Tom struggled again to free himself. He felt the rope starting to give. The buzzing in his head grew louder, like static from the radio blasting in both his ears.
“I’ll tell you... . I’ll tell you... .”
“Good.”
“Just need water.”
Tom heard footsteps returning. Strong fingers pressed against his skull and pulled his head backward. Tom could smell the sour breath of whoever bent down to give him a drink. A plastic bottle touched against his mouth. Tom’s tongue slid out from between his cracked lips. Tom pushed his head away.
“What is it?” asked Tom.
“Water. Drink up,” the gruff-sounding man said.
Tom had wanted him to speak. Unable to see his target, Tom needed a sound cue to pinpoint his strike area. The man’s displeasing breath helped him lock on a target even more. With his wrists now free from the restraints, Tom swung his arms out from behind his back, hoping that he guessed the right level to grab hold of the man’s head.
Tom felt his hands grip a thick, round head.
Pay dirt.
Tom didn’t hesitate. The first rule of an attack is to keep on attacking.
Tom squeezed the man’s ears hard, as if they were a horse’s reins. He snapped his head forward, using the hairline area of his forehead as the striking surface. He aimed where he envisioned the man’s nose to be, heard a satisfying crunch, and felt the cartilage give way. The man didn’t scream, but Tom heard him fall.
Next, Tom ripped the blindfold from his eyes. His vision blurred by drugs and not yet adjusted to the light, he could see only Lange’s silhouette closing in fast. Maybe he was reaching for a gun, but Tom couldn’t tell. Falling to the ground, Tom slithered his body underneath the car and emerged on the other side. He used the car’s door handle for leverage to stand but still stumbled getting back to his feet. Tom noticed bright headlights to his right. They were shining on him.
He remembered they had used a car’s headlamp to illuminate his wrists when they bound them. The driver-side door looked open. Tom staggered toward the car. A gunshot rang out, but Tom didn’t turn to see what direction it came from. Instead, he jumped into the car, fumbled for the ignition, found the key, and fired up the engine.
Tom pressed down on the gas, and the car lunged forward, wheels bouncing into potholes and over rocks. He made four quick observations. First, they’d brought him to a clearing in the woods. He could see trees all around him. Second, there didn’t appear to be any other roads around, so the way in must also be the way out. Third, he’d actually taken his own car in the escape. He was driving the Taurus. Lange must have brought him to the clearing in the Impala, and the other guy had driven his car to the rendezvous spot. Maybe they were going to ditch the Taurus after Tom told them what they wanted to know.
The fourth observation was the only one that really mattered.
Lange was driving right behind him.
Glaring white lights from Lange’s Impala made it difficult for Tom to see the road ahead. A powerful jolt jarred his whole body. Lange had slammed Tom’s car from behind.
Here we go. Ford versus Chevy, thought Tom.
His heart raced and sputtered. His skin felt afire, but scratching didn’t abate the sensation. He wondered how long the drug would stay in his system. Lange bumped his car again. Tom kept driving, decelerating when he thought he saw traffic moving up ahead. He glanced down at the speedometer. Couldn’t read a single number.
The dirt road seemed to be ending. Tom jerked the steering wheel hard right and skidded onto a paved road. He heard Lange’s tires screech against the same asphalt not more than a hundred feet behind him.
The red taillights from the cars up ahead blurred together to form a single long and wavy neon light that danced before Tom’s eyes. Tom found his way into the center lane of a wide three-lane road. Cars were on every side of him. He could no longer see the road’s white-painted dividing lines. He didn’t know Lange was behind him until he felt another bump, this one hard enough to snap his head forward. The Taurus fishtailed several times, but Tom managed to straighten it out.
Tom pulled his car hard to the right. Glass broke and metal crunched as he plowed into the side of a car he didn’t see traveling beside him at the same rate of speed. The Taurus’s side mirror snapped free with a loud crack. Tom’s body shook violently from side to side, and he heard tires screeching and car horns blasting at him from all directions. He looked left and saw that Lange had pulled parallel to him in the adjacent lane. Tom jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and applied just enough brake to keep the Taurus from spinning 180 degrees around.
