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She fought hard to contain the tears pooling in her eyes as Nick and some other plain clothes officers asked her questions about what time she had last seen Joe, and if she had seen or heard anything after he left her house.
About an hour later, a uniformed female officer yelled for Nick from inside Joe’s house. She and Tony followed him as he headed toward her.
She held a cell phone to her ear and talked to someone at the same time she talked to Nick. “An unidentified male in his early thirties was admitted into an Elk Grove Village hospital on Biesterfield Road early this morning. From what they can tell, he fits the description I gave them of your brother,” she said as she continued to carry on a conversation with the person on the other end of the line.
Worry lines deepened across Nick’s face. He swung his gaze from the officer to his dad, to her, and then back to the officer. “Is he okay?”
Though his voice was steady, the concern in his gaze sent her heart racing.
“I don’t know for sure. I’m trying to get someone on the line who can tell me,” the officer replied.
She rode with Nick and Tony to the hospital. Though the ride only took minutes, it felt like an eternity as a multitude of dreadful outcomes–scenarios ran through her head, ranging from a broken bone to the unthinkable; death. No! She nearly screamed it out but caught herself.
Upon arrival, Nick flashed his badge and asked to see the unidentified patient that was admitted earlier in the morning. The nurse informed him that two unidentified males were admitted, both fitting Joe’s description.
She and Tony waited in the reception area as the nurse brought Nick down the long corridor to the room of the first patient. It took only seconds for them to step back into the hallway, and then enter the next room.
A minute later, he reentered the hallway. She watched him as he walked toward them. The look on his face let her know it was Joe in that hospital room. Worry rocked her body, and weakened her knees. Tony slung his arm around her.
Nick stopped a couple of steps shy of her and his dad, and raked his hand through his thick, brown, wavy hair in the same manner she had seen Joe do many times.
“It’s Joe.”
Her heart lodged in her throat.
“The nurse is going to send the doctor in to talk with us,” he added as he turned and headed back toward Joe’s room.
She and Tony followed him. He stopped at the doorway and turned back to look at her. “Before you go in there, I want you to know that he was beaten pretty badly. His face is quite swollen and bruised. He doesn’t even look like himself.” At the crack of his voice, she knew it wasn’t good.
He extended his hand to her, and she placed her nervous, trembling hand in his. She gasped at the sight of Joe. Tears burned her cheeks. Nick pulled her tight to his side, and edged her closer to the bed. Tony stared down at his son from the opposite side of the bed.
Within minutes, a short, round, balding man in a long, white coat entered the room. He opened his laptop and scanned the screen. When he finished reading the file, he fixed his gaze on Nick. “I understand you’re a police officer, and this is your brother.”
“Yes. How is he? Is he going to be okay?”
“Actually, he should be fine in time. He is conscious now, but due to the pain medication we gave him, he is very sleepy. He took quite a beating. He has a concussion, fractured cheek, a multitude of bruises, mostly on his face and torso, and a nasty lump on the back of his head where he appears to have been struck with a hard, blunt object. If it wasn’t for his excellent physical condition, his injuries would probably be much worse.”
Relief whipped through her at the same moment she saw it pass through Nick and Tony’s eyes.
A uniformed officer from the Elk Grove Village Police Department entered the room and summoned Nick to follow him.
She reached down and placed her hand over Joe’s. His hand was warm and still. She stroked his hair with her other hand before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you. Please wake up and let me know you’re okay. Please,” she whispered softly.
Nick came back into the room. “I need to go. I need to get to the bottom of this.”
“What did the Officer have to say? Do they have any idea who did this?” Tony asked.
“They don’t seem to know much yet. The Elk Grove PD received a call at 3:00 a.m. from a convenience store clerk. The clerk told them he heard a single gunshot near the back of the store. When the police arrived on the scene, there was no one around the store, but as they combed the area, they heard a moaning sound coming from the dumpster behind the store. They opened it and found Joe. He didn’t have any ID on him, so they didn’t know who he was until the hospital called them to tell them we were here. It appears as though no one saw anything.”
“There was a gunshot? The doctor didn’t say Joe had a gunshot wound,” Tony commented.
“He evidently wasn’t hit. The Elk Grove PD doesn’t exactly know what that was about for sure, but they did retrieve a 9mm casing from inside the dumpster. If that bullet was indeed meant for Joe, they left him there for dead. They need to talk with him when he wakes up. Hopefully, he will be able to shed some light on what happened. In the meantime, I’m going to check on the whereabouts of Mr. James and Patrick, though it seems too obvious, they do have motive. It’s not like this is your standard mugging.” Nick replied.
“I don’t understand. Why would Mr. James and Patrick travel all this way to beat up Joe?” Elizabeth asked.
Nick cocked his head to the side. “You yourself have experienced firsthand what a bottom-feeding scumbag Mr. James is. What do you think he would do, or is capable of doing to someone he thinks is standing in the way of him having you, and access to his little heir? And make no mistake about this, whoever attacked my brother left him for dead in that dumpster. They weren’t just trying to teach him a lesson.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God. I did this to him.”
