“We will be questioning the suspect as soon as we’re able to and we’ll keep you informed,” Masterson said flatly. With a little softness entering his voice added, “I hope she pulls through the surgery.”
Alone again, Jim checked his phone hoping for some kind of distraction. He saw several missed calls from Katy Myers amongst others, but was in no mood to speak to anyone so slipped the phone back into his pocket and waited, again.
He was still sitting on the chair in the corridor, waiting for Tasha with his eyes shut and his head resting against the wall when he became aware of someone nearby. Opening his eyes slowly, he was greeted by the site of Mickie carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a leaflet on ovarian cancer in the other. She was wearing a scarf on her head which seemed a little melodramatic, even for Mickie. She clearly noticed Jim’s glance on her covered head.
“I thought I’d get used to it,” she said with a tight smile. “How’s Tasha?” she asked, but seemed strange, although if she’d been told she had ovarian cancer and would need chemotherapy it was no wonder.
Jim was in no mood to talk so simply shrugged at her questioning of Tasha’s wellbeing. Unfortunately, Mickie had no problem talking and was doing enough for the two of them. Jim tuned much of it out but did pick up on references towhatever happensanddoctors only being able to do so muchwhich caused a deep scowl to mar Jim’s face but then Mickie seemed to change tack, confusing him further.
“Jim, we have been through so much and I have my own battle ahead, but I will always be here to support you,” she told him and then, taking his hand in hers, continued. “You need to go home to take a break from this. I’m worried about you so why don’t you let me take you home, back to mine if you can’t face yours. Let me take care of you?”
Jim stared wide-eyed and disbelievingly at Mickie’s persistence and audacity to intrude and that really was what her presence felt like to him now, an intrusion on his time with Tasha. Whatever time they might have left, whether that was an hour, a day, a week, a month or another thirty or forty years there really was no place for Mickie in any of those scenarios.
“Mickie, this is over, us. We were friends, but I think that was through circumstance more than anything else. I should have cut you off when you and Bobby split and even without doing that I should never have allowed any more to happen between us, certainly not a casual sexual relationship that I knew meant considerably more to you than me and for that I apologise.” He needed to leave her in no doubt about his feelings.
“No, it wasn’t like that,” Mickie protested tearfully.
“It was, for me. You were never more than a very casual friend with benefits. I love Tasha and I need her to be well and happy and you make her unhappy, so we are done. I’m sorry you’re sick, I really am, Mickie, but I can’t be the person to help you through that, no matter what happens with Tasha.”
Before Mickie could offer any other comment, Jim was getting to his feet and walking towards the theatre doors.
“You should go. Goodbye, Mickie,” Jim said with real finality as he turned his back on her to wait for news on Tasha.
Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime, Stan appeared through the double doors Jim still stood before.
“You know you don’t have to shadow me quite so closely, don’t you?” He smiled before giving Jim some news on Tasha. “She is one tough cookie and has come through relatively unscathed. The infection had spread and we needed to do quite a tidy up in there and some of the work we’d already done needed reworking.” He smiled then turned more serious. “Tasha’s body has been through a lot and the truth is that it is still in shock and struggling to fight everything which is why she has been sedated and will remain that way for a while. The same with the ventilator, plus her punctured lung is finding it hard to re-inflate and needs the help. We’ve removed her spleen which you can live without but obviously it’s not something we’d do unless it was necessary.”
“But she’s okay, she’ll come round and be okay?” Jim asked a little desperately.
“Like I say, she’s been through a lot. Let’s get her through tonight and tomorrow then we’ll have a better idea how she’s fairing, okay?”
Jim nodded and thought if Tasha survived this he might never let her out of his sight again because he couldn’t do this again, feel like this again.
“We’re going to keep her in recovery for a little while and then we’ll take her back to her room in ICU, okay?” Stan asked but no reply was necessary.
Jim’s phone began to vibrate almost constantly as Stan left him alone again. Pulling his phone from his pocket he saw more calls from Katy but many more from Amanda and then a text from his former wife too.
Rather than text, he called Amanda and found his call was answered on the first ring.
“Thank goodness you’re picking up your messages. How’s Tasha?” Amanda asked.
“Not good but hanging on in there, but I thought you had something I needed to know.” He bristled.
“I do, but not over the phone. I have Katy with me. We’re heading to you at the hospital right now.”
Jim quickly cut her off. “Amanda,” he snapped but she was unfazed.
“Jim, trust me, you need to hear this but not over the phone.” She hung up leaving Jim a little startled and then he laughed, loudly, because not only had Amanda just found her dominant side with him she’d called him Jim, not Mr Maybury. He immediately thought of Tasha and how funny she would find this new, forceful Amanda. Briefly he smiled when he thought Amanda’s behaviour was more Tasha like than anything else and wondered if she was also being moulded and influenced by the very sassy, smart and beautiful girl he intended to marry. His smile faltered and became a frown as he realised that their plans to marry were unlikely to materialise.
****
Tasha was back in her room while Jim watched over her and absorbed the details of the last few hours. A nurse came in and offered him a pillow and blanket making him check the time that revealed it was three in the morning. He wondered why time went so slowly here. It felt like a lifetime had passed since they’d first arrived just a few days before. He remembered that first week when Tasha had flown to L.A. from New York. Those days had flown by, but then, isn’t that what they said?Time flies when you’re having fun. And what fun they’d had. He honestly couldn’t remember when he’d been as happy or had as much fun as he had that week or any week since and there was only one reason for that, Tasha.
Taking Tasha’s hand in his, Jim wondered just how he was going to tell her everything that had happened when she finally woke up. He assumed she’d know she had been in some kind of accident when she came to in a hospital, but the rest was like the plot from a TV mini-series, not that he’d have commissioned the series because it seemed a little implausible and yet it was real. It had happened to Tasha.
The police had been back to see him, after Amanda and Katy, the latter had been doing what she did best by digging around after meeting with Tasha a few days before. What she had dug up was Mickie’s cancer diagnosis, or lack thereof. It had all been a big, fat lie; no cancer, no illness, no nothing and worse still no sign of Mickie, but at least the police were looking for her now. The police had come back asking for information about Mickie who Samuel Bailey had immediately incriminated when questioned. Mickie’s investigator, Michael Rose, had made contact with her parents but they had made it clear that they were more than happy to take money for pretty much anything and Mickie had then cut a deal for Tasha’s dad to travel to The States on forged documents to intervene with Jim and Tasha’s wedding plans. Jim had told the police exactly what he knew in relationship to Mickie and Michael Rose, but without going into detail about Tasha’s childhood and relationship with her parents. The police were now hunting Mickie.
