No More Running (15 page)

I felt over his face, noting his hair color seemed to match being dark brown and had been the right length when I was checking for lumps on his head.  As soon as I felt his face, I knew.  With that bone structure and his distinctive nose; I didn’t have to see to know that it was him.

“Can you see what’s wrong with him?”  I asked Jamie, turning to look at him.  I could see his shape well enough to think I was looking at least at his face, if not his eyes.

He put both hands on either side of my face; I guess to get a better look and asked me what was wrong.

“I can’t see clearly.  I think something happened when I was hit in the head.”

“Your eyes are not focusing and tour pupils are more dilated than usual.  How well can you see.”  He asked.

“Well, I’ve been calling you two blobs if that tells you anything.”  I answered trying to sound flippant, but I knew I failed.  I was so scared.  I had been through worse with Chuck, but at least I knew then what I was dealing with.  Who I was dealing with.  I didn’t know anything at that point, and that was what scared me most.  Both men that Garret had some suspicions about at some point were in the room with me, both hurt, so they couldn’t have done it.  Did that mean Chuck
was
still alive?  I was so confused.  I hurt, I was scared, and I just felt like saying to hell with it and giving up before anyone else got hurt, but I knew I couldn’t.  Jamie had already been hurt two too many times because of me, and I had the potential to help us get out of this, so I had to figure out something.

“Is there a door or anything…what am I saying?  There has to be.  Check the door and see if we can get out.”  I said, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Shit! This knob is hot as hell.”  He exclaimed a minute later.  “The whole door is.  It’s made of reinforced steel.”

“Where are we?”  I asked him.

“I have no idea.  It looks like a basement or cellar.”

“How’d you get down here?”

“I had gone to confront your doctor friend.”  He said with venom in his voice.  “After an argument we had, I was hit in the head with something and woke up here just a moment ago.”

“How the hell do you even know him?”

“He came to the garage yesterday morning, or whenever it was now, and started going off on me about a bunch of damn pictures he said that his investigator friend had gotten from my house.”  He said.  “They were all of you, but I didn’t know anything about them and I told him that.  He was yelling and telling me I had better back off of you or he would make sure I did, and nobody would find me when he was done.”

None of that sounded right to me.  How could Doc have done that?  He had been at the house when Garret had brought me back from the office, and it wasn’t like the Doc I knew to yell at anyone.  I had never heard him raise his voice to anyone.

“What day and time was this?”  I asked.

“It was Tuesday morning around nine thirty.  Why what day is it now?”

“It’s Wednesday morning.”  I answered absently as I tried to figure out what was going on.  That had been possible because Garret and I didn’t get back to Stefan’s house until about eleven.  “What time did you confront Doc, and how did you know where he lived?”  I knew we should be trying to do something, because if the door was hot that meant we were in Doc’s basement and the house was still on fire, but I truly didn’t know what to do, and I was trying to keep from falling apart.  It seemed as if we were safe at the moment since I couldn’t even smell any smoke or anything.  Maybe this was one of those storm shelters that some of the newer houses had for when a hurricane hit or came close to the coast. 

I realized that my mind was wandering and that Jamie hadn’t answered.  I looked around and saw Jamie’s figure on the other side of the room.

“Jamie?”

“Oh sorry.”  He said absent mindedly.  “What did you ask?  I kind of zoned out for a minute there.”

“What time did you confront Doc, and how did you know where Doc lived?”  I asked again slowly.  My head was hurting worse and worse.  I knew something was off with his story, but I couldn’t think clearly enough to remember why.

“Yeah, Jamie.  Tell Diana how you knew where I lived.”  Doc said weakly as he started to get up.  I hadn’t even realized he was coming around.

“You tell me what happened, Doc.”  I said as I scooted away from Doc.  I didn’t want to be next to either one of them at the moment.  I really didn’t know which one I could trust, and I hated it.  I kept scooting back until my back hit the wall.

“Are you okay, Diana?”  Doc asked, crawling over to me.

“Stop!”  I called before he got too close.  “Just stay where you are, Doc.  I’m fine, but I need to know what’s going on.”

