“It’s difficult to tell so soon. She’s had an ischemic stroke due to a blood clot. We have her on blood thinners and they seem to be breaking up the clot. So far, we don’t think that surgery is going to be necessary. We’ll know more over the next forty-eight hours. Right now, she’s sedated to keep her blood pressure low.”
Stitts took all of this in before replying.
“Is it possible that she was suffering from symptoms earlier? For a week or more?”
The doctor nodded.
“It’s possible — we don’t know exactly how long the clot has been present, whether it started as a partial that increased in size over time. Have you been noticing strange behavior, has your mother been acting out of character recently?”
Stitts felt a pang of guilt in the center of his chest.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen her,” he admitted. “But over the holidays, she was fine.”
The doctor pulled out a notepad and started scribbling.
“So, at Easter, you say that she was fine? Completely lucid?”
The pang of guilt became a culpable embrace.
Stitts shook his head.
“No, not Easter; Christmas. I saw her last Christmas and she was fine. More talkative than usual, but she was okay. Made sense. There was none of this…” he let his sentence trail off.
The doctor nodded again, scratched out his previous note, and made a new one.
“Can I see her now?”
“You can see her, but like I said, she’s sedated and is unlikely to respond. I’d like to keep her that way for the next 48 hours or so. You’re welcome to come and go as you please, but we’ve got your number and will call you if her status changes. Is there anyone else that we should contact?”
Stitts thought about this for a moment before shaking his head.
“No, there’s no one else.”
***
Stitts was grateful that somebody, probably one of the nurses, had cleaned the lipstick off the side of his mother’s face. She looked much paler now than she had back at the house, and with the tubes running into her arms, she looked sick, as well.
No, not sick. If it weren’t for the bumping and the beeping of the ECG and other various machines, Stitts thought she looked dead.
“Mom?” he said softly. “Mom, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not visiting like I should’ve. I’m sorry for everything.”
He held his mother’s frail hand as he spoke, expecting her to squeeze his fingers. It was foolish given what the neurologist had just said, but he still hoped she would respond in some way. That she would open her eyes and tell him that it was indeed okay, that she understood, that he had a very important job to do. That he had to stop the bad people out there.
But Maria Stitts did nothing.
Tears spilled down Jeremy’s cheeks and he wiped them away with his fingers. As he did, he was startled by his phone buzzing in his pocket.
He took it out and when he saw that number was unlisted, he sniffed and wiped his eyes again. Stitts cleared his throat and answered it.
“Stitts here,” he said.
“Stitts, Director Hampton. I need you to come in.”
A nurse suddenly entered the room and was startled by his appearance. When she saw that he was on his cell phone, she shook her head sternly and indicated with a pen that he should leave the room. Stitts gave his mother’s hand a final squeeze and stood.
“Stitts? You there?”
Once in the hallway, Stitts turned back and stared at his mother’s flaccid face through the glass partition.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here.”
“I’ve got another case for you — I need you on this one.”
Stitts dried his cheeks with his sleeve.
“Give me 15 minutes and I’ll be there.”
Chapter 9
“They’re… here?”
Dr. Matteo nodded.
“I find it curious that your dead husband and son managed to fly in from New York on such short notice,” he said, no humor in his voice.
Chase ignored the comment — she couldn’t believe it. The last time she’d spoken to Brad and Felix… well, she couldn’t remember exactly when. She thought it was back when she was chasing after Frank Carruthers in Chicago, but it could have just as easily been before that.
As it stood, she wasn’t sure whether she should be happy or furious.
“A word of advice, Chase?” the doctor said.
Chase was barely paying attention now. She had to get ready. She had to clean herself up, brush her hair, put on a little makeup. Look presentable.
“It’s going to be difficult to keep an even keel. Remember lessons about living in the present. You should be very pleased that they’re here to see you, but irrespective of what they say or do, don’t think about what happens after they leave. Enjoy the time with them. Enjoy the moment.”
Dr. Matteo continued to speak, but Chase was no longer listening. She walked over to the mirror and tucked her hair behind her ears, noting that it had grown much longer than she was used to, and as a result had become quite unruly. She slapped a bit of water in it to keep it down, but it just sprung back up as soon she let it go. This reminded her of Stitts and his medium-length brown hair that never seemed to be out of place. No matter what the man did, it always seemed to look the exact same.
It’s not about Stitts. It’s about Felix — Felix and Brad. Stick with the program, Chase.
