She took a few minutes to walk around Tyler’s room. She imagined how much he was suffering, wondering whether his dad was alive or not. She hoped they could bring him some sort of resolution.
She entered the Wingos’ bedroom. If they were simply playing a role, she assumed the two adults were not sleeping together, not an easy subterfuge in a house this small. She methodically searched through the bedroom and closet and didn’t find anything very helpful. Jean Wingo had taken all of her clothes and apparently most of her personal possessions, since there weren’t many feminine items left.
No computers. No hard-line phone. No cell phones.
She sat on a chair in the bedroom and stared around the space wondering if she had missed something. She looked out a window that gave her a view onto the backyard.
Green trash can by the back door. She might as well go through that while she was here. She heard a loud engine and the sound of hydraulics. She peered out another window in the bedroom that looked out onto the street. The trash truck was coming down the street. She looked at the blue container at the curb. Or maybe it was a recycling truck making its rounds.
The next instant Michelle was running flat-out down the stairs, out the front door, and leaping off the porch, landing on the front lawn. She reached the recycling bin seconds before the truck pulled up to collect it.
When one of the men jumped off the truck’s rear and eyed her she said breathlessly, “Lost my wedding ring in here. You can skip me this week.”
She rolled the bin up the driveway and into the backyard.
She closed the gate behind her and opened the top of the bin. It was half full.
Michelle had realized just in time that no sane person who was about to disappear would take the time to put out the recycling. So maybe there was something in there that she needed to get rid of and didn’t want possibly found on her. Maybe that was what Jean Wingo had been thinking when she’d mixed up the trash and recycling days.
It took her twenty minutes of searching but finally her hand closed around the letter, or rather the envelope. It was addressed to Jean Shepherd, but not at this house. She folded the envelope and put it in her pocket.
A minute later she was racing down the street in her Land Cruiser.
CHAPTER
33
NOT THAT LONG AGO SEAN KING had been cemented in a chair next to a hospital bed in which Michelle had been lying near death. Ever since that time he had loathed the inside of a hospital. If he could have avoided ever entering another one, he would have. But he couldn’t. He had to be here.
Dana was still in the critical care unit and thus her visitors were limited to immediate family; one had to phone the unit to gain admission. He had lied and told the nurse who answered the phone that he was Dana’s brother in from out of town.
He was directed to her room but stood by the door before going in. Dana was in the bed with IV and monitoring lines running all over her. The machine keeping track of her vitals hummed and beeped next to the bed. The blinds on the window were closed. The room was fairly dark. Dana wore a breathing mask, which was helping to inflate her damaged lung.
He took a few hesitant steps forward, hoping he wouldn’t run into General Brown here. The last thing he wanted was an altercation. His face hadn’t recovered from the last beating. And though Dana wasn’t conscious, he didn’t think something ugly like that would help her recovery.
He drew up a chair and sat next to her bed. Her chest rose and fell slowly, if unevenly. He slid a hand through the bed rails and gently gripped her wrist. She felt cold and for one terrifying moment he thought she was dead. But she was breathing, and the monitor showed her vitals, while weak, to still be recordable.
He bent lower, his head resting lightly on the cool surface of the bed rail. He had assumed this position for over two weeks while waiting for Michelle to open her eyes. He had never figured to be repeating this ritual so soon and certainly not with his ex-wife.
“I’m so sorry, Dana,” he said softly. He let go of her wrist and let his hand dangle.
He closed his eyes and a few tears leaked out. He was startled when something touched him. When he opened his eyes he saw that her fingers had closed around his. He looked at her face. Her eyes were still shut, her breathing still weak. He stared down at her fingers once more, thinking he must have imagined it. But there they were, intertwined around his.
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He didn’t make a move until about twenty minutes later when her fingers slipped off his and she seemed to fall into a deeper slumber. He sat with her for another half hour and then made his way out, wiping fresh tears from his eyes.
He turned the corner and ran into the one person he had dreaded seeing.
General Brown was not in uniform today. He wore slacks and a blue blazer and assumed an angry expression as soon as he saw Sean.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped. He looked over Sean’s shoulder at the double doors leading into the critical care unit. “Have you been in there to see Dana? You bastard!”
He cocked his arm back to throw another punch. This time Sean didn’t simply stand there and receive it. He hooked Brown’s forearm, spun him around, and drove the arm up his back to such an angle that Brown cried out in pain. It was fortunate the corridor was empty at that moment.
Sean said into his ear, “Yes, I did see Dana. She moved her hand, in case you wanted to know. Now I’ll remove my hand and let you go, but if you want to take another swing at me I suggest you wait until we get outside.”
Sean stepped away and Brown, rubbing his arm and grimacing, faced him. “If you come back here again I’ll have you arrested.”