Page 16

M issy watched as Trey left, his cup of coffee in hand as he headed out. She wasn’t sure where he would head to first, but, considering the hour, she hoped he got a shower and maybe a few hours of sleep. She heard her father, restless, mumbling in his sleep. She raced to his side, laced her fingers with his, and whispered, “It’s okay, Dad. I’m here.”

Almost immediately he calmed down, and she smiled, patting his hand. “Keep coming back to us, Dad. Keep coming back. I’m here, and I’ll stay with you. It’s all right.”

She wasn’t sure what it would take to bring her dad all the way back to consciousness, but it wasn’t very long afterward that the doctor she’d seen earlier came through on his rounds. She quickly told him about how her father had been acting, and he smiled and nodded.

“That’s good,” he told her. “It might get a little rough while he surfaces, and he could immediately be wiped out with pain. So, as soon as you see him show consciousness in any way, you call out for help. Understood?”

She nodded. “I hear you.”

With a wave of his hand, the doctor was gone.

She beamed as she turned to look back at her father. “Hear that, Dad? It looks as if you might be coming out of this after all.” It was the best news ever and gave her complete and total hope. She quickly sent Trey a text, telling him about it.

He phoned her right back. “Now that is great news.”

“It is,” she murmured.

He hesitated, then said, “But don’t tell anybody else, okay?”

“Why not? If people know he’s alive and waking up, they won’t see him as simply a victim they can come and prey on. What’s wrong with that?”

“Because then they might try harder,” he explained, “and I can’t be there right now.”

“Do you really think they will?” she whispered.

“I’m afraid they will, yes. So, let’s not put it to the test. At least not before I get there.”

“No, of course not,” she muttered.

“Besides, waiting a day or two won’t matter, will it? Everybody thinks he’s a miracle at the moment anyway.”

“He is a miracle,” she declared warmly. “A miracle I care very much about.”

“I know, and let’s just not cause any more chaos before we get where we need to be with him.”

“No, no, of course not.” She put away her phone, completely sobered by the thought that this good thing may not be a great thing. It was a great thing for her father, but maybe not if anybody else knew.

Several other doctors came through over the next few hours, and she was always protective after Trey’s words. Yet they all seemed to be harmless, only caring about her father’s condition more than anything else. There had been no change in his condition, but she kept hoping, so much that she jumped at every sound, then walked over to see if it was him. She knew Schooner would alert her of any danger, but still…

Finally she heard another sound, then looked over to see her father slowly opening his eyes. She raced over, tears in her eyes as she picked up his hands and whispered, “It’s okay, Dad. Take it easy. You’re here in the hospital.”

He had both eyes on her, staring in confusion.

“We’re in the hospital.” He blinked several times, as if trying to understand what she said. She immediately hit the Call button for a nurse to get somebody to come help them. “Take it easy, Dad. I know you’ll be in a lot of pain,” she whispered. “It’s okay.” He gave her half a smile, then closed his eyes and seemed to drift a bit.

Just then, one of the doctors raced in. Schooner bolted to the bed as if to defend her father. She immediately reached out for him, pulling him back out of the way.

“He just had his eyes open,” she cried out. “He was just looking at me.”

“That’s a good thing.” He came over and spoke to her father in a sharp tone of voice. Her father opened his eyes and stared at him. And that was it. She was quickly moved out and asked to back away from the bed, as several other medical personnel came in. Silas was immediately run through a gambit of tests, as all of them spoke to him in calm and muted voices. She could barely even see her father through the sea of people, and finally she heard his whisper.

“My daughter?”

“I’m here, Dad. I’m right here,” she said, elbowing her way back to him. She smiled at him. “Here I am.”

He looked up at her with such relief and love in his expression, the tears filled her eyes all over again. “I thought we were done for. I thought my enthusiasm had killed you.”

“No,” she whispered, “I’m fine, way better than you in fact.”

He groaned and whispered, “My head.”

