Operation: Endgame (13 page)

“No, the police officer said he’d call him, so I expect we’ll be seeing him soon.”

Jake stopped moving all of a sudden as he remembered something. He cocked a boyish grin at Cassie. “By the way, if anyone asks, we’re married.”

Cassie’s mouth dropped open. “Wow that was fast. I could’ve sworn we just had a fight because you hated sleeping with me. Now we’re married? I must have hit my head harder than I thought I did.”

“Smart-ass! I just wanted to make sure they let me see you and a minor lie was the easiest way to claim you as family.” He looked at her closely, and then said quietly, “I never said I hated sleeping with you. It just never should have happened.”

Cassie simply closed her eyes shutting him out. He saw a tear leak out of the corner of her closed eye, but then her breathing slowly regulated which told him she’d fallen asleep.

Jake dropped down into the chair beside her bed. The adrenaline was finally started to recede out of his system and he was feeling the edges of the exhaustion left by the emotional upheaval of the evening. He watched Cassie as she slept, hating the sight of the bruise on the side of her face and forehead. He could have so easily lost her tonight. He grabbed her hand, needing to feel the warmth of it to reassure him she was safe.

He didn’t know how long he sat that way, before a nurse came in carrying Cassie’s chart. She looked at Jake and told him, “We’re about to move her up to her room upstairs. I just need to check her vitals one more time. You’re welcome to stay while I do that.”

“Thanks. Cass,” Jake nudged her shoulder to awaken her, “the nurse needs to check your vitals.” Cassie’s eyes fluttered open with confusion.

The nurse nudged him aside so she could take a blood pressure measurement and listen to Cassie’s heart. She checked Cassie’s pupils, then asked her, “How’s your pain on a scale of one to ten?”

Cassie shut her eyes, but said, “Is that scale considering I was just in a motorcycle accident or am I just supposed to pretend this is a normal day?” Cassie continued on, “Normal day-wise, this would rate a nine on the pain scale, but considering I was just flung through the air at 75 mph, I’m thinking it’s more like a six and I should just be thankful I’m feeling that pain.”

The nurse nodded. “You have a good perspective on it. Unfortunately, because of the concussion, we can’t give you a whole lot of painkillers yet, but I can give you some ibuprofen if you think you can keep it down.”

Cassie opened her eyes and gave a short nod. “If it will help, I’ll keep it down.”

“Okay,” the nurse wrote down some things on her chart, and then said, “I’ll get that for you and then we’ll move you up to your room for the night.”

“What?” Cassie looked up alarmed. “I can’t stay tonight. I have classes tomorrow and this is finals week. I can’t miss work.”

The nurse started shaking her head at Cassie. “Sorry. Doctor’s orders. You have a concussion so we need to keep an eye on you for the next 24 hours.”

“No, seriously, I can’t stay. Did I say my pain was a six? I totally meant two. Really, I’m just fine to go home. Jake, my husband,” she gestured wildly towards Jake, “will take care of me and make sure I don’t overdo.”

The nurse put her hand on her hip and glared at Cassie, “And what will your husband do to diagnose an intracranial brain bleed?”

Cassie was not giving up. “He’s an Air Force paramedic. He’s medically trained in trauma. He knows what to look for and I literally only live five minutes from here. Please, let me go home.” She could see she was making progress with the nurse. “I promise, I won’t even go to work tomorrow. Just let me go home so I can get the paperwork to my TA so my students don’t suffer. You don’t want a whole group of college kids to fail because I wasn’t able to get them their review info do you?”

The nurse looked at Jake sternly. “Is she telling the truth? Do you know enough to spot a brain bleed?”

Jake nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’m trained for military trauma which a lot of times includes brain trauma and concussions.”

“Okay. I’ll call your doctor, but you’re going to have to sign some paperwork saying you’re doing this against doctor’s orders. It’ll take a little bit to get all the paperwork in order.” The nurse looked at Jake again. “If you live as close as you say, you may want to run home and get her some more clothes. We had to cut the clothes off her that she arrived in.” The nurse left the room.

Jake looked at Cassie who once again had closed her eyes. “Hey are you okay?”

She nodded gently. “I just want to go home, okay? Do you mind going to get me some clothes?”

“Of course not. I’ll be right back…fifteen minutes tops. Are you going to be okay while I’m gone?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine. Thanks Jake.”

“Let me just make sure they’re getting you ibuprofen before I go so it can start working for you.”

She gave him a weak smile.

Jake managed to procure her some painkillers before he left and then he sped back to her house to try to find her some clothes to wear home.

When he pulled up to the house, he spotted a bouquet of black roses sitting on the porch. “Goddamn it. Son of a Bitch!” He cursed loudly as he started dialing Brian on his cell phone. “Brian, this is Jake Madsen. Did you hear about Cassie’s accident tonight?”

“Yes, I’m on my way to the hospital now.”

“She’s actually coming home and there’s a gift on her porch. I just came home to get her some clothes. Think you can come over here first and process these before she gets here? Then you can interview her when she gets home.”

“Okay, Jake, I can do that.”

“Brian, this isn’t a game anymore. You need to catch this bastard.”

“I know. We’ll talk when I get there.”

Jake glanced back down at the bouquet and looked around to see if anything seemed out of place in Cassie’s quiet neighborhood. Jake could feel the hair on the back of his nape prickle like the bastard was still out there watching, but he couldn’t do anything about it right now. He needed to get back to Cassie, but this had to end…soon!

By the time they got her checked out of the hospital, it was 10:00 at night. Cassie was exhausted. The stresses of the day and the soreness of her body were pulling at her and she just wanted to crawl into her bed.

She was surprised when they pulled up to her house to see Detective Barnes there waiting in his car. She looked at Jake. “How did he know to look for me here?”

