Family in Hiding

by Valerie Hansen

  “When? Did you see where he went?”

  The man shrugged. “Nope. I hollered at him and he took off. Sorry.” He restarted the winch.

  At a loss, Grace fought to maintain self-control. Her body was trembling all the way to its core and she wanted to scream at God for putting her in this untenable situation.

  That was when she realized that God had not forsaken her. If anything, He was still looking out for her—for her entire family. Not only had Dylan survived the accident, she and the children had been spared. If she had been driving with her family in the van there was no telling how many of them might have been injured. Or worse.

  With her two youngest in tow she began to wend her way through the crowd that was now dispersing. “A little boy with red hair,” she announced loudly, “Have any of you seen him? He’s ten. Big for his age. Please? Anybody?”

  By the tenth time she’d repeated herself she was starting to lose hope. If Kyle had been the boy the wrecker driver had seen, surely he wouldn’t have headed home so soon.

  “Unless he watched his father leave in the ambulance,” she murmured.

  Out of options and feeling more unsteady by the minute, Grace began to retrace her steps down Richmond Avenue, praying as she went.

  “Please, Jesus. Help us. Help me. Please?”

  That was when she spotted him. Kyle was leaning against a fence. One hand held a cell phone. He was pushing its buttons with the other.

  “Kyle!” Grace’s voice was strident enough to carry over the surrounding din.

  The boy jumped as if being electrically shocked. He dropped the cell phone. Stared at his mother openmouthedly.

  Grace had to practically drag her daughter to move as fast as she wanted. The moment they reached her eldest she grabbed him by the shoulder and bent, nose to nose. “What did you think you were doing? Why didn’t you stop when I called to you?”

  “I just—”

  “And where did you get that cell phone?”

  “It’s o-okay,” the boy stammered. “It’s Dad’s.”

  “Is that what you were doing by the van?”

  Kyle’s mop of red hair bobbed. “I went looking for Dad. The phone was just lying there in the street, so I picked it up right before some mean guy chased me away.”

  “What were you doing just now? Who were you calling?”

  “Nobody. I just thought—”

  “Well, don’t think. Don’t even move, you hear me?”

  Grace released the boy’s shoulders and scooped up the phone, praying it still worked.

  She pulled up the menu and selected the marshal’s programmed number. A man answered.

  “This is Mary Grace Appleby in Houston, Texas,” she began before he finished introducing himself. “There’s been an accident. I need help. Now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I just told you.”

  “No,” the man said so calmly she wanted to shout at him. “I mean, are you at the house?”

  “No. About two blocks away.”

  “Go straight home, lock the doors and stay put. We’ll send someone to you.”

  “I’ll need another car,” she blurted, knowing she was coming across as panicky yet unable to stifle her feelings of being in limbo. “And they’ve taken my husband to the hospital in an ambulance. They wouldn’t let me go with him because I had the kids.”

  “Calm down, Mrs. Appleby. We’ll take care of him for you. Just follow my orders and go straight home.”

  “All right. I will.”

  “Good. Call me back at this number when you get there.”

  It occurred to Grace to also tell him that she was so nervous, so in shock from almost losing Dylan—not to mention Kyle—that she could hardly force herself to put one foot in front of the other.

  Instead she turned to God, first with more thanks for protecting her and the children, then with a plea for Dylan and finally asking for the strength to make it home on her own.

  The quaking that went clear to her bones did not cease. Her heart continued to race and her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow.

  Nevertheless her legs continued to support her somehow and she started back the way she had come.

  One step at a time.

  One heartfelt prayer after another.

  FIFTEEN

  The hours Dylan spent languishing in the ER while he waited for the test results were some of the longest of his life. Until the X-rays and scans were analyzed he’d been told he’d have to remain immobilized, just in case his neck or spine was broken. Since he could move his toes and fingers he figured he was fine, but he was educated enough to know he’d better not move before he was given the official okay.

  Scrubs-clad nurses and doctors stopped by the curtained cubicle to check him periodically although none of them seemed to know how long he’d have to stay or whether they’d found any serious injuries.

  He couldn’t see a clock from where he lay, nor did he have a wristwatch or his cell phone, so he lost all track of time except for counting the drips from the saline IV in his arm and watching the level of clear solution in the bag slowly going down.

  One of the female nurses he recognized from earlier in the day poked her head through a gap in the curtains, smiled and said, “It shouldn’t be long now, Mr. Appleby. I’m going off duty. Don’t worry. Somebody else will be checking on you.”

  “Thanks. I’d like to go home if I can.”

  “We’ll see. Hang in there.” She glanced at the monitors that were recording his vital signs. “Looks good. You’re doing fine.”

  He smiled back at her. “Thanks. Go tell that to the doctor, will you?”

  “He’ll be in to see you soon, I’m sure.” And with that she was gone.

  Dylan sighed, noticing as he did so that his right side hurt. Even if he didn’t have broken ribs, they were probably bruised from the seat belt.

