See Tom Run (18 page)

Tom put his arm around Erin and pulled her against
him. “If you want, I’d be more than happy to help you find her in
any way I can.”

“Oh Tom, that would be so nice! And I’ll help you
find your wife and kids.”

Tom had almost forgotten his own family for a moment.
Almost. This was all just too much to bear. All he could hope for
was that things would be better in the morning.

“Well, I’m ready to take that shower and turn
in.”

Erin slipped the photo back into her wallet. “Me
too.”

Tom got up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night, Erin.”

Tom went upstairs, undressed and took a long, hot
shower.

After changing into a pair of sweatpants and
sweatshirt, he quietly descended the stairs to the living room. By
the light of the fire, he saw Erin snuggled up on the sofa under
the blankets. He went over to where she lay, leaned down and kissed
her gently on her forehead.

He went into the kitchen to check on Donnie. The
hillbilly was still out like a light and breathing regularly. With
luck, the bastard would be out for another eight hours so he and
Erin could get some much needed sleep.

Tom returned to the living room, picked up one of the
blankets, sat down on the recliner and covered himself up. He felt
a bit more focused after his shower and had come up with a plan for
tomorrow morning. He would take Donnie aside, safely out of earshot
of Erin, and ask him where he might find Mindy. If he refused to
comply or claimed not to know, he would be out of luck. If he
flatly refused to talk, Tom would use some kind of tactic to get
him to speak. What that would be, he had no idea and in fact hoped
it wouldn’t come to that.

Then after making certain that Donnie was securely
bound, he and Erin would take a drive down to Smithtown. Tom would
make up an excuse for going there—maybe tell her that his family
could possibly be there with relatives or something.

The truth of it was, Tom now found himself obsessed
with the idea that Erin might be his daughter. He had to find out
if it was true. And locating her mother would be a start.

Tom pondered why he had become obsessed with the
truth about Erin and came up with a very good one …

She could very well be the only family he had left on
earth.

Tom glanced over at the sleeping girl, wondering if
she would ever be able to forgive him if she were indeed his child.
Would she be as forgiving of him as she was of her mother?

Only time would tell.

Tom felt his eyes get heavy. He finally gave in to
the absolute need for sleep, closed his eyes and fell into a dead
slumber.

CHAPTER 15

“Tom? Can you hear me?”

The voice seemed far away. Miles and miles away.

“Tom, please wake up!”

He wondered how long the voice had persisted. It
seemed like he’d heard it for the last hour or so. He wished it
would go away. He was so damned tired—

“Please, Tom! Open your eyes!”

He realized now that the voice was not going to go
away. He was going to have to get up, damn it!

Tom opened his eyes. His vision was so blurry that
all he could see were blobs of random shapes. And it was bright—he
had to shut his eyes immediately to avoid being blinded.

“He’s awake!” the voice cried. “Tom, honey, can you
hear me? It’s Peg!”

Peg? he thought. Figures. He had probably overslept
again and she would have none of that!

He opened his eyes again, blinked a couple of times
and shut them promptly. “It’s so bright!” he said.

His throat felt raw. Great, he was getting a
cold.

“My throat. Dry. Sore.”

“Have some water, honey. Pour your father some water,
Kelli.”

“Okay, mommy.”

“And can we turn down those lights down some?” Peg
said.

Another voice replied, “Surely, Mrs. Grayson, I’ll
get them. I’ll page the doctor, too.”

“Thanks, Nancy. Here, drink some of this, dear.”

Tom felt something touch his lips and opened his
eyes. It was not as bright now and he could see the Styrofoam cup
that his wife was holding to his mouth. He parted his parched lips
and sipped the water. It felt like heaven going down.

As his senses sharpened, he realized that he was
lying in bed in a hospital room, causing him to suddenly panic—

“Jesus, what happened?”

Peg took his hand and squeezed it. “You passed out,
honey. In your car.”

“Passed out! What do you mean?”

“At the supermarket. You were overcome by what the
doctor said was a mixture of raw gasoline fumes and carbon
monoxide.”

