Lauren added her contact information, then hit SEND and waited as the message was transmitted across the cybersphere… hopefully to someone who could provide some answers.
She gave one final look through Michael’s drawers, hoping to find a letter, a memento from his frat days, or something else that might indicate where he had gone. There was nothing. But she did find his handheld PC. She powered it on and checked the inbox. The only message was an e-mail Lauren had sent him a couple of weeks ago. The calendar was identical to the one she had seen on Michael’s desktop computer.
She slipped the little PC into her purse, took one more look around her husband’s office, and covered her eyes. As tears began to well, she realized she could no longer keep her emotions under control. She sat there and wept, praying that Michael would soon be found alive.
5
“Pupils round and reactive to light.”
“Plantar reflexes downgoing.”
“BP ninety over fifty.”
“Severe blow to the head—”
“Stabilize C-spine.”
“Abdomen rigid… possible internal bleeding—”
“Prepare to transport, get him on the spine board. Stabilize and roll on my mark. Ready, one, two — hold it, he’s coming around.”
The view of the gray sky rotated into view as a sudden wave of dizziness made Michael Chambers nauseous. “Where…?”
Two heads appeared above him. “You were in an accident, sir, we’re paramedics. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
“They shot at me, had to go off the cliff.”
“Uh, look, sir, you collided with the center median, took out another car. You didn’t drive off a cliff.”
“Gotta go—” Chambers tried to sit up, but was held down by a couple of hands.
“Hey, hey — you’re in no condition to get up. We’ve gotta get you to the hospital. You suffered a severe blow to the head and you might be bleeding internally…”
“Sir?”
The voice was distant, and fading rapidly.
“He’s losing consciousness again…”
Michael Chambers opened his eyes and felt groggy. He blinked a few times and tried to clear his vision.
“Doctor, he’s awake.”
The female voice came from his right, where a nurse was preparing an injection. “This will only hurt for a second,” she said as she pricked his skin with a needle.
“Well, Mr. Doe, looks like you’re going to make it.”
The doctor was smiling at Chambers with lots of white teeth, and the nurse’s dialect indicated they were probably somewhere in the South.
“Where am I?”
“Virginia Presbyterian. You had a nasty car wreck and the paramedics extracted you from the vehicle and transported you here. I’m Dr. Farber.”
The room was beginning to come into focus. Chambers rotated his head, searching for a wall clock. “How long have I been here?”
“About two hours.”
“Two hours—” He started to sit up, but he felt sharp thigh pain and his headache intensified. “Oh, that’s not a good idea.”
“Careful there,” Farber said. “We had to do a little emergency surgery. Nothing major, but you had something lodged in your thigh and we had to get it out before you developed a nice little infection.”
“Not to be ungrateful, Doc, but right now, my head is spinning and hurts a whole lot more than my leg.” Chambers put a hand on his forehead.
“We gave you another shot for the pain, but it probably hasn’t kicked in yet. As for your head, I’ve got you scheduled for an MRI to make sure you don’t have any internal brain swelling. You took a hell of a blow. I’ve called neurology for a consult, but they’re a little backed up.” The doctor paused to sign a chart the nurse had handed him, then turned back to Chambers. “Mind telling me what your name is?”
“My name?”
“You didn’t have any identification with you, and the car you were driving in was reported stolen.”
“My name. My name is… my name is… I don’t know. How can I forget my own name?”
“You’ve suffered a concussion, probably from hitting your head on the steering wheel. Paramedics said you bent it pretty good. But it also appears as if you had another blow to the posterior portion of your head very recently. Judging by the looks of it, I’d say it’s not from this accident. Do you know anything about that?”
“No, nothing.”
Farber nodded. “How about where you were born, let’s start with that.”
Chambers stared at the doctor, his mind as blank as the man’s white coat. “I don’t know.”
“Can you recite the alphabet for me?”
Chambers frowned. “A, B, C, D, E, F, G—”
“Okay. I’m going to tell you a color, and I’m going to ask you in a minute what color I told you. Magenta. Got it?”
“Magenta,” Chambers repeated. “Got it.”
“By the way, what color is magenta?”
“Kind of a purple-red.”
“Good. Okay. Tell me, do you know where you live, what your home address is?”
A long silent moment passed, then Farber clicked his pen open and jotted a note in the file. “How about what you ate for breakfast this morning?”
“Eggs.”
Farber regarded his patient for a moment. “You’re sure about that? Eggs?”
Chambers looked away. “No, I’m not sure. I don’t remember eating anything this morning. I can’t even remember what I was doing before I woke up here.”
“Can you count backwards by ones and threes?”
“Look, Doc, are all these questions necessary?”
Farber sighed. “Since I’ve called for neurology, I guess not. They’ll go through everything with you in much greater detail. I was just hoping to narrow down what we’re dealing with.”
“How serious is this? I mean, I’m gonna get my memory back, won’t I?”
Farber hiked his eyebrows. “Generally, the more severe the concussion, the more substantial the neurologic deficits could be. And if you’ve had any concussions in the past, it could make the effects of this one that much more significant.” Farber looked over to the nurse. “Can you page neurology again?”
The nurse nodded and walked over to a wall phone.
Chambers looked at Farber. The man was about thirty years old and had short, dark hair with deep rings beneath his eyes. “You look tired.”
Farber smiled. “I’ve been on for thirty-three hours and I’m looking forward to a warm shower and a long, uninterrupted nap. Do you remember anything about what happened to you, how you got into the accident?”
Chambers shook his head.
“Do you know why you had a bullet in your thigh?”
Chambers looked hard at the doctor. “A bullet?” Something wasn’t right. A stolen car, a bullet… am I a victim or a criminal? He felt an overwhelming sense of unease, of the need to protect himself. He looked away from Farber. “No, I–I don’t.”
Farber pulled a penlight from his breast pocket and flicked it into Chambers’s eyes. Farber shook his head, then sighed again. “Well. Until we can find out your name, we’re going to call you John Doe. Like I said, you’re scheduled for that brain scan and I’ve been told the police have some questions for you—”
“They asked me to let them know as soon as he’s lucid,” the nurse said.
Chambers’s gaze shifted to the nurse. “The police — for what?”
“Anytime a person comes into the ER with a gunshot wound, we’re required to notify them.”
“Can’t it wait, I’m still feeling real tired.” He gave them a slow, gaping yawn and looked at the doctor with glassy eyes. “I don’t think I’m up to answering a bunch of questions just yet. Besides, I can’t remember anything.”