Evidence of Mercy

  Paige. It was something about Paige. The haze over his brain seemed to clear as he recalled the incident in the parking garage yesterday when he’d tried to take Brianna. What had Paige told them?

  Fury rose up inside him, intense enough to propel him to the cell bars. “Hey!” he shouted up the corridor. “Hey! I want to talk to my lawyer!”

  An inmate several cells down yelled for him to shut up, but he turned up the volume a few decibels. “I want a lawyer, do you hear me? I have the right to a lawyer!”

  He heard someone coming then, a linebacker in a guard’s uniform, and he backed a few steps away from the bars. “Are you gonna let me call my lawyer?”

  The man leveled hateful, bloodshot eyes on him as he stuck the key in the lock and opened the door. “Come on, Varner.”

  Keith hesitated. “Are you—am I gonna call my lawyer now?”

  The man smirked. “What do you think? That I’m gonna smash your face in as soon as you step over this line?”

  Keith didn’t like the question, so he offered no answer.

  The man’s grin faded. “Get out here, Varner. You’re wasting my time.”

  He felt nauseous as he stepped out of the cell, and the guard escorted him to the telephone.

  Two hours later, standing in front of a judge who might or might not let him out on bail, Keith did as he was told and let his lawyer do the talking.

  “It was all a misunderstanding, your honor. My client and his ex-wife are in the middle of a custody dispute. She’s tried pinning things on him before to stack the deck in her favor, but this takes the cake.”

  The judge didn’t seem all that interested. “Says here that he vandalized her car, assaulted her, and tried to take the child against the orders of the court. Is that or is it not true?”

  “No, your honor,” McRae said. “All that happened is that they happened to be parked on the same level in the parking garage. He hadn’t seen his child in over a month, and when he saw them coming across the garage, he was overcome with the desire to see her and approached her. He never dreamed she would interpret it as a threat right there in the courthouse parking lot.”

  The judge propped his chin in his hand, as if he’d heard it all a million times and didn’t know if he could stay awake for one more.

  “His ex-wife saw him and assuming incorrectly that he planned to take the child, took off running down the stairs. Unfortunately, she slipped and fell on the way down, and when my client heard her scream, he went to see if she was all right. She milked the incident for everything it was worth, your honor, and made it look as if he had assaulted her, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Judge, I ask that you drop these charges so that we won’t waste any more of your time.”

  The judge studied the paperwork on his desk. “Is his ex-wife in the courtroom?”

  McRae made a helpless gesture. “We weren’t able to reach her or her attorney. My guess is that they are reluctant to stand before you with such a blatant lie.”

  The judge assessed Keith, who was tired and unshaven. “I’m divorced, myself, Mr. Varner, and I know how difficult it is to be without your children. But your ex-wife must have a restraining order for a reason.”

  “I told you, Judge. She’s stacking her deck so she’ll win permanent custody.”

  The judge rubbed his head, as if he nursed a headache of his own and then in a half-audible voice, said, “All right then. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.” He leaned forward then and pointed a finger at Keith. “But I won’t do it again. If I see you back in this courtroom for any reason, Mr. Varner, you’ll go to jail. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “All right.” Banging the gavel, he moved on to the next case.

  Trying to look humble and sincere, Keith left the courtroom. But inside he was dancing; he’d gotten away with it again.

  His lawyer brooded as he drove him home, which aggravated Keith. He wasn’t in the mood for this silent treatment. His head still hurt, and he wanted to take something and go to bed for a few hours before he had to go to work. When they reached Keith’s apartment building, Keith started to get out.

  “Hey, Keith,” McRae said, stopping him. “No more antics, huh? You almost ruined your case.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Keith said.

  McRae breathed a disbelieving laugh. “This is me you’re talking to. I know what you did, and it was stupid. And if you do anything like it again, you’re going to have to find yourself a new lawyer.”

  “Okay, so it was stupid. I lost my head.”

  “Don’t lose it again.”

  Keith got out then leaned back in the door. “Relax. It’s going to be all right. We’ll still win the case. Paige won’t be able to fight back much longer.”

  McRae frowned back at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just that you should trust me,” Keith said. “I’ve got this under control.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  * * *

  The maddening thing about having his own clothes in his room was that Jake couldn’t put them on. Allie had told him that he’d have to be sitting upright before he could learn to dress himself, and even though she’d offered to do it for him, he’d declined. He liked the gowns, he told her. She believed him—which just proved how naive she was.

  The truth was that he couldn’t stand the thought of a woman doing something so personal as dressing him. Already Jake had little dignity left. The things they had to do for him were things he’d always taken for granted. Now he’d never take anything for granted again.

  That morning they had put him in that monstrosity of a wheelchair again, and he’d persuaded them to leave him in it; the longer he sat upright, the easier it would become. He was up to sixty degrees now, and he was determined to conquer this particular obstacle. But it was taking too much time.

  Rolling carefully toward the closet, he tried to reach a coat hanger, but it was just out of reach. Looking around in the closet where the nurses had put all of the things Lynda had gotten out of his hotel room, he found a tennis racket. Carefully, he slipped it into the triangle of the hanger and lifted it off the rod.

