The Reformers: A Matt Blake Novel (The Matt Blake legal thriller series Book 2) (18 page)

Chapter 39

I walked down the street toward our apartment building. I was exploding to give Matt the good news, the good news on top of what we already knew about Al Yamani’s book. Random House wants to buy the
paperback rights
. Why Matt turned off his friggin cell phone is beyond me. Just as well. I prefer to give him good news in person.

“Matt, honey. I’ve got some great news,” I shouted as I walked into our apartment.

“Matt?”

Where the hell is he? It was just past 7 p.m. and he had said he’d be home early. I walked over every square inch of our large apartment. No sign of Matt. No sign of anything out of order. I tried his cell phone again. Just a message that the owner was not available. I texted him (again). Nothing. This is nuts, I thought. I last spoke to him this morning and he said he’d be home no later than 6. Okay, this is bullshit, I thought. So his cell phone is turned off. Maybe its battery went dead. He’s only an hour late. I’m acting like a jerk. But this isn’t right. This is so not like Matt.

Eight p.m. came and went. I sat in front of the TV trying to distract myself by clicking around to different channels. I’m not one to freak out easily—well, sometimes, maybe—but this was getting serious. I tried to remember if he said anything about visiting a client or some other chore. Nonsense. I have a memory that never quits. He had said nothing other than he’s be home at six, two hours ago.

I called his father.

“Hi Jim, I mean dad, it’s Diana. Sorry to bother you at home but I’m a bit on edge. Matt was supposed to be home two hours ago. His cell phone has been off all afternoon. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“Hi, hon,” said my father-in-law. “The last time I saw Matt was around 11 a.m. I’m sure there’s a simple reason for this, but you have me a bit concerned too. Hey, call Woody. If there is one person on earth who can track somebody down it’s him. Oh, and Diana.”

“Yeah, dad?” I said, as I felt a tear run down my face.

“Call me the instant you hear something, okay? Meanwhile I’ll call Jim Randolph to see if he knows anything.”

Okay, it’s time to get a fucking grip. I wiped my tear away and started to organize my thoughts. Jim is right about calling Woody. But before I do I need to get my shit together. It’s Friday night, and that thought plagued me. Before Matt and I met, we both spent a long time in the wilderness of booze and drugs. Friday nights, we both agreed, were especially dangerous to a recovering drunk. Matt and I are almost religious in our devotion to staying clean and sober. In our more than three years of marriage, sobriety had become a part of us, a deep part of our relationship. Could Matt have fallen off the wagon? The literature of recovery is filled with stories of a “former” alcoholic stopping by an old haunt for “just one drink”—can’t do any harm, right? Could my Matt have done that? Could he be on a bar stool somewhere, fucked up and trying to figure out what to do next? Why am I torturing myself with this crap? I’m torturing myself because of one thing—I don’t know where he is.

“Woody, it’s Diana Blake. Sorry to bother you at home, but something’s come up.”

I brought Woody up to date on my concerns.
Concerns? My fucking head was exploding
. As the good investigator that he is, Woody asked me a lot of questions. He has the biggest contact list in the world, and he knows who to call. Woody is a widower and lives alone, so at least I wasn’t taking him away from his family.

“I’m not only going to make phone calls, Diana. I’m going to personally check out a few places.”

“Places?”

“Yes, hon, you know what I mean. Now don’t go getting your pretty head in an uproar. I’ll call you in less than an hour to let you know what I’ve found out.”

When Matt was in his drinking days, Woody would often pick him up at one of his favorite bars and help him home to bed. Woody’s not just a great investigator. He’s a good friend.

A half-hour passed by when the phone rang.

“Yes?” I yelled.

“This is the March of Dimes calling about our fund raising drive. May I speak to the homeowner?”

“Fuck you!” I screamed as I slammed down the phone down on the counter, almost breaking it. Okay, stop this shit. It’s time to be an adult. It’s time to be here for the man I love—wherever the hell he is.

