“Reece,” Katie inquired as naturally as possible, as if she were asking where he wanted to go for lunch, “when we were on Fishers Island, I asked you how you knew Ben didn’t have the detonator connected to the explosives around my neck. Do you remember that?”
Reece’s smile faded. He closed his eyes and nodded his head.
“Stay with me, Reece,” she continued in her most soothing voice, continuing to stroke his hand. “Did you know it wasn’t connected?”
Reece’s eyes stayed closed and Katie was worried he had drifted off.
Damn it, this is my only chance.
“Reece, did you think it was connected?” Katie pressed.
“I knew,” Reece said, opening his eyes to look into hers, before closing them again.
Shit, rookie move, which question was he answering? Did he know or not?
Katie’s head snapped toward the door at the sound of approaching voices. Shit.
They’d be at the room any moment. She had to know.
She just needed a few more seconds.
Spinning in her chair, she looked for a way to lock the door. Nothing. Are you kidding me? Frantically she scanned the room. She had been with her father in enough hospitals to know that as high-occupancy facilities, the doors were all required to be auto closing. However, the fire code and the practical necessities of efficiently running a hospital were often at odds. In violation of the fire code, auto-closing doors had to be kept manually open so doctors and nurses could move up and down the halls checking on patients. Seeing a rubber door stop, she grabbed it and shoved it under the door, kicking it securely in place before once again taking up her position at Reece’s bedside.
“You knew what, Reece?” she asked, switching back to a calm, inquisitive tone.
Reece murmured something almost inaudible.
“What?” she asked, leaning in closer.
“I knew it wasn’t connected.”
Katie’s body visibly trembled. All the months of pent-up wonder and doubt were answered through the side effects of narcotically induced slumber.
She heard a hand shaking the doorknob followed by the concerned voice of the nurse, “Excuse me. Excuse me!” She heard from the hallway.
Just a few more questions. Damn it.
“Reece, how did you know?”
Nothing.
“How did you know, Reece?” Katie pressed on, now hearing another set of hands rapping urgently on the door frame and knowing she had only a scant few moments before Reece emerged from his haze.
In a whisper Reece answered through the drugs, “Ben was standing too close. The blasting cap. The PETN in the det cord. He was too close.”
The knocks were now joined by another voice at the door.
She would not get another chance, so she pressed on ignoring what now must have been causing a scene in the hallway.
“Reece,” Katie continued with a bit more urgency in her voice, “why did you say that night on Fishers that you didn’t know? Why did you make me think that all these months?”
Still in the land between dreams and reality, the Versed fentanyl lowering inhibitions to a level where, no matter the answer, all would be right with the world, Reece responded truthfully, “I didn’t want you waiting on me, Katie. I was going to die that night and I didn’t want you to feel loss the way I had.”
Katie gulped, her eyes misting over, suddenly aware of a tightening in her chest.
Suddenly aware again of the banging outside, she rose and gracefully crossed the room, opening the door to the concerned faces of Dr. Rosen, Dr. Port, the nurse, and a security guard.
“I am so sorry. We just needed some privacy.”
“Ms. Buranek, you can’t block the door to the room,” a clearly agitated Dr. Rosen lectured, as she and Dr. Port moved to Reece’s side to check the monitors attached via wires and tubes to his body.
Putting on her most demure and apologetic smile, Katie lowered her head. “I really do apologize. I just did not want a special moment interrupted.”
“It’s okay, Doc,” Reece said groggily, struggling to push himself up to his elbows, “We had to discuss something here in the SCIF.”
Dr. Rosen’s demeanor softened. “Well, don’t do that again, frogman, or I’ll have you keel-hauled.”
“Aye, aye, Doc.” Reece smiled, attempting to raise his hand in salute but only managing to lift it a few inches off the bed.
“It’s okay,” Dr. Rosen assured the security guard who didn’t know quite what to do in the presence of the cable news personality and the man whose face had been plastered on televisions and newspapers across