Page 4 of Where Are You Now
“Don’t try to talk. Just relax.”
Through yellow circles that were now floating in her vision, the sound of his typing was her only sensation. But then his tender fingers pressed against her wrist, and her tired mind slid back to a summer day on the grass in her yard, when she was about thirteen.
“You gonna stay around here after high school?” Lucas asked, turning his head toward her, a soft smile on his lips as they lay on their backs with an expanse of electric-blue summer sky above them.
“Definitely not.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
He said the words, but the twitch in his lips that only happened when he didn’t believe what he was saying told her he was lying.
His light touch found her wrist and then moved to her fingers, his intertwining with hers.
“I’m gonna miss you,” he said.
The beeping machines came back into her awareness and then faded out again as she fell unconscious once more.
Chapter Two
When Ava woke up again, the late September sun streamed through the hospital room’s window, and the salty, savory scent of gravy or something similar turned her stomach.
“Well, Ms. St. John,” a nurse in scrubs said as she wheeled a cart with a covered plate toward her. “You’re awake!”
Ava groaned. Her muscles felt as if they’d been through a meat grinder.
“I’ve got some ice chips, and if you can handle those, we can drop a little soup on your tongue if you’re up for it.”
She grunted, her throat aching, and shook her head.
“No worries. I bring it in and wheel it out if you don’t need it. But it’s here if you want it.” The nurse maneuvered the cart near the bed. “I’ll get Dr. Watkins.”
Ava inwardly cringed, remembering the Coleman Media meeting. The last time she was awake she’d been told it was Thursday. She’d missed it. Her head pounded with the thought of Scott Strobel’s proud hello as he walked into the room to presentherwork. What a disaster. Nevertheless, the meeting was only yesterday. And it did still seem brightoutside, so it couldn’t be too late in the day. She might have enough time to salvage things. Maybe they’d postponed it, given the situation. She could get on the phone, tell them what had happened, and take a meeting from there. She’d struggle to get the words out, but she could muster up the energy and make it happen—she was certain.
When the doctor came in, her lips parted to ask for her phone, but something else came to mind instead, distracting her. This balding man with a slight hunch to his shoulders wasn’t the strong doctor with the familiar name who had seen her last. Would he be back?
“Hello, Ms. St. John. I’m Dr. Watkins.”
She forced herself to focus.
“Hi. Could I make a call?” she asked, an awful rasp in her voice; half her words came out in a whisper.
Dr. Watkins gave her a placating smile. “We might want to wait on phone calls. I can contact your mother, if you’d like. She’s been here to see you this week.”
Ava’s eyelids were impossible to keep open, so she allowed them to close, but then what the doctor had said registered.
“Thisweek?” she croaked.
It hadn’t been a week. That was ridiculous.
She tried to sit up, but fell back against the pillows in response to the shooting pain in her torso. Everything from the void came flooding back—the strange feeling of someone watching her. The voice slammed into her mind:Find Lucas Phillips and live out the rest of your life.But this time the voice wasn’t gentle; it was strong and steady. What was the consequence if she didn’t? She was afraid to find out, since, apparently, her life depended on it.
“How long have I been out,exactly?” she asked the doctor.
“About six days.”
Her breath caught. She didn’t even take off six days at Christmas.
Her work schedule had been packed with client meetings. Who’d taken care of her accounts while she’d been lying thereall week? Scott?No, please, no.Hehad no doubt been parading himself in front of all her clients, looking like the hero. If he got partner over her usingherwork…