I put on sweats and went into our gym. I clicked on the TV and mounted the stationary bike. Both Matt and I have found that an intense physical workout is a great stress reliever. I have no idea what show I watched, but I peddled the bike like a herd of tigers was after me. At 9:10 my cell phone rang, and I saw that it was Woody. I stopped peddling and hit the answer key. I don’t know if my heart was pounding from my workout or from anticipating Woody’s call.

“Yes, Woody,” I said breathlessly.

“I’ll get right to the point, Diana. Nobody saw him at any of his old familiar haunts, so I hit my contact list. Good thing a lot of people in the police department owe me favors.”

“Woody, hon, you said you would get right to the point.”

“Meet me at the cab parked by the entrance to your building. I’m there now.”

“What? Why?”

“We’re going to Stroger Hospital to visit Matt.”

***

I didn’t have time to shower after my workout so I just toweled off as best I could, put on a fresh sweat suit, and wrapped my head in a towel. I ran onto the sidewalk and saw the cab with Woody standing next to it having a cigarette. Shit, it was cold. Woody opened the door for me and I climbed in.

“Talk to me, Woody.”

“Matt was found about two hours ago lying on a sidewalk in Evanston. No, he wasn’t drunk, but he’d been drugged heavily. And no, it wasn’t a recreational drug. Somebody did this to him.”

“Is he okay?”

“From what the intake nurse told me, he suffered a nasty concussion from a fall and he’s cut up and bruised. She said he couldn’t see anybody, so I called the medical director, a personal friend. They’ll let us in.”

Matt always told me that when you’re hit with something big and unexpected, just take a deep breath and assess the situation. He learned this in combat. Shit happens, but it’s up to you to make sure it doesn’t get worse. So first I looked at the positives: Matt hadn’t fallen off the wagon and gone drinking. So far so good. But he was apparently kidnapped or mugged and left bleeding on a sidewalk. My Matt, bleeding on a sidewalk. Shit.

We walked into the emergency room at Stroger Hospital. If there’s one thing you can count on in life, emergency rooms suck. Stroger is a big hospital, the former Cook County Medical Center, and the ER was lined with various beaten and bruised people.

A security guard walked up to us and said, “He’s in room 301, Woody. Here are your pass cards.” Is there anybody in Chicago who doesn’t know Woody Donovan?

“Thanks, Pete,” Woody said. We got on the elevator and it seemed to me that the three-floor trip took an hour.

When the door opened I got that sickening feeling that anybody gets when you’re in a hospital to visit a loved one who was suddenly admitted. Okay, suck it up. This is about Matt, not me.

“Hi Woody,” said Clara Johnston, the head nurse on duty, and yet another of Woody’s friends. “I’m sorry I was abrupt with you before about visiting hours, but as you know I don’t make policy.”

“No problem, doll. Where’s our boy?”

She led us down the hall to room 301 as Woody introduced me to Nurse Clara.

“I feel like I already know you, professor. My son is in one of your classes at Northwestern and he never shuts up about you.”

I thanked her for her kind remark, but barely heard what she said. We walked into Matt’s room. He was in the first bed by the door, and the other bed was unoccupied. I noticed that Matt wasn’t hooked up to any telemetry or monitoring devices. I took that as a good sign.

Matt looked like hell, but just seeing him calmed the freak-out I went through for the past few hours. An ice pack rested on his left forehead, covering his left eye as well. His hospital robe had been pulled aside, showing that his left shoulder was bandaged. He raised both arms, at elbow height, to show us he had mobility. There was no swelling around his lips, so I leaned forward and kissed him. Nurse Clara reached for the ice pack on Matt’s forehead and lifted it. I flinched. His left forehead was swollen like a fist, and his eye was partially shut from swelling. She gently put the ice pack back against his head.

“He looks worse than he is,” said Nurse Clara. “He has a mild concussion and will develop a wicked black eye in the next couple of days. There’s no shoulder fracture, just soft tissue trauma. We just want to keep him overnight for observation. He has a hell of a lot of sodium pentothal in his body, and that’s why he’s in no pain. When it starts to wear off we’ll give him some Tylenol.”

