Playing the Field (Hot-Lanta Series) (38 page)

She wanted to go to cops. She had to but
she didn’t even get a chance. He was with her the entire time up until the wedding. He didn’t let her leave his sights. She thought about her parents again. Would Gino actually kill them? April’s stomach was rolling a mile a minute and she thought any second she was going to lose all its contents.              

             
Was there anyone she could talk to about this? Maybe she could find someone to help her. Maybe Marc could help her. He cared about Patty but then she thought about the awful exchange they had and thought maybe Marc would not be a good person to talk to. But if he knew the truth of what happened maybe she could help find Patty and help patch things up between the two of them. April decided to go and find Marc when she heard sirens in the distance.

             
Her mind immediately went to bad thoughts. Did Gino do something to Patty? She shook off her feelings, reprimanding herself for thinking the worst. She had to stay positive. She got up off the couch, grabbed her purse and started to reach for her phone when an ambulance and cops came flying up to the front of the lobby. EMT’s with a gurney came rushing through the front doors and were greeted by the manager of the hotel. She heard the manager say the body was found in the ice machine room on the ninth floor. April’s heart dropped.

             
She opened her phone and quickly dialed Marc’s phone number, she had it in there thanks to Patty borrowing her cell phone for a weekend when hers was on the fritz. He didn’t pick up. Frustrated she kept re-dialing. She didn’t know what else to do.

             
She went up to an officer and asked, “Um, excuse me officer. Do you know what is going on?”

             
“I’m sorry ma’am, I’m not at liberty to say. Please do us a favor and clear the area.”

             
That went well.

She should have known she was going to get the brush off. She called Marc’s phone again. On the tenth time dialing
, he finally answered the phone.

             
“Who the hell is this?” He sounded drunk but she didn’t care, drunk help was better than any help.

             
“Marc, it’s April, Patty’s friend.”

             
“What the hell do you want?” He emphasized the ‘you’ harshly. Clearly he was not happy with her.

             
“Do you know where Patty is?”

             
“You’re kidding right?” Then he hung up the phone. What a prick. She called back. She was not going to give up.

             
“Leave me the fuck alone.” He answered.

             
Before he hung up again, she quickly said, “I need to talk to you, please don’t hang up. Gino threatened my life and my parents if I didn’t bring him to the wedding tonight. I think Patty’s in trouble.”

             
She heard Marc rustling around on the other side. “Where are you?”

             
“In the lobby.”

             
“I’ll be right there.”

             
April waited in the lobby for what seemed like forever. She conjured up every possible thing that could have happened to Patty. She prayed that the cops and ambulance were here because some crazy couple wanted to have sex in the ice machine room and got frozen to the machine or something. She tried not to think about what Gino could have done to Patty.

             
Marc came rushing over to her, wearing sweatpants and an Atlanta Braves shirt. Patty always told April how funny she thought it was that Marc just advertised himself for Atlanta to see. Whenever they hung out, he was always approached by fans and didn’t mind one bit.

             
“What’s going on, tell me everything.”

             
They sat down on the couch and she explained everything to him. From when she opened her door to find Gino, to the horrifying phone call she got from her parents, to the moment Patty laid eyes on Gino at the wedding and shot daggers at April.

             
“What did he say to you about Patty?” Marc asked.

             
“He just wanted me to take him to the event, he didn’t say why he needed to see her. I didn’t have a choice. I know I should have called the cops but if I did, my parents were going to die.”

She shook her head in her hands and cried. “I didn’t know what to do.”

              Marc squeezed her hand and tried to comfort her even though she knew he was furious with her. This was all her fault. If something happened to Patty, she didn’t know what she would do with herself.

             
“It’s going to be alright. I know this is not the right time but do you think she was really getting back together with that sick fuck?”

             
“Marc, I’m one hundred percent sure she would never get back with him. She was so happy with herself when she completed all the goals you set for her. She told me one night that she never felt so free in her life and it was all because of you. If anything, you’re the one she wants.”

             
April saw tears form in his eyes as he looked down at his hands. He cleared his throat and said, “We need to find her. Should we try calling her cell phone?”

             
“It’s a start.” April said. She reached for her phone but was startled when she heard the EMT’s running off orders and wheeling someone out on a gurney. The patient was covered pretty well, there was blood everywhere. April tried to get a look but could not see anything. At the last minute, before the gurney was out the door, she spotted a long lock of strawberry blonde hair and April fainted from shock.

                                          ***

              When Marc saw the woman on the gurney escorted out of the hotel, his heart sank. He knew it was Patty. There was no doubt in his mind. He tended to April once she fainted before he took off for the hospital. He sent her up to her hotel room and told her not to worry, he would contact her with any news. The last thing he needed was a hysterical woman in the hospital waiting room with him.

             
Marc caught a taxi to the hospital praying the whole way there that Patty would be alright. He cursed himself the whole way, remembering the last conversation he had with her and the kiss they shared before she chose Gino over him.