Jake got a hard look in his eyes. This was the warrior and how she imagined he looked when he was out on a mission. “When I came home to get your clothes, your admirer had left some more flowers so I called him. He was on the way to the hospital so I told him to adjust course and come here instead.”

“There were more flowers tonight?”

Jake clenched his jaw. “Yes, but I didn’t touch them, so we’ll have to find out from Brian if there was a note or anything else to them. Come on; let’s get you into the house. Stay there while I come around to your side of the truck to help you out.”

“Jake, I don’t…” But he was already moving around to her door. Cassie had thought to protest his help, but as she shifted her body to crawl out, Cassie’s muscles screamed and spasmed in pain from the trauma of the wreck. As she leaned into Jake, it occurred to Cassie they made quite a pair and gave a quiet giggle.

Jake pressed his mouth to her ear as they made their extremely slow sojourn from the driveway to the front door. “What’s so funny?” He whispered.

“It just occurred to me we are quite a matched pair of the walking wounded right now.”

As Brian rushed up to take Cassie off his hands, Jake gently brushed his knuckles across her bruised cheek. “We may be wounded, but that just means we aren’t defeated. We’re strong as long as we stick together.”

They hustled Cassie into the house and got her settled onto her couch. Jake could see the fatigue that was pulling her down, but they needed to talk to Brian. He turned to him now and said, “I’m assuming you bagged the flowers.” At Brian’s nod, Jake continued, “Was there a note?”

“Yes, and Cassie, I need you to look at it.” He pulled the baggie holding the note and passed it to her.

Cassie had been close to sleep, but when she caught sight of the yellow legal pad paper, her eyes widened in shock as she whispered, “So it was him in the van, wasn’t it?”

Brian nodded as Cassie handed the note to Jake. Jake looked at the note. It simply said, “
oops!
” and Jake felt every muscle in his body clench in anger.

Cassie looked at Brian, “So Detective, what does this mean for my case now?”

“It means you’re in imminent danger and we can do something more to protect you. I already have a police officer on his way over who will maintain surveillance on your house. Someone will always be here until we catch this guy. Obviously something happened to push him over the edge and this definitely breaks his pattern. Hopefully, he got careless and left us further clues like DNA on either the note or the flowers. We also hope to locate the van since we have Cassie’s description of it.” He looked at Cassie. “Have you remembered anything else from the accident that you didn’t tell the police officer at the hospital?”

Cassie thought back, “I don’t think so, but honestly my head is hurting so much, I don’t feel like I’m thinking very straight any longer.”

“Okay, I know you’re hurting and it’s been a long evening, so I’ll get out of your hair. I do want to go over everything with you again tomorrow, just to make sure we have all the facts straight.”

“I promised when I checked myself out of the hospital I would stay home all day tomorrow, so I’ll be here.”

“Okay I’ll check in with you tomorrow. Get some rest tonight Cassie, and I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks Detective Barnes and I appreciate the extra protection.”

Jake moved to walk out with the Detective. When they got to the front door, he turned to him and said, “You’re going to catch this guy, right Brian?”

“We’re going to do everything we can Jake. You’re sticking close, right?”

“Yes, she’s not going to get out of my sight again, I can promise you that. I never want to go through the stress of this afternoon ever again. She could’ve died today, Brian.” Jake shook his head when he considered the possibility of what could have happened and strengthened his resolve. “This guy’s never going to get close enough to hurt her again, I promise you that.”

As Jake shut and locked the door, he looked over at Cassie. The bruise on her face was standing in stark contrast to the paleness of her complexion. She was already asleep, but she looked less than comfortable and his heart ached at the thoughts of what-if.

He gently shook her shoulder. “Come on Sleeping Beauty. It’s time to go to bed.”

Cassie mumbled, “No, I’m fine. Just sleep here.” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“Come on, Cass. You’ll feel much better for it in the morning if you sleep in your comfortable bed, rather than the lumpy couch. You’re going to have enough aches and pains as it is.” He gently pulled her up and pushed her down the hall towards her bedroom.

She crawled under her covers without getting undressed, but he knew she was past the point of exhaustion, so he let her go, but he did give her a warning. “Cass, I’ll be waking you up every couple of hours to check your pupils and to make sure everything is still okay inside that gorgeous head of yours.”

She mumbled a quiet, “Okay. G’night Jake. Thanks.”

“Goodnight Cass,” and he gave her a gentle kiss on the top of her head. Then he slowly moved over to the corner of her bedroom to settle into her club chair and watch over as she slept. Today had been too close of a call for him. He wasn’t ready to let her out of his sight quite yet.

Cassie woke to a pounding in her head and stifled a deep groan as the strain of the accident settled into every muscle in her body. She turned her head as something in the corner of her room caught her eye. It was Jake sound asleep in her chair. His head was at an awkward angle which had to hurt. He had dark circles under his eyes and even asleep, he looked exhausted. She remembered him waking her several times throughout the night, but she hadn’t realized he was sleeping in the chair in her room... Her own gorgeous guardian angel.

Suddenly she heard a pounding that had nothing to do with her head and realized someone was at the front door. She glanced at the clock which read 6:00 AM…oh no, she’d forgotten to call him. Moving as quietly as possible so not to disturb Jake’s sleep, Cassie slid out of bed and moved down the hall.

She opened the front door just as the police officer came up behind War, and using a very stern voice said, “Sir, I need you to raise your hands where I can see them and state your purpose here.” War’s eyes had widened in shock as he had taken in Cassie’s damaged appearance, but they widened even further when he heard the officer behind him.

Cassie quickly worked at diffusing the situation. “Officer, it’s okay. He’s a friend. I just forgot to tell him not to come over this morning.”

The officer nodded and stated, “My apologies.”