“Sodium pentothal? Truth serum?” Woody asked.

“Yes, but it’s also an excellent pain killer,” Clara said.

I looked at Matt. “Talk to us, honey, if you can.”

“Nurse, would you mind if I spend some time with these folks?” said Matt.

After Clara left, Woody said, “Clara’s a good egg, Matt. You don’t have to worry about her.”

“But I didn’t want her to hear what I’m about to tell you,” Matt said. “Take out your notepad Woody. I gave a police report, of course, but I’m about to let you in on some important details.”

I asked Woody for a couple of blank pages so I could take notes too. With a researcher like me and an investigator like Woody, I figured we wouldn’t miss anything.

“But first I want to ask Dee something,” Matt said. “What did you think happened to me? Did you think I fell, or jumped, off the wagon?”

“I’ll leave you two alone for a bit,” said Woody.

“Stay put, Woody,” I said. “Matt and I think of you like family. I want you to hear this. In answer to your question, honey, I speculated about everything, including that. Woody even checked out a few of your old favorite bars. Hey, I hadn’t heard from you in almost nine hours. My mind went where it wanted to go.”

“So here I am, baby, clean and sober. A bit busted up, but I’m still your good boy.”

I was so glad that his lips weren’t injured. I leaned over and kissed him again.

“Okay, so back to my little adventure,” Matt said. “I’ll tell you the things I can remember, of course. I was in Evanston to meet with a client whose case is coming up for trial in a couple of weeks. After I parked my car, I was jumped from behind by at least two men and shoved into the back seat of an SUV. They pulled it off so smoothly, I’m sure nobody would have noticed what happened. One of the men put a hood over my head and said, ‘You’re in for an interesting afternoon, counselor.’ About five minutes later the car stopped and one of the guys grabbed me by the arm and led me to a door. When we got inside he took my hood off.”

“Were you roughed up at all?” Woody asked.

“No. If anything, I was treated gently. The cuts and bruises you see on me apparently came from my fall, although I have no recollection of falling.”

“Go on, Matt,” said Woody.

“ ‘You have a lot to tell us, counselor,’ said a tall guy sitting behind a desk. ‘Bartholomew and the NFL send greetings.’ Yes, he actually said that—‘Bartholomew and the NFL send greetings.’ That’s the most important detail I can give you. After he said that, two guys came up next to me and removed my jacket. One of them rolled up my sleeve and inserted a needle into my arm. From what the people here tell me, it was sodium pentothal. The rest is just a blur. But here’s what you need to know. Whatever I knew about NFL or Bartholomew, I’m sure I told them. Sodium pentothal is like that. Whatever was in my head is now in their notes.”

“So you don’t think this was a warning, Matt?” I said.

“No, Dee, I don’t. They didn’t beat me up, didn’t threaten me, and didn’t do anything that could serve as a warning. They just wanted inside information, and I’m sure I gave them what they were looking for.”

“Matt,” I said, “you mentioned that they didn’t rough you up or do anything threatening. I’m sorry, but leaving a man on a sidewalk loaded with sodium pentothal isn’t exactly a gentle thing to do, is it? I mean, look at you. You could have walked in front of a bus and gotten killed.”

“My take on this,” Woody said, “if you don’t mind me interjecting, is that they didn’t give a shit what happened to Matt. They had no reason to kill him, but they also had no reason to keep him alive. They wanted information, and the sodium pentothal gave them what they wanted. So where the hell do we go from here?”

“From here we go to the FBI, maybe higher,” Matt said. “Dee, please call Rick Bellamy. He’ll take your call. I want to see him.”

“The head of Homeland Security?” Woody asked.

“Yes, I think Homeland Security is at stake here.”

“I’ll call Rick in the morning, hon,” I said. “Time for you to get some sleep. I’ll close the door behind us to block out the noise.”

I kissed him and stroked the good side of his face.

“Dee!” Matt screamed as Woody and I walked out the door. We hurried back in.

“You’re next, babe. Do not go anywhere near our apartment tonight.”

“What do you mean, honey?” I said.