Suspects(60)

She finally closed her eyes at three in the morning, and woke up at six. She called the nurses’ station again then, and there was still no change. She wondered how long it could go on that way and what it meant.

Finally it was eight-thirty and, wearing black jeans and a black sweater under a black coat, she went downstairs with Patrick to find her car and driver and go to the hospital. She had forced herself to drink a cup of coffee and eat a piece of toast before she left the suite. She had no idea how Mike would look when she saw him, and she was bracing herself for whatever she found in the ICU. She had never been through anything like this with Axel and Matthieu. They were taken from the chateau, and when they were found they were already dead. There had been no bedside vigil, no wait at the hospital, praying that they’d live. She had never seen or spoken to them again after they’d been taken. She’d never had a chance to touch them or kiss them goodbye.

She didn’t speak to Patrick on the drive uptown and he could see how tense she was, so he made no attempt at conversation. He hoped things hadn’t gotten worse.

When she got to the hospital, she made her way to the information desk after going through a metal detector, with Patrick following her discreetly. He had to show his French government badge to pass the metal detector while armed, and they let him through. It was a confusing maze of hallways and elevators, and the man at the desk told her how to get to the ICU. She went up what she hoped was the right elevator, followed his directions, and found herself outside locked doors, where she pressed a buzzer to be admitted. They let her in immediately. Patrick waited at the doors, and she went to the nurses’ station, asked to see Michael Andrews, and told them she was his sister, as she had on the phone.

“Of course,” a nurse said to her, then came around the desk and led the way to his cubicle. There were no rooms in the ICU. All the patients had to be instantly accessible, with monitors to read and nurses and attending physicians observing them at all times. A curtain could be drawn for privacy if a family member was visiting, but the rest of the time, each patient’s bed was positioned in such a way that the nurses could see them.

The nurse passed a line of beds, as Theo tried to look away discreetly, so she didn’t intrude on the other patients in their misery. The nurse stopped at the third cubicle and walked in quietly with Theo right behind her. There was another nurse standing at the head of the bed, watching the monitors and his vital signs. It shocked Theo when she saw him. He was stretched out to his full height, deathly pale and unconscious, with a breathing tube in his mouth, and a machine breathing for him. There were IVs in both arms, and heavy bandaging on his chest. Theo gently touched his hand and his cheek, and then stroked his shoulder. She stood next to him and wasn’t sure she would have recognized him. He looked so severely ill and badly damaged that it shocked her. The nurses retreated to the foot of the bed to leave them alone, and conferred quietly, then added the latest data to a computer on a stand.

“Hi, Mike,” she whispered softly to him. “It’s Theo, I came to make sure you get better. I’m here with you, and I love you.” Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she said it. There was no reaction, and she hadn’t expected there to be one. He was in a deep coma. She couldn’t imagine that he could hear her, but on the slight chance that he could, she wanted him to know that she loved him. “I’m sorry you got hurt, but you’re going to be okay now. You’re going to be better soon, and your heart will be fine….I love you, Mike.”

She kept talking to him, and the nurse who had brought her to him reminded her gently that visits were for ten minutes, so she could come back again an hour later. They kept visits short so the most severely ill patients could rest. In most cases, ten minutes were all they could handle. Theo gently stroked his forehead with light fingers and smoothed his hair down. He hadn’t shaved in a week, which added to his ravaged look. Another nurse came in to replace a bag of fluids for one of his IVs and checked the oxygen clip on his finger. There were wires and tubes and monitors attached to every part of him. At the end of ten minutes, the nurse standing next to his bed signaled to Theo to leave.

Theo bent low near his ear then. “I’ll be back in a little while. I love you, Mike. I’m right here.” She left him then and went back to the nurses’ station and thanked them.

“There’s a waiting room around the corner, or you might want to get something to eat downstairs.” As she said it, a man in a gray suit approached the desk.

“Michael Andrews?” he inquired, then glanced at Theo. She looked somber and upset.

“He’s just had a visit with his sister,” the nurse explained. “You can see him in a few minutes.”

“You’re his sister?” the man in the suit asked Theo, and she hesitated.

“Yes. I just flew in from Paris.”

“Why don’t we go and chat for a few minutes,” he suggested, and Theo wondered if he was going to expose her as an imposter, and then they wouldn’t let her see him again. She was going to ask him not to, if he told her he knew she was lying. Luckily, there was no one else in the waiting room when they got there and both sat down.

He looked at her seriously and explained who he was. “I’m Mike’s senior supervisor. I came up from Washington to see how he’s doing. Paul Blakely.”

“I’m Theo Morgan,” she admitted to him. “I’m a friend of Mike’s from Paris. I flew in last night as soon as I heard.”