Sweat poured out his body and soaked his loose-fitting T-shirt. It stung at his eyes, making his already impaired vision even worse.
“Are you buckled?” Tom said aloud. He kept the pressure on the accelerator at a constant, while his hands held the steering wheel on a straight-ahead course. What little vision he had left went completely dark. Tom felt his eyelids begin to descend, as if lead weights were pulling them closed. His mouth had gone even drier, if that were possible. He didn’t know if he could hold his head up any longer. He just needed to sleep ... to close his eyes ... for just a moment.
Wake up! Wake up!
Tom came to. His internal voice had been screaming at him. His vision returned slightly, just enough for him to see a ball of red light coming toward him. As it neared, the ball grew from a barely visible speck to a blinding red glow. He could see other balls of red. Cars, Tom managed to think. Stopped at a traffic light. No time to brake.
Tom turned the wheel and punched the gas pedal to the floor. The car lurched forward with a force that made his stomach drop and his body go tense. He felt a violent jolt, and his whole body shook when Lange’s car slammed into the side of the Taurus. Their cars locked together.
Tom bit his tongue until blood began to seep into his mouth. The shock was just enough to counter the drugs. His vision cleared slightly. He was in the center lane, with Lange’s car pressed up against his door.
Tom saw the opening he needed.
He saw a light post, too.
His escape.
He jerked the wheel and broke away from Lange’s car. He pushed against the gas pedal as far as it would go. He kept the car on a diagonal trajectory as it rocketed forward. Lange pursued Tom from behind.
Tom threaded the Taurus between two cars and, having seen the light post through the gap, spun the wheel to avoid a direct hit. He counted on Lange not having seen what he maneuvered to avoid. The side of Tom’s car scraped against a light post cemented into the sidewalk. He glanced over his left shoulder, just in time to see Lange’s vehicle slam into that very same post without slowing. Lange’s car folded in on itself as the stone post crushed metal and glass.
Tom’s car hadn’t stopped moving, as he hoped it would. Instead, it listed hard to its side, two wheels lifting off the ground. Then it flipped over onto its roof. The car began to slide down an embankment. Tom was knocked unconscious. Otherwise, he would have been screaming.
Chapter 50
“Tom...Tom, can you hear me?”
Tom blinked. The darkness receded. In its place came a flood of light so intense that it forced his eyes shut again.
“Tom ... try one more time. Try to open your eyes.”
Tom blinked again and kept blinking, because each flash of light hurt too much to keep the lids open.
“Good. You’re doing great,” the voice said.
Tom continued to blink until he opened his eyes wide. The first thing he saw was a face staring down at him. His vision was blurry, but the face was clearly a man’s, though Tom didn’t recognize him. He tried to lift his head, but the pain exploding from someplace behind his eyes was nothing short of extraordinary. He grunted and fell back onto a soft pillow.
“Don’t try to do too much at once,” the man said. “I’m Dr. Paul Prince. You’ve been in a bad accident. You’re in the hospital. Do you remember anything about that?�
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Tom let his mind relax so that he could process the man’s words.
A doctor. An accident. A hospital.
Tom’s throat felt parched, but he wanted to speak. “No. I don’t.”
“Well, that’s not uncommon from a patient coming out of a coma,” the doctor said.
He tried to move his right hand to scratch his cheek. His hand moved only two inches toward his face. He heard the sound of metal scraping against metal, and his hand jerked to a sudden stop. He looked down and saw a handcuff secured around his right wrist. The other end was locked around the bed railing.
“What the hell? What’s going on?” Tom’s strength returned with an intense rush of anger. He managed to work himself into a seated position, though it took some maneuvering of the handcuff and a little help from Dr. Prince. “I demand an explanation,” Tom said, though he was breathless because it hurt that much to move.