  He dropped the racket then bent the hanger into a straight piece of wire with a hook at one end, and slipped it into the waistband of his sweat pants. If he could just hook that waistband over his foot and work it up to the point where his arms could reach, maybe he could actually get them on.

  He broke out in a sweat as he maneuvered the pants with the hanger, trying to hook them over, missing, then trying again. The waistband of the sweat pants kept collapsing when it hit his feet, and the hanger offered little control, but he kept trying.

  And trying.

  And trying.

  But it was too difficult, and finally, he gave up and flung both the pants and the hanger across the room. Slamming his hands down on the wheelchair armrests, he let out a raging curse.

  A knock sounded on the door, and he cursed again, hoping it wasn’t Lynda. It was bad enough that she saw him as a helpless invalid, but he didn’t relish the idea of her catching him in this stupid chair, reclined back the way he was, wearing that degrading hospital gown that covered only his thighs, revealing the stupid stockings and Ace bandages wrapped the length of his legs.

  The door opened, and Mike, the guy from the airport, stuck his head in. “Hey, Jake. Is it a bad time?”

  Jake breathed a sigh of relief. “No, come on in.”

  Mike stepped tentatively into the room, wearing the same look of awkwardness most people did when they saw him. “I thought I’d come by and see how you are doing.”

  “Terrific,” Jake said, throwing up his hands. “I’m great. How are you?”

  Mike went to the chair across from Jake and started to turn it around but saw the sweat pants lying at the foot of it. Bending down, he picked them up. “You want me to hang these up for you?”

  Jake swallowed. “You can throw them out the window for all I care.”

/>   Mike’s eyebrows rose. “Tired of them?”

  Jake laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m sick of them.”

  Mike sat down and was quiet for a moment, and Jake knew he wasn’t making it easy on him. “Thought you might want some of your stuff,” Mike said, holding out a box of Jake’s things that were in the trunk of his car. Lynda thought you might want it, but I thought I’d make sure. If you don’t need any of it, I could just put it back.”

  Jake considered it for a moment, wishing that he had some means of taking care of these things himself. “Uh, just put it back in the trunk. It’s okay.”

  “All right,” Mike said. “You know, it’s really good to see you sitting up.”

  Jake gave a dry laugh. “Not all the way up.”

  “You’re getting there.”

  “Maybe.”

  Mike shifted. “When I think how close you came to going up in that plane’s explosion—I still don’t know how she got you out.”

  Jake frowned. “How who got me out?”

  “Lynda,” Mike said. “The plane was on its side, and you were strapped into your seat. Somehow, she unfastened you and pulled you through the door then dragged you away, even before we could get there. The plane went up seconds later.”

  “She did that? With broken ribs, spleen damage, and cuts all over her? How?”

  Mike smiled. “I guess somebody was helping her. Maybe there was a reason you weren’t supposed to die.”

  Jake couldn’t exactly swallow that. “Well, if you think of one, you let me know. Right now, I’m not looking toward some great purpose. All I want to do is get my pants on.”

  Mike looked down at the sweat pants he was holding. “These? Hey, man, I could help you with these.” He got up and came to stand at Jake’s feet, but Jake shook his head.

  “No, that’s all right. I don’t need them.”

  “But you’ll feel a hundred times better if you don’t have to wear that gown. No offense man, but I don’t think that’s your look.”

  Jake grinned, then eyed the pants again. “If you could just get them over my feet and up to where I can reach them—”

  “No problem.” Mike slipped the pants over Jake’s feet and slid them up his legs. As soon as Jake could reach them, Mike let him take over.

  It took some effort, but Jake worked them under his hips and all the way up.

  “Would you look at that?” Jake asked. “I look almost normal now.”

  Mike went to the closet. “Which shirt do you want?”

  “Give me that Far Side T-shirt,” Jake said, pulling the gown off over his head and tossing it to the bottom of the closet.

  Mike handed him the shirt, and Jake pulled it on and tucked it in.

  He looked down at himself and smiled. “Man, that feels better.”

  “It sure looks better,” Mike said.

  Jake looked up at Mike, gratitude in his eyes. “I owe you one, buddy.”

  “Well, then, we may as well run up the tab. I can come by tonight and help you change again if you want. Or drop by on my way to work in the morning.”

  “No need,” Jake said. “I’ll ask my PT. He just wasn’t here this morning, and my OT is a woman. I think I’ll be fine. Either that, or I won’t take these off again.”

  Mike laughed and relaxed back in his chair, feeling like he knew Jake better already.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  * * *

  I can’t believe my eyes,” Lynda said later that day. “You’re sitting up and dressed and everything.”

  Jake looked up at her from his wheelchair by the window, trying not to look quite so glad that she was here. “Yeah, but let me tell you. It’s no picnic.”

  Lynda took the chair across from him. “When did this happen?”

  “This morning. I got up to sixty degrees, so they left me here. I threw my usual tantrum, called them names, and threatened lawsuits, but they left me anyway.”

