CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
She was dreaming of her honeymoon in Martha’s Vineyard. Peter’s grandfather had owned a house out there and it was a place she’d always wanted to visit. For five entire days, she’d had a grand view of the Atlantic Ocean and had paid waitstaff to tend to her every need. She’d lost count of how many times she and Peter had made love, both of them fully okay with possibly finding out in just a few weeks that they were already expecting.
It hadn’t happened then, of course. It had taken a few years for her to get pregnant and when Paige had come, it had been exactly what they’d both wanted. She’d watched Peter melt at the very moment he first held his daughter. He’d not cried or wept, but melted; he’d become this totally different thing, some emotional mass that seemed somehow more than human in that moment.
But the honeymoon…that was the picture that had fastened itself into her mind. There had been a moment on the third morning when she’d woken up long before Peter. She’d stepped outside on the large wraparound porch with nothing but a thin sheet wrapped around her. She’d stared out to the ocean, listening to the crashing waves against the soft purples and oranges of a dawn backdrop. Listening to the ocean, she’d closed her eyes and dared to dream what the future might be like. A loving husband, a child, a job she was already on the way toward, watching her child graduate from high school, and then college, and then one day holding her grandchildren. She’s seen it all clearly on that morning and it had felt so real and chilling that she had so doubt that it would all come true exactly the way she saw it.
Slowly, that image faded. Only the sound of the ocean remained, crashing waves in and out, in and out. And after a while, it was no longer the ocean but her breath, in and out, in and out.
Rachel opened her eyes. A featureless ceiling was above her, with bright white lights shining from her left and right. She knew where she was at once. She’d been in enough hospitals during the course of her life to know. She sensed motion somewhere in the room so she did her best to sit up, realizing that she was in a bed.
There was a doctor and nurse with one of those rolling computer desks. They were conferring with one another as the doctor took notice of her moving.
“There we are,” he said with a smile. He was a middle-aged man with a kind face and the sort of salt-and-pepper hair that looked either very handsome or very messy. On him, it was handsome. “Agent Gift, how are you feeling?”
“Don’t know yet,” she said. “Groggy. How long have I been here?”
He checked his watch and said, “A little less than two hours. Your partner rushed you over. He’s out in the waiting room right now. It seems you got a little overexcited and, according to your records, that is not something you should be doing in your state.”
The fact that another doctor knew about her condition alarmed her. Would Anderson find out? Would this go on a report somewhere? She then thought of Jack and wondered if he’d already made the call to Anderson. And had he called Grandma Tate?
“You look concerned,” the doctor said. “Let me see if I can ease your mind. We’ve got some blood tests being run right now just to make sure, but I don’t see any serious harm. I’m quite sure you’re here from a mixture of things: stress, mild dehydration, and, of course, simple exacerbation from your condition. When you fell, your head even managed to hit the cushion of the passenger seat according to your partner, so there are no bumps or bruises.”
“I see.” She looked to her arm and saw an IV, likely taking care of the mild dehydration issue. She searched around internally for the slight pain she’d felt in her head just before passing out but it wasn’t there. “Could I speak to Jack?”
“Jack? Oh, your partner. Yes, I don’t see why not.” Before heading out, though, the doctor lingered by her bedside. He seemed to think about something for a moment or two and then sat on the edge of her bed.
“I’m sure you already know this, and it goes without saying, but given your condition, I don’t know that it’s wise of you continue to work. With some occupations, I’d stay quiet on the matter but as you’re an FBI agent with an unpredictable tumor in your brain, I think some smarter decisions need to be made.”
“Yes, I know.” She did her best not to be snippy or short with him, but that’s how she felt. She also felt embarrassed and weak, and she wasn’t looking forward to hearing what Jack might have to say when he came into the room.
The doctor simply nodded and then, on his way out, waved the nurse at the mobile station to follow along with him. In the room alone, Rachel let out a soft curse under her breath. Not only was she embarrassed, but she was also once again having to face the fact that she could very well be impeding the progress of the case rather than helping. It made her think of what life might be like a few months down the road when things got worse. Of course, work would be well behind her by then, but what other ways would she be hindering people? To what extent were people like Jack and Grandma Tate supposed to wait on her despite the fact that she’d been so damned stubborn at the start of it all?
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked the empty room.
She felt the sting of tears coming on but used a great deal of her energy to fight them off. She thought of Paige at home with Grandma Tate, both of them assuming she was just out and about on a case. She didn’t know if she’d tell Grandma Tate about this little incident and could only hope that Jack hadn’t taken it upon himself to do it for her. And then, knowing that she was not only choosing the case over Paige but now also keeping more and more things from her, Rachel felt a deep and intense hurt.
“What’s wrong with me?” she said again, this time allowing one of those tears to spill down her face. She knew that things may have played out very differently if she hadn’t passed out. If that hadn’t happened, she’d probably be home right now. This fact seemed to dig the knife in deeper, twisting and tearing.
Jack came into the room several minutes later. He was carrying his phone in his hand and a look of sad defeat on his face.
“Sorry about this,” she said.
Jack only nodded as he sat down in the single visitor’s chair directly beside her bed. “I need to be honest with you, Rachel.”
“Okay…”
“You should be sorry. Yes, I know I asked you to come along with me on this despite knowing about the tumor and the leave of absence. That’s on me. But did I or did I not tell you earlier in the day that I thought it was a bad idea?”
“You did.”
“And now I find myself in a situation where I’m going to have to lie to Anderson. There will be paperwork and a record of this visit. We’re going to have to keep it from him, which means any report I write up for the case is going to have to omit this. And if that somehow comes back on me in the future, it could be very bad. You understand all of this, right?”
For a moment, she felt very small. He was talking to her in the same way he’d spoken to Wes Dalton in the hotel room.
“All I can do is apologize,” she said. “Between the two of us, there was a moment today where I felt incredible. I remember thinking that I hadn’t felt so good since getting the news about the tumor. This thing…it came out of nowhere. And honestly, it didn’t even hurt all that much. I just got dizzy and sort of…spinny. And then I was out.”
“The doctors say you’re okay from what they can tell. Just waiting on the results of some blood tests, from what I understand.”