“I’ll say when he’s had enough,” Gavin screamed. “Dude, I said to get my bat.”
“Forget that, Gavin,” A third guy said.
Another guy spoke up. “Look at him. I’m not going to jail for murder.”
“Yeah, you said you were just going to rough him up some. This goes beyond that…” A fifth voice came from above. It was farther away than the others.
“Please, somebody,” Jamie whispered. He wasn’t sure if they could hear him. “Help me, please.”
“I’m getting out of here.” The second guy spoke again.
Because of the headlights, Jamie could see their feet standing around him. Some of the guys were backing away from him, toward the vehicles. He reached out for one of their ankles, but the guys edged away.
“Help me, please,” Jamie whispered, but they were already heading to the cars. “Char…leigh.” He closed his eyes and lost consciousness.
***
“Char…leigh.”
She heard his whisper as plainly as if he was right there beside her on the couch. Charleigh sat up to look around for him. She wiped the sleep away from her eyes, but saw no one.
“Jamie,” Charleigh called out, and waited for a response that never came.
She stood up. She went over to the window to look outside for the Wrangler, but it wasn’t there. Maybe it’s in the garage. But it wasn’t.
Coming back into the living room, Charleigh was sure that she had heard Jamie’s voice. It was just one of those eerie things she couldn’t explain. Still a feeling came over her that said it was more than just a dream.
She picked up the phone and dialed Jamie’s cell number. He didn’t answer; it rang several times before going to the voice mail. Not leaving a message, Charleigh hung up and dialed the number again.
It rang a few times, and then it stopped. No ringing. Nothing, except… Was that breathing?
“Jamie? Jamie, are you there?” She asked. “Can you hear me?”
“Char…leigh.” It was no more than a whisper, but she heard it.
“Are you there? Are you okay?”
“Help… me…please.”
Oh, God! “Where are you? Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”
“The… highway. I’m… in… the middle… of the… road.”
“Where?” Charleigh cried out. Images of his broken, bleeding body filled her mind. “The highway? Which one?”
“…E.” She couldn’t quite make out the beginning.
“70? 70E? Is that it?” Charleigh didn’t wait for Jamie to answer. “I’ll find you. I’m on my way. Just hold on. Please, hold on.”
Keeping a watchful eye on the road, Charleigh dialed her Uncle Josh’s cell number. She was certain Jamie was badly hurt. He needed an ambulance, and he needed it quick.
“Charleigh! Charleigh, what’s wrong?” Josh asked when he answered. All he could hear were sobs.
“It’s Jamie. He’s hurt. He needs help.”
“Where is he?” He’d seen Jamie an hour before, if that, and told him specifically to be careful. Josh imagined he would’ve already made it safely home to Charleigh and been in bed, in that amount of time.
“I don’t know. Somewhere on E, he said,” Charleigh cried. “He needs help. Please, Uncle Josh? Please?”
“You don’t know a specific location, but he’s definitely on 70E.” Josh choked back a few tears of his own. Not again, Lord. He didn’t want Charleigh to go through any more loss. “Where’re you?”
“I just passed Old Mill Road.”
“Okay. Okay. We’ll find him, Char. Don’t worry. I’m on my way. Just watch out for him.”
Charleigh disconnected the call, tossed the cell phone into the seat beside her. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, trying to calm down.
Then, she saw it. The headlights up ahead weren’t coming toward her. They were stationary. It didn’t take Charleigh another moment to recognize Jamie’s Jeep. Something had happened, and it wasn’t an accident; of this, Charleigh was certain.
Oh, God, let him be okay. “I’m coming, Jamie. You just hold on.” She slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the door before the Tahoe had barely come to a complete stop.
“Jamie!” She yelled, running toward the car. He lay only a few feet away, in the middle of the road. “Jamie!”
Dropping down beside him, Charleigh had to fight not to touch him. She had no idea what his injuries were.
