going to have to play along. I’d have to pretend that I was cooperating. After about a week, they finally removed the restraints and began giving me the sedatives by mouth.”
Restraints…sedatives… Leah frowned, not liking what she was hearing. Until she knew more though, she figured that humoring him would be the best thing to do for now. “So, just how did you escape?” she asked.
“The last couple of nights I was there, I pretended to swallow my pill, and as soon as the nurse left, I spit it out. As long as they thought I was drugged they didn’t watch me as close.”
Hunter paused. He’d seen the fear in her eyes earlier, and since the last thing he wanted was to scare her again, he decided against telling her about the guard outside his door. He’d caught the man half-asleep, and before the guard had realized what hit him, he’d knocked the man unconscious and dragged him into the bathroom out of sight. He’d debated on whether to take the guard’s uniform, but one look at the short skinny man and he’d known that there was no way he could squeeze into the clothes.
“I found some clean scrubs on an unattended utility cart down the hall from my room,” he continued. “With the scrubs on—” He shrugged. “No one paid me any attention. The only door that wasn’t locked was at the emergency-room entrance. Once I found that, I walked right out.”
When Leah shifted in her chair, he could tell she was unsure of how to react to what he’d told her, and he wondered if she would catch his discrepancy about the clothes, specifically the shoes, the one thing he’d glossed over.
As Leah stared into her glass of juice, she tried to digest everything that Hunter had just told her. Everything he’d said, the restraints, the sedatives, all of it only served to confirm her suspicions about him being held in the hospital mental ward. There were also huge discrepancies in his story about escaping. Mental wards had locked doors, and patients didn’t just wander around at will. He wasn’t telling her everything, and every instinct within cried foul. Something just didn’t add up.
“You’re right about one thing,” she finally said, looking up at him. “We do need to find out more about what happened to you and why.” And I need a little time to do some checking around, she added silently. If she could determine exactly which hospital in Orlando had treated him, then maybe she could get some answers. But first she had to figure out how to do so without Hunter knowing that she was checking up on his story.
When Hunter reached up to cover a yawn, Leah figured she’d been handed the perfect opportunity.
“For right now though,” she told him as she stood, “in my professional opinion, I think what you need even more is rest.” She picked up his plate and juice glass. “If you’d like, you can take a nap on that bed in the first bedroom down the hall. Then, when you’ve rested some, we can figure out where to go from here.”
Hunter yawned again. She was right about him needing rest, and the fact that she’d said “we” was certainly encouraging. Did he dare hope that she believed him?
“I am tired,” he admitted. Tired didn’t begin to explain how drained and exhausted he felt, and since he had no money, nowhere else to go and no one else he could trust for the time being… “Maybe just a short nap—if you’re sure that’s okay?”
Leah nodded. “That’s more than okay with me.” She walked over to the cabinet, where she paused. “Tell you what though,” she said. “Why don’t you nap in the bedroom at the end of the hall, instead of the front bedroom? It’s a lot quieter back there. Less street noise.”
There would also be less chance of him overhearing any phone conversations she had. She placed the dirty dishes in the sink, then motioned toward the hall door. “We’ll talk more after you’ve rested.”
Once Hunter had disappeared around the hall doorway, at the last minute, Leah remembered that she hadn’t yet made up her bed that morning. Too bad, she finally decided. As he’d said, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Leah frowned as she wiped off the table. But Hunter wasn’t a beggar, not by a long shot. She transferred the dishes in the sink to the dishwasher. He was her husband, and from the looks of him, he wouldn’t care if there were clean sheets on the bed.
Glancing around the kitchen, Leah began what she’d always called busywork. Wiping the stovetop, the counter, and cleaning the glass front of the oven and microwave. She wanted to give him plenty of time to get to sleep before she began making phone calls.
When Hunter entered the bedroom at the end of the hallway, he immediately realized that it belonged to Leah. For one thing, the bed was unmade.
As he stood, staring at the sheets, just the thought of climbing into the bed that she’d slept in did funny things to his libido. Surely he wouldn’t be feeling this way unless there was a good reason, which, in turn, made him more certain than ever that she hadn’t been exactly truthful about their so-called friendship.
Then, another thought occurred to him. If she’d been untruthful about their relationship, she could be lying about other things as well. What if she was using the same trick he’d used at the hospital? What if she was just lulling him into a false sense of safety so that once he was asleep, she could call the police to come get him?
Get a grip, man. If she’d meant to call the cops on him, she could have easily done so while he was in the shower. Hunter shook his head. Too many days of plotting and planning his escape from the hospital had taken its toll, and he was seeing a conspiracy in everything. Again he reminded himself that at some point, he had to trust someone, and right now, Leah was the only game in town.
Hunter stared at the doorknob. Too bad there wasn’t a lock on the door, but the doorknob, like the house, was old, the kind that required a key.
Near the bed, Hunter pulled off the knit shirt, unsnapped and unzipped the jeans and shucked them as well, then climbed into bed. As he lay his head on the pillow, a musky flowery scent filled his nostrils. The scent felt familiar and safe. Was he imagining things, or was it a memory?
Hunter closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Whether imagined or a true memory, he was too dog-tired to worry about it.
Leah eyed the doorway leading to the hallway. She needed to put some clothes on instead of walking around in her pajamas and housecoat. And she needed a shower. And since she’d sent Hunter off to her bedroom, there was no way she could get into her closet without disturbing him, and disturbing him was the last thing she wanted at the moment.
Leah stood in the middle of the kitchen, debating what to do next, when suddenly the solution to her clothing problem came to her. Maybe, just maybe, there was something in the laundry room that she could wear. If she remembered right, she’d neglected to put away the last load of clothes she’d dried.
In the laundry room, she rummaged through the dryer. Sure enough, she found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Both were faded and wrinkled, but too bad, she thought as she headed for the bathroom. Wearing faded wrinkled clothes was the least of her problems at the moment.
When Leah entered the bathroom, she paused, her hand on the doorknob as she debated whether to leave the door ajar or lock it. But just thinking about being locked up in the small room was enough to make her break out in a cold sweat. For as long as she could remember, being in a small, closed-up space was a surefire guarantee that she would have a panic attack.
Leah pushed the door almost closed, leaving about a six-inch gap. Besides, she comforted herself, if Hunter had meant
