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“He fell, didn’t he?” Mrs. Eggers guessed, concern in her tone. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told him not to be going out alone. It was only a matter of time.”
Talia could just picture the woman shaking her head, and hated to do it, but she needed to deliver much more difficult news.
“It actually wasn’t just a fall, Mrs. Eggers. He ended up on his mat, but not for the reasons you think.”
“Continue,” Mr. Eggers prompted.
Talia fortified herself with a few swift flexes before giving them their answer. “Your son suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm while he was climbing.”
“Oh, my God!” Mrs. Eggers wailed. “I’ve been so afraid that might happen. But you said he’s okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I told Fleet he should have a brain scan because of Jim’s family history, but he kept assuring me he was fine.”
“I know. Fleet told me about his uncles,” Talia returned. “And yes, he probably should have had a CT scan, but he didn’t, and…he got very lucky. A colleague of his knew where he was going when he headed off for the afternoon. She was waiting for him to get back to his studio so they could do some work. Everlee—his employee and my friend—is married to my SWAT chief,” she told them as an aside before delving deeper into the story.
“When Fleet didn’t arrive back at the studio when he was supposed to, she called him a few times, and he didn’t answer his phone. Feeling that something was wrong, Ever contacted her husband and he mobilized our squad to go out and search for Fleet. We got to him pretty quickly, stabilized him, and transported him to the nearest hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.”
“How long ago was this?” Mr. Eggers asked with a bite to his voice.
“Five, uh, six days ago.”
“And he’s okay now, but he didn’t call us,” the man stated rhetorically. “I’m going to kill him.”
Talia barked a laugh. “See? That’s what I said, and now you know why.”
“Right. Because our independent, not wanting to worry his parents, son, had major surgery and didn’t think to call us once he was on the mend,” Mr. Eggers supplied.
“Exactly.” Talia let her shoulders relax just a little. The rest of the story wouldn’t be fun to impart, but at least she’d laid the groundwork.
“So why are you calling us, instead of him reaching out?”
Talia sighed. “Because he’s in recovery. Again.”
“A relapse?” Mrs. Eggers voice shook as she questioned.
“No. He was scheduled to have his plates and clamps removed later today, but there was an…incident last night and the surgeon had to move up his procedure.”
“What kind of incident?” The suspicion was back in Mr. Egger’s tone.
“Let me start with last night,” Talia suggested, and when she wasn’t met with any dissent, she continued. “I was with Fleet before visiting hours ended, both physically and metaphorically holding his hand while he whined about his scheduled surgery—”
“Did he tell you why he was nervous?” Mr. Eggers asked, but kept going before she could answer. “My brother made it through his first surgery just fine, but lost a good deal of his fine motor skills after the second. I’m sure Fleet was worried about that.”
“He was,” Talia agreed. “But I told him to suck it up. That we’d deal with it. That I wasn’t going anywhere even if he ended up with complications.”
“I like the sound of you,” Mrs. Eggers put in with a little giggle. “I’ve always said Fleet needs somebody strong in his life to smarten him up. He can be so…stubborn and opinionated sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Talia actually laughed. “How about whenever he opens his mouth?” she quipped. “But he’s met his match, in me.”
“We can’t wait to meet you.” Mrs. Eggers responded effusively. She seemed a lot less suspicious than her husband, but Talia would reserve judgement on that until they’d finished their conversation.
“So, you were saying?” Mr. Eggers urged. “Our noncommunicative son had major surgery and didn’t call us. He was worried about the follow up procedure, but that somehow got moved up?”
Here was the hardest part. “Because he went missing from his room last night,” Talia revealed. “We got the call from his night nurse just before two in the morning that he wasn’t in his bed, and that they’d searched the entire hospital.”
“What?” Mrs. Eggers sounded justifiably alarmed.
Talia kept on, wanting to have the whole story out quickly, so she could then get what could be vital information for their current investigation. “SWAT was called in again, once it was determined there needed to be a search and rescue team on scene.”
“And…where was he? Where did you find him?” Mr. Eggers asked, his voice shaky with emotion.