  He could see that she wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. “Don’t you want to sit up?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s not as simple as that, Lynda. Sitting up is a major ordeal. If I ever get all the way up, I’ll never take it for granted again.”

  Her face softened. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  Now he felt like a heel. “It’s okay. Actually, I asked them to leave me in the chair. I wanted to look out the window.”

  Lynda peered out at the parking lot below them. “So how is it?”

  “Makes me feel more like a prisoner, frankly,” he said quietly. “I’m stuck in here, and there’s a whole world still out there.”

  “A whole bunch of cars, anyway. Oh, look. Is that a red Porsche parked over there? It looks just like yours.”

  Jake struggled upward to see it. “Where?”

  “In that last row, off by itself.”

  Jake spotted it, and his face changed. “Yeah, it does look like mine. What do you know?”

  “Me?” she asked with a grin. “Nothing. I don’t know anything.”

  He looked up at her, his eye narrowing and saw her teasing grin. “Lynda, that wouldn’t be mine—”

  She nodded slowly. “I had Mike move it today. He said he came in and saw you.”

  Jake gazed hungrily down at the car. “He didn’t tell me he brought my Porsche.”

  “It’s a surprise,” she said. “We were going to wait until you could see it out the window, but here you are.”

  His smile faded, and a look of longing came over his face—not for the car but for the life he’d had when he could drive it.

  Lynda looked down at his chair. “Does this thing roll easily?”

  “It’s supposed to,” he said.

  “Then how about if I take you for a walk? We can go say hello to the car.”

  Jake grinned. “I’d like that. But what about your ribs? You’re not supposed to push anything heavy, are you?”

  “I’m doing a lot better,” she said. “I’m getting my strength back. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t want you hurting yourself for me, Lynda.”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Of course you would. You already have.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Jake’s look was soft as he met her eyes. “Mike told me how you pulled me out of the plane. Nobody told me. I don’t know how I thought I’d gotten out, but it never occurred to me that you’d done it.”

  “You would have done the same thing for me.”

  She started pushing him toward the door, and he mulled those words over. Would he have done the same thing? If she had been unconscious and he’d been the one awake, would he have risked his life to take the time to save her?

  He doubted it. And if he had, he no doubt would have told her about it the moment she came to. He didn’t like doing things he didn’t get credit for.

  But she’d done it and then hadn’t mentioned it; she probably counted her heroism as such a natural thing that it hadn’t occurred to her to tell him.

  Shaking off the thoughts, he tried to be flip again. “So—has anybody tried to kill you today?”

  She smiled. “Not today. I think it’s all over now that they have Doug locked up. I’m starting to relax a little.”

  “So you feel pretty sure he did it?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Well—I still find it hard to believe. I mean, it’s just weird that he would try something like that after all this time. But I guess things fester. Who knows what prison was like for him? Maybe he spent the whole time plotting his revenge on me.”

  As she spoke, she pushed him down the long hall and onto the elevator then to the first floor and through the courtyard where patients were scattered about under trees and strolled down sidewalks while the Florida sun shone down warmly and the autumn breeze cooled.

  “How do you feel?” she asked after a moment.

  Jake was smiling. “Fine,” he said. “I’m feeling just fine.”

  “We can go b
ack in any time you want.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I really do want to see my car.”

  She pushed him out onto the parking lot and through the rows of cars. He closed his eyes and let the sun beat down on his face and thought how good it was to be out of that controlled, air-conditioned environment.

  When he opened his eyes again, he saw his car. Slowly, he smiled. “Not a scratch on it.”

  “No, it looks pretty good, for a Porsche.”

  He laughed as they got closer, and he touched the fender with featherlight fingers, as if greeting a cherished lover. “Man, what I wouldn’t give to sit in it again.”

  Lynda’s smile faded. “Well—I could go try to find an orderly who’d be willing to lift you in.”

  Jake shook his head. “No. I can’t sit all the way up, remember? I’ll save it for later.”

  The look she gave him was sweet and surprised. “Jake? Do you realize that’s the first positive thing I’ve heard you say?”

  “That I can’t sit up?”

  “No, that you’ll save it for later. You know you’re getting better, don’t you?”

  He sighed. “I guess so. I’m just not very optimistic about how much better I can get.” He rolled to the window of the car, peered in at the plush, sleek seats that used to feel so natural beneath him. “Thanks for bringing it here, Lynda. It made the effort of sitting up worth it.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll leave it here for a while, so you can look out and see it any time you want.”

  He smiled. “That’ll be good.”

  She wheeled him back to the courtyard where other patients and family members milled around. They found a shady place under a tree, and she sat down on a bench opposite him. Jake relaxed and looked up at the sky. It was cobalt blue, cloudless, a perfect day for flying. He wondered if he’d ever be able to experience that feeling again.

  “Do you miss flying?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Yeah. I miss it pretty bad.”

  “What are you gonna do about your plane? Get another one?”

  “No. I was going to sell that one, remember?”

  He brought his gaze back to her. “But you loved it so much.”