“Right.”
Helen waited a moment before she asked her next question. “Have you reviewed the files on Eric's crash for any connection?”
Frank nodded. “Those are loaded on your laptop, too.”
“And?”
“No new ideas at the moment. We're looking at everything two ways, as if the crimes are connected and as if they're not. It's prudent to believe everything is connected but we have nothing to prove the theory.” Frank ran a wide hand over his close cropped hair, then leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, hands clasped together. Helen could feel his frustration. “The three victims we're discussing, Eric, Oliver, and Todd Dale, have nothing relevant in common as far as we know, except you.”
Uncharacteristically, Frank looked away from her at that moment. He seemed reluctant to meet her gaze.
“What?” she said. “There's something else you're not telling me. Out with it.”
He exhaled a breath from deep in his belly and told her bluntly, “Oliver might have tried to kill himself, Helen. We found a note he left for you when we were securing the house a few hours ago.”
“No!” Helen jumped out of the chair and began to pace the room. “That's outrageous. Oliver would never do that. Never! He wasn't strong enough to set those fires himself. Or harm Todd. Not that he ever would!” Suddenly spent, she dropped back into the chair.
“All I'm saying is that it looks like Oliver's handwriting on the note. His fingerprints are all over it. The pen and paper are from his desk. We checked. There's a copy of the note and the test results with the other reports loaded on your laptop.” Frank's tone was quiet, sorrowful, but certain. “I'm not saying he did anything else, believe me. But the note was his.”
The house phone at Helen's left elbow rang unnaturally loud in the silence. She saw the blinking light on the panel indicating the call originated in Oliver's room. She hesitated to pick up the call. She didn't need any more bad news. Twice more the phone's electronic bell sounded. She reached over, lifted the receiver, placed it to her ear, but said nothing.
“Mrs. Sullivan?” It was Steven, the medical attendant.
“Yes?”
“I thought you might like to know that your husband is awake.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Thornberry, Florida
Sunday 5:00 a.m.
HELEN'S HAND SHOOK AS SHE RETURNED the receiver to the phone's cradle. Frank's concern was plain in his eyes. “What's going on?”
“Oliver's awake,” she said. As much as she'd prayed for this, she hadn't let herself believe Oliver would return to her. Hope had lain dormant in her heart. He'd been comatose for almost four days. Now he was back. She pushed her chair away from the desk, rose, and ran to the bedroom.
She stopped at the open doorway. Steven was standing near Oliver's side, checking the monitors, the tubes. Her gaze traveled immediately to Oliver's face. His eyes were open.
“Oliver?” she said. His gaze moved toward her and his head turned slightly. One side of his mouth turned up in a crooked line that might have been a smile.
Helen moved to his side and took his right hand. “Oliver, I'm so happy to have you back,” she said before she bent to kiss his cheek. “Welcome home,” she whispered into his right ear.
She stood back and gazed into his eyes, as a thin stream of fluid dripped from their corners. Was he crying? “Oliver, it's okay. Everything's all right. Really. You're fine. I'm fine.” He closed his eyelids for a while, then opened them again.
Steven finished his work and stood aside a few moments. He glanced toward Frank standing in the open doorway. Helen noticed the grim look that passed between them before Steven said, “I'll leave you two alone for a bit. I'll be in the hallway when you're finished.”
Helen didn't hear the squealing door hinges and knew the door remained open. To avoid being overheard, she leaned toward Oliver, whispered, “Honey, it's almost Christmas. You've been asleep for four days. You're home, in our room, but you've had some surgery. They've given you medications, so you probably feel a little odd. Don't worry. You'll be fine. I love you.”
She kissed him again and felt the wetness on his cheeks and the stinging on her own cheek when her tears ran down behind one of the butterfly bandages over her stitches. “Oh, don't worry about my face, Oliver. It's fine. Superficial. Stitches coming out on Tuesday.”
Helen continued to babble quietly, to touch him, holding his hand. Slowly, she realized he wasn't responding to her. His hand was limp in hers. He hadn't moved his head again. Had he moved it the first time? Or had gravity pulled his head to the side? He'd said nothing, made no sound of any kind.
She raised up and looked directly into his eyes. “Oliver? Can you hear me?” she asked. He said nothing. She felt twinges of fear.
“Do you understand me?” Oliver's silence continued. Helen stood up straight, squeezed Oliver's hand again.
“Can you feel that?” No response. She squeezed again.
“Squeeze my hand, Oliver. Can you do that?” She waited, but felt no squeeze in return.
“Okay, honey. Don't worry. We'll get everything sorted out. I'm going to call your doctor. You close your eyes and rest. You'll want to eat soon, I'll bet. Maybe biscuits and red eye gravy? A sausage patty or two?” She squeezed his hand one more time. “I'll go out to the kitchen and see what we've got. I'll be back soon.” She kissed his cheek once more before she left.
Steven and Frank were huddled at the end of the corridor talking softly. She joined them. “Did he speak to you?” Steven asked.
She shook her head. “What's wrong with him?”
“I don't know. Could be several things, it's hard to say. I've called the neurosurgeon, but I got his service. It's early, Sunday morning. If I don't hear back from him soon, I'll try again.”
“Does he understand us?” Frank asked. “Can he answer questions?”
“Let's not put any more stress on him right at the moment. He seems stable, but I'm sure his situation is frightening to him as well as to the rest of us. Let me talk with the doctors and then we'll see what we can do.”
Helen stood by, listening, absorbing everything. She felt slow, groggy, confused. She'd prayed for Oliver to wake up, and he had. But now, he seemed unable to communicate with her. Could he understand? Or not? Had he traded the prison of unconsciousness for another prison of paralysis?