  “At least I didn’t fly through the windshield,” he murmured to himself, wondering how he might have fared if he had not remembered to use the safety restraints.

  The curtain moved as it always did when someone passed and stirred the air. He heard a deep voice ask someone nearby if he was John Appleby and receive a negative answer.

  Soft footsteps approached his cubicle. The curtains parted. A burly male nurse stepped through and made eye contact. “You’re Appleby, right?”

  Dylan would have nodded if his head had not been strapped down. “Yes.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Any news on when I can leave?” Dylan asked.

  “You’ll be out of here soon,” the nurse told him before smiling to reveal a cracked front tooth.

  Dylan didn’t know whether it was the bad dental care, the man’s tone of voice or his overall demeanor that made him nervous, but something sure did. The hair on the back of his neck began to prickle and he felt his whole body tensing as the man approached.

  The next thing Dylan noticed was that the nurse lacked the customary stethoscope hanging around his neck or sticking out of his pocket. What he did have, however, was a wicked-looking syringe.

  “I was told they couldn’t give me anything for the pain until they’d studied the test results,” Dylan told him, expecting an explanation or at least an answer.

  None came. The man simply held up the hypodermic and removed the safety cap covering the needle.

  That was when Dylan realized he was in trouble. It was the nurse’s hands that gave him away. They weren’t clean. There was dark matter beneath his fingernails and stains on the calloused skin, as if the man was actually an auto mechanic by trade and had come straight from work.

  “Stop!” Dylan shouted. “Get away from me!”

  With a broadening grin that exposed a dingy row of teeth,
the so-called nurse gave a hoarse chuckle. “Hey, man, simmer down.” He displayed the syringe. “This is empty. See?”

  He pulled back the plunger until the tube was filled with air, then reached for the port on the line to Dylan’s IV.

  The injected air formed a long, empty space where the liquid had been. Dylan watched the bubble inching its way downward to the needle imbedded in his arm. He wasn’t a doctor but he’d read enough mystery novels and watched enough cop shows on TV to know what was about to happen.

  There was only one way to stop the air from entering his veins and causing a stroke.

  He used his free arm to reach for the tube, meaning to yank it free.

  A strong, meaty hand closed around his wrist and stopped him.

  Wide-eyed, Dylan watched the bubble slip closer and closer. He was going to die. And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  * * *

  Grace made it as far as the steps of her front porch before collapsing. The children gathered around her, clearly empathetic. Even Kyle showed concern.

  When he sat next to her and said, “I’m sorry,” she slipped her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug. It was natural for kids to disobey occasionally, trying their wings so to speak. The problem was less about Kyle than it was about the whole situation. And right now she was too spent to waste energy being upset.

  “Just don’t run off again, honey. Please? I was so worried about you.”

  “I wasn’t gonna go that far, but then I got to thinking about when Dad left and how it might be him, so I had to go see.”

  “Did you get to talk to him?”

  “No. They wouldn’t let me.”

  Grace nodded. “What you did was very dangerous. We smelled spilled gasoline. There could have been a fire.”

  “There were lots of firemen.”

  She knew that might not have been enough to keep the boy from being burned but was too weary to argue. Her head was throbbing and her vision kept blurring, not to mention the tremors she couldn’t seem to wish away. She felt as if she’d been slogging through hip-deep quicksand instead of walking on a firm sidewalk.

  That was exactly how her legs felt, she realized. They were leaden and aching. Each step home had been a struggle to lift her foot and take the next step. And the next. That she had managed to reach the duplex at all was a wonder.

  The phone on which she had notified the marshals began to vibrate and sound off in her pocket.

  Fumbling it out after three full rings, Grace answered. “Hello?”

  “Are you home?” an unfamiliar man’s voice asked.

  “Who—who is this?”

  “U.S. Marshal Colton Phillips, Denver office. I happened to be close by when we heard about your husband’s accident so I got the temporary assignment. How is he?”

  That query was almost enough to undo Grace. “I don’t know. They took him to the hospital. I couldn’t go because of the kids.”

  “Which hospital?”

  She racked her brain. “I think the paramedic said Memorial. I didn’t get any more details than that.”

  “It’s enough. Since you’re home safe I’m not going to stop there first. Once I get backup, one of us will contact you with information and further instructions, if it ends up being necessary. In the meantime, I’ve asked local law enforcement to keep an eye on your place. They should be there any second.”

  “Are you going to go find Dylan first?” That had been her most fervent prayer and she was relieved when Marshal Phillips affirmed it.

  She wanted to instruct the marshal to tell Dylan that she loved him but quickly thought better of it. If and when she did end up confessing that her feelings toward her husband were changing for the better, she wanted to do it to his face. Wanted to observe his reactions for herself.

  And today I almost lost my last chance to tell him, Grace concluded, wondering if she would ever get an opportunity that came at just the right time. Was there such a thing as a perfect time for anything? Or was she going to put off easing Dylan’s mind about their pending divorce until it was too late?