“Jamie?” She saw the blood caked on his face. His shirt was ripped. Charleigh wiped the tears away from her eyes, so he couldn’t tell that she’d been crying. “Are you okay? Talk to me, please? Say something.”
“Char…leigh.” Jamie’s eyes slowly came open. “I…“
She saw him grimace in pain. “Shh. Shh, don’t talk. I’m right here.”
A tear ran down his bruised cheek. It brought fresh tears to Charleigh’s eyes.
“I…”
“It’s okay. Help will be here soon.” Charleigh reached for her cell. “I’ve got to call Uncle Josh and tell him that I found you.”
“I…” Jamie’s hand reached out for one of hers. “…love…you.”
“Don’t you dare do that. Don’t you dare!” Charleigh cried as she held the phone up to her ear. Josh answered. “I found him, Josh. On the highway, just south of the old Murphy farm. He’s hurt. Bad.”
“Car accident?” Her uncle asked.
Charleigh could hear the siren in the background of the call. She could hear it approaching from the far distance. “No. The car’s fine, but he’s not in it.”
“I’m almost there. Just tell him to hold on.” The line disconnected.
“Jamie?” He’d closed his eyes again. “Jamie, open your eyes for me. I need to see your eyes.”
And he obliged.
“Who did this? Why?” She was thinking out loud.
Jamie had closed his eyes again.
“That’s okay. You just hold on. Help will be here soon.”
Chapter Seven
One dislocated shoulder; five cracked ribs— two ‘floating’ ribs on the left side, two ’floating’ ribs and one asternal on the right; a hairline-fractured cheek or Malar bone; a broken nasal bone; numerous cuts and bruises; and one very pissed off fiancée was what Jamie had less than twelve hours later as he lay sleeping in a hospital bed on the third floor of the Medical Center of Southeastern Oklahoma.
Charleigh stood close by, staring out the window of his private suite. She hadn’t had any sleep. She still had on the clothes she’d been wearing when she found him in the middle of the road. Her hair was tangled, but that was the furthest thing in her mind.
Why would Gavin do something like this? Is he this desperate?
The sheriff’s department had found Gavin’s fingerprints on the door handle of the driver’s side door. Jamie had told a deputy who’d done it. The only problem was, they couldn’t find Gavin. Oh, but Charleigh could. She knew exactly where he was, and as soon as…
“Char…” a tiny whisper came from behind. Jamie’s eyes were barely open when she turned to look at him.
“Hey there, sexy,” she said, trying to wipe away any sign of worry from her face. There for a while last night she thought… Well, no more worrying. “How’re you doing?”
“I feel… horrible.” His face contorted with pain.
Charleigh sat down in a chair next to the bed. “I can’t tell. You look fantastic.”
“Yeah, I…” He tried to turn his body toward her.
“You better be still and quiet. It’ll hurt worse if you don’t. Believe me.”
He nodded. “I don’t want… them to… press charges… against… Gavin. I want… them to leave… him alone.”
“No. No, no!”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Charleigh hissed.
“No more… trouble. None.”
“Why did Gavin do this to you? Didn’t he give you any explanation before he started beating on you like this?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“‘Break off the… engagement… and… and leave town.’” Jamie gasped with pain.
“I hope you knew better than to go along with that. I would’ve been the one to put you in here, had you broken it off.” Jamie smiled but said nothing. He knew Charleigh was telling the truth.
She took his free hand— the other was in a sling— and kissed it. “I’ll be back soon. I’ve got some things to do. Go home and take a shower. Pack some of your stuff in a bag.”
“Call Mister… Mister Crane.”
“I already did.” She smiled. “He told me to call him Daniel. I’ve got to help Madie and Lenore cancel the engagement party.”
“No. I’ll be… out by… by Friday. The party… is on… Saturday.”
“You can’t go like this,” Charleigh argued. “You need to stay here and heal.”
“Make me… a bet.”
“I’m not betting anything. You stay here until they let you come home, stubborn man.”
“Deja vu…” Jamie smiled.