“Ok.”  His figure stopped, not trying to come any closer.  “I got a call around two in the morning from Claire’s phone.  I didn’t know why she was calling me, but I answered figuring something else had happened.  It was Jamie fussing at me saying if I didn’t meet him that he would burn down half of the city to get to you.”

“That’s a lie!”  Jamie yelled, and started going over to where Doc was.

I pulled out my gun from my pocket and pointed in the direction I saw both of their outlines.  “Stop!”  I shouted to Jamie.  “Don’t get any closer to him.  You two stay separated.  Doc finish.”  I commanded.

“I told him where my house was and to meet me there, then I left Stefan’s.”  He said.

“Why didn’t you bring anyone of us, or at least tell us you were leaving?”

“He said he would kill me along with anyone I brought with me unless I came alone.  I knew if I told you I was leaving, even if I lied and said I was just going to the store that you’d demand to go.  I have never lied to you, and I never plan on it.”  He answered.  It seemed plausible, but I still wasn’t sure.  I knew that he was right, though.  I would have demanded to go with him, and I had never caught him lying to me before; he was right in that too.  I nodded for him to continue.

“I hadn’t even gotten all the way in the door when I felt a prick in the back of my neck.  I blacked out and woke up here.”  He finished.

I think I believed Doc.  I wasn’t sure about anything, but his explanation made more sense and had a hell of lot less holes than Jamie’s.

“Alright.  There is nothing to do except wait for someone to come.  Doc your house is on fire if you didn’t already know.  This is your cellar?”  I asked for confirmation.

“Yes.  It was one of the reasons I bought this house.  Being the East coast, there is always the threat of hurricanes, so I knew I would at least have a safe place to go when they hit.”

I nodded. “Well I want both of you to sit on opposite walls from me while we wait for the firemen and police.”  I said looking in the direction of both of them.  “Garret knows…”

All of a sudden one of them lunged for the gun.

Chapter 19

As Jamie had lunged for me, I dove in the other direction, which was hard to do considering I was against the wall, but I ended up on top of the gun where he couldn’t get to it with him on my back.  My heart was pounding with the adrenaline pumping in my veins.  If I had doubted who was guilty before, now I knew.

His weight wasn’t on me for long, though.  I heard the punches, both being thrown and landing, but even as I turned to see; my sight wasn’t good enough to be able to tell who was inflicting the most damage.  I was in total shock.  I mean, I guess with everything I knew in the back of my mind it had to be one of them, but to have Jamie go for my gun…I had trusted him.  I never even thought it was him because I didn’t think he was capable of any harm towards anyone or anything.  I had known something sounded off about his story, but hadn’t been thinking clearly with everything going on.  He had been there that morning at Mrs. Chambers’ house for the fire, so how could he have been here meeting Doc as he claimed?  I didn’t know.  I hurt everywhere, my head was fuzzy, and I still couldn’t think straight.

“Tell her the truth!”  I heard Doc growl out in his struggling fight against Jamie.  Jamie was better built than Doc and I was concerned that he would hurt him.

I lifted the gun to point it in their direction, but I didn’t want to risk shooting Doc by accident.  The two blurred images of them were so close and moving so much I didn’t really know who was who.  I wanted to help, but I knew I couldn’t.

All of a sudden, I heard a strained shout come from Doc, but all I could see was a body headed my way.  I didn’t have time to move before the body crashed into me, slamming me harder into the wall making me hit my head with such force that it knocked me out, but before I blacked out, I heard the gun that had been in my hand go off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I woke, I felt both my body and my head throbbing in time with the beeping heart monitor.  I tried denying to myself all that had happened.  How could Jamie have turned into the type of person that would do to others what had been done to himself.  He had set the fire in Mrs. Chambers’ house.  It had to have been him if he had done everything else.  To make it worse, he actually watched it burn down as he was part of the fire squad there that morning.

How had he gotten to Doc’s house so quickly?  We had gone straight from the fire to Doc’s to check on him, so he had to have been right behind us.  How could he have left without raising suspicions with the people he worked with?  Why had he come after me?  Why was he doing any of this?  Did he blame me…?  Of course he blamed me for what happened to him.  He said as much in the hospital before I left Tacoma.  Patty had been sympathetic and more understanding of my circumstances, but Jamie had blamed me.  I never imagined he’d do anything like this, though.

