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“Yeah, maybe I will try that.” Shane lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes. There was no way he could sleep; he just wanted to be alone. And if that meant pretending to be asleep...
When he was finally alone, Shane opened his eyes and stared at the wall opposite him, his thoughts in turmoil. He gave himself ten minutes to feel sorry for himself. Then he ruthlessly shut down the self-pity, the way he’d ruthlessly shut down other emotions in his life when they’d threatened to overwhelm him—put them into a little box he could lock away and not think about. Including the devastating pain caused by the death of his wife fifteen years earlier. His pregnant wife. His unborn son.
He could still remember the last time he’d seen Wendy alive—seven months pregnant and glowing. Excited about the upcoming baby shower her friends on the base were throwing for her.
And he could still remember being called to the morgue when her body had been found—he’d barely recognized her.
He hadn’t cried, though. Not then, and not at her funeral. He’d turned that grief inward, into an implacable determination to find the terrorists responsible...and he had.
He absently rubbed his fingers against the scar tissue on the left side of his skull, until a friendly voice over the loudspeaker reminded him not to scratch his head. “Sorry,” he told the disembodied voice of the technician monitoring his room via the video camera mounted on the ceiling facing his hospital bed. “I forgot.”
He rarely thought about how he’d gotten the scar anymore—except when he’d been on the campaign trail and some reporter asked him about it point blank. He’d done his best to put the incident at the bookstore out of his mind for two reasons: it had just about killed him to lose the life he had in the Corps...and the pregnant woman he’d saved had somehow reminded him of Wendy.
Even waking up in the hospital afterward with his mother and sister dozing at his bedside was something he tried not to think about too often, because it reminded him of things he wanted to forget. His mother had reacted the way most mothers would when their firstborn child had done his damnedest to get himself killed—she alternately cosseted and scolded. His sister, Keira, on the other hand had smiled at him in perfect understanding of his actions. “Good job, Shane,” she’d whispered when their mother was out of the room. “Good job.”
But he couldn’t let himself dwell on what he’d done—and the unexpected aftereffects. What’s done is done, he reminded himself. Where do I go from here?
Back to Washington, DC, for now. The Senate was in recess this third week of February—which was why he’d picked this time to check himself into the Mayo Clinic on the advice of the doctors here—but it would be back in session next week. So far no news agency had discovered where he was, and he’d like to keep it that way. Not that he had any intention of keeping this diagnosis a secret from his constituency the next time he ran for reelection.
Assuming he ran for reelection.
In the meantime, the fewer people who knew about this, the better. He wasn’t even going to share the news with his aides, although he’d have to think of something plausible to tell them. Not that he would outright lie, but he didn’t want to put any of them in the position of having to prevaricate with the press, should they discover he’d been here in the hospital and besiege them with questions.
If any reporter asked him, he’d stonewall because it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own—unless and until he decided to run for reelection—and he didn’t want people looking at him differently. Didn’t want people making excuses for him or feeling sorry for him. The doctors had assured him the seizures could be controlled with medication, so there was no way it could impact his job—it hadn’t so far and that’s the way it would stay. He didn’t feel any different, and he certainly wasn’t planning to lower his expectations of himself as a result of this diagnosis.
In fact, the only change in his life was the damned twice-daily medication.
* * *
Investigative television reporter Carly Edwards stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor of the Mayo Clinic’s main building, turned left, and confidently strode toward the neurology wing—5 West—as if she knew where she was going. She didn’t. The hospital would say she had no business here, and in a way that was true. She wasn’t a patient’s relative. She wasn’t visiting a loved one. But she did have business here. A source had told her Colorado’s junior senator was here—Senator Shane Jones—somewhere on the fifth floor. And Carly was going to track him down if she could, get an exclusive interview, and be the first to break the story. Whatever the story was.
