“He’s fine,” Carter replied with a smile. “But I’ll bet you wish the message was for me.”
She smiled too. But Carter’s smile was only a cover. He was gravely concerned that their best laid plan just might be blowing up in smoke.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The limousine stopped in front of the emergency room entrance and Vincent jumped out of the front passenger seat and opened the back passenger door. Harrison rushed out and ran toward the entrance. Vincent could barely keep up with the man ten years his senior as they hurried into the emergency room.
Then they hurried up to the nurse’s station. “I was told Jayda Robinson is here,” Harrison said to the first nurse he came upon.
“Take a number and have a seat.”
“Just tell me where I can find Jayda Robinson.”
The woman looked at him angrily. “I said take a number and take a seat!”
Her anger only spurred Harrison’s. “Now you listen to me,” he said with his voice rising. “My name is Harrison Bainbridge. Where can I find Jayda Robinson?!”
When he said his name, everybody behind that desk stopped and looked at him. They didn’t know his face, but every single one of them knew that name. And the power to destroy them that such a name carried.
That was why the charge nurse didn’t hesitate. She hurried forward. “Right this way, sir,” she said and escorted Harrison, with Vincent at his side, to the back of the emergency room. They had to go around two corridors before they got to Jayda’s room.
When they opened the door, he was so relieved to see her sitting upright on her hospital bed that he had to take a momentjust to catch up with his hammering heart. Then he hurried to her side. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, although he could see the terror that was still in her eyes. “I’m okay. I’m so sorry to disturb you like that, Harrison, but I didn’t have anybody else I could call and I wanted somebody to know I was in this hospital. I hate hospitals.”
Harrison understood exactly what she meant. “As do I,” he said. “How long have you been here?”
“For three or four hours. They’ve been running a lot of tests.”
“Have you spoken with the doctor?”
“Not yet, no. I’ve asked repeatedly, but they said he was busy.”
Harrison exhaled. It was a shame what people without means had to put up with. He looked at Vincent. “Go back to that nurse’s station. Tell that nurse I want to see whichever doctor is treating Miss Robinson and I want to see him now.”
“Yes sir,” Vincent said and left the room.
Harrison saw her close her eyes and then open them again, as if she was reliving the horror. He sat on the bed beside her, which did comfort her. “What happened?” he asked her in a soft voice, as if she only had to tell him and no one else. He was looking over her body as he spoke, but she was in a hospital gown and there was little he could see.
“I was riding my bike down this alley.”
“An alley?” Harrison was concerned. “Why would you ride in an alley?”
“It’s faster. No traffic. At least it’s not supposed to be traffic.”
“Go on.”
“I just dropped off some chicken to this church youth camp like I do every Saturday, and so I’m on my way to pick upa couple orders from IHOP. That’s when this car comes racing through the alley like it’s coming straight for me.”
Harrison’s body tensed.
“I decided it was best if I jump off my bike and protect myself, that’s how fast it was coming, but I didn’t get a chance. That car slammed into the back of my bike and threw me so far that I ended up outside of the alley.”
Harrison wanted to die where he sat. Acarhit her bike? And threw her off of her bike?
“But the car kept coming for me,” she continued. “I tried to get up and run but I couldn’t get my body to move fast enough. So the car came out of the alley and stopped, and then the door opened like the driver was gonna get out and do I-don’t-know-what to me. But then these black guys that were playing basketball over on a court saw what was happening and they came running to help me, thank God. The driver of that car got scared when he saw them coming, and so he closed that car door and took off.”
Harrison was thankful too. But he was still so anguished by what she’d said about the way she was hit from behind and thrown from that bike that he couldn’t get a word out.
