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Simon got around the people only to be stopped by a police barrier. There were officers in dark coats swarming around and also leaning against cars. There were a few firemen as well and an ambulance stood near with its back door wide open. As he watched, EMTs raised a stretcher and started rolling it toward the ambulance.
Logically, the figure on the gurney was unlikely to be Ben. It was too big a coincidence. Nevertheless, in his heart, Simon was sure that it was his Ben they were carrying away. He tried to get information out of the few policemen near the cordoned-off section of road, but none of them were interested in talking to him once he admitted he hadn’t been a witness to the accident. Not sure what else to do, Simon called Hudson.
“You find him, boss?”
“No, I mean, maybe? Two blocks away from the stop a pedestrian was hit by a car in the crosswalk. I saw them loading the person into the ambulance and I think it was Ben.” Even having not seen the injured person clearly Simon knew deep down in his marrow it had been the man he adored.
“How sure are you?”
“Sure enough to stop searching on foot.” Internally, Simon cursed having walked the route instead of having Hudson drive. They might have been able to follow the ambulance.
“Send me your location and I’ll come pick you up and take you home. We can start making some phone calls. We’ll find Ben, I promise. Even if we have to comb every inch of this city backward and forward.”
“What if he really doesn’t want to be with me?” Simon asked, his voice small.
Hudson sighed heavily. “Fuck, boss. How about we burn that bridge when we come to it, okay?”
Simon leaned against a telephone pole, hoping it would keep him upright. Now that it had come down to it, the thought of Ben leaving him forever made Simon feel nauseous and more than a little crazy. He wanted to scream, or shake someone until they told him where Ben was, or sit down and cry. Since none of those were viable options, Simon leaned against the pole and waited for Hudson to come get him.
Wednesday, December 20
Simon’s study
The Gold Coast
After Hudson brought Simon home, he deposited him in his study with a stiff drink and said he was going back out to keep looking. Meanwhile, Simon’s mother volunteered to help with telephone duty.
“Your young man. I’ll need to know his full name.”
“It’s Ben Miller,” Simon said wearily.
“Do you know anything else? Is Ben short for Benjamin?”
“I would think so.” Simon flipped through the envelopes on his desk until he found the one he was looking for and opened it. It was the billing paperwork from Ben’s hospital stay. Because he’d said he would be paying for all of Ben’s medical bills, they’d sent everything to the address he’d supplied. “I don’t have anything but Ben on his paperwork. I do have a date of birth, however.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” his mother said.
They took the list of the city’s hospitals, from closest to furthest, and started making calls. Unfortunately, call after call, they were told that no patient named Ben or Benjamin Miller had been brought to their location.
33
Ben’s Secret Is Revealed
Thursday, December 21
Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center
Lakeview
Ben only knew it was morning because of the light that filtered past his drawn curtains. Time had become something unreal and unreliable. Ben tried to sleep, but did so in only fitful bursts, waking each time in the hope that Simon would be there and the crushing reality that he wouldn’t be. Tests were performed, blood was drawn, and a variety of people wearing scrubs and/or white coats refused to leave him alone. Worst of all was the deep throb of pain in his arm that the medication they gave him couldn’t erase.
He didn’t even realize he’d been crying until a cute young nurse handed him a tissue. “You okay…” The nurse looked down at Ben’s chart and frowned. “That can’t be right,” he muttered.
“Just call me Ben,” he said wearily.
The nurse brightened. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Ben, are you okay?”
Ben felt about as far away from okay as one could get but he said, “I’m fine.”