Before Dr. Prince could answer, the door to Tom’s hospital room flew open and Marvin Pressman came storming in. He clutched a piece of paper in his left hand.
“Get the police in here right now, and get this man unlocked,” Marvin barked at the doctor. Prince didn’t budge or respond. Marvin didn’t back down. “Do it now, or I swear I’ll have the Joint Commission here tomorrow for a surprise hospital inspection, and trust me when I say you won’t like what they’ll find.”
Dr. Prince gave Marvin an angry look. “It’s my understanding that this man is in violation of his bail and that he poses a flight risk. That’s what the police told us.”
“And exactly what violation are you referring to, Doctor?” Marvin growled back.
“Driving under the influence.”
Marvin fluttered the piece of paper in front of Prince’s face in a taunting way. “Well, I have a medical power of attorney for Mr. Hawkins. His toxicology report from your lab just came in. Guess what it showed?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Dr. Prince replied in a calm, low voice.
“Marvin, where’s Jill? Is she here?” Tom asked.
Marvin placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder. He looked down at his client and said, “Yes, but hang on a second, Tom. Let me get this straightened out first. The toxicology report shows enough scopolamine in his system to knock out an elephant, that’s what.”
Tom shook his head, because he’d never heard of the drug before. “What the hell is scopol—whatever you said?”
“It’s a colorless, odorless, tasteless drug used to treat motion sickness and Parkinson’s disease.”
“Why would I be given that?” asked Tom.
“It’s also used by criminals to commit robbery and date rape, not to mention prisoner interrogations. It zaps your memory, along with a lot of other functions,” Marvin explained. “If you think my client intentionally ingested this narcotic, get ready for that inspection I promised you.”
Prince was visibly flustered. Red splotches on his face showed his anger. “The officer in charge of Mr. Hawkins’s case told me to call him the moment he awoke. I’ll do so right now. Though we do have a key, in case of a medical emergency.”
“Then I suggest that you go and get it. Now, Doctor.” Marvin’s smile to Prince was really just a reminder of his threat.
Prince, in turn, called for a nurse to come check Tom’s vitals. He left the room with a snort of disgust.
“I’m guessing the last name of that officer in charge is Murphy,” Tom said.
“And you’d be right,” Marvin said. He added, “I can get Murphy’s badge for what he did to you here. But it’s not worth the fight right now. We need to keep our focus on your trial.”
“What the hell happened to me?”
“Well, I’m not a doctor,” Marvin said as he flipped through a series of charts and reports attached to a clipboard at the foot of Tom’s bed. “From what I’m reading here, I’d say you’ve suffered a grade-three concussion and apparently came within inches of never walking again. Just a little something.”
Marvin grabbed a chair and came around to the side of the bed. He sat down and got himself eye level with Tom. The concern shown on Marvin’s face told Tom that his lawyer considered him a friend, too.
“You think I was drugged?”
“I think that somebody couldn’t wait for your trial to punish you,” Marvin said matter-of-factly. Marvin glanced at the toxicology report in his hand. He turned on a floor lamp to help him read the file. Tom winced in pain and groaned as soon as the light came on.
“Sorry, buddy,” Marvin said. He switched off the lamp. “I’m not up on all the concussion symptoms. I guess that sensitivity to light is one of them.” Marvin pushed himself up and out of his chair with a grunt. He crossed the room and stepped over to a window that was letting in a good deal of sunlight.
Tom followed Marvin with his eyes. He noticed a cup with a straw on a nearby tray. He leaned over, desperate to quench a desertlike thirst, but his handcuffs kept the drink just out of reach. Marvin lowered the window shade and handed Tom the cup.
“Thanks for the drink,” Tom said after a long sip. “How long have I been in the hospital?” he asked.
Marvin glanced at his watch. “The accident happened last night. It’s noon now. A bit shy of twelve hours, I’d say.”
