Page 49 of Drake Eternal

We spoke on the way about the event, and how Miranda had briefly lost consciousness. How the stress of the choking could have given her an irregular heartbeat.

“She’s young enough,” I said, trying to comfort him. “She’s going to get first-rate care. She’ll be fine.”

He gave me a half-hearted smile, but I knew, and he knew as well that it wasn’t necessarily so.

We arrived and went into the ER following the gurney, showing the nurse at admitting our credentials. Then, Michael went to the ER room where Miranda was being seen by one of the ER docs.

I waited out in the ER waiting room.

It was only then that I thought about Kate and Sophie and their Skype call with me. I checked my watch — it was nearly eleven thirty.

I reached for my cell to text Kate that I would be even later than I expected, only to find it was not in my pocket.

Then, I remembered I had it on the table, watching in case Kate texted me. I must have left back in the bar because of the confusion.

I glanced around and went to the Admitting desk to speak with one of the nurses.

“Is there a payphone somewhere? I need to make a call and lost my cell.”

She pointed down the hallway. “If you go to the main lobby, there’s a gift shop that’s open until midnight. They have cell phones you can buy and payment cards.”

“Ah, thanks. Will do.”

I followed the arrows on the walls for the hospital lobby and found the gift shop, which was indeed still open.

I bought a cell and a card with international minutes and called right away, but my call didn’t go through. It didn’t even go to voice mail, which was unusual. Then I remembered that you could block unknown international numbers, so you aren’t inundated with spam.

Damn…

I sent a text to her to let her know I would be late. Back home, it was just four thirty in the afternoon.

I hoped she would see the text and not worry, but unless my text went through, there was no way to be sure. The little icon beside my message didn’t show that my message was received.

I went back to the ER waiting room, and sat in a chair, waiting for Michael to come out and let me know how Miranda was doing. Hopefully, Kate would check her cell and at least she would know I tried to get in touch with her. I didn’t want her worrying about me, given the flooding in the city.

I couldn’t wait for this day to finally end…

Once back at the hotel, I checked in at the front desk to see if anyone had turned in a lost cell, but no such luck. No doubt someone had picked it up and decided to sell it at a local pawn shop. A phone as nice and new as mine would be worth quite a lot to the local people.

I shrugged and went to bed after sending Kate a final text, hoping she’d check her messages despite the fact they were from a number that had no ID attached.

CHAPTER 17

Several times through the night, I woke and checked my messages, but there was nothing, just the usual spam texts and calls from numbers I didn’t recognize.

Finally, when my alarm went off at 7:30 AM, I woke and checked my cell. It was after two in the afternoon back in Nairobi, so Drake should be up and explaining things. Nothing from Drake. There were several phone calls from a number I didn’t recognize and several text messages from the same number. Because my phone was set to send unknown numbers to spam, and only notify Drake’s number after midnight, I hadn’t heard the calls or the chime of a text.

I hesitated to open the first message. Because I got so many spam messages offering me vacation deals, telling me I’d got a big win in some settlement or that I was needed to move money around after someone died and please send my banking info, I usually just deleted them unseen or unheard. This time, only because I still hadn’t got a call or text from Drake, I did.

The first text was from Drake.

DRAKE: Please check your messages. I had to use a burner phone and send from a different number because I lost my cell. Will send a longer message asap.

I opened my phone and listened to the first message Drake left using the other cell.

“Hi, my love, I’m so sorry I didn’t text or call sooner, but we worked really late because of several cases that were critical. Once we were done, Michael wanted to take us all for a drink in the hotel bar where I’m staying. Then, of all things, an emergency took us back to the hospital. Details to follow.”

I opened the next text message and read the contents. I noted it was sent a close to 1:00 AM Nairobi time.

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