Tom tried to get a grip of this. The supermarket?
When had he been at the supermarket? His eyes were wide open now
and everything was in focus. He saw Kelli and Tyler standing near
the foot of his bed and suddenly all he wanted to do was hug
them.

“Come here, you two!” he called, reaching out his
arms toward his children.

Kelli got there first and he gave her dad a big bear
hug. Then came Tyler, who seemed a little embarrassed as Tom held
him tight.

“I can see where I stand now,” Peg mumbled from the
bedside.

“Aw, let me hug you too, sweetie,” Tom said
emotionally. He wasn’t sure why he felt so sensitive toward his
family now but for some reason he was extraordinarily grateful for
their company.

“You could have
died,
Tom!” Peg cried passionately
after they kissed. “I am so glad they found you in
time!”

Just then, the doctor came into the room and went
over to Tom. Peg arose and stood off to the side as he examined
him.

“I’m Doctor Wheeler, chief resident on call. And you
are one lucky man, Mr. Grayson,” he said as he shone a penlight
into his eyes.

“That’s what I hear. So what happened? I don’t really
remember.”

“Well, apparently you drove to the store in the
snowstorm and left your motor running while you were inside. By the
time you returned to your car, fumes had built up inside to a
fairly dangerous level. I was surprised you didn’t smell the raw
fuel until your wife informed me that you had sinusitis and
couldn’t smell much of anything. Carbon monoxide of course is
odorless.”

Tom struggled to remember. He could vaguely recall
being at the supermarket but couldn’t remember why he would have
gone there without Peg.

He looked over at Peg. “What was I getting at the
store?”

“Pop and cigarettes, remember? We were playing euchre
with Frank and Jules.” Peg was visibly alarmed that he couldn’t
remember.

Tom thought back for a moment and it came to him in
bits and pieces. The Warrens had been over to play cards, euchre of
course, in the family room. The kids had been playing in the living
room. It had been snowing hard. He’d gone to the supermarket to
pick up more Seven Up and smokes for Julie.

“I remember now. So where are Frank and Julie
now?”

“They went home about an hour ago. They’ve been here
all evening but finally decided to take Brittany home and put her
to bed.”

“So exactly how long have I been in the hospital?”
Tom inquired.

Peg glanced at her wristwatch. “About six hours.”

“Jesus! And I’ve been passed out all this time?”

Doctor Wheeler replied, “You’ve been totally
unconscious from the effects of the poisoning. Fortunately, you
were not exposed to enough CO to do any permanent damage. We’ve
given you oxygen to raise your O2 level. Basically, you have been
in a very deep sleep all this time.”

“So I can go home now?”

Peg and Tom both stared at the doctor
expectantly.

“Actually, I don’t see any reason why not. Let us get
a few more readings and if everything looks okay, we’ll turn you
loose.”

“Great, doctor!” Tom said, elated. “Thanks for
everything.”

“My pleasure.”

Dr. Wheeler did a check of Tom’s vitals, spoke
briefly to the nurse then left the room.

“I can’t believe this!” Tom declared. “I wonder how
long my Jeep has been trying to kill me.”

Peg glared at him accusingly. “I don’t know, but I
hope this has taught you a lesson, Tom. How many times have I told
you that I smelled gas when we were out in that thing? And every
time you said I was just imagining it.”

“Hell, I was telling you the truth—I really haven’t
ever smelled gas in it.”

“Which is exactly why you need to do something about
your sinuses! This just shows how important it is to be able to
smell properly. It almost cost you your life!”

Christ, Tom thought, does she ever let up on the
I—told-you-so’s? “Okay, dear, you’ve made your point. I’ll go see
an ENT specialist next week. So where is the Jeep now?”

“At the dealership. I told them to tow it there so it
could be getting repaired.”

“Thanks. Will they give me a loaner, you think? I
need a car.”

“I’m sure they will.”

The nurse returned with the discharge papers and went
over them with Peg and Tom. He was to get plenty of rest and call
911 immediately if he felt any shortness of breath, heart
palpitations, became nauseous, got a headache that wouldn’t go away
or if he started hallucinating. Twenty minutes later, the Grayson
family left the hospital with Peg driving her Accord.