Frank began giving Steven his marching orders. “Don't call anyone else. Don't tell anyone else about this, understand? Your shift is supposed to end at what, seven o'clock? Two hours from now?”
“That's right.”
“Keep trying to reach the neurosurgeon, but no one else. Stay with him and do whatever you think you should do medically. Call me if there is any change. I'll be back before you're scheduled to go off duty.” Frank looked toward Helen. She nodded her agreement. “Can you do that?”
“Yes. I'll keep you informed,” he said, just before he returned to Oliver's room.
Helen turned and walked back to the living room with Frank following close behind her. She'd had a few minutes to gather her composure while Frank instructed Steven and she was ready. But for what?
“This could be a serious security problem, Helen,” Frank said.
“Beyond Oliver trying to kill himself again, you mean?”
Frank lowered his gaze for a moment, then returned his stare to hers. “That's right. If someone else tried to kill him and they find out he's awake, they are likely to try again. They'll feel threatened. Especially if Oliver actually does know who set the fires and murdered Todd Dale.”
Helen's anger bubbled over. She'd had as much as she could take. “He can't talk, Frank. How can he be a threat to anyone? He can't even squeeze my hand in response to questions. He may not understand anything we're saying to him.” With each sentence, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest as sharply physical as an infarction. Was she having a heart attack?
“But his attacker doesn't know that,” Frank told her bluntly, anger tinting his tone, too. “Do you want me to tell everyone? You've got a journalist sleeping in one of your guest rooms. Want me to wake her and tell her? Should we issue a press release?”
Frank's tone shocked her, perhaps as much as hers had shocked him. Both were calm under pressure, both had trained themselves to be objective, unemotional. But the hours and the stress and lack of sleep had finally taken them to the brink of their control.
They stood glaring at each other a few more moments until Helen turned away, waiting for her pounding heart to slow to a normal rhythm. After a while, she returned to her desk and attempted to pour more coffee from the insulated carafe, but it was empty.
“I'll get that refilled,” Frank said. He picked up the tray and carried it out the door to the kitchen. When he left the room, Helen did the only thing she could think of to do. She laid her head on the desk and closed her eyes to pray.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Thornberry, Florida
Sunday 6:00 a.m.
JESS FELT LIKE A CAGED TIGER and a hungry one at that. Since she'd arrived at the Sullivan ranch last night, she'd been cooped up in the building, watched every second. How could Helen live like this? Never alone, never free to move around as she pleased? Security necessary every second of every day?
No thank you
, Jess thought.
Not for me
. The idea alone was stifling.
She glanced out the window. The calendar had passed the winter solstice, but it was still full dark outside, even at six o'clock in the morning. She was showered, dressed, and hungry. Maybe Mike was awake, too, and they could leave early, stop for breakfast, and get on the open road toward Dentonville.
She sniffed. The aroma of fresh coffee seduced her like a practiced lover. Someone was awake.
In the hallway, she discovered Mike's door was still closed and she saw no light leaking from the crack near the floor. She passed his room treading softly on the hardwood floors to allow Mike and the rest of Frank Temple's team the opportunity to sleep that had eluded her.
Led by her nose, she found the coffee, a mug and a box of pastries. She snagged one of each to return to work in her room when she noticed the living room door open. She found Helen seated in the chair in front of the fireplace where they'd talked last night.
“Good morning, Helen. Want company?”
Helen glanced up. “Sure. Where are you going at this hour? There's nothing open for fifty miles around here this early on Sunday.”
“Couldn't sleep. Kept thinking about Vivian Ward.” She wanted to be dainty about it, but her stomach growled again and she gnawed a big chunk off the cheese Danish and stuffed it in her mouth.
“Vivian is an amazing woman. I've often wondered how she kept putting one foot in front of the other all these years. I'm not sure I'd have been as strong as she has,” Helen said.
Jess wolfed down the remainder of the pastry and felt it settle into her gut. It wouldn't be enough to sustain her for the day, but there were more pastries in the kitchen if she needed another. She licked the sugar off her lips and sipped the strong, black coffee before she responded.
“You're right. Vivian is exceptionally strong. I think she knows more than she's told me,” Jess said.
Helen smiled. “No doubt. Everybody knows more than they reveal to a journalist.”
Jess felt the shocked expression that jumped onto her face. “You think of me as a journalist?”
“Aren't you?”
“Well,” she said, a thoughtful tone in her voice, “I suppose.”
“How should we view you? You travel the country, finding cases where you think the justice system is serving the criminals at the expense of the victims. Hoping to give the victims justice, you investigate and illuminate those cases by writing long pieces that appear in one of the most widely read magazines in the country,” Helen said without rancor, the Iron Cowgirl's legendary composure firmly in place. “Sounds like a journalist to me.”
Helen sipped her coffee and appeared to be relaxed when Jess knew she was anything but calm. Neither of them felt much peace at the moment. But Jess was starting to get a vibe that something had happened between the time she went to bed and the time she arose this morning. Helen knew more than she was sharing, too. What had happened?
Jess shrugged. “You know about my son, Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Journalism is a job. It's what I do to pay the rent. I try to do it as well as I possibly can. But it's not what I am.”
“Which is what?” The governor sounded curious, not rude.
The intimacy of the moment encouraged Jess to share with Helen Sullivan something she rarely discussed about what drove her ambition. A truth that would resonate with the older woman, she knew, and maybe drive Helen to help her. “A mother with a child lost to her for too long. A mother who wants her child back.”