He didn’t have any plans, except to see his mom on Labor Day that Monday. Maybe he’d go for a ride on his motorcycle before the weather got too cold. He remembered the weather man saying that September was looking to stay in the low eighties to high seventies. Great riding weather, Adam thought.
Adam went back inside, washed out his cup, and grabbed his keys, sitting next to his wallet. He was out the door and on his motorcycle within five minutes. He went slowly through the streets around his neighborhood, careful to watch for children who might be playing near the road, something he’d never let his kid do if or when he had one. Adam had time to have a family, but he’d have to be in a relationship first and that was something he wasn’t ready for.
Once he passed the stop sign, Adam turned and drove toward the highway where he could ride fast and feel the wind through his hair. He wasn’t one to wear a helmet. Never felt comfortable with something pressing against his head. At least not since he had fought in the war and the explosion had knocked off his helmet and embedded metal fragments into his skull.
Most times he rode with his best friend Scott, but today he wanted time to himself. His mind was on the woman he once knew and loved with all his heart. He shifted into third gear and accelerated, speeding onto the ramp. He passed several cars and rode in the middle lane until he entered Indiana. He took the second exit and drove through the country roads, his mind feeling at peace as the wind ruffled through his brown hair that looked lighter in the sunlight. He needed this escape—to clear his mind and not think about her.
~ ~ ~
When Monday arrived, Adam stopped at the grocery store, picked up a few things to throw on the grill and drove over to his mother’s house. He wasn’t there five minutes when she started asking if he was seeing anyone special. He wasn’t. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the time to go out on dates, but more like he just hadn’t met the right woman. Well, he had, but that was nine years ago when he was in the Army. She had captured his heart the second he’d seen her, and he had never forgotten about her. He had looked her up after he left the Army and came home. She probably thought he had died over in Afghanistan after he stopped writing her. Well, actually she had sent him a Dear John letter, ending it with him. He knew that she wasn’t single anymore and positive that he never crossed her mind like she did his. He came out of his thoughts when his mother snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“What are you thinking about?” his mother asked.
“Nothing, just a lot on my mind lately,” he replied, taking a sip of lemonade that his mother freshly squeezed this morning. His mother Rose was an old-fashioned kind of lady, sweet to everyone she met. Never once had he seen her raise her voice—well, only if Adam disobeyed her. She was a stern woman with high expectations for her son, and he was okay with that. It just meant that she loved him even more.
“I was asking you about dating, and you zoned out.”
He nodded. “I will date, just busy right now that school started up again.”
“Maybe someone at the school?” she asked.
He shook his head. Never date someone you work with, just in case it doesn’t work out. Though his father had done just the opposite and see how that ended? Granted, he would have to go out on dates to meet a woman, but when it was the right time, he’d do it. There was just too much going on right now. “What about you?” Adam asked, changing the subject. “When will you start dating again? It’s been almost nine years.” Nine years since they both lost the love of their lives. Adam knew what her answer was before she even said it.
“Why waste my time on men when they’ll only hurt me in the end?”
“But you can’t think like that,” Adam replied. “They’re not all like Dad, you know. They won’t hurt you like he did.”
She nodded.
“Does that mean you agree with me?” Adam asked.
“How about this—if you start dating, then I’ll put myself out there. I’ll go to singles clubs or maybe I’ll join some of the events around town,” she said.
He knew what she was doing. If he expected his mom to get out of the house and meet men then he should take his own advice and do the same, but he wasn’t in any hurry. There wasn’t any rush to settle down. He had his whole life in front of him.
4
Kaitlyn triple-checked the kitchen before she changed for work. Usually Ben was out of the house by seven-thirty, but not today. Today, Kaitlyn had to open her big mouth and mention his traveling. She wasn’t even sure why she brought it up. She didn’t care that he traveled. No, she loved that he went out of town every week for a couple of days, leaving her to do what she wanted without any repercussions.
Kaitlyn had to beg Ben to let her work as a teacher, something she had always dreamed of since she was a child. He knew when they met in college that it was her dream, but once they got married he had changed and controlled what she did. Of course, like today, she had opened her mouth to find out if he was going out of town and he had thought she was complaining about him being gone all the time, but she wasn’t.
The minute Ben went to get dressed she texted Judy, her friend and co-worker at the school, and said that she’d be late for class this morning. This was another thing Ben didn’t allow. God forbid she had any friends in her life. She was glad that there were a few extra assistants to help in other classes. The principal would just have them fill in until she arrived. She’d just have to make sure there were no marks showing on her neck.
Three years ago, Kaitlyn had opened her own checking account and had a P.O. box for all her mail, which was next to the grocery store that she shopped at. For three years she had been taking money from her paycheck and placing it in her secret account. She didn’t want to know what he’d do to her if he found out she was hiding money. He’d probably kill her and drive out to the desert and bury her body. But then people that she worked with would know that she was missing and come looking for her. He’d never get away with it. The police always suspect the husband first. Maybe she’d do a Gone Girl on him and have him arrested for her make-believe murder and she could start a new life without him. She had plenty of money since she’d been working all these years.