“Yeah,” one of the doctors replied, “you’ve got a nasty head injury. We had to open you up, drain some of the bleeding, and release the swelling inside your scalp.”

He blinked several times at the doctors, as if trying to process what he’d just been told, and then his eyelids drifted closed. Within a few minutes her father fell back asleep.

The doctor turned to her with a big smile. “No need to worry. Now he just needs to sleep. Regular old sleep,” the doc clarified, with a beaming smile. “It looks as if he’ll pull through and will come out of this relatively unscathed.”

Tears in her eyes. she thanked him profusely.

He shook his head. “Hey, he’s come back for you as much as for anything we did,” he pointed out, with a smile. “Sure, we’ve helped his body get through some of the worst of it, but it’s that emotional fight to come back to you that makes the big difference, so keep it up.”

Just then her phone rang. She looked down and realized it was Bill Bedford. “Oh my God,” she cried into the phone, “I forgot I was supposed to come in.”

“You forgot?” he snapped. “How the hell can you just forget? I told you how we were slammed, and I even asked you specifically if you could help out today.”

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry. My father has more or less woken up, and things got out of hand here.”

“He woke up?” There was complete and utter shock in his tone.

“Yes, isn’t that wonderful?”

“Absolutely it’s great,” he replied, “especially when I’m so overwhelmed.”

“I know the struggle you’re in, so I’ll get somebody to come stay with him. I should be there in about forty minutes.”

“Good because, in about forty minutes, I’m about to walk.” And, with that, the phone went dead.

She winced and quickly phoned Trey. When she got no answer, she sent a text message, and then sat down to wait.

Trey double-checked the address before he got out of the car and walked up to Mildred’s house and knocked.

She opened the door and glared at him. “What are you doing at my home?” she snapped.

“I came to talk to your son.”

Immediately fear filled her eyes. “You’ve got to no reason to talk to him,” she declared, trying to shut the door.

He reached out a hand and asked, “So, does he live here or not?”

“Ma, what’s the matter?” The shout came from the living room.

When she hesitated, Trey called out, “I’m here to talk to you, Keith.”

A snort came from inside, and a tall, skinny, gangly character arrived at the door, looking at him sideways. “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”

Trey smiled at him. “I just want to have a talk, that’s all.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even know you.”

“No, but your mother’s afraid you may have had something to do with the attack on Silas at the hospital.”

Keith just stared at him, his expression turning stony. He looked at his mother and asked, “What’s he talking about? What the hell is this?”

She gasped in shock. “I didn’t say anything.” She turned and pointed at Trey. “He’s just making up stuff.”

“No, you took off like a bat out of hell from the hospital,” Trey stated. “So it was pretty obvious what you thought.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Mildred cried out, falling back.

“You didn’t have to,” Trey replied, “and now I need to know for sure if Keith attacked Silas or not.”

“Who the hell are you? A fucking cop?” the son asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, I’m not,” he muttered, “but I am the guy who rescued Silas and Missy, and I’m spending a fair bit of time trying to ensure that whoever tried to kill them in the first place doesn’t get another chance.”

“Another chance?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Yes, their boat was sabotaged, which is why they ended up stranded out there in the first place,” Trey explained. “I brought them back in, after search and rescue stopped.”

“I was out with the search and rescue team,” Keith declared. “We didn’t find any sign of them.”

“But if you had something to do with their going missing, you would have been pretty happy to misdirect all the search efforts, wouldn’t you?”

His gaze grew cold as he stared at him. “That’s a hell of a thing to accuse a guy of.”

“I’m not accusing you, just checking your story to ensure you didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I don’t fucking have to talk to you,” he yelled. “You ain’t nobody from around here. I don’t give a shit what you think, and I’m not talking to you.”

“That’s fine. The sheriff’s office is my next stop anyway. We’ve had plenty of talks over these last few days because we’re looking for a motive.”

“Yeah? What motive could I possibly have?” Keith asked.

