Brain Storm (A Taylor Morrison Novel Book 1) (8 page)

Simply put, Trinity had a problem with men and that problem was, when she looked at a man, she saw her father. It didn’t help that her job reminded her daily of the seamy side of family life, and the horrible things people can do to each other. As a result, she hated most men and trusted none of them, the exception of course, being her little brother, who in her eyes could do no wrong. She had somehow managed to tolerate Keith, for my sake, but it was always a rocky relationship between them. Normally she just ignored them, but occasionally, she came across one that set her off. And Jonas set her off. Not only was he a man, but he was a big, good looking black man, with a badge and a gun and he wasn’t intimidated by her. I had a feeling that what was to follow wasn’t going to be pretty and I was dead on the money.
 

I choose to ignore the raised voices and heated discussion that little move precipitated, content to let them fight it out. Woe to him that gets between Trinity and her quest for knowledge. Add in concern for a friend, her intense dislike of men and the fact that he actually had the audacity to touch her and Jonas had more to worry about than getting shot at.

I had finished my on site exam, received my diagnosis of concussion and they were still going at it. I settled back into the chair cushions to watch, inordinately happy that they were going at each other instead of me. It was the most entertainment I’d had all day.
 

“What are you smiling at?” Trinity snapped, as she headed my way, having finished with Jonas. “Sitting there enjoying the show?”

Oops. “Hey, I have a concussion. Don’t yell at me.” I looked over to see Jonas talking to the EMT. “You have to admit, it was quite a display,” I couldn’t resist adding.

“I don’t have to admit anything except he’s a pain in the posterior. If he so much as dares to put his hands on me again, I’ll...”

“You’ll what?” Jonas inquired, cutting her off as he joined us. “Instead of making a scene here, why don’t you take Taylor over to Baptist to finish getting checked out.”
 

He turned to me, ignoring Trinity’s glare. “I’ll catch up with you later, maybe tonight. And,” he added, leaning down close to me, “in case I didn’t say it in all the excitement. Thank you.” With that, he kissed me on the cheek, threw a scornful look at Trinity, who was standing there with her mouth hanging open, and walked away.

I managed not to crack a smile while we walked to Trinity’s car, although I could hear her muttering under her breath the whole time. I decided to keep silent and just look out the windows on the short trip over to Baptist Heath Care, one of two main hospitals in the area, the other being St. Vincent’s. We checked in at the emergency room, thankful that there seemed to be minimum of injuries in the middle of the day. Hopeful of a short wait, I grabbed up a Hollywood rag and paged through while Trinity occupied herself on her cell phone. I had filled her in on the situation in Atlanta earlier while waiting for Denzel and she was busy now with finalizing arrangements for the Atlanta police to pick up our boy and send him home where he belonged. Justice served. What a happy thought in an otherwise dismal day.

SEVEN

“HOW CAN YOU read that drivel?” Trinity snapped her phone closed and crossed one long leg over the other, her toe bouncing up and down with nervous energy.

I just gave a shrug and went back to perusing my rag. They’d already taken my insurance information and then my vitals. Now it was just matter of filling the time until they had an open room. Within minutes I heard my name, and made a point of throwing the magazine in Trinity’s lap as I headed back. She might talk big, but I’d seen her flip one open a time or two.
 

I followed the nurse through the big doors and down the hallway to the nurses station and the mini exam rooms clustered around it. Ushered into my own personal cubby hole, I hopped up on the table while the nurse pulled the curtain partially closed and ordered me to get into the flimsy hospital gown she tossed down on the exam table next to me. Then she informed me the doctor would be with me in a minute and sailed out of my enclosure, pulling the curtain closed behind her. I eyed the gown for a second before deciding there was no need to change. I mean, I had a head injury. Why did I need to take off my clothes? Instead, I amused myself for a few minutes looking in the drawers of the little stand next to the table. Nothing good in there. I flopped back on the table and stared at the ceiling wondering how long a doctor’s minute actually was. The sound of the nurse pulling the curtain back startled me and I nearly fell off the table.
 

