Leap of Faith

by Arianna Hart

  Cars honked and swerved to the side as she shot through the intersection. The on-ramp for the highway had to be around here somewhere.

  A faded sign indicated the entrance was coming up on the left. Jane cut off a battered, red car and almost wiped out a motorcycle when she made the left turn.

  “Christ! Susie doesn’t have to send anyone after us. Your driving will kill us first.”

  “Don’t complain, they’re not on our tail any more, are they?”

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid to open my eyes.”

  Jane took a quick glance at him. He didn’t look worse than before—which wasn’t saying much. She had to find a hospital quickly.

  The scenery flew past as she sped down the highway. She searched the passing signs for one with a blue ‘H’. They were in the middle of nowhere and street signs were few and far between. With every passing mile, her worry grew.

  Lex’s breathing had become rapid and she swore she could see a blue tinge to his lips. She passed a tractor-trailer and coughed as the exhaust flooded the interior of their car.

  How much longer could they go on like this? The gas gauge was on ‘E’. Jane was terrified they’d end up stranded on the side of the road, sitting ducks just waiting for Susie’s goons to pick them off. A whimper of fear tried to force its way out of her throat but she fought it back.

  This was no time to panic. Lex was counting on her to get them to safety and by God, she was going to do it.

  She could do this. There had to be an exit soon. The very next exit she came to she’d find a gas station and call 911 and Lex’s friend Mac.

  The ding of the low-fuel light coming on made her sweat some more, but she pushed it aside. Lex had either fallen asleep or passed out in the passenger seat. Jane couldn’t help but remember the last time she drove while he slept next to her.

  They’d been running away from gun-toting men that time too. Lord, she was right back where she started. On the run with no idea where she was headed or what the future would bring.

  No, that wasn’t true. This time she knew that whatever happened she could handle it. She wouldn’t fall apart because there was a disruption in her carefully controlled schedule.

  A blue sign appeared on the highway like a gift from God. The next exit was in two miles and, God bless America, there was a hospital near by too.

  “I’ll take care of you, honey, don’t worry,” she whispered to Lex.

  The hospital was less than a mile from the exit and Jane pulled into the emergency room coasting on fumes. She didn’t even make it into a parking space before the engine coughed and died.

  “I need a doctor!” she shouted to the security guard who approached her. “Hurry!”

  He stopped short at the sight of their bullet-studded car and jabbered into his walkie-talkie. Jane ran around the car and tried to open the passenger door. It was jammed from the force of several bullets hitting it and she couldn’t get it open.

  “Here, let me help. You’ll hurt yourself.” The guard moved her aside.

  “I don’t care about me! Lex is already hurt. He’s been shot! He needs a doctor now.” Tears streamed down her face while she yanked at the door.

  Several people in hospital scrubs swarmed out of the emergency room doors. One woman with a clipboard stood along side them and another guard helped to open the door.

  Lex was buried behind a wall of people as they hauled him onto the stretcher. Shouted orders echoed off the building when they wheeled him towards the doors. Jane ran after them, but the lady with the clipboard stopped her.

  “Ma’am, we need some information. Do you give permission for the doctors to treat him?”

  “Yes, of course.” Jane attempted to slip away but the woman wouldn’t let her go.

  “What’s your relationship to the patient?”

  “He’s my husband,” Jane lied without a pause.

  “Do you have insurance?”

  “Yes.” Why was this woman asking her these inane questions when Lex needed her?

  “Do you have your card with you?”

  Jane automatically reached for her purse and realized she still carried the laptop. “Ah, no. Can I use your phone? I need to call someone who has that information.”

  She looked down at the smeared numbers on her wrist and prayed she could get a hold of Mac.

  Right about now they could use the real Superman.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Is this Mac?” Jane asked when a gruff voice answered the phone with a growled, “Hello.”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name is Dr. Jane Farmer—”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Lex gave it to me—”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about lady. I don’t know anyone named Lex.”

  Hopelessness swamped her and tears pricked her eyes. She just couldn’t handle this on her own. Damn it, Lex told her to call this number if she needed help and boy did she ever need it. Now this guy was saying he didn’t even know Lex. What was she supposed to do? Self-pity almost overwhelmed her, but she found a weak spark of self-reliance deep inside her.

  She would not give up now. She hadn’t dodged bullets and driven like a racecar driver on amphetamines just to have someone who was supposed to be Lex’s friend pretend he didn’t know him.

  “Look, I was given this number and told to say ‘Lex Luther needs Superman’. I don’t have time to play spy games with someone who’s supposed to be a friend of the man lying in an emergency room with a bullet in his side.”

  There was a pause and Jane feared she really did have the wrong number but then the voice came back on the line.

  “Dr. Farmer, I apologize. I needed to track this call to make sure someone hadn’t gotten this number without Lex’s knowledge. We’ve had some…issues recently.” The voice was smooth and cultured now, like melted chocolate instead of sandpaper.

  “I know all about your issues. By the way, your secretary is your mole. Now are you going to help me or not?”