“Look, Marvin ... I don’t remember anything,” Tom said, as if it were a secret.
Marvin returned a telling look. “Two cars were involved in the accident. Witnesses are saying it was road rage on the part of the other driver. That driver died of his injuries. Tom, it was Kip Lange.”
Chapter 51
Tom let out a long, deep breath. “Lange’s dead,” he said in a voice that didn’t disguise his relief.
“What happened to you out there, Tom?”
Tom told Marvin all he could remember—about the phone call from Lange, about scouting Johnny Rockets for a possible ambush, about meeting Lange—but after that, his memories vanished.
“How do you think you got drugged?” asked Marvin.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “The coffee, maybe. That’s all I drank.”
“But you didn’t see Lange slip anything into your drink.”
“No,” Tom said. “I doubt it was any of the waitstaff. But I can’t be sure. Maybe there was a manager on duty, someone I didn’t see.”
Marvin leaned in close and seemed to study Tom’s face. “That’s a nasty injury you’ve got there,” he said. “Have you seen it?”
“What? No beauty pageants in my future?”
Marvin scrutinized the injury even more intently. “Doesn’t look like it could have come from a car accident,” he said, with his eye inches from Tom’s face. “There’s a pattern to it, too. It looks like ... like a star. Do you remember being hit in the face? Punched?”
Tom couldn’t easily shake his head to tell Marvin no.
“Something about it ... Do you mind if I snap a picture?”
Tom forced a weak smile. “Don’t post it to Facebook,” he said.
Marvin chuckled and snapped a few pictures with his cell phone. He put his phone away, then picked up Tom’s, which had been resting atop the dresser by the hospital bed.
“I’ve got most of the stuff police recovered from your car in a cardboard box at my office. But I figured you’d want to have your phone by the bed.”
“Yeah, Lange might be calling to cut a deal,” said Tom.
“Not unless you believe in ghosts. They found more of Lange on the light post than they did inside his car.”
“Is it going to be harder to prove Lange was the one framing me now that he’s dead?” asked Tom.
“We don’t know for sure that it even was Lange,” Marvin said. “For all we know, it could have been Murphy working outside the law to make his case against you, or a disgruntled player, a parent even.”
“You don’t really believe that. Do you?” Tom said. “The motive just isn’t there. Lange’s the only one with a real reason to frame me. He wanted what he thought I had. It’s obvious.”
“That’s the way we’re going to beat this rap,” Tom said. “I’m sure of it.”
“Hope you’re right, buddy,” Marvin said. “But something isn’t adding up for me.”
“What isn’t?”
“Lange never made one real extortion attempt. And whoever did this frame job knows his computer chops. I mean, really knows what he’s doing. Computer skills classes in prison are good, but they’re not that good.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we might not be out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.”
Tom took another long sip of water and was about to respond to what Marvin had said when his hospital room door opened slowly. A head poked into the room. It took Tom a moment to realize that it was Jill. His face brightened.
“Is it okay to come in?” Jill asked Marvin.
Marvin nodded his head in Tom’s direction. “He looks happy to see you,” the lawyer replied.
“I am happy,” Tom said. “Come give your old man a hug.” Tom lifted his arms to accept an embrace but forgot about his handcuffed wrist. The metal scraped loudly against the bed frame. Jill took a few steps backward, as if she’d been pushed.
“Get that doctor in here, and get these handcuffs off me. Will you, Marvin?” Tom asked. He managed to keep his voice calm despite his embarrassment.
“On it. Excuse me, Jill.” Marvin shot Tom an apologetic look and left the room to go find Prince.
Tom shrugged and hoisted his chained wrist again. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Jill,” Tom said. “I’m just glad that you’re here.” Jill kept her distance, but Tom managed to coax her forward a few feet with his unencumbered arm. When he pointed to the chair by his bedside, Jill sat down.
“You look okay,” Jill said. “I mean, considering what could have happened.”
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