“Yeah. Madie will be here soon, darlin’. I love you.” Charleigh kissed him on the forehead.
“Don’t do… anything… stupid, Char.”
“I’m going home to change and pack you a bag. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I love you.”
“Love…”
Charleigh only had one pit stop to make on the way home. She knew exactly where Gavin was hiding, and she had something to say. If the cops couldn’t find him there, they were stupider than she previously thought.
And Jamie didn’t wanted to press charges. That wouldn’t stop Charleigh from getting a little vindication for her peace of mind.
She pulled up just outside of the apartment building where Brad Cunningham lived. The old banged up Ford she had seen Gavin driving around town was parked right alongside the Candy-apple red Mustang that belonged to Brad.
With her shirttail she opened the car door. Being the niece of a police officer, and years of watching Unsolved Mysteries, and most recently CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Charleigh knew how not to get fingerprints on anything. She pulled a pair of latex gloves that she’d swiped from the hospital and looked through the front seats, the backseats, and the glove compartment.
In the trunk, she found an old grease rag, that had something besides grease on it, and an old Louisville Sluggers baseball bat that had once belonged to her— it had her initials, CDR, carved into the wood.
You ignorant fools, Charleigh thought removing both. After all, the bat did belong to her. She was sure the ‘something-besides-grease’ had come off someone’s hands after they got done with Jamie, and she stuck it in an old plastic bag in her truck.
Then, just for the fun of it, Charleigh took the bat and knocked out both headlights of Brad’s car. She knocked out the taillights. She was working her way around the car, pounding all the while, to the windshield when Brad came running out of his apartment.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He yelled not coming any closer than the sidewalk. There was no way of telling what Charleigh would do next. She might come after him.
Charleigh took her first whack at the windshield. “Nothing you didn’t do last night to Jamie. How does it feel when somebody beats up on your baby, Brad? How does it feel?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Char…”
She turned, aimed the bat at his head. “Absolutely none? You’re telling me the guy you’ve been best friends with since before your balls dropped beat my fiancé half to death and you know nothing about it? Get real, Brad.”
Several other tenants from the apartment building had come out to see what all the screaming and noise was about. They were all college students. They knew Charleigh and Gavin, both together and separately, and about what had happened between them.
She took several more whacks at the car, turning her back to Brad. It gave him the opportunity to grab her in a full-backwards bear hug and stop her from doing further damage to the car.
“You can’t do that, Charleigh. No more.”
“Oh, stop crying like the overgrown pussy you are, Brad.” She screamed, struggling in his firm hold. “It’s just a Ford, you moron.”
Gavin appeared in the doorway of Brad’s apartment. He came over to stand a few feet away from where Brad still held onto Charleigh, who continued to fight and insult him.
“What are you doing, Charleigh?”
“Don’t act so innocent, Gavin. You know what you did. I know what you did, and you’re not gonna get away with it.”
“That’s what you think. I already have.” Gavin smiled, moving a little closer.
Brad had shaken Charleigh until she dropped the bat. As if that was her only weapon.
“Oh, that’s what you think,” Charleigh replied, connecting her foot with his crotch. With another swift kick, Charleigh connected with Gavin’s head as he fell toward the ground with his gonads cupped in his hands.
Next, she elbowed Brad in the gut, which didn’t seem to faze him much. Charleigh continued to contort her body madly in his arms.
He began yowling with one big bite on his bicep. “You bite me, you foolish woman,” Brad screamed and let her go.
“You want some more. I’ve got plenty of where that came from.” She picked up the bat and headed for her truck.
“You’re going to pay for what you did to my car!” He screamed after Charleigh.
“Oh! So sue me,” she called back.
“See ya in court.”
***
“Where have you been?” Madie asked when Charleigh stepped into Jamie’s hospital room. She sat the suitcase down on the bottom of the wardrobe before going over to kiss her sleeping fiancé on the cheek.
“I went home,” Charleigh replied, sat down in the chair beside the bed. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine. Worried you were going to do something stupid to get yourself in trouble.” Madie came over to stand behind her. “Did you?”