“Sorry to wake you.” She smiled as she apologized, not at all concerned that a head trauma patient had been out like a light. I guess it’s common practice for patients to drop off in the ‘minute’ it takes for the doctor to get around to them. “I wanted to let you know we hadn’t forgotten about you. The doctor’s just finishing up on a hand fracture and he’ll be right in.” Suddenly she frowned, catching sight of the hospital gown still lying on the exam table next to me.

“Ouch,” I said, hoping to distract her from the gown. I didn’t want a fight, but I had no intention of putting that thing on. “That sounds painful. How’d he do that?”

“Slammed it in a car door. You’d be surprised how often that happens.” She eyed the gown and then me. “You’re not going to put on that on, are you?”

I shook my head no and for a minute I thought she was going to try to insist. Something in my eyes must have convinced her otherwise, or else she’d had a really long day already, because she just heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes and left, pulling the curtain closed again behind her.
 

I’d like to blame it on the blow to my head, but it took a few minutes for her words to sink in. One second I was sitting there thinking how much it must hurt to slam a car door on your hand and the next, I was reliving that morning in the coffee shop. Jonas was pulling up, the gun was pointed at Jonas, suddenly the door slammed. The gun went off, flying from the hand holding it. The hand that was caught in the door. What were the odds? I mean really. What
were
the odds? The investigator in me had seen too many long shots pay off to ignore a chance like this. However unlikely it might be, I had to check it out.
 

Slipping silently off of the table, I stuck my head out of the curtains for a look see. Many of the exam tables were empty and those that had occupants, had the curtains pulled closed, just like mine were. Thankful I had stuck to my guns about the gown thing, I crept along the closed curtains with no idea where to go. I reached the nurses station and was relieved to see that it was empty except for a single nurse I hadn’t seen before. I needed to move fast, before anyone else showed up. Rushing up to the desk, I leaned over to get her attention.

“Can you help me? I’m looking for my friend. He came in with a broken hand. Slammed it in the car door?” I silently prayed I had given enough information that she wouldn’t ask me his name. Somehow I didn’t think Denzel was his real name.

“Down that hall, first door to the left. The casting room.” She pointed to her left, past the exam rooms, in the opposite direction from the waiting room doors. At least I was between him and the most immediate exit.

Smiling a thanks, I headed straight for the hall, hoping that I would be out of her line of sight before I got to the casting room door. As luck would have it, the door was set back in a small alcove that I was happy to duck into. Leaning in toward the door, I could make out two voices inside. I had just decided my best approach to finding out who was in the room, was to drop back out of sight and keep watch, when the door suddenly opened and I found myself standing nose to nose with the doctor.
 

I barely had time to register that the patient on the table behind him was in fact, Denzel, when he came charging through the door. He hit the doctor from behind in a vicious tackle that drove him into me and sent the three of us sailing across the hall, only to be slammed to a stop when we hit the far wall. Falling into a heap, Denzel kicked and punched until he managed to break free of the tangled mess of bodies and took off down the hall toward the exit. Dazed, I tried to follow, only to find my knees giving way was I went down on all fours onto the floor. Looking up, I saw the ER doors already starting to close behind him, nurses and patients staring in confusion, frozen into immobility. I could feel blood running down my face, and glancing over, saw the doctor was unconscious next to me on the floor. Struggling to get to my feet, I managed to rise halfway before I collapsed back onto the cold tile of the floor, the closed ER doors the last thing I saw before the darkness took me.

I CAME TO
completely disoriented, which seemed to be becoming a real habit with me as of late. My last cognizant thought had been that I needed to go after Denzel, and bolting upright in an attempt to do just that, I found myself instantly tangled in sheets and IV tubing, my efforts to pursue completely thwarted by the raised bed rails and a wildly spinning room. Finally realizing where I was and that I was going nowhere, I laid back down on the hospital bed, exhausted by my return to reality, with the sincere hope that the dizziness would pass if I just closed my eyes and didn’t move.