  “Of course. What can I do?” He didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the information that his secretary had betrayed him.

  A weight lifted off her shoulders. “First, I need you to give the hospital his insurance information.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack. The dragon lady guarding the door won’t let me in to see him until all the paperwork is done. I, ah, told them I was his wife to avoid complications.”

  “I see. If you give me the fax number there I can send the information over the office line. It’s scrambled so it should be secure.”

  Jane had no idea what he meant or why a fax line had to be secure but she didn’t bother to ask. As long as he was taking care of things, his phone line could be sunny-side up and she wouldn’t blink twice.

  “What else can I do for you?”

  “Well, since you’re asking. We’re going to need transportation out of Pennsylvania, and if someone could take the ministry’s laptop off my hands so I don’t have to worry about it anymore, I’d be eternally grateful.”

  “You have the ministry’s laptop with you at the hospital?” His cultured voice lost its elegance as he barked out the question.

  “What did you want me to do with it?”

  “Listen to me. As long as you have that computer you’re in danger and so is Lex. Find a secure place and get rid of it. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but chances are it’ll be a few hours before I can get to Pennsylvania. Stay in the hospital. Do you hear me? Don’t leave the safety of the hospital for any reason.”

  “Okay.” The relief she’d felt when he said he’d help faded under a wave of renewed fear.

  “Do not go with anyone out of the hospital. When I get there I’ll address you as Lois and call myself Clark. Don’t go with anyone else. I don’t care if they say they’re from EIS or the FBI or the right hand of God, don’t go with them. Do you understand?”

  “Y—yes.”

  �
��Any questions?”

  The sight of a blue-clad security guard reminded her of something. “Hospitals are required to report all gunshot wounds to the police. What do I tell them when they come to talk to me?”

  “I’ll deal with the local authorities. Just get rid of that damn computer.”

  “Great.” That was one less thing for her to worry about. Jane opened the door of the room that the secretary had put her in and asked for the fax number. Her head swam and she tried to remember everything Mac said. Her whole world had twisted and turned so much she felt like she was caught in a horror movie and couldn’t get out.

  After giving Mac the fax number and swearing on her father’s grave that she’d stay put, she hung up and went back to the admissions desk. Dragon lady was much happier now that she had an insurance card and billing information and told Jane she could go back and see her husband as soon as she signed the paperwork.

  Stabs of pain from the multiple cuts and scrapes she’d gotten from the broken windows hit her as she walked through the heavy double doors out of the waiting room. Various aches prodded her tired body and she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto one of the empty gurneys and sleep for a week.

  The only thing that kept her on her feet was fear for Lex. She had to know what was going on with him before she passed out. Her stomach twisted into knots of anxiety when she remembered his pale face and slumped form in the car.

  Dear God, please let him be all right.

  The smell of antiseptic burned her nose. People bustled efficiently around her and she followed a technician of some sort to Lex’s curtained cubicle. A canned voice paged doctors to various floors and a man wearing a hospital johnny announced he was the angel of God come to smite the heathens and disbelievers.

  Just another day in the ER. Jane had spent some time during graduate school working in the emergency department and hated every minute of it. The misery and helplessness of the people waiting to hear about the fate of their loved ones was soul-sapping. It took a special kind of person to work in such an environment day after day, and she wasn’t too proud to admit she couldn’t handle it.

  The technician parted the curtain and gestured for Jane to go in. He mumbled something about the doctor needing to ask her some questions, but Jane wasn’t paying any attention. Her attention was focused on Lex.

  His stubble stood out clearly on his too-pale face. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose and hissed quietly in the tiny treatment area. Intravenous lines ran into both his arms and various machines monitored his heart rate and blood pressure.

  Jane held her breath and waited for his chest to rise. Relief made her light-headed as she saw the sheet gently lift with his inhalation. He lay so still she’d feared he was already dead.

  Someone came in and asked her a million questions. Jane answered them the best she could and lied when she had to. She must have been convincing, because they finally left her alone.

  Her heart was in her throat and she clasped Lex’s hand. It was limp and clammy, but she didn’t care. She could still feel his pulse moving in his wrist and that was all that mattered.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “I called Mac and he has everything under control. The doctors here are the best and they’ll have you patched up in no time.” She didn’t have a clue how good the doctors were but she wasn’t going to tell Lex that.

  Her heart seemed permanently lodged in her throat as she listened to the machines beep. What a fool she’d been to think she could face her fears and remain unscathed. She thought she’d gone about things so intelligently, with her eyes wide open. Now that she had a chance to breathe, she realized she’d justified her desire for Lex by telling herself she was conquering her fears of intimacy.

  Instead, she was falling in love with him. And now, he lay clinging to life and she hadn’t even had the guts to tell him he meant more to her than a brief affair. Tears leaked down her cheeks and she squeezed his hand even tighter.

  “Ma’am? We have your husband’s belongings here. We’ll need you to sign for them.”

  Jane wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt before facing the security guard. He held a plastic bag with Lex’s clothes in it and handed her an itemized sheet for her to sign. She took it blindly and scrawled her name at the bottom.

