"Quit the formality, Gerald. It's not like we’ve ve never met before. Is he okay?" Jorja said, ignoring the backhanded question, her voice steely and without expression.
The doctor's cheeks flushed with embarrassment as if he’d just been caught in a lie, then he answered, his voice less formal.
"For now, yes. His case is complicated but we think he’s stabilized and out of immediate danger. We'll monitor him and know more over the next twenty-four hours."
"You think he's out of danger. What does that mean?" Jorja pushed, suddenly annoyed.
“As I said, Miss Rose, his case is a complicated one, it's simply—”
"You said that already. Complicated isn't an answer so break it down for me, Doctor. Is he going to make it?"
Two could play this game, she thought, and crossed her arms while holding his gaze. He frowned and let out a sigh, looking irritated with her, but she didn't care. The look in her eyes intensified, letting the good doctor know that she wasn't playing around. He succumbed.
"The bullet did a lot of damage and he lost a substantial amount of blood. It shattered his scapula and deflected, rupturing his subclavian artery. We managed to remove most of the bone fragments but there is a significant risk of hemorrhages and pseudo-aneurysm formation. I am afraid it becomes a waiting game. We will monitor him very closely but he will be under sedation to reduce the risk and it is highly possible he will need a second operation. There is just no way of knowing at this moment. It is best you go home and try to get some rest, Doctor’s orders. We will call you if anything changes. I'm sure the police will be in touch with you very soon too."
Dr. Barker dropped the clipboard into the basket that hung from the foot of Ewan's bed, sending a message that he was done with the conversation as directly as anyone could. When he walked past her the look in his eyes became accusing, as if he thought her to be involved with something illegal. The town's gossip had undoubtedly reached his ears, which also explained why he’d kept the conversation so formal. He promptly turned and left the room, nodding to the nurse to escort Jorja out.
When the taxi dropped Jorja off at home, her head was still spinning. How was it that suddenly everything was caving in around her? Everything had been just fine for years, decades. Why had it suddenly changed? Could the patient with the piercing blue eyes have been right? Was this God's way of nudging her into correcting what she had done wrong, finding closure instead of hiding from her deepest, darkest past?
Deep in thought, she cuddled Vincent then popped a bowl of fresh food in front of him. He reminded her of Charlie's theory the night before. If Charlie was onto something, Myles' murder could very well have had everything to do with her. For one, the art he bought through her was missing, and then there was the murder weapon.
She glanced back at the clock on her kitchen wall—it had just gone 7 a.m. Her hands fumbled for her cell phone in her purse—she had snatched it from her desk at the gallery without checking if her phone was still in it before she and Charlie left for the hospital. Relieved when she found it at the bottom of her bag, she dialed the police station.
"Hello, is Sergeant Chapwyn in, please?" She didn’t recognize the receptionist's voice.
She transferred the call without hesitation and Charlie's voice came on in less than two rings.
"Jorja, I thought you'd never call. How's Ewan, any news?"
"Hi, Charlie, sorry, I didn't have news until a short while ago. He's not doing that well. The bullet shattered his clavicle and ruptured an artery. He's in ICU, under sedation. There is a chance it might lead to an aneurysm so they need to keep an eye on him. The doctor said his case was complicated and that there's nothing we can do but wait."
Charlie sighed heavily, his voice less enthusiastic when he spoke again.
"We're going to catch whoever did this, Jorja. I have every station from here to Bristol looking for this guy. Thanks to Ann's curiosity, her shop's security camera picked up an image of the man. Blurry, but at least it's something. A week ago, I mocked her for using it to spy on everyone, but low and behold, it finally served its purpose. Anyway, like I said, we're going to find this guy, Jorja."
"Thanks, Charlie. Any chance you could show me his picture. Maybe I can corroborate that it was the same guy."
"I thought you said you didn't really see the guy."
"I didn't, but maybe I’ll remember something." She quickly corrected herself. She needed to see for herself if it was the same man who was outside her shop the day Myles died.
Charlie groaned telling her he was wrestling with the decision then he whispered, "I'm supposed to wait for clearance first, that's why I haven't been able to bring you in for questioning yet. Give me a day or so. I think since you were a victim too it's only fair to see if it might jar your memory or something. I will send it to your email once I get the thumbs-up. You can have a look and let me know if you recognize him. Sound good?"
"Sounds good, yes, and, Charlie, any weight behind that theory of yours? Do you still think they were after the Claude Monet collection?"
She bit her bottom lip as she waited for his answer.
"Yep, my chief inspector agrees. The paintings are nowhere to be found so it has become our primary motive. He's in talks with someone at Scotland Yard as we speak. I guess we will know more soon. We don't usually handle this type of thing here in St. Ives, you know. With Ewan in hospital, I’m a bit out of my depth here. But I do know they will most probably need you to hand over Myles' purchase receipts and all the paperwork related to the paintings, so hold onto those for now, please. And Jorja, perhaps don't leave town or anything. I know with the art fair coming up and all you probably need to pop up to London, but you might want to stay put. We don't want to draw any more suspicion to you."