If Gino threatened Patty
, like he did April, then Marc knew Patty only chose Gino to possibly save him or herself. Before he left, he made sure to talk to some cops, they were unable to divulge any information but Marc tried to tip them off, gave them April’s parents number to confirm the threats and hoped that with the DNA evidence they would collect form Patty’s body they would be able to prosecute Gino and put him behind bars.

             
Marc arrived at the hospital, shoved money through the partition of the taxi and took off running to the front desk. He asked where Patty O’Neil was and the secretary told him she was in surgery but she informed him what floor she was on. When he got to the correct floor, he informed the nurses that he was waiting to hear about Patty’s condition. Unfortunately he didn’t have any numbers for her family and hoped that the hospital would contact them.

             
He kept replaying the scene over and over in his head. He should have noticed the terrified look in Patty’s face when Gino was holding her close. Was she trying to send Marc signals that something was wrong? He was so furious and blinded by rage that at the moment, he wouldn’t have been able to pick up on any signals she was sending. Why didn’t he press more for her to make the right decision? Why didn’t he just whisk her away instead of letting her walk away with Gino? He would never forgive himself.

             
He paced the waiting room, driving his hand through his hair thinking of all the worst possibilities that could happen to her. It was extremely late, so he went to the vending machine for some coffee, he didn’t want to be passed out in the waiting room in case the doctor came out.

The coffee that came out of the machine tasted like
crap and dirt mixed together. He muscled it down and threw the cup away. Why wasn’t anyone coming out to talk about her status? He paced in front of the nurses’ station to remind them that he was still there and looking for information on Patty.

             
One of the nurses asked him to please sit down because his pacing was getting in their way. He grabbed a magazine and read the same sentence of some breast feeding article five times and then threw the magazine back on the table. He was starting to lose his mind and was about to punch a wall when a doctor came out. Marc leapt to his feet and asked about Patty.

             
“Are you family?”

             
“I’m her boyfriend, please I need to know if she’s ok.” He knew he was lying but he needed to know how Patty was doing, he couldn’t wait for her family to show up.

             
“Hey are you Marc Sullivan?”

             
For fucks sake! Was this guy for real?

“Yes I am, no
w can you tell me anything about Patty?”

             
“Man, I’m a huge fan.” He shook Marc’s hand. It took all the energy in the world not to crush the surgeon’s metacarpals.

             
“Thanks.” Marc tried to put on the best pleading face he had. 

             
“Uh, I really shouldn’t tell you anything since you’re not family but I can tell you’re stressed. Patty is in a coma, she took a severe blow to her head causing her brain to swell. We have her on medications to help with the swelling. She was stabbed twice in the stomach and lost a tremendous amount of blood. She is in the ICU. We were able to repair some of the muscles that were torn and were able to give her a blood transfusion. We are closely watching her.”

             
With all the information the doctor just gave Marc, he felt his heart sink to the bottom of the floor. Patty was in a coma? She was stabbed twice? Marc was going to kill Gino himself if he ever got his hands on him.

             
“What are her chances of survival?” asked Marc.

             
“Well, it’s not looking good right now. They had to revive her in the ambulance, the loss of blood was a significant amount and we are doing the best we can with her head injury. All we can do now is pray.”

             
“Will she ever come out of the coma?”

             
“Can never be sure, head injuries are all different. We have seen strange things happen in good and bad ways. I’m sorry I can’t give you more answers.”

             
“When can I see her?”

             
“When we get her settled, we will let you know.”

             
“Thank you, Doc.”

             
Marc sat back down in his chair and shook his head, tears spilling over his eyes. He couldn’t believe Patty, his Patty was in a coma. What if she never came out of it? He would never have the chance to be with her the way he wanted to. He didn’t want their last conversation they had, to be the last one they ever had.

             
He grabbed his phone and called April, explaining everything he knew. She told him that the police found Gino in a room he reserved with a bullet through his head. The coward killed himself. For some reason Gino’s death didn’t settle well with Marc. The guy was dead and out of their lives forever but Marc couldn’t help but still be angry because there was no way they would find justice for Patty. Gino took the easy way out. Marc would have rather seen Gino rot in prison. He told April to stay at the hotel, get some sleep and meet him at the hospital in the morning.

             
What a fucking night. How was he supposed to tell Jane and Brady? This was their wedding night, would they want to know? He didn’t want to ruin their night but they might want to know. Marc decided to give them a call in the morning, at least they would have their night.

             
A nurse brought him another cup of coffee, this one tasting much better than the first. He was fiddling with the string connected to his sweats when a nurse grasped his shoulder.

             
“You can come visit Patty now if you would like.”

             
Marc shot out of his chair and followed her to Patty’s room. She stopped him before the door and said, “Just a warning she is pretty roughed up, her face is swollen and bruised. I just wanted to give you a heads up before you go in there.”

             
He squeezed her arm and said thank you. When she opened the door for him, ushering him in, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw laying in the hospital bed before him. Patty had so many tubes and machines attached to her body. Her face was like the nurse said, swollen and she had bruises and a couple of small cuts on her face. She was almost unrecognizable. There was some left over blood still in her beautiful strawberry blonde hair and she was very pale, almost grey looking where she was not covered with bruises.