“Silas broke it off with your mom, so maybe that upset you, maybe you want to protect her.” The son snorted at that. “Maybe you just wanted revenge, who knows? It didn’t take very much to dredge up your criminal records, and you seem to enjoy breaking and entering. And we found an intruder had been in Silas’s home. So maybe you had something against Silas from the beginning. I don’t know.”

Keith was completely nonreactive to anything going on around him, which was an interesting trick in itself.

If this guy was involved, he wasn’t involved emotionally. “I can see that maybe this isn’t something you really give a crap about,” Trey pointed out, with half a smile. “So, as far as motives goes, that would be interesting to figure out.”

“I don’t have a motive,” Keith declared, adding a sneer. “And I didn’t have anything to do with sabotaging the boat. Christ, around this place that’s a death warrant.”

“Exactly,” Trey agreed, “and that was the plan. Then somebody went into his hospital room and sabotaged his IV and monitor lines, somebody who had access to doctors’ jackets and things, somebody who knew the layout of the hospital. Silas ended up on the floor, so we’re not certain just how bad the attack was, but the good news is that he’s slowly coming around.”

At that, Mildred stepped forward. “Is he?” she whispered, with hope in her tone.

“Oh, Jesus, give it up, Ma. If he wanted anything to do with you, he wouldn’t have broken it off in the first place.”

She turned and glared at him. “He broke it off because of you.”

“He isn’t much of a man then, is he? Of course I’ll give him a shakedown to ensure he’ll treat you right.”

“Instead, all he did was break up with me,” she wailed, “because he didn’t want a hoodlum hanging around all the time.”

“I’ve been clean for a long time,” he snapped, swinging his arms out, “so that ain’t got nothing to do with me. If he broke it off with you, that’s on you.”

“Not hardly,” she snapped, glaring at him. “If you weren’t in the picture, he would never have broken up with me.”

“So, what now? You’re trying to get me in trouble, hoping that maybe I’ll disappear, so you can go back to your happy little world with him?” he asked, with a snort. “That ain’t happening, Ma.”

With that, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

He shook his head. “This house is as much mine as it is yours. Remember that.”

“How could I possibly forget?” she snapped. “You bring it up every chance you get.”

“Dad left half to you and half to me, so I would always have a home—because he knew.”

“Yeah, he knew how much trouble you were always in,” she added, glaring at him. “No way this is how I want to live.”

“You can move out then.”

“Or we can sell and split the money,” she stated, still glaring at him.

“I ain’t selling. I like it here, and this is my home.” He turned back to Trey. “Now, if you haven’t figured it out already, the only problem between my mother and me is this home we were left. I have every right to be here. She just happened to like having it to herself, while I was in jail.”

“Interesting,” Trey murmured, his mind immediately triggered to consider something else.

“But I didn’t have nothing to do with any of that, so don’t even think about it.”

“Maybe not, but rest assured that I’ll be figuring out who the hell is after Silas. Of course there’s always the chance they’re after the daughter,” Trey mentioned, casting another glance at Keith.

“Now you’re really fishing. I’ve got nothing against her or for her. I don’t give a shit either way. I’m not looking to get into any trouble. I’m still on probation, and no way I’m going back in the slammer. We all know it wouldn’t take much at all for the cops to crawl all over my ass and to railroad me over any crime that came along, especially if they couldn’t solve it.” Shaking his head, he declared, “I’m staying away from any trouble because I’m not going back.”

“You want to tell me what happened in the first place?” Trey asked.

“No, I sure as hell don’t. I want to tell you to fuck off, so why don’t you just take a hike? My ma’s got to work soon enough, and you can talk to her there. Otherwise this is my house, so you can back the fuck off.” And, with that, the door was slammed in Trey’s face.

Almost with perfect timing, he got a text from Missy, about needing to go to the vet clinic. When he read it, he shook his head, and muttered, “Never a break for any of us.”

As he headed back to the hospital to keep watch on her father, he was hoping they got Silas fully back… and soon.