Kaitlyn was dressed in five minutes and out the door in ten, scanning the landscape for Ben’s car when she walked out the front door. Since the beginning of their marriage, after he had started hitting her, she was always looking over her shoulder. She could never be too cautious of him lurking in the shadows. She always had to keep herself on guard. She learned to do this as time went by, with Ben coming out of nowhere and hitting her, threatening her, hurting her.
She wasn’t as stupid as he thought she was—well, maybe a little stupid because she still stayed with him. But it wasn’t because of love—no, that died the moment he laid a hand on her. The moment he pledged that he’d never hit her again and did. She stayed because she was afraid for her life. He’d threatened multiple times that he’d kill her parents if she ever left. If she ever told someone of their life and what he did to her, then he’d kill her.
Kaitlyn backed out of the garage and headed in the direction of the school, thinking of what life would have been like if she and Adam were still together, a guy she was dating when she started college nine years ago. She was sure he would never have hit her like Ben did. Adam was too kind and loving, something Ben was not.
The light was green as she drove through the intersection. Out of nowhere a car smashed into her car. She pivoted forward, then sideways, her head hitting the driver’s side window with a thud as her car came to a stop. She touched the side of her skull, sharp pain slicing through her head. She sat back in her seat, dazed for a few seconds, and then she began to panic. Ben would kill her or at least badly beat her for wrecking the car.
“Oh, shit. Oh, fucking shit,” she muttered. She opened the car door and slowly stepped out. She gripped the driver’s seat as dizziness swam through her head. Once it passed, she could see the other car had hit the rear driver
’s side. There was no way to fix it herself. She’d have to get it repaired.
“Are you okay, Miss?” an old woman asked. It was the same old woman she saw walking down the sidewalk with her dog as she drove down the road.
Kaitlyn nodded or at least she thought she was moving her head. She was still trying to focus on what just happened. It wasn’t her fault, was it? No, she had the right of way and the other car blew the stop light. She looked at the vehicle and saw that the person inside wasn’t getting out of the car. In fact, their head was resting on the steering wheel.
She used the car to make her way over to the driver of the other vehicle. “Excuse me, are you okay?” Kaitlyn asked as she knocked on the window. The person didn’t move. She peered through the glass. She could tell that it was an old man by the white hair on his head. She opened the door and cautiously nudged the man’s shoulder. Nothing. Oh my God, is he dead? she screamed in her head. “Sir, are you okay?” she asked again. Still nothing. She gently lifted his head and pushed his body back against the seat, so she could see if he would open his eyes. Still nothing.
“Ma’am, do you want me to call the police?” The old woman was now standing beside her.
Yes, the police, she replayed the woman’s words in her head. “Yes, call the police,” Kaitlyn said. She wasn’t sure how to help this man who was unconscious or possibly dead.
As the woman beside was making the call to 9-1-1, Kaitlyn turned and scanned over the damage done to her black Audi. She stepped back and moved toward her car with a purpose. She stared down at the ground, unsure of what she was looking at. She knelt and picked up a small black box off the ground. She turned it over in her hand, trying to figure out what it was. She remembered seeing something like this once, maybe on TV. It had a magnet on the bottom and a red light was flashing and then went out.
“Oh my God!” she mumbled. “It’s a tracking device.” Ben had placed a tracking device on her car. She began to panic as her mind flashed back to every little thing she had done for the past four years. She was sure that she’d been cautious regarding what she did and where she went. Fear coursed through her entire body and she began to tremble. She felt stupid that she didn’t think about him doing this. He had always been one step ahead of her, watching her. Why did she not think to check her car?
Flashing lights strobed around her as the emergency vehicles appeared at the scene. Kaitlyn placed the small device in her jacket pocket. She’d have to think of something. Ben would know that the tracking device wasn’t working. In that instant, she heard her phone ringing from inside the car.
5
Two hours after the Accident
The ambulance pulled up in front of the emergency entrance of Franklin Hospital, which was located outside of Edon. It was the sixth ambulance today, coming from the accident on the Ohio Turnpike. All ambulances were ordered to go to either Edon or Franklin, due to shortages in the emergency room.
The back doors of the truck sprang open and a male EMT jumped out. The driver appeared around the side and both paramedics wheeled the stretcher through the automatic sliding doors. Beds were lined up along the walls as patients waited for treatment, though the most serious ones were sent in right away to be treated.
Nurses wearing stethoscopes around their necks stood near the counter, shouting out orders. Doctors in white coats passed through closed curtains, helping injured people, most likely from the accident. A dark-haired nurse hustled over to the patient that was just brought in. “Anything you can give me on this patient? Name? Age?” the nurse asked.
The paramedic shook his head. “I got nothing right now. Once the accident gets cleared, someone should be able to get you the names of the victims brought to the hospital that are incoherent,” the male EMT said. “I had to do a tracheostomy on the way here. I don’t know how much longer this one will live. Seems to be in bad shape. He was at the bottom of the wreckage.”