Moderately satisfied at her appearance, Chase turned back to Dr. Matteo.
“Did they say… did they say why they’re here?”
She racked her brain, trying to think of whether or not it was someone’s birthday, or an anniversary, or… something. But her mind was so scrambled with excitement and trepidation that she couldn’t even remember exactly what day it was. She knew for certain that it wasn’t Felix’s birthday, but Brad’s? Could it be his birthday?
“Chase? Are you going to be okay?” Dr. Matteo asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Chase replied honestly.
***
Grassroots Recovery wasn’t a prison. Instead, it was a voluntary program with one main goal: to reintegrate addicts back into society. Patients were entitled to come and go as they pleased, but if you failed to complete the treatment, there were often consequences.
And in Chase Adams’s case, if she didn’t keep it together for six months, her consequences might very well be a prison sentence for breaking a fugitive from a Chicago PD holding cell.
Chase reminded herself of this several times as she waited in the designated visitor space. The room was cozy, complete with couches and a center table, as well as an orderly who continually rearranged a puzzle in the corner of the room. Chase sat down on one of the couches and smoothed her skirt. It was wrinkled, and for some reason of all the amenities that Grassroots had, they seemed to lack an iron. Five minutes after entering the room, Dr. Matteo opened the door.
Behind him, Chase saw her son.
Felix looked older than she remembered, even though she’d seen him less than a year ago.
When Dr. Matteo stepped out of the way, Chase couldn’t help herself. She leaped to her feet and ran at the boy with such speed that the doctor barely managed to avoid being bowled over.
Felix was so startled that he nearly toppled when she squeezed him.
“Felix! Felix, I missed you so much,” Chase said, kissing him on the cheeks and forehead. The boy tried to pull away and when he did, she spotted Brad stepping into the room.
They exchanged a look, and Chase turned her attention back to her son.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, squeezing him so tightly that he groaned. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Chapter 10
Stitts flicked his cigarette butt out the window and after rubbing crust from the inner corners of his eyes, stepped out of the car.
He took a deep breath, made sure that his gun was tucke
d carefully away in his holster, and strode toward the FBI training facility.
Once inside, he didn’t bother slowing when he passed his colleagues; he simply walked straight for Director Hampton’s office.
He tried to put what happened to his mother out of his mind, but it was a next to impossible task. The only way he would be able to get his mind off things, he knew, was to work.
And to work, he needed a partner.
Stitts took a deep breath and knocked twice on the director’s door. He opened it without waiting for an answer.
Director Hampton sat behind the desk, his small eyes looking out at Jeremy from behind round spectacles.
“Did you see the head doctor?” Hampton asked.
“I had a brief session with him after I left your office this morning,” Stitts lied. Hampton observed him for a few moments, clearly waiting for him to crack, but Stitts held his ground.
Eventually, the man nodded and then handed a folder over to him.
“A colleague in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department asked for help on a specific case. Last night someone raided a high-stakes private poker game in Las Vegas, killing eleven. Sgt. Theodore thinks that at least twelve million dollars were stolen.”
Stitts didn’t open the folder as he was prone to do when Director Hampton debriefed him.
Las Vegas… poker… everything was coming full circle.
“You okay, Stitts? I told you that if you want a shoulder to cry on, you’re going—”
“I’m not doing this alone,” Stitts said bluntly.
Hampton leaned back in his chair.
“You know me, and you know that it’s my priority never to send an Agent onto a case alone, especially one of this magnitude. We need someone who has our back out there in the field, someone we can trust. Don’t forget that it wasn’t too long ago that I was in the field.”
Stitts hadn’t forgotten; Director Hampton was one of the most decorated FBI Field Agents in the history of the Bureau before transitioning into management. No one knows exactly why he got out of the field, especially considering his success. Some think that after a while death takes a toll on a person, and when you toe the line between life and death for too long, you inevitably end up on the wrong side.
“You said it; I need someone I can trust. Someone who has my back, not some greenhorn who doesn’t know his ass from a hand grenade.”
Stitts didn’t think he had ever spoken so bluntly to the director, but the fact was, he had had enough of this bullshit.
He was going to take the case, that much was clear. Not just because he was obligated to do so from a professional standpoint, but also to take his mind off things.
“I need someone that I have a history with.”
Director Hampton’s eyes narrowed as he clued into what Stitts was really saying.
“I can’t do it,” he said simply.
Stitts tossed the folder on the desk.
“Then I can’t do that.”