My heart rate could be heard speeding up on the monitor as I remembered the last moment before I blacked out.  The gun had gone off.  Who had I shot?  Who had been thrown into me? 

I prayed that Doc was alright.  He had been caught in the middle because of me.  It’s the one thing I swore would never happen again, someone getting hurt because of me and here Doc might be hurt, or worse, by my hand.  My head was spinning with questions and musings.  I couldn’t seem to bring myself out of it and wake fully.  I heard voices in the background calling my name, but my mind was stuck in a loop, playing all of the terrible scenes I had caused over the years.

My body was shaking and I heard a heart-breaking keening noise.  It took a few minutes, and the shouts calling my name telling me to calm down, before I realized that the agonizing sounds were coming from me.  It wasn’t long before I calmed back down, almost numb to everything, but it didn’t stop my mind from tormenting me.  If I had never left Chuck, everyone’s life would be a hell of a lot better.  Though my eyes had yet to open, I must have voiced some of the thoughts coming from my head, because I heard a voice answer them with so much love that it made me want to wrap him in my arms and never let go.

“I don’t
ever
want to hear that come from your mouth again, baby.”  The heavenly voice said.  “You are the best thing to come into my life, and I won’t ever let you forget it.  You will not leave me, Dina.  I don’t want to go back to the way I was before you.  Are you listening to me?  You make me a better man.  I need you to wake up for me.  I need to see those beautiful hazel eyes of yours.  Come on Di.  The Davis’ are here for you along with Ma.  We’re all waiting for you.”

Hearing Garret, I really wanted to open my eyes and do as he said, but I couldn’t find the energy.  Before long, my thoughts started tapering off and blissful peace finally settled in my mind.

Next time when I woke, I was able to open my eyes, but unfortunately I still couldn’t see.  It was worse now because there weren’t even colors or blobs of shapes, just shadows.  I felt tears leaking out of my eyes at the thought that I would never be able to see again and immediately felt my hand being taken into someone else’s.

“Hey sweetie, it’s gonna to be okay.”  I heard Mrs. Davis sweet crooning voice, trying to calm me and make me feel better.  “We’re all here for you, Di.  You’re not alone anymore.”

She took me in her arms gently and ran her hand down the back of my head in such a motherly gesture, I cried even harder.  “I can’t see, Patsy.”  I choked out as I sobbed into her shoulder.

After I calmed down and the tears were down to a trickle, Mrs. Davis set me back down on the hospital bed.

“Ain’t nobody gonna be able to hurt you anymore, so just keep yourself calm, sweetie.”  She said.

“What happened?”  As I asked that, I heard the door open. 

I couldn’t see who it was, but I could hear Mrs. Davis get up.  I felt her kiss my forehead and she started towards the door.

“I have to go tell Thomas that his baby is alright.”  She said.  “He was here, but he needed his rest, so I sent him home.  You’re young man will tell you everything.  She can’t see, Mr. Starr,” I heard a hitch in her voice as she said that.  “I’ll inform the doctor that she is awake and having some trouble.”  She said the last part so low that I barely heard it.

I immediately was engulfed in a bone crushing hug and being kissed out of my mind, which would have been fine if not for the pain that shot through my back.  When I whimpered, he cursed and set me gently back on the mattress.

“I’m sorry, baby.”  He said.  “You’ve just had us all worried about you.”

“Why?  What happened?”  I asked again.

“You’ve been out for eight days, Dina.”  He said.  “From what Doc told the police, you’d already been hit in the head, and then Jamie’s body slammed you into the wall hard enough that you ended up with swelling.  They had to relieve the pressure and said you might not wake up.”  He paused for a minute, I guess to collect himself, before continuing.  “We’ve been scared out of our minds.  They didn’t want to sedate you too much because they said it could cause more complications, but you had some kind of episode a couple of days ago, so they had to.  Maybe you not seeing is one of the complications they were talking about.  Your doctor said something about memory, sight, migraines, and such.”