  “Do you want to hold on to his things or would you like us to lock them up until he’s in a room?”

  The guard’s question reminded her that Mac wanted her to get rid of the laptop.

  “Could you hold onto them for me? I—I’m not from around here…” She trailed off, and tried to appear as helpless as possible. It didn’t take too much acting on her part to pull it off. “Could I just get his wallet so I can have some money for the cafeteria?”

  “Sure.” He handed her the bag.

  The radio at his waist squawked an unintelligible message. He snapped it off his belt and said something back that Jane didn’t understand either.

  “Ma’am, I need to go. When you’re done just give it to the secretary and she’ll lock it up for you.”

  “Thank you.” Jane waited as the guard jogged down the hall.

  Before anyone else could come in, she dumped Lex’s clothes and grabbed his wallet, she really would need some money at some point. Something fell as she pulled the wallet out. A necklace lay on the floor in a pool of silver. She picked it up and glanced at the medal, it said “Saint Christopher, protect us.” If ever they needed protection it was right now. She slipped it over her head and tucked it under her shirt.

  Having a little piece of Lex with her soothed her frazzled nerves slightly. The cool medal lay heavily against her heart, just like her worry for Lex. Her breath caught on a hiccup of a sob, but she bit it back.

  Pull it together, Jane. Everything will be all right. They were in the hospital now. Lex would be safe. And as soon as she got rid of this stupid laptop she’d be safe too.

  Her hands shook as she unzipped the briefcase and tugged the small computer out. With a quick glance around her, she stuffed it inside Lex’s jeans and folded them up around the laptop. The bag was too small to fit the briefcase as well, so she zipped it up and put it on the floor. The wallet went back in the plastic bag and she sealed it up.

  The lady at the desk barely noticed her, other than to have her initial a note stating she took possession of the cash and the medal. If she thought the bag was rather heavy for only having jeans, shoes, some jewelry and a wallet, she didn’t say anything.

  Jane went back to Lex’s room and searched for a doctor. Shouldn’t they be doing something besides pumping him full of fluids? The man had a bullet in him for crying out loud. He should have at least a nurse next to him.

  “Excuse me?” Jane grabbed a nurse bustling by. “Is there someone here who could tell me what is going on with my husband?”

  “The doctor will be with you in just a minute,” the harried nurse said as she dragged a cart into another room.

  “Another minute” turned out to be a good half hour later. Jane’s nerves were worn so thin she was on the verge of creating a scene to end all scenes. By the time the baby-faced doctor pushed his way past the curtain Jane could have ripped his head off.

  “Mrs. D’Angelo? I’m Dr. Freedman. Your husband is in serious condition.”

  No kidding. Did it take a medical degree to figure out a bullet in the side was a “serious condition”?

  “X-rays show the bullet is lodged in his pelvis. We don’t know what else it may have hit until we bring him in for surgery.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” she snapped. She remembered reading that when someone was shot, the bullet didn’t just stop once it pierced the skin. Instead it bounced around inside the victim’s body doing all sorts of damage.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get his volume up before we risk operating. If we open him up too soon the shock could kill him.”

  “I’m sorry. I—I’m just so worried.”

  The thought o
f Lex dying on the operating table made her stomach drop to her toes. She grabbed his hand and felt for his fluttering pulse. He looked so pale and wan against the white sheets. She couldn’t face the idea of him remaining like that for the rest of his life.

  “I understand. The good news is I don’t believe the bullet hit his spinal cord. He’s responding to painful stimuli and his breathing doesn’t seem to be compromised. We won’t know more until after surgery, but all indications are promising.”

  “That’s good news,” She hadn’t even considered the bullet could have paralyzed him. Bile rose in her throat.

  “It shouldn’t be much longer. They’re preparing the OR now and Dr. Moore has been paged,” the doctor told her as he glanced at his watch.

  “Thank you.”

  If “another minute” was a half hour, how long would “not much longer” be?

  The bags of fluid had almost emptied before two orderlies came and disconnected all the machines Lex was plugged into. Jane refused to let go of Lex’s hand and so had to practically run along side the gurney as they wheeled it down the crowded hall.

  “This is as far as you can go, ma’am. There’s a waiting room down the hall. Dr. Moore will get you there when he’s out of surgery,” one of the large orderlies said when they stopped in a dimly lit corridor in front of a door marked “Authorized personnel only”.

  Jane nodded, but didn’t release Lex’s hand. She was terrified that if she let go now she’d never see him again.

  “Ma’am, the doctor is waiting.”

  “Yes, okay.” Jane leaned over and kissed Lex’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay, do you hear me? You’re going to be making me crazy again in no time.” Tears clogged her voice but she wouldn’t let them fall until the stretcher rolled through the doors.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The clock must be broken. Either that or she was trapped in a time warp. Lex had been in surgery for over an hour, but it seemed like decades had passed. Jane felt sticky from the dried sweat on her back, but didn’t want to leave the waiting room to wash up in case the doctor came back with news.