“Are you dead?” The question filtered in through the swirling currents. It was Trinity, who was in the room and had apparently witnessed my flailing about, if the amusement in her voice was any indication. I choose not to answer since she was well aware I wasn’t dead and I was trying hard not to toss my cookies. Finally, things settled into a somewhat steadier level and I slowly opened my eyes to find her looming over me in the semi darkness of the room.
 

“If you knew how close I was to throwing up, you’d back up a bit,” I replied. She immediately disappeared from sight, which I found somewhat disconcerting, even in my newly wakened state.

Trinity intercepted my hand as it went toward my left eye. “It’s swollen shut, that’s why you can’t see,” she explained as she moved around the bed and pressed the call button for the nurse. “You also have a concussion, but you’ll be relieved to know that whatever’s going on with you it isn’t from a brain tumor. They did an MRI and there’s nothing there.”

I shrugged, accepting the information. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility, but Trinity obviously had and been worried about it.

“Leave that alone,” she ordered, swatting at my hand as I tried again to check out the damage, sounding and acting eerily like Mama D. The nurse popped her head in, saw that I was awake and disappeared again, on her way to report in to the doctor, no doubt.

“How long have I been out?” I asked, finally noticing that Trinity had changed clothes.

“Two days. And before you ask anymore questions, just let me say don’t.” She held her hand up in front of her, giving the universal “stop” sign. “The only way they let me in here was to swear I would not talk about anything that went on and that you wouldn’t either.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when the door flew open and the nurse returned with the doctor. I caught a glimpse of a blue uniform outside the door before it swung closed. The stationing of a guard outside my door told me a lot of things, not the least of which was that Denzel was still at large and they considered me to be a target.
 

The doctor proceeded to poke and prod and generally irritate me. After confirming a major concussion, a laceration above the swollen eye that required a number of stitches, and an assortment of various other bumps, bruises, aches and pains, of which I was already more than aware of, he finally left me in peace. The nurse checked my stats, wrote in the chart, shot something into the IV tube and finally followed the doctor out the door. Exhausted from the exam and from what I suspected was pain killer in the IV, I laid back, closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. The last thought in my head being where Denzel might have disappeared to and just how soon our paths would cross again.
 

THE WONDERFUL AROMA
of coffee woke me up the next morning. Trinity was gone and Jonas now sat in the nearest chair, juggling a huge cup of coffee while trying to thumb through a file.
 

“I hope you brought some of that for me, or you can get out right now,” I threatened.

“Good, you’re awake. We need to talk.”

“No,” I replied, looking around with my good eye, for another coffee, which seemed to be missing. “We need to get coffee.” I thumbed the call button. Maybe the nurse could get me some coffee. My head was killing me and I was sure that coffee would help.

Within seconds a nurse that I hadn’t seen before popped in. I put in my request for coffee, which she promptly ignored, much to Jonas’ amusement, instead slapping the blood pressure cuff on my arm.
 

“As you probably surmised, this guy, ‘Denzel’, as you refer to him, got away clean,” Jonas filled me in, as the nurse pumped up the cuff. “Trinity saw him, along with several others, when he came barreling through the ER doors. He knocked a guy down, jumped a set of seats and was gone before anyone knew what was going on.
 

 
“Well, that’s great news,” I said irritably, throwing the nurse a dirty look as she pumped the cuff up a second time. I mouthed the word “coffee” at her, but she was busy looking at the monitor on the cuff.

“No, the great news is the hospital has security cameras in that hallway and we have him on tape. It also appears that in addition to breaking his hand when the car door slammed, our boy got cut, which the doctor also treated. We got DNA off the gauze used to clean the wound and lifted several good prints from the exam room. It will take a while on the DNA, but hopefully, the prints will give us an ID.”