Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(32)

In the Wee Hours



When Paul’s eyes fluttered open, the room was darkened. He saw little more than a blur of sights and sounds, none of them familiar. In the distance there were lights and people—ghostly figures that moved slowly and without sound. Strange whooshes of air sounded in his ear. The feel of it was close, too close. He listened for a moment. More sounds: whirring, beeping. Green lights bouncing and jumping. Smells: harsh bitter smells, like the lye used on wash day. Paul tried to call out for his mother, but there was only a raspy whisper in a voice that was not his.

Every instinct said run, but when Paul slid his hand toward the edge of the bed there were bars. Bars? Where was the narrow bunk he slept on? What was this place? His heart began to beat faster. He felt something thick and suffocating in his throat, something tied around his neck, tubes in his arms. Fear turned to panic and his heart started banging against his chest. No words came, but his entire being screamed, Let me out!





Nancy Polenski was on duty at the nurse’s station. So far it had been a quiet night, and she was glad. For eight straight nights she’d worked the eleven-to-seven shift, and she was weary of it. Although there was less work to do—no bathing, few medications, and only an occasional doctor passing through—the boredom made the hours seem twice as long. Tonight she’d come prepared. Nancy was on page 76 of Peyton Place when she heard Paul’s monitor start beeping fast and loud.

“Holy Toledo!” she gasped and went running into his room.

Paul’s eyes were wild with fear, blinking, blinking, blinking. His head swiveled right, left, right. Beads of perspiration rose up and rolled from his forehead onto his cheeks. He blinked again and again; each time the blinking seemed more frantic.

Nancy took his hand and tried to calm him. “It’s okay,” she said, sounding like the mother of a frightened child. “It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. There was an accident. But you’re going to be fine.” She switched on the room light. “See, nothing here to hurt you.” Nancy put her fingers to his forehead and soothed his brow.

Paul grappled for the tube in his throat.

“No, no,” Nancy said. “You’ve got to leave that in. It’s a tracheostomy tube. It’s there to help you breathe.”

Paul’s arm fell back onto the bed as he looked up with a thousand questions in his eyes. His lips mouthed a single word. “Why?”

“Why” wasn’t a question Nancy could answer. There was never an explanation of why—why one man lived, another died. Only God knew why.

“Doctor Brewster is on duty tonight. He’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said. Her voice was soft and even. Paul heard the sound of his mother speaking. Everything will be all right, she was saying. Everything will be all right.





The patrolman standing guard picked up the phone and called the station house. “The kid’s regained consciousness. The nurse is in there right now.”

Ed Cunningham was working the station house desk and after witnessing the ugliness of the crowd at Klaussner’s store, he did not want to be even slightly involved in this particular case.

“Talk to Gomez,” he said and patched the call through to the number Gomez had left on the desk.

Hector Gomez was the detective assigned to the case. He’d gotten the promotion two weeks earlier and was champing at the bit to make a mark. So far it had been nothing but routine investigations—car thefts, kids running amok, break-and-enters. Then Wednesday morning there was a robbery with a near-fatal shooting at Klaussner’s. This, Gomez believed, was going to be his big break.

Before leaving the station house Gomez said to call him the moment the kid regained consciousness. He wasn’t wild about the thought of a middle-of-the-night call but couldn’t afford to take chances. Last year Mahoney, a know-it-all detective from the Northampton precinct, pushed him into believing there was no real crime in the Doyle case, and he’d regretted it ever since. That, Gomez knew, was why it took so long for him to make detective. Open-ended shootings didn’t warrant a promotion. Luckily this case had no loopholes. Everything was there; all he had to do was wrap it up and hand it over to the district attorney.

When the telephone rang at three o’clock, Gomez said, “I’m on it.” He reached for his pants in the darkness of an unlit bedroom, then grabbed a crumpled shirt with the smell of yesterday. Less than ten minutes later the garage door rumbled up. He backed the car out and headed for the hospital.





Doctor Brewster was standing at the nurse’s station when Gomez arrived. “How’s he doing?” the detective asked and gave a nod toward Paul’s room.

Brewster answered with a who knows shrug.

“Is he awake? Talking?”

“He’s regained consciousness, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So am I going to be able to talk to him?”

“Not now. He’s heavily sedated.”

“When?”

“Two, three days, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m not going to let you question him now,” Brewster said flatly. “And even if I did the boy wouldn’t be able to tell you anything. He’s too disoriented. He doesn’t understand where he is or why he’s here.”