WIN, Coben, Harlan [ebook and pdf reader .txt] 📗

member nor Myron sitting bedside. It’s Sadie Fisher. She bends toward me—close enough that I can smell her lilac shampoo—and whispers in my ear.

“Not a word to the police until we talk.”

Then Sadie calls out, “I think he’s awake,” and moves to the side. Medical professionals—doctors and nurses, I assume—descend. They take vitals and give me ice chips for the thirst. It takes a minute or two, but I’m able to answer their simple, medically related questions. They tell me that I suffered head trauma, that the bullet missed my vital organs, that I will be fine. After some time passes, they ask me if I have any questions. I catch Sadie’s eye. She gives the smallest shake of the head. I, in turn, shake mine.

Perhaps an hour later—time is hard to judge—I am upright in the bed. Sadie works hard to clear the room. The staff grudgingly obey. Once they are gone, Sadie takes a small speaker out of her purse, fiddles with her phone, and starts blasting music.

“In case someone is listening in,” Sadie tells me when she moves closer.

“How long have I been here?” I ask.

“Four days.” Sadie pulls a chair toward the bed. “Tell me what happened. All of it.”

I do, though the pain medication is making me loopy. She listens without interrupting. I ask for more ice chips while I tell the tale. She pours them into my mouth.

When I finish, Sadie says, “The driver, as you already know, is dead. So is one of the two assailants, Robert Lyons. He flew through the windshield on impact. The other brother—he goes by Trey—suffered broken bones, but since there wasn’t enough to hold him on, he’s gone home to ‘convalesce’ in western Pennsylvania.”

“What did Trey claim?”

“Mr. Lyons is choosing not to speak to the authorities at this time.”

“What do the police think happened?”

“They aren’t saying, except for the fact that they’ve pieced together that the driver had his throat slit by you. They have some forensics—the position of your body behind the corpse, the way the blade fit into your sleeve, the blood on your hands, stuff like that. It probably isn’t court conclusive, but it’s enough so that the cops know.”

“Did you tell them about the brothers threatening you?” I ask.

“Not yet. I can always do that later. If I tell them now, they will want to know why they threatened me. Do you understand?”

I do.

“The cops are already connecting the dots between what happened to Teddy Lyons in Indiana and what happened in that van. For your sake, as my client, I don’t want to help them.”

Logical. “Advice?” I ask.

“The police are here. They want you to make a statement. I say we don’t give them one.”

“I already forget what happened anyway,” I say. “Head trauma, you know.”

“And you’re still too weak to question,” Sadie adds.

“I am, yes, though I still want to be released as soon as possible. I can recuperate better at home.”

“I’ll see whether I can arrange it.”

Sadie rises.

“We kept this quiet, Win. Out of the papers.”

“Thank you.”

“There were other people who wanted to stay bedside. I advised against it because I wanted to make certain you spoke to me first. They all understood.”

I nod. I don’t ask who. It doesn’t matter.

“Thank you,” I say. “Now get me out of here.”

*  *  *

But it isn’t that easy.

Two days later I am moved out of the ICU into a private room. It is there, at three in the morning, while I am still blessedly riding the edge between the morphine highway and full slumber, that I sense more than hear my hospital room door open.

This is not uncommon, of course. Anyone who has endured a prolonged stay in a medical facility knows that you are prodded and probed at the strangest hours of the night, almost as though the intent is to keep you from any true REM sleep. Perhaps, to again use a superhero analogy, my Spidey senses were tingling, but I somehow know that whoever was broaching was not a nurse or physician or a member of the custodial crew.

I stay very still. I do not have a weapon on me, which is foolish. I also do not have my customary reflexes or strength or timing. I carefully open my eyes just a smidge, but between the drugs and the late hour, my vision is that of a man looking through gauze.

I do, however, see movement.

I could perhaps open my eyes a bit wider, but I don’t want whoever is entering to know that I’m awake.

Still, I make out a man. My first thought is one that makes my pulse spike.

It’s Trey Lyons.

But I can see now that this man is too large. He stays in the doorway. I can feel his eyes on me. I consider my next move.

The call button.

Every hospital room has one, of course, but being that I am not good about asking for help, I had paid little heed when the nurse explained it all to me. Hadn’t she wrapped the cord about the bed railing? Yes. Had that been on my left or right?

Left.

With my body still under the covers, I try to snake my left hand toward the call button without being seen.

A male voice says, “Don’t do that, Win.”

So much for playing possum. I open my eyes all the way now. My vision is still murky, and the lights are low, but I can see the big man—and he’s very big, I see now—standing by the door. I make out a long beard and a cap of some kind atop his head. Another man—swept-back gray hair, expensive suit—steps fully into the room. He is the one who warned me off the call button. He nods at the big guy. The big guy steps out of the room and closes the door behind him. Swept Back grabs a chair and pulls it up to me.

“You know who I am?” he asks me.

“The Tooth Fairy?”

It’s not my best line, but Gray Hair still smiles. “My name