“We don’t know, sir.” The deputy shrugged her shoulders.
“This is just crazy! Why?” Scott asked, obviously in shock.
“I don’t know, sir, but we’re working on getting answers to all these questions.”
“Has she…has she been…was she…was she raped?”
“No sir. There are no such indications,” she replied and smiled kindly at Lindsay.
Scott’s mind was whirling. “Hey, look, I have a friend, actually he’s my next-door neighbor, who’s at a hunting club ten miles or so from Livingston. His name’s Jake Crosby, and the club’s called the Bogue Chitto. I hunt there some with him. Can you have someone go out there and get him so he can stay with Lindsay? I’m sure he’s at the camp house.”
“Yes sir. I’ll see what I can do.” Deputy Gibbons jotted down “Jake Crosby” in her notebook and took a stab at spelling “Bogue Chitto.”
“Is there a number where I can call you back?” Scott asked. “I’m goin’ to have a bunch of questions while I’m drivin’.”
“Yes sir.” She gave Scott the hospital number and the sheriff’s office number. He promised to be there as fast as he could. Scott hung up the phone and stared in disbelief at the hotel walls.
Lakreshia again smiled warmly at Lindsay and told her that her husband was on his way and had said to tell her that he loved her. Lindsay smiled weakly, closed her eyes, and allowed the Xanax to work its magic.
Lakreshia walked out and called Martha O’Brien with the details. When she mentioned the Jake Crosby connection, Martha immediately took the information to Ollie. At this point, Ollie believed Jake was one of the good guys, but he sure wanted to ask the man some questions. Ollie had just gotten off the phone with the sheriff’s office in West Point. They really didn’t know anything about Jake Crosby. They did know he had a perfectly clean record, and a deputy on duty knew Jake because Jake had coached his daughter’s softball team two years earlier. The deputy didn’t think Jake could be criminally involved in anything this bizarre. West Point was dispatching units to the Johnsons’ to check on the children and to the Littlepage and Crosby homes to investigate the kidnapping. The deputy promised to call him right back.
“Thank you, Miz Martha,” Ollie said as he rubbed his head with both hands.
“You need anything, Sheriff?”
“Some fresh coffee please…if you don’t mind.”
“You got it.” Martha turned to leave and stopped. “Do you think this Jake character kidnapped the woman from West Point?”
“I don’t know what to think…common sense dictates we consider that angle, though,” he responded.
“Nothing’s ever as it seems; is it?”
“No ma’am.”
“I’ll get your coffee; you’re gonna need it.”
The head ER nurse saw Tanner’s right eye open slightly. He was blinking rapidly, trying to adjust to the bright lights. His left eye was swollen completely shut. She eased to his side, saying a few comforting words. When he seemed to relax a bit, she quietly left the room and paged Dr. Sarhan. She looked back into the room and noted that he had closed his eye.
The nurse walked across the hall to the waiting room to tell Mrs. Tillman that Tanner was waking and that she would be allowed to see him as soon. Olivia Beasley was there, wringing her hands. The two mothers hugged each other. The nurse’s next duty was to call Martha O’Brien at the sheriff’s office to alert her.
Dr. Sarhan walked very deliberately down the hall into the room and immediately checked the dilation in Tanner’s right eye. “I am Dr. Sarhan. Tanner? You know where you are? What happened to you?”
Tanner’s eye slowly rolled back in his head, then shut. Dr. Sarhan recognized the morphine fog in which Tanner’s mind floated. “You been in bad accident. You serious injuries…but you be all right. You very lucky.”
Tanner started to sit up and talk but couldn’t. Dr. Sarhan placed both of his hands on Tanner’s shoulders and gently forced him to lie still. Tanner was moaning. Dr. Sarhan looked up to check the morphine drip, then made a note on his chart. As soon as the doctor took his hand off him, Tanner tried to sit up again. He groped at the tube protruding from his mouth. Dr. Sarhan grabbed him. “Stop struggling, Tanner. You lie still…relax.”
The doctor could clearly see the terror in Tanner’s eye. “It’s OK now. I promise. You safe…nothing happen you now,” Dr. Sarhan explained in his soothing Indian accent.
Tanner tried to talk, but the tube down his throat prevented it. With his good eye, he tried to communicate his urgency to the doctor. The doctor misinterpreted the look as pain, quickly ordering the nurse to increase the morphine drip. “Now!” he exclaimed.
As the nurse hurriedly approached, she watched Tanner. Fifteen years as an ICU nurse had honed her clinical observation skills. She recognized Tanner’s efforts.
“Dr. Sarhan, he’s trying to speak!” she excitedly informed the doctor.
“What?” he replied, looking up from the medical chart. “He can’t talk…he is intubated.”
“He sure is trying…maybe he can write!” the nurse said as she rounded the bed, grabbed a notepad, and took a pen from the breast pocket of the doctor’s lab coat. She placed the pen in Tanner’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it. She guided his hand to the notepad.
“Write what you want, dear.” She spoke slowly and deliberately. She could see Tanner’s immediate relief. Dr. Sarhan also observed it.
Tanner was in a haze from the morphine, but all he could think about was Elizabeth. The image of her face was all he could see. He could hear her screaming. He fought to keep his mind clear. With great effort and concentration, he finally scribbled Elizabeth’s name then opened his eye wide with worry, waiting for the response.
“Elizabeth…he’s asking about Elizabeth!” The nurse excitedly headed for the door. As she pushed it open, she saw Deputy Lakreshia Gibbons walking quickly toward the room.
“Lakreshia, come quickly! He just scribbled Elizabeth’s name…he’s asking about Elizabeth!”
Lakreshia knew they were searching for Elizabeth but didn’t know any details. She rushed to Tanner’s side. Dr. Sarhan, still concentrating on Tanner’s injuries and pain level, reluctantly stepped back, out of her way.
Tanner had scribbled another note and was trying to give it to someone. She grabbed it and tried to read it.
“I can’t read it,” Lakreshia said in a frustrated tone, handing it to the nurse.
“I can’t either,” the nurse responded.
Lakreshia looked at him, concerned, and bluntly asked, “Where’s Elizabeth? We can’t find her? Tanner…where is Elizabeth? She’s not at your Jeep.”
Tanner’s heart monitor started racing as he struggled to sit up. He was obviously very upset. He grabbed at the tube and the IV lines in his arms. He was trying with every fiber of his being to sit up when Dr. Sarhan pushed him back and ordered the nurse to immediately administer more sedative.
“Now!” he ordered. He watched her bypass the drip machine’s settings, giving Tanner an immediate dose.
Tanner struggled to communicate. He couldn’t speak. White-hot flashes of pain coursed through him, taking away his breath. He couldn’t make his hands move like he wanted. He could think clearly, but couldn’t communicate.
“Everything OK. Pain will leave shortly,” Dr. Sarhan said, not about to let the young man suffer.
In Tanner’s mind, he was screaming NO! He couldn’t keep his eye open. He wanted to find out more about Elizabeth! Where is she! They have to find her! The drugs were kicking in hard now. Everything became heavy and fuzzy-except for Elizabeth’s image, which was crystal clear.
Mrs. Tillman appeared in the doorway. Dr. Sarhan encouraged her to come in, thinking her presence might help calm Tanner.
Holding her hand over her mouth, she approached her son. Right behind her, Olivia Beasley came in, anxious to ask Tanner some questions.
Tanner could hear everything being said.
“He not awake long,” said Dr. Sarhan, stepping back to let the women get closer.
“Tanner, where’s Elizabeth?” Mrs. Tillman asked.