memorized for the hospital. He'd gotten daily updates on her condition, posing as a reporter one day, an uncle the next, a deacon another. The nurses had been unusually forthcoming, probably because her injuries were so minor. She'd be going home soon, he'd been told. Now he just had to find out when.

He asked for the nurse's station on her floor then waited as he was transferred. After a few rings, someone answered.

“Third floor nurse's station. Sarah McNair speaking.”

“Sarah!” he said as though he knew her. “How's it going?”

She hesitated, trying to place his voice. “Fine.”

He grinned. He loved throwing people off guard.

“Listen, this is Bob Schilling, Lynda Barrett's law partner. I just tried calling her room, but the line was busy. I wonder if you can tell me yet if she's had any word on when she might be released.”

“Uh . . . just a second. I'll check.”

He waited as she left the phone. She was back in just a moment. “I'm sorry, but there's no word yet. We may keep her a couple more days. Would you like for me to transfer you to her room?”

“No need. I'll drop by to see her this afternoon. You gave me what I needed for now. Thanks a lot, Sarah.”

He hung up, frowning, and wondered whether he should make his move now, rather than waiting until she returned home.

But how?

He checked his watch. Three hours before he had to be at work. Time enough to pay the hospital a visit, check out the possibilities, and formulate a plan. If he played his cards right and caught her while she was sleeping, he might even be able to get into her room to see if she is on an IV. Maybe he could inject it with something—aspirin to thin her blood, maybe. Or he could grind up some of his blood-pressure pills. Maybe enough to make hers crash. Maybe this crash she wouldn't survive.