FOUR
Chance’s eyelids seemed stuck together. He didn’t bother trying to muster the strength to open them. Not yet. Instead, he would be safer if he pretended to sleep while he figured out what he was doing here, wherever here was.
Location, location, location.
Was he in a good, safe place?
Or was he in the lair of a dragon?
Did he need to hightail it out of here?
His pounding heart settled enough so he could listen. Familiar sounds took him back to his mother’s last days on earth in a hospital room. He must be in rough condition. Chance slowly opened his eyes and took in the room he shared with another guy—at least he thought it was a man that was snoring on the other side of the curtain.
His skull ached as though it were cracked. He lifted his arm and pressed his hand to his head. Good, he wasn’t wrapped up like a mummy. He could feel his toes and move his legs. Move his arms. His chest ached. Bruised ribs?
Concussed skull.
Ole Blue. He’d crashed Blue, and now the events came rushing back.
Panic engulfed him.
His belongings. Chance ripped out the IV in his arm and threw off the covers. He ignored the fierce headache and his stiff, aching limbs as he searched under and behind the bed.
Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?
His pounding heart only increased the pain in his head.
He spotted a slim closet.
He took a step toward it, and dizziness swept over him. He steadied himself against the bed until it passed, then focused on the closet. Please, please, please...
He eased forward and took one slow step at a time. The fuzziness in his head seemed to clear with each step. Now if only the headache clawing at his skull would let go.
At the closet, he pressed his hand on the small knob, hope and fear lodging in his gut. He opened the door and found a bag with his tattered clothes.
Where was the package that could have meant his freedom?
His throat might just close up and he’d drop right there for lack of oxygen. That would be a better way to die than to face what came next—whoever requested he deliver the package would come looking for it. Come looking for him.
How did he find it and get it back?
Chance yanked the torn, bloody clothes out of the closet. He tossed his bomber jacket on the bed. He dug around in another bag and pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to see his ID. Chance Carter. Except that wasn’t his birth name. He’d been forced to change it all and build a new life. He never should have left the armed forces of the United States of God Bless America. Crashing Ole Blue had caused all this garbage to resurface, and he pushed it back down to be dealt with another day.
He also found credit cards and some cash. Relieved, he exhaled. But no cell phone. Probably destroyed in the crash. He needed to disappear until he figured things out. He’d get a new cell and call the NTSB about the crash and put them off for a few days. In the meantime, he needed clothes.
Chance peeked around the curtain and found the nameless patient still snoring. He crept over to the other small closet and found a few belongings inside.
Sorry, buddy. Then he quickly changed into the man’s newer, fresh clothes. He looked through his wallet to find his driver’s license. Ron Howell. Chance hoped the sick guy had someone who cared and would bring him more clothes. Chance couldn’t know if and when he’d be in a position to replace what he’d taken.
Despite a rip in the arm, Chance donned his beloved bomber jacket on the way out of the hospital.