Garrett checked in with Leslie. “Nineteen ninety?”
Leslie grimaced. The nurse didn’t even bat an eye. She corrected him and told him to repeat the date aloud. “Try to remember that, okay? We’ll be asking you what year it is every time we come to check on you. Let’s see if you can remember it next time, but don’t worry if you can’t. Things will clear up in time. I’ll be right back with that pain medication.”
After the nurse left, Garrett reached for Leslie’s hand and looked at Cole. “Didn’t know there would be a quiz. Embarrassing.”
Cole took a stab at levity. “Hell, doesn’t she know that you go around not knowing what year it is half the time anyway?”
Garrett tried to smile before turning sober. “There was an explosion.”
“That’s right.” Cole turned serious as well. “Do you remember anything more about it?”
“Doyle.” Garrett met Leslie’s eyes. “Did I get him out in time?”
Cole worried when Garrett said the wrong name, but Leslie touched her husband’s cheek. “It was Nate, dear,” she said. “And you got him out before the van caught on fire.”
“I meant Nate.” He looked at Cole, appeared to try to focus, and then closed one eye. “He had blood on his shirt.”
Cole nodded, wanting to confirm that his friend had remembered it right this time, but afraid to mention Nate’s death.
“He was shot, wasn’t he?”
Cole hesitated before replying. “Apparently so.”
“Dead?”
“Uh … yeah.” Cole hated being the bearer of such bad news. “But you got him out of the van before it burned. He was dead when Mattie and I arrived, and it looked like the gunshot killed him.”
Garrett closed his eyes. “I thought he was dead when I tried to lift him.”
Cole touched his shoulder. “You did all you could and then some.”
Garrett opened his eyes, squinted, and closed one eye again to focus in on Leslie. “Are you all right? You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“No, sweetheart. I was far enough away when the van blew.”
Cole had grown concerned about the squinting and eye closing. “What’s wrong with your eyes, Garrett? Why do you keep closing that one?”
“Sometimes there’s two of you, bud. You’re ugly enough when there’s only one.”
The nurse came back with a glass of ice water and medicine in a little cup. She pressed the button to elevate the head of the bed while Cole told her Garrett was seeing double. She nodded as she placed a small pill in Garrett’s mouth with a gloved hand and held the straw so he could reach it. “Let’s see if you can swallow this. That’s good. No problem, eh?”
Garrett licked his upper lip. “No, ma’am.”
She set down the water and then held up two fingers on both hands, asking him to count.
“There’s four,” he said with his quirky half smile. “But that’s easy … count and divide by two.”
“Fair to say that you’ve got some double vision going on?” she asked.
“Comes and goes.”
“We’ll let the doctor know. She’s already ordered another scan for this morning to make sure everything’s stable inside your head.” She smiled as she said it and straightened the covers.
“What’s going on inside my head?”
Her attention was on the monitor beside his bed. “Your doctor will be in to see you soon. She can answer your questions.”
Good way to pass the buck, Cole thought.
After the nurse left, Garrett turned to Cole again and gave him that squinty-eyed look. “I saw fire boiling out the back end of that van, and I knew I needed to move fast to get Nate out before the gas tank blew.”
His friend’s vision might not be right, but his memory seemed to be coming back strong.
Leslie was nodding. “Garrett told me to back the truck away, and I called 911. When the van exploded, I dropped the phone and ran to him.” She looked at Cole. “I dragged him as far away as I could, and then you came.”
Garrett had rested his head on his pillow and closed his eyes. “And did someone say that Mattie was there?”
“Yes,” Leslie said, “she came with Cole.”
Garrett pinned him with one eye. “You two were together?”
“We were at the dance when we heard the explosion.”
“You were at the dance with Mattie?” Garrett closed the one eye he’d been using on Cole, relaxing as the pain medicine did its job, his face peaceful. “You’d better grab her if she’ll have you, bud. Only one woman in the world better than that one, and I’ve already got her.”
Garrett smiled as Leslie touched his shoulder, and then he drifted off to sleep.
* * *
The doctor came and went. Garrett slept through her visit, but she said she would be back after he’d had his brain scan and she’d seen the results. She told Leslie that the hematoma they’d found the night before was in a place in his brain that might affect his vision, but all things considered, his medical status looked good. She stressed that it was early yet, and if the scan showed that the bleeding in Garrett’s brain had stopped, they would keep him for observation and have the therapy department assess his functional abilities. Sounded like a good plan to Cole, and he set his hopes on the scan showing the right results.
Focusing on Garrett’s pale face, his every breath, and his heart monitor were all beginning to drive Cole crazy. “I need to make a phone call, Leslie. I’ll be right down the hall by the elevator, okay?”
“Go get some breakfast if you want to.”
He’d already eaten everything on the tray that he’d brought for Leslie. “I’ll grab some more snacks before I come back.”
As he walked, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Mattie. She answered on the first ring, and it gave his achy heart a lift to hear her voice. He drifted over toward a window where he could at least see the world outside the hospital. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. Stella and I are about to leave the van to do one more interview before we head home to get a few hours’ sleep. How are you?”
Cole thought she sounded tired. “Doing better,” he said. “Garrett’s awake. Well, he’s sleeping at the moment, but he woke up and talked to us for a few minutes.”
He heard her release a breath. “That’s good news.”
Cole summarized Garrett’s condition. “We’ll know for sure about the hemorrhage here in a bit. Still waiting for him to go downstairs for the scan.”
“Will you call me when you know more?”
“Will do.” He paused, wondering if he should ask about the case. “How’s everything going?”
“Stella and I spoke with Kasey and her parents. That was hard.” She paused, and he wondered if she was reliving the moment. “Cole, you mentioned you knew the Redman family. That includes Tyler, right?”
“I do know Tyler.”
“Did you see him at the dance last night?”
“I did. He was there with Jasmine Pierce. Her parents own the trout farm out south of town. Why?”
“We met him at the Redman house last night, and that’s what he told us. He said he left the dance early to go back to her place.”
Cole tried to think of when he’d seen him, because he knew without asking that Mattie was trying to confirm an alibi. “I can’t recall exactly when I saw him, but it was earlier in the evening. I can’t tell you when they left.”
“Stella tried to call Jasmine, but no answer.” She paused again, and Cole waited to see if she had anything more to say about the case. “Have you heard any rumors about Nate Fletcher and drug use?”
That was a surprise. He wondered why the case had headed in that direction. “No, nothing.”