He bit his tongue the moment the last sentence left his lips, but it was too late. Jorja had already realized what was going on behind the scenes.
"Of course," she responded without emotion.
When they ended the call Jorja knew exactly what she needed to do. It didn't take much time for her to lock her doors and windows before she made her way up to the hidden space beneath the floor inside her bedroom cupboard. Her heart thumped as she retrieved the small leather duffle bag and tipped the contents out onto her bed. With nervous energy now pumping through her body, her fingers moved quickly over the contents on her bed, snatching up the radio pager when she found it. From the drawer in her bedside table, she found a new single cell battery and popped it into the pager. As she waited for the device to come alive she threw her head back, shut her eyes, and drew in a deep breath, exhaling slowly as her fingers moved between the buttons.
The device connected to the private radio signal almost instantly and a fresh wave of nerves washed over her. She typed in the message.
‘You said to get in touch if ever I was in trouble. Well, I'm in trouble.’
When she was done, she tossed the pager onto her bed as if it were hot and had just burned her hand, and then took a seat next to it to wait. She stared anxiously at the small LCD screen, it took longer than she remembered it taking back then, so she jumped up and nervously paced the bedroom. For a brief moment doubt dropped into her stomach. Perhaps the radio transmission was obsolete—it had been so long and no one used pagers anymore.
But a few moments later, the message notification blinked on the small screen. Her heart nearly stopped, causing her fingers to shake as she opened it to read.
Pick me a few sunflowers
The corners of her lips instantly lifted when she saw the single line of text flash across the screen. Some things never change, she thought fondly as she turned the pager off and dropped it back onto the bed. The alarm clock next to her bed flashed 7:42 a.m. If she left by eight she should be in London around two, leaving her an hour to get to their meeting place. It would be tight but she might just pull it off if the traffic played along. The meeting should be quick, a few hours at the most, so she could be back home before midnight, before a
nyone realized she had left town.
Chapter Twelve
Knowing she had to take the long way out of St. Ives in order to remain undetected by the residents, or worse, the authorities, Jorja was well on her way in less than thirty minutes. She had managed to take a quick shower and got rid of the hospital tee shirt, replacing it with a plain white tee, a pair of dark-blue denim jeans, and the black leather jacket she hadn't worn in almost twenty years. Surprised it still fit she glanced at herself in the car's rear-view mirror. She had swept her hair back over her head, leaving it to curl slightly at the nape of her neck instead of it waving softly around her face, the same way she used to wear it when he last saw her. She was nervous, anxious even, more about seeing him again than being seen leaving town.
Her hands tensed around the steering wheel when she eventually reached the A30 bypass toward London. With her heart thumping hard in her chest, she now knew that there was no turning back. She’d known the moment she got into her car, always known that she'd only be able to run from her past for so long and that this day was bound to come. Yet, she had secretly hoped it never would.
When she reached the outskirts of London five hours later, she decided to leave her car at a small roadside hotel near Heathrow Airport—one she had used plenty of times in the past when she was on a job. She had thought it best to take the train into Trafalgar Square and go on foot from there. Partly to circumvent the traffic, but mostly to ensure she wasn't followed. She had been careful when she left town and hadn't seen anyone follow her to the city but then again she had been recently surprised one too many times by intruders she never saw coming. She was rusty and that was enough cause for her to be extra cautious—and extra anxious.
The hotel looked exactly as it had when she had last seen it, apart from it having a new name. She parked her car in the farthest corner under a large tree and out of sight of the surveillance cameras she had spotted as she approached; the second thing that had changed since she'd last been there. She took a moment to calm herself before grabbing her small satchel from the passenger seat. When she was certain no one was around, she reached inside and took out her SIG. She had loaded the clip at home before she left but she did one more check, then slipped it back in place. With the safety on, she tucked it inside a concealed pocket of her jacket, zipped up her bag, and swung it onto her back as she got out of the car.
Somewhere to her right, she spotted movement, but when she looked there was nothing there. She paused for a moment, just to be sure, but still didn't see anyone. Brushing it off as her mind playing tricks on her, she set off toward the train station a block away. She would reach Trafalgar Square via Paddington and Charing Cross stations and then it would be a quick walk to the National Gallery. Being back in the city excited her. She loved the tranquility of St. Ives but more often than not, she felt claustrophobic, trapped, and was reminded of where she had grown up. All she wanted to do from the moment she’d turned sixteen was run away, travel the world, see any town that would take more than fifteen minutes to walk across. A lot of good that did her, she thought, as she sat down on the train. After finally managing to escape a small town, life had forced her back. The very thing that once made her feel trapped now made her feel safe. Or did it?
There were already half a dozen passengers in the railcar plus three more who got on with her; a young couple, and a man she guessed to be in his late sixties. He sat a few seats down from her, took out his newspaper, and buried himself in its pages until they reached Paddington. Switching platforms she noticed he also switched and got onto the Charing Cross train with her, again seated a few seats away from her. Something inside her warned of danger and her body tensed. Her eyes fixed on his paper, watching closely to see if his eyes trailed the writing on the page as they would when one read from left to right. They didn't. Instead, they remained fixed in one spot on the middle of the page as if his attention was on his peripheral vision instead. She decided to put him to the test and got up to move to an opposite seat. As soon as she sat down, he turned the page and shifted his sights, practicing the same ritual. She homed in on the date of the newspaper. It was three days old, enough to tell her that her instincts were accurate. She was being followed and it was not by a six-foot-three man with broad shoulders.