Hampton sighed and removed his glasses and laid them on the desk. Then he leaned forward in his chair.
“Agent Stitts, do I need to remind you what it means to reject an assignment?”
“No; there’s no need to remind me.”
As he spoke, Stitts took his badge and gun out of his pocket and holster and laid them on the desk beside the folder.
They were at an impasse, and for several long seconds, neither man said anything. When Director Hampton found the need to voice his opinion first, Stitts knew that he had the upper hand. But it was more than that; he also had leverage. While he hadn’t explicitly mentioned it, Stitts knew things about the director, about Agent Martinez, about a good number of things that would cast an unfavorable glow on the FBI as a whole.
“All this, for her? Are you sure you want to do this, Stitts?”
Stitts remained silent.
“Okay, go get her then. But I’ll tell you this once, just once, Agent Stitts. If she fucks up again, it’s not just her ass on the line. I will personally make sure that both of you go to prison for what happened in Chicago. Do you understand?”
Chapter 11
After Chase got over her initial shock of the surprise visit, things calmed down considerably. And when they did, reality set in.
There was something about the way her son looked at her, as if he didn’t even know who she was. They talked idly for some time, but in the back of her mind, Chase kept thinking about why they were really here, what this visit was really all about. And that frightened her. As a result, she found herself rambling with Felix, talking about this and that even though the boy was clearly uncomfortable.
All the while, Brad just stood in the background like a wallflower, passively observing.
“And school’s going well, sweetie?” Chase asked.
Felix rolled his eyes.
“Mom, you already asked me that. School’s fine.”
Chase wasn’t sure that she had, but shrugged anyway.
“Well, forgive me for being interested,” she said. She’d meant it as a joke, but when Felix’s expression soured, Chase instantly regretted it.
“I’m going to miss it,” Felix said unexpectedly. “I like my school.”
“Well, that’s good to hear, it’s always — wait, you’re going to miss it? Why are you going to miss it?”
For the first time since they’d arrived, Brad took center stage. He laid a gentle hand on Felix’s shoulder and cast a quick glance over at Dr. Matteo.
With that look, Chase knew that at least part of this meeting had been prearranged. Dr. Matteo might have pretended as if he didn’t know that Felix and Brad were alive, but it was clear that the two had chatted beforehand.
And this angered her; it was all Chase could do to keep her feelings buried deep down.
“Felix, you think you can spend a little bit of time with Dr. Matteo? I’m sure he has some really cool things that he can show you.”
Dr. Matteo nodded and gestured for Felix to come with him.
“Not a problem; I can show you a stethoscope. A stethoscope can be used to listen to your own heartbeat, did you know that?”
As soon as the door clicked closed behind them, Chase scowled.
“Drop the charade, Brad. Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”
Brad sighed and ran a hand through his hair before answering.
“I hate to do this to you, Chase. I really do.”
Chase felt her headache returning with renewed fervor.
“Brad, please. Just get to the point.”
“We’re moving, Chase.”
“Moving?”
Brad nodded.
“I got transferred. Look, I never wanted to do this to you. In fact, the last thing I want to do is to take Felix away from you. You know this. The only thing I want is for you to get well so that you can become part of his life again.”
She shook her head.
“Where are you moving to? I’m here in Virginia and you’re in New York. What could be further than that?”
“Sweden,” Brad said quickly.
Chase gawked.
“Sweden? What the fuck, Brad? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m sorry, Chase. I just don’t have much of a choice. And when you’re better, I swear when you’re better, we’ll work something out.”
Chase suddenly felt like punching Brad in the face as she had Louisa not ten minutes prior.
“What do you mean you have no choice? That’s bullshit — of course, you have a choice.”
“What I mean, is that they’ve transferred me. And I need the money. You’re not working now, and—”
Chase rose to her feet and hovered over Brad who was still seated on the couch. He leaned away from her, and out of the corner of her eye, Chase saw the orderly start to creep toward them, apparently dusting the air.
“I have money, you know that. I have more than enough money to support us both… all three of us.”
Brad clenched his jaw.
“What money? The money you won from quasi-illegal online poker? Look, Chase, I just want you to get better. That’s it. Besides, it’s not like you see much of Felix now, anyway.”
“What the fuck? I’ve been here! I’ve been in this place trying to get better so that I can be a better person, a better mother, a better—” she stopped herself before saying wife.
Drawing Dead (A Chase Adams FBI Thriller Book 3) Page 4