Tom was surprised at how exhausted he felt by the
time they pulled into their driveway. He could barely keep his eyes
open but insisted on helping Peg put the kids to bed. After kissing
them both goodnight, he undressed to his shorts and undershirt,
climbed into their king size bed and promptly fell into a deep,
fitful sleep.

CHAPTER 16

Tom slept in until 10:30 the next morning. Although
he had been asleep for nearly eleven hours, he still felt weak and
somewhat out of it. He could hear the kids playing downstairs as he
lay in bed, mulling over what had happened the day before.

He was in utter awe of the fact that
he had actually passed out in his Jeep while parked in the
supermarket parking lot. How in the hell could he have missed
smelling raw gasoline fumes for chrissakes? Granted, his nose was
on the fritz with sinus issues, but to miss smelling
raw gasoline?
It was hard
to fathom.

But evidently, he had done just
that. And he had been told that inhaling the potentially lethal
cocktail of gas fumes and carbon monoxide (Jesus, were the gas line
and exhaust system both leaking?) would have
killed
him if it hadn’t been for
someone coming to his rescue. Tom now wondered who had discovered
him and made a mental note to ask Peg so he could properly thank
him or her for saving his life.

He also wondered why the fumes had overtaken him so
quickly—almost immediately after he’d gotten back into his Jeep,
evidently. That didn’t make any sense at all. The doctor hadn’t
elaborated on this phenomenon and had probably been wondering the
same thing himself. It seemed as though he would have had to be
inside the Jeep several minutes before the fumes would have enough
time to knock him out like that. He made another note to ask Peg if
she had an explanation.

He thought back to his grocery run and recalled that
he had been thinking about Tracy Adams and the rape incident the
entire time, just as he had been for weeks now. In fact, he had
been so engrossed in the matter that he was still racking his
brains over it when he’d left the supermarket and got back into the
Jeep—

That was it! He had decided to sit there in the Jeep
and deliberate until he came to a decision once and for all on what
to do!

And in the process, he had breathed in enough noxious
fumes to render him totally unconscious for six hours …

Scary stuff, he thought.

And now, as he lay there, Tom realized that he wasn’t
any further along on that matter than he’d been before.

But he had a very good idea of what his decision was
going to be: let the whole thing slide and don’t rock the boat. He
would be a complete fool to get involved and jeopardize his
marriage and his career.

Case closed.

Tom stretched, yawned and got out of bed. After
splashing cold water in his face, he went downstairs and made a
beeline for the coffee maker.

“Morning, sweetie,” he said when he entered the
kitchen. Kelli was sitting at the kitchen table eating cookies and
milk.

“Hi, Daddy,” Kelli said. “You slept really late!”

“Yeah, I was pretty tired, I guess. How are you
doing?”

“Good. I wish I never had to go back to school,
though!”

“Why do you say that?” Tom said, pouring himself a
mug of steaming hot black coffee.

“It’s so nice to be able to play all the time—I wish
we had Christmas vacation all year!”

“But wouldn’t you miss your friends and your
teachers?” he asked his daughter.

“Well, my friends, maybe. But not my teachers!”

“Not even Mrs. Edwards?”

“Well, maybe I’d miss her, but none of the
others.”

“What about your old first grade teacher, Mrs.
Burke?”

Kelli gave him a pained look. “Oh, Daddy! Is this
gonna be one of your teacher lectures, again?”

Tom chuckled. “Nah, I’m just trying to give you a
hard time. Where are your mom and brother?”

“In the family room. Tyler’s watching cartoons and
Mom’s cleaning, I think.”

“Put your dishes away when you’re finished there,
okay?”

“I will, Daddy.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Tom carried his coffee into the family room. Peg was
dusting the furniture and Tyler was lying on the floor, his eyes
glued to the tube.

“Morning, troops,” he greeted.

“Hi honey. Are you feeling any better now? I hope I
didn’t wake you when I got up.”