Her heart pounded against her chest as they neared Charing Cross station. This was her only chance to lose him. There were about ten more passengers on the train, four of whom were a group of students huddled together near one of the exit doors.
Timing was everything.
As the train slowed into the station she readied herself, tensing her legs up to bolt for the door when the time came. In her experience, there was always a chance that he might be much younger—and less rusty—than his disguise portrayed, so she would have to be especially quick. Once the chime sounded she knew she had only three seconds at the most to exit before the door closed, less if the train was running late and needed to make up for lost time. Her eyes darted back to him. His body was rigid, tense, ready to move, his eyes pinned on the same spot in the paper. When the train stopped and a few passengers disembarked, she remained seated, all the while keeping an eye on the old man whose body language now seemed unsuspecting and more relaxed behind his paper. Her bluff had paid off. The chime sounded and she counted off the timing in her head. He looked up at her as if he sensed what she was planning.
Timed perfectly, Jorja was on her feet and charging for the door. He was as quick, right behind her. So close that she could smell his sweaty armpits. But she was quicker and slipped through just in time before the door fully shut between them. When she turned back, she found the man pressed against the door's window, his fingers wrestling to open the door. From beneath the bushy white eyebrows she now knew were not his own, his eyes were angry, warning her that she had not yet won.
Following her narrow escape, Jorja picked up her pace until she reached her destination. She knew the National Gallery like the back of her hand. It had been the place she visited most often when she absconded from school. She would go to school in the morning for registration, then sneak away between classes to catch the nine thirty train to London. She would walk into the gallery by 1 p.m. like clockwork every Wednesday. Being back there again had her feeling giddy. As she took the stairs to the second level, she glanced at her wristwatch. She was early. It would give her time to compose herself, prepare. She lingered over the paintings on the way to Room 43. Corbet, Delacroix, Monet, all artists she adored. Excitement welled up inside her as she entered the Van Gogh room. Her eyes fell on the artist's Sunflowers painting and she took a seat on the empty bench in front of it. Painted in 1888 the oil on canvas painting lured her in as it had always done since the first day she laid eyes on it. She compared her life with the different stages of the sunflower's life cycle as was depicted in the painting. From young bud through maturity, and eventually, decay. She couldn't help wondering if she was in the maturity stage facing decay. But she shrugged it off as her poetic side running away with her and that she was still a long way from decay.
In the stillness of the empty exhibition room, she heard his footsteps approaching, sensed his presence in the room. But she couldn't bring herself to turn and look. She wasn't ready; it had been so long. Her heart skipped a beat, her hands felt clammy. Suddenly she felt her body temperature rise and was certain she was going to erupt at any moment.
Then his deep, warm voice came up behind her and instantly melted her insides.
Chapter Thirteen
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?”
He took a seat next to her, his body warm and safe and his presence as magnetic as she remembered. When their eyes met, she instantly knew why the stranger in the hospital chapel had felt so comforting. His piercing blue eyes and tanned skin had reminded her of him.
"Hello, Ben," she greeted him, her voice gentle and full of emotion.
Their eyes remained locked for what seemed like an eternity, allowing them to return to the last
time they were together, to remember what they once shared.
When a small group of school kids and their teacher entered the room behind them, the commotion pulled them back into the present and Jorja spoke first.
"How have you been?"
A small smile broke across his face.
"You mean since you broke my heart and disappeared?"
"I had no choice, Ben."
"I know. You did what you had to and life went on." He scanned her face. "You look just the same, Georgina."
"So do you, Ben." She scanned the room then continued. "No one calls me that anymore though. It's Jorja now, Jorja Rose." She waited for his reaction.
"Jorja Rose. Suits you. That explains why I could never find you." His voice cracked and his body suddenly tensed up.
There was nothing she could say that would fix what was already done, so she allowed the silence to heal what was broken, and turned her gaze to the painting.
"This was our first," he broke the silence. "I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were just kids, but oh, that thrill."
"We were lucky. If it were not for Mr. Evans, we would have ended up in juvie. I still don't know why he covered for us."
"He liked you, almost as much as he liked this place. Besides, he was close to retirement. He probably saw it as a way to cash in on his retirement sooner, I reckon."
Ben turned to study her face.
"Do you miss it?"
Jorja tensed up. She knew the answer to that question all too well.
"I do, more than I should. But it's been twenty years and a lot has changed since then."
She found him looking down at her left hand.
"That has never changed."
It was her turn to look at his hand. A narrow white imprint where a ring had once been traced the tanned skin around his ring finger. It was as if someone had stabbed a hot poker through her heart.
Vengeance is Mine: A Jorja Rose Christian Suspense Thriller (Valley of Death Book 1) Page 6