disembodied voice of the technician monitoring his room via the video camera mounted on the ceiling facing his hospital bed. “I forgot.”
He rarely thought about how he’d gotten the scar anymore—except when he’d been on the campaign trail and some reporter asked him about it point blank. He’d done his best to put the incident at the bookstore out of his mind for two reasons: it had just about killed him to lose the life he had in the Corps...and the pregnant woman he’d saved had somehow reminded him of Wendy.
Even waking up in the hospital afterward with his mother and sister dozing at his bedside was something he tried not to think about too often, because it reminded him of things he wanted to forget. His mother had reacted the way most mothers would when their firstborn child had done his damnedest to get himself killed—she alternately cosseted and scolded. His sister, Keira, on the other hand had smiled at him in perfect understanding of his actions. “Good job, Shane,” she’d whispered when their mother was out of the room. “Good job.”
But he couldn’t let himself dwell on what he’d done—and the unexpected aftereffects. What’s done is done, he reminded himself. Where do I go from here?
Back to Washington, DC, for now. The Senate was in recess this third week of February—which was why he’d picked this time to check himself into the Mayo Clinic on the advice of the doctors here—but it would be back in session next week. So far no news agency had discovered where he was, and he’d like to keep it that way. Not that he had any intention of keeping this diagnosis a secret from his constituency the next time he ran for reelection.
Assuming he ran for reelection.
In the meantime, the fewer people who knew about this, the better. He wasn’t even going to share the news with his aides, although he’d have to think of something plausible to tell them. Not that he would outright lie, but he didn’t want to put any of them in the position of having to prevaricate with the press, should they discover he’d been here in the hospital and besiege them with questions.
If any reporter asked him, he’d stonewall because it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own—unless and until he decided to run for reelection—and he didn’t want people looking at him differently. Didn’t want people making excuses for him or feeling sorry for him. The doctors had assured him the seizures could be controlled with medication, so there was no way it could impact his job—it hadn’t so far and that’s the way it would stay. He didn’t feel any different, and he certainly wasn’t planning to lower his expectations of himself as a result of this diagnosis.
In fact, the only change in his life was the damned twice-daily medication.
* * *
Investigative television reporter Carly Edwards stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor of the Mayo Clinic’s main building, turned left, and confidently strode toward the neurology wing—5 West—as if she knew where she was going. She didn’t. The hospital would say she had no business here, and in a way that was true. She wasn’t a patient’s relative. She wasn’t visiting a loved one. But she did have business here. A source had told her Colorado’s junior senator was here—Senator Shane Jones—somewhere on the fifth floor. And Carly was going to track him down if she could, get an exclusive interview, and be the first to break the story. Whatever the story was.
She saw the attendant at the outer desk, with a sign that read Desk 5 West. Before anyone could challenge her, she turned right, again as if she knew where she was going, into a corridor marked 5 West Pod A. The patient rooms—all private rooms, she knew, from the research she’d done—were arranged around the nurses’ station and the various rooms behind it in a square. Some of the doors to the rooms were open, but some were closed. And Carly cursed internally when she realized the patients weren’t listed outside the doors—not even their last names—the way they were in some hospitals. Which meant she had no idea if Senator Jones was in any of these twelve rooms. Had no idea if he was even in Pod A.
“May I help you?” the nurse on duty behind the desk politely asked Carly.
“I’m looking for...” She quickly amended Senator to Shane and finished, “... Shane Jones.”
“That patient specified no visitors except those on a very short list—and all those names are male. Are you a relative?” the nurse asked pointedly.
Busted, Carly thought. She smiled her best smile. “Not exactly.”
“If you’re not a relative and you’re not on the list, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The nurse’s hand went to the phone, and Carly knew the other woman wouldn’t hesitate to call Security to escort her out, if necessary. But Carly wasn’t about to get this close to her prey and give up meekly. She hadn’t gotten where she was in her career by being faint of heart. She glanced down at the prop she’d donned before she came here—the diamond engagement ring Jack had given her over eight years ago. She tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder, suppressed the brief memory of Jack and the expression on his face when he’d placed it on her finger, and smiled brightly. “He didn’t want me to visit him in the hospital. That’s probably why my name’s not on the list. But I wanted to surprise him.”
“You’re Senator Jones’s fiancée?” the nurse asked.
Not willing to out-and-out lie, even for an exclusive, Carly didn’t confirm or deny, just beamed at the nurse and let her smile work its magic. That smile had gotten her into—and out of—more dangerous places she had no business being than the Mayo Clinic.
The nurse stood up and started out from behind the desk. “Let me see if he wants to see you.”
Uh-oh, Carly thought. “I wanted it to be a surprise,” she demurred.
“Yes, but sometimes the patient is sleeping or just isn’t in the mood for visitors.” She smiled at Carly, inviting her to understand. “Since you’re not on the list, maybe he didn’t want you to visit for a reason—because of the way he looks with all the electrodes attached. You know how vain men are. Especially a man as handsome as the senator.”
Carly’s ears perked up when the nurse mentioned electrodes. Electroshock therapy, she quickly hypothesized. Now that would be an exclusive, indeed. Colorado’s hero senator—a former United States marine—needing electroshock therapy for a mental illness. She suppressed the little nudge her conscience gave her that people were entitled to their privacy and reminded herself that Senator Jones was a public figure. If he were mentally ill, that could impact his job performance, and his constituents had a right to know about it. His constituents and the entire country.
“Hang on,” the nurse said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Carly watched as the nurse walked into 5W-10, making a mental note of the senator’s room number, then turned to make a run for it. She wasn’t Senator Jones’s fiancée—he didn’t have one, as far as she knew—and when he told the nurse he wasn’t engaged, the nurse would probably call Security. Carly would need to do some fancy explaining—if they caught her.
She was already heading down the corridor, nearly past the outer desk, when the nurse called her back. “Miss? Miss? You can see him now.”
Carly hesitated. Was this some kind of trick? Maybe the senator had asked the nurse to bring her back to his room, but to call Security so she could be arrested for trespassing. Either that or the senator was so mentally out of it he actually imagined he had a fiancée? If that was the case, could she snow him into thinking she was? Again her conscience gave her
