|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Part
43
Carol slipped quietly out of the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping figure next to her. Stepping into the shower, she adjusted the water temperature and let the nearly scalding water flow down her back. Hoping she could wash away her troubled thoughts as easily as she shed the scent of the man she'd taken to her bed.
*****
Mike turned restlessly in his bunk as he awaited the morning tones. God, what've I done? Indecision gnawed at his gut. When he'd proposed to Sharon it had all seemed so clear, so right. His son was ill and needed both his parents to help him through the trying time ahead. It was the right thing to do. It was.
So why then was his stomach tied up in knots, threatening to rebel on him at any given moment?
"MIKEY!" Marco's cheerful voice boomed out at him from a few inches away, "Good morning, amigo. How does it feel to be a married man?"
Clamping his hand over his mouth, Mike struggled out from beneath the covers. Rushing out of the room, he just made it to the latrine before his traitorous stomach betrayed him.
"What's wrong with him?" Chet asked casually as Marco's face split into a grin.
*****
"LET ME OUT OF HERE! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO KEEP ME FROM HIM!" Alica pounded on the thickly padded door, "JOHNNY NEEDS ME! HE NEEDS ME!!"
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Stanley," the doctor sighed, rubbing tiredly at the bridge of his nose as he turned to the woman standing next to him. Motioning to the distraught figure on the other side of the two-way mirror he continued, "I'm afraid at this stage there isn't much we can do for your daughter. She's so deeply entrenched in her in her delusions that I fear we'll never be able to reach her."
"Oh, my darling, sweet girl," Joyce brushed her fingers across the glass, "I'll make your father pay for this. I swear I will."
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the doctor leaned in next to her, "what was that?"
"Can I go in?" Joyce asked quietly.
"No." He shook his head sadly, "Until we can achieve some kind of control over her I'm afraid her visitors will have to be restricted."
"But I'm her mother."
"I'm sorry." The doctor opened the door and ushered her out. "This is for the best."
Joyce's eyes narrowed angrily as she watched the doctor make his way down the hall. "Nothing that keeps me from my child is for the best." With a sorrowful glance toward the room she'd just exited Joyce's voice took on a menacing overtone, "I'll get you out of here, precious, and I'll get you that boy you love so much. And then, once we're together again, we'll destroy your father and everything he holds dear."
*****
"Morning, sleepyhead."
Joanne's eyes drifted slowly open, "Roy, what's all this?"
"Breakfast in bed for my favorite wife." Roy carefully set the tray across Joanne's lap.
"You're favorite wife?" Joanne teased playfully, "I'd better be your only wife, mister."
"My one and only." He lightly caressed her cheek, brushing a quick kiss across her lips, "Now eat up. You've got to keep up your strength. After all, you're eating for two now." Roy finished with a grin.
Joanne stopped, the fork poised halfway between her mouth and the plate, "Roy, are you . . . How do you . . ." She took a deep breath and began again, "Roy, for a moment there you sounded like you might . . . maybe . . . Roy, how do you feel about this baby? I mean, I know it came as a big surprise to you. It came as a big surprise to me. But . . ."
"Shhh." Roy lay a finger gently across her lips, "I want you to listen carefully to me. I know that I reacted badly when I first heard about this baby, and I'm sorry. I was still in shock over the accident and I behaved like a complete jerk." He lifted her hand to his lips, lightly brushing a kiss across it, "But I thought I was going to lose you and Chris."
"Roy, I understand . . ."
"Please, Jo, let me finish." Roy gave a quick squeeze to the hand still captured in his own, "With everything that's happened over the last few days I've come to realize what a blessing we've been given. This baby is a chance to start over. To bring a new life into the world. And I can't think of anything else I'd rather do or anyone I'd rather do it with."
"Oh god, Roy," Joanne leaned forward, mindless of the precariously balanced tray, and hugged Roy tightly, "do you have any idea how much I love you?"
"If it's even half as much as I love you, then I'm the luckiest man on the planet."
*****
Tom Dwyer slowly twisted a piece of hair around his finger, "It's like I told you, baby, everything's coming together perfectly. Carol's gonna marry that idiot Kelly, make sure he doesn't survive the honeymoon, and then throw herself and all that beautiful money into my arms. It can't fail."
"It can if you don't keep up appearances." Dixie snapped, pulling a robe around her, "Aren't you supposed to be at the Station in 40 minutes?"
"Yeah, yeah, all right." He stretched lazily and climbed out of the bed. Stepping up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist, "Say, baby, you wouldn't want to join me in the shower, would you?"
Dixie rolled her eyes and pulled away from him, "Not particularly. Now hurry up, I don't want to blow this thing when we're so close to getting it all."