  That morose thought settled in her core and made her feel as if she were swimming in a pool of regret, about to be sucked under and drowned.

  Grace looked to her children and realized she needed to act, for their sakes if not for her own.

  “All right,” she said, pushing off the wooden steps and getting to her feet. “The marshal said to go inside and lock the doors so that’s what we’re going to do. March.”

  She noted that Kyle opened his mouth, probably intending to argue, then apparently thought better of the idea and began to herd his siblings toward the front door.

  To her chagrin, she realized that when she had run off in pursuit of the boy she had left her side of the house open. Well, the police who were now pulling up to the curb could check the place for her if it looked as though someone else had been inside.

  What mattered most was Dylan. Even if the marshal wasn’t at the hospital yet, that didn’t mean she couldn’t call to ask about her husband’s condition.

  The phone book listed only one Houston hospital with Memorial in its name, although there were multiple numbers for the various departments.

  She chose the Emergency one and began to try to push the appropriate number sequence. Her fingers were quivering so badly she didn’t get it right until her third try.

  “This is Mrs. Appleby,” she said as she clutched the phone so tightly her hands ached. “My husband was in an accident and the paramedics said they were taking him there.”

  “One moment please.”

  Grace was about to hang up and try again when the same person returned. “Yes, ma’am. Your husband is with us.”

  “How is he? When can he come home?”

  “I’m sorry. All I know is that he’s not ready to be released. But I might be able to let you talk to him.”

  Grace’s heart leaped. “Could I? That’s great!”

  “Hold please.”

  Cradling the little phone as if it were Dylan’s cheek, she finally let her tears flow freely. If he could talk on the phone, that meant he hadn’t taken a turn for the worse after they’d hauled him away.

  The nurse returned. “I’m sorry. He didn’t pick up.”

  Grace heard paper shuffling.

  “Ah, this explains it. He’s being kept immobile. Tell you what. I’ll get someone to take him a portable phone and hold it up for him. How does that sound?”

  “Wonderful. Thank you so much.”

  “No problem, dear. I know what it’s like to worry about a hubby.”

  Grace could hear voices overlapping in the background, followed by, “Thanks, Hal. I owe you one.”

  “An orderly is on his way, Mrs. Appleby. Stay on the line and your husband will be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  The quaint, country expression made Grace smile through silent tears of relief. All she needed was to hear the sound of Dylan’s voice again and she’d be okay.

  There was a click on the line, followed by a male voice asking, “Which bed?”

  “Over there. On the end.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  If she had been the least apprehensive Grace might not have been so astounded when she heard somebody shout, “Hey! What’re you doing?”

  The phone apparently hit the floor right after that because there was a sound of plastic cracking. Then a scuffle and banging. Cursing was abruptly cut off.

  She screamed “Dylan!” before realizing that there was nobody on the other end of the line anymore, which was just as well since she’d been too overwrought to remember to use his new name this time, too.

  In the background she could hear more than one speaker. She sank to her knees on the living room rug and list
ened as tears streaked her cheeks and dripped onto her T-shirt.

  Something was desperately wrong and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Except pray, her weary heart prodded.

  Still clutching the phone, Grace called out to God in a wordless plea from her very soul that she hoped reached the heart of her Redeemer.

  * * *

  “The IV!” Dylan shouted.

  A younger man, also dressed in hospital scrubs, spun his attacker around, ducked a wild punch and landed one of his own that doubled the assailant over.

  There was no time to waste. Reacting as if he knew what he was doing, Dylan yanked the clear plastic tube free of the needle, not totally certain he’d acted in time.

  “He put air in my IV,” Dylan yelled. “He was trying to kill me.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He doesn’t work here?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  If Dylan hadn’t been strapped down he’d have reacted more assertively. As things stood, the best he could do was a dramatic rolling of his eyes. “Look, just hang on to him and call the cops,” he said, almost jumping out of his skin when another stranger abruptly pulled back the curtain.

  That man, however, knelt and put handcuffs on the one who had tried to do harm. When he straightened and handed his prisoner off to one of the hospital guards, he told the orderly, “Nice save. Thanks,” then turned to focus on Dylan. “Marshal Colton Phillips. I understand you’ve been having some problems.”

  Dylan huffed. “You might say that. This is the second attempt on my life. The third if you count last week.”

  “Last week? I didn’t see anything about that in your file.”

  “You should have. I called it in.”

  “Okay. I’ll check again when I have time. Right now we need to concentrate on how you landed here.”

  “Where did you say you were from?” Dylan asked cautiously.

  “I’m based in Denver.”

  Then what are you doing in Houston? And how do I know I can trust you? “Mind if I see some ID? It’s been that kind of a day.”

  The light-haired, blue-eyed marshal took out his badge wallet and flipped it open to reveal his full credentials. “Does this make you feel better?”