The nurse nodded and started checking the vitals. The man from the accident was unresponsive. “We need to get a CT scan done on him. Check for possible hemorrhaging in the brain, then send him to x-ray and see if there’s any broken bones,” the head nurse ordered to the other nurse standing beside her.
The head nurse wheeled the man to another bed and transferred him, then the man was wheeled down the hall and through another set of doors. The radiology technician cut away his shirt and pants, getting rid of any metal that might be hidden within his clothes. All materials and personal items were placed in a bag under the bed. It took three people to help place him on the table, careful not to move his neck, and prep him for the CT scan.
Once they were finished, the unknown man was taken to x-ray and then back to the emergency ward until a room became available within the hospital. Several minutes later, the doctor in charge read over the results of the x-rays and CT scan, shaking his head. “We’ll need to prep him for surgery, stat.”
~ ~ ~
After six and a half hours in surgery, the attending nurses wheeled the unidentified man to the ICU ward. White gauze covered half his head, making him almost unrecognizable. He not only suffered from burns on the right side of his face and head but had internal bleeding of the brain due to the crash. The unknown man had two broken bones in his left femur, one broken ulna bone in his right arm and four broken ribs. The outcome didn’t look good.
“Doctor?” Nurse Leah was unsure why she was even going to ask such a question. “What is his prognosis?” she asked, holding her long, slim brown arms behind her back, like a solider reporting to her officer. At least that’s what it felt like whenever she was around Dr. Amal. He always seemed to be in a sour mood—well, at least whenever she was around.
Dr. Amal looked up from the chart in his hand, his face set in a hard stare, almost as if she annoyed him. “The patient is brain-dead. I stopped the bleeding in his brain, but there was extensive damage done from the crash. There’s nothing more I can do for him; besides, he was dying anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Leah asked.
“Although the accident didn’t do him any favors, he has a glioblastoma multiforme tumor (GBM). I couldn’t remove the tumor because of its location near the frontal lobe. The tumor is pushing against the wall of his skull and would have killed him sooner rather than later.”
Leah’s mouth started to drop open but she closed it before Dr. Amal saw her expression. Her dark brown eyes, which accented her caramel-colored skin, looked from the doctor to the man they were calling John Doe, lying in the bed. “How long do you think he’ll be on life support?”
Dr. Amal’s eyes dropped down to the chart in hand. “Until a family member is notified, and decisions are made,” Dr. Amal replied, sounding irritable, then added, as he looked up and into Nurse Leah’s eyes. “I know you’re new to my ward, but the rule is not to get too close to the patients. You’ll only be left heartbroken in the end. Brain-dead patients, unless a miracle happens, don’t leave here alive. He’s already dead,” Dr. Amal concluded before turning and walking out of the room, ending their conversation.
Nurse Leah couldn’t believe how heartless Dr. Amal had been. She hoped that he wasn’t always like this or she’d have to find another floor to work on. She turned and stared at the man lying in the bed. She hated to refer to them as John Does because really everyone had a name. She wondered what she could do to help him. Well, she couldn’t save his life, but she could help by trying to find his family. If he even had a family? She knew nothing about him and there was no identification with him when he was brought to the hospital so how was she going to find out who he was? She wasn’t sure, but she’d figure out something. It wasn’t her job to find the patient’s family, but in her heart, she wanted the family to have the chance to say goodbye, something she didn’t get with her father after she killed him.
6
Across town at Edon Hospital, as one ambulance drove away, another one pulled up. The doors to the back of the ambulance flung open and two EMTs jumped out, rolling t
he unconscious man into the emergency room that was crowded with other injured people from the accident on the Turnpike.
“I got a broken femur and possible concussion,” the woman paramedic yelled out to the attending nurse.
“Any idea who he is? Name, age?” the nurse asked.
“No identification was found on the victim. A white male approximately twenty-five to thirty years old. He was coherent at the scene, then passed out before we got him in the ambulance. I asked him his name but that’s when he went unconscious.”
“Let’s get a CT scan and some x-rays on this man,” the nurse shouted orders to another nurse several feet away. “If there’s any swelling or bleeding in the brain, I want him taken into surgery, stat.” The other nurse nodded. The unknown man was transferred to another bed and then wheeled down the hall to radiology and imaging.
Several hours later the unknown man was wheeled to ICU on the fourth floor and into a room of his own. Other than a small metal object lodged behind his right ear, the CT scan came back normal, showing no signs of bleeding or swelling to the brain, but the doctor wanted to have the man watched for the night before moving him to a different room. The man was still unconscious, most likely due to the concussion he suffered from the accident.
~ ~ ~
Officer Adanya Moore arrived at the hospital later that afternoon. She talked to several of the nurses in the emergency department, showing them the photo of the man from the wallet she’d found, only to find out everyone that was working the morning shift had gone home for the day.
The Accident Page 3