Dixie watched as Tom shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the bathroom. Silently she waited, listening to the sounds of the shower, biding her time until she was sure he was inside. When she was sure that enough time had passed and danger of discovery with it, Dixie slipped into the closet and pushed aside the clothes hanging there to reveal the hidden door behind them. Pushing lightly on the wooden panel, Dixie slithered into the room and allowed her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness within.
The dim light revealed a still figure, bound to a chair, just a few feet away. Slowly the figure raised its head and Dixie found herself gazing into a hauntingly familiar face.
"Mitzi." The figure gasped, "What's going on? Why are you doing this?"
"Why?" Mitzi took a menacing step forward, gazing malevolently down into the face of her restrained twin sister, "Why? Because you took from me the only man I ever loved. Kelly Brackett should've been mine. But you couldn't let me have him, could you? COULD YOU?! You could never let me have anything of my own. Not even my own face." Her voice took on a cold clarity, "So, now I'm going to take everything from you. Your home, your job, your reputation, the man you love. Everything. Even you life."
"Mitzi, please, we're sisters, how could you . . ."
"DIXIE?" Tom Dwyer's voice called out in the room behind them.
"Coming, darling," Mitzi answered, before lowering her voice again, "Don't worry, sister dear, we'll talk again."
*****
Sharon fumbled nervously with the chart in front of her. All she'd wanted, all she'd ever wanted, was to save her son, to give Mikey a chance at a normal healthy life. And now . . . Oh god, it turned her stomach to think how far she'd gone, how far she was still willing to go. First she'd switched those blood tests for Mrs. Stanley. She'd known it was wrong, but she needed the money for Mikey's prescriptions.
Then she'd gone to Mike, poor, dear, wonderfully sweet Mike, and had used her son to trap him into a marriage she was sure he hadn't wanted. But Harriet had made it perfectly clear what the cost of failure was. A shudder traveled the length of her spine as she remembered how heartlessly Harriet had laid out her demands.
And now this. It was murder. Sharon knew that even as she made the change to the patient's chart. She'd seen his records and knew he was allergic to penicillin. A dose this size would surely kill him. But her fear of Harriet, her fear for her son, outweighed any compassion she felt for the sleeping figure in front of her.
So, with trembling hands, Sharon made the change and then slipped silently out of the room.
*****
Joanne snuggled contentedly, feeling safe and protected within the circle of Roy's arms, "So, Mr. DeSoto, what are your plans for the day?"
"Well, I've got a meeting with the contractor about the repairs on the house this afternoon. But I figured if you didn't need me this morning I'd run by the hospital and see how Johnny's doing." Roy smiled wryly, "You know what a cooperative patient he is once he regains consciousness."
Joanne's laughter filled the room before she reached up to caress Roy's cheek, "I'll always need you. But I do think that it's a good idea for you to go see Johnny. The two of you have a lot to talk about."
"Yeah, we do." Roy sat on the edge of the bed and began getting dressed, "I don't even know where to start."
"Start right here," Joanne laid her hand over his heart, "and you can't go wrong."
Roy bent his lips to her and kissed her with a quiet urgency, "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Don't worry, I don't plan on ever letting you find out." Her eyes twinkled as she looked up at him, "Now, you'd better finish getting dressed and get out of here or I can guarantee you're not going to get out of here at all."
Roy finished quickly, stopping in the doorway with mischievous grin, "By the way, I may be a little late getting back. I've got to stop and see my other wife on the way."
"Oh you!" Joanne threw a pillow at Roy's retreating form.
******
"Hello, Joyce."
Joyce Stanley started slightly, so caught up in her fantasies of revenge that she'd failed to notice as someone crept up quietly behind her. Turning, she regarded the figure with disinterest, "What do you want?"
"To propose a . . . deal, of a sort. I think that you and I can help each other." Harriet wrapped a surprisingly strong hand around Joyce's arm, "Why don't we go to the cafeteria and have a little chat?"
*****
Johnny stirred in his bed, consciousness impinging on the fringes of the dream world he inhabited.
"Johnny?" A warm hand grasped his, "Son, can you hear me?"
Johnny opened his eyes slowly, blinking to clear his vision, "Dad?" He sat up abruptly, ignoring the flash of pain from his protesting skull, "Dad!
What're you doing here?"
The older man sitting in the chair next to the bed smiled in relief as his son's eyes opened, "I came as soon as they called me, son." His free hand reached up to cup Johnny's face lovingly, "Are you all right? When your captain called and told me that you were injured and missing . . . God, son, I've never been so frightened."
"I'm fine, dad, really." Johnny squeezed his father's hand reassuringly, "You didn't have to come all the way out here."
"Of course, I did." He began to fuss with the blankets, tucking them tightly around Johnny, "You needed me, John, and you're all the family I have left in the world. There's nowhere else I'd be."
"Johnny, are you . . ." Roy stuck his head into the room, his jaw dropping open at the sight at met his eyes.
Click the patch to go back to the Main Page
