Second Honeymoon Part 73

"Jeez, can't a girl get some sleep around here?"

In unison we all turned to Sarah lying in the bed, her eyes now open. Driesen smiled. I smiled. Even the nurse smiled.

Then Sarah smiled.

She was going to be okay.

Chapter 114

I WANTED TO rush over to her. Hold her. Kiss her. At the very least I wanted to take her hand so I could feel her touch against mine.

All things I couldn't do.

With Driesen in the room I was merely Sarah's colleague at the Bureau who was very happy to see that she was going to survive. All smiles and relief-from a proper and platonic distance.

Sarah's doctor was summoned. As soon as he arrived Driesen waved me over to the corner of the room by the door. There was no more yelling, no more right up in my face. Chalk it up to the overwhelmingly good feeling in the room. Still, as he spoke, there was no mistaking the tone. He was dead serious.

"This is what happens now, whether you like it or not," he began before detailing what would be my open-ended stay at the Bureau Hotel back in New York until Sinclair was caught. House arrest, for all intents and purposes. "Are we clear?"

"We're clear," I answered.

The only freedom I had was once again choosing whether or not to pull the boys from camp to join me.

"Think about it for a moment while I make a couple of calls," said Driesen, reaching for his cell.

He left the room, finally leaving Sarah and me alone. Hospitals are one big revolving door, and there was no telling when a nurse, doctor, or even Driesen would return, so I made it fast. The kiss. The hug. The chance to tell her that she scared the h.e.l.l out of me. The one thing I didn't need to tell her was that I hadn't felt this way about another woman since my wife had died.

But Sarah had figured that out on her own.

"I recognized him," she said, referring to Sinclair. "But he recognized me first."

"Only by a fraction of a second," I said.

She glanced at her shoulder and then her other arm, both heavily bandaged. "That's all it took."

I squeezed her hand, smiling. "Lucky shots."

Sure enough, without so much as a knock on the door, another nurse strolled in. I quickly let go of Sarah's hand, although this particular nurse was so preoccupied with the bouquet of yellow lilies she was carrying that it hardly seemed to matter. "These just arrived for you," she announced. She placed them down on the windowsill, but not before burying her nose deep into the bouquet, breathing deeply. "They smell terrific."

Sarah looked at the flowers and then back at me as the nurse walked out. There had to be at least two dozen lilies, beautifully arranged.

"Don't look at me; I didn't send them," I said.

She laughed. "It sure wasn't Driesen. Flowers are definitely not in his repertoire."

"Maybe it's standing operating procedure from Quantico," I said jokingly. "One dozen for every bullet you take."

I walked over to the bouquet, spotting a small envelope attached to the lip of the gla.s.s vase. Pulling out the card, I read it silently.

"Who's it from?" she asked.

I didn't answer right away. I was reading the card for a second time, thinking. Thinking fast.

Sarah tried again. "John, who are they from?"

I looked up at her, shaking my head. "So much for my Quantico theory," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"They must have screwed up the names. These are for someone named Jessica Baker," I said. "I'll go clear it up with the nurse."

I walked over and gave Sarah a kiss on the forehead. Then I walked out of the room, onto an elevator, and out of the hospital. I didn't go see the nurse. And I made d.a.m.n sure that Dan Driesen didn't see me.

I hated lying to Sarah, but it would have been worse if she had to lie to protect me. I could practically hear Driesen cursing my name and asking Sarah where the h.e.l.l I was going.

But she wouldn't be able to tell him. No one would. No one knew where I was going now.

This hunch was all mine.

Chapter 115

THE RAIN WAS relentless, beating down on my winds.h.i.+eld so hard that the wipers could barely keep up. If I had been driving, I would've had to pull over. But I wasn't driving.

For the past two days, I'd been parked on an access road within Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. To get there I'd taken two flights from Birdwood, Nebraska, driven one rental car from Westchester County Airport, and made one stop at the local Stop & Shop to load up on food and water.

The only other place I stopped along the way was a Radio Shack, where I bought a cell phone charger that plugged into the cigarette lighter. The long-haired clerk roaming the aisle tried to sell me on a backup battery that provided an additional six hours of talk time.

"Good to know," I told him. In other words, thanks but no thanks.

Truth was, I didn't even need the talk time I already had. I couldn't risk being found via GPS, so I was only turning on the phone once every few hours, and only to check messages.

The ones from Driesen tapered off after the first twenty-four hours. As for those from Sarah, I didn't expect any, nor did they come. Some small part of her was surely miffed that I was keeping her in the dark, but the rest of her knew I had my reasons. Soon enough, she'd know them. The only question was whether I'd be right.

After scanning the field of headstones for the gazillionth time, I picked up the card Ned had sent with the flowers. There was no need to read it again; I had it down cold. In fact, I'd known the entire poem by heart since Mrs. Lindstrom's eleventh-grade English cla.s.s back at Keith Academy.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.