Charleigh only turned to look up at the woman. Her expression said everything Madie needed to know.
“Good. Same thing I would’ve done. And you saw Gavin?”
“I did. Gave him a swift kick in the ‘nads.” Charleigh shrugged. “I’m not sure if he’ll ever be able to reproduce again, but…”
She didn’t care about Gavin. He could fry in jail, as far as Charleigh was concerned. Everything she’d ever need lay in the bed beside her. She took his free hand, entwined her fingers with his.
Jamie’s eyelids began to twitch. A moment later, his tongue slid across his dry, cracked lips. In another, his eyes opened slightly. A smile appeared on his lips when he saw Charleigh.
“Hi,” Charleigh whispered.
“Hey.” He didn’t as much say it as he did mouth the word. “Back so soon?”
She looked at her wristwatch. It was after two in the afternoon. She’d been gone for about three hours but said nothing. The color in his face was better than it had been before, Charleigh noticed, hoping the pain wasn’t too unbearable for Jamie. He’d bluntly refused anything stronger than a Tylenol.
“You okay? You don’t hurt too much, do you?” Charleigh ran her fingers through his already mussed hair.
“I feel better now that you’re back.” He tried to scoot up in the bed, but gave up when the pain was too much. Charleigh noticed that he didn’t seem as breathless as before. Jamie was able to say complete sentences without gasping.
“I still say it’s a bad idea to go ahead with the party, Jamie. We can reschedule,” Charleigh prompted. “Tell him we’ll reschedule it for when he’s feeling better, Madie. Please?”
“We can do whatever he wants to do.”
“No. My family will be here Friday night. I’ll be better by then.” Jamie looked over at the tray beside his bed for a cup of ice water. He reached out for it with his good hand, coming up short by an inch. Madie pushed it closer for him.
“They’ll understand, Jamie. Pleas
e, listen to me.” Charleigh watched as he drained the plastic cup. She poured more.
“They’ll be disappointed.” He finished the second glass. “The doctor said I could go home on Friday.”
“He said you might be able to go home Friday evening,” Madie cleared up the matter for Charleigh. “That depends on more than just determination, James Adam.”
“I’m going home on Friday, and I’m going to dance with my fiancée` at our engagement party on Saturday. End of discussion.” He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Chapter Eight
If Charleigh and Jamie had any two things in common, it was sheer determination and bullheadedness. Although the doctor didn’t let him go on Friday afternoon as he had at first thought, sure enough, Jamie pitched a big enough fit and was assured that he would be released by noon the next day.
Kevin, Jenna, and Greg, sans Claudia, had flown down on the corporate jet the previous night and stayed with Madie and Lenore at the ranch. While the father-of-the-groom, all three grandparents of the bride, and Madie and Lenore put the finishing touches on the celebration, the siblings wanted to see their brother, and they went with Charleigh to pick him up from the hospital.
Jamie was sitting up in his hospital bed in a pair of Superman pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt. He wore a brooding expression on his face as he watched Saturday morning cartoons on the television. His uneaten lunch on the tray in front of him. He shot Charleigh a desperate look when she came through the door with his suit in a garment bag.
“Help me, Char,” He pouted. “Get me out of here and to the nearest fast food joint.”
Charleigh only laughed as she hung the suit on a hook on the bathroom door. She came over to the bed, sat down gingerly beside her fiancé and kissed him on the lips.
Jenna and Kevin must not have expected to see their older brother so banged up. They stood silently in the doorway and stared.
“Seriously, it looks worse than it feels,” Jamie said with a smile. “Get over here and give me a hug, Jenn. Charleigh, will you tell them?”
She waved him off. “I’m not in this.”
The black, swollen eye, the cut on his cheek, and the sling on his right arm were really the worst part of his injuries. That is, what you could see at first inspection. If you saw him without his shirt on, with all the dark black and blue bruises, it would change your mind, absolutely.
You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) Page 6