California Schemin' (9 page)

“Let me help you down from there. You’ve done
enough for one day.”

Tom jumped me down and I stretched my back
until it cracked.

“I didn’t realize how long I’ve been up
there. I’m stiff.”

“I guess Meg thought you could get this all
done before I got home?” Tom shook his head. “I should know better
than to tell her not to do something. “

Meg chose that moment to walk back in the
house. She was juggling sandwiches and sodas with the dogs surging
around her feet hoping for a windfall. Tom turned toward her, and
she stopped. “Hi, honey,” she said. “You’re home early.”

“It’s almost midnight, Meg. I wouldn’t
exactly call that early. This is your revenge, is it?”

“What in the world would I need to get
revenge for?”

“For me telling you not to pull down the
ceiling.”

“This isn’t revenge. This is me doing what I
feel needs to be done. I can make my own decisions about what I can
and can’t do.” The smile Meg had on her face was open, playful. I
wished I could be as self-confident as Meg was. She wasn’t even
nervous about defying Tom’s wishes. If she thought something needed
to be done, she had no doubts that she had every right to do
it.

Tom laughed. “You’re right about that! I hate
having the kitchen torn up, but it looks like you’ll have this done
in a day or two.” He surveyed the room. “There isn’t any mess.
How’d you manage that?”

“We cleaned as we worked,” I said, “so the
mess didn’t get ahead of us.”

We sat in the living room and ate sandwiches
and chips. Yawns kept overwhelming me, and I was losing track of
the conversation. I picked up the sandwich wrapper, paper plate and
Coke can.

“I’m out of here,” I said. “I can’t keep my
eyes open anymore. Are you going into work on the paper tomorrow,
or is finishing the ceiling more important?”

“I’ll come in for a while in the morning.
What about you?”

“I’ll be in. I can either work on the ceiling
or the
Royalton Star
. You choose. I’ll see you in the
morning.”

When I woke up the clock display said it was
3:00 a.m., and I was in pain. My neck hurt, and it was impossible
to get into a comfortable position. I could barely turn my head at
all. I sat up, groaning, “Jeez, this sucks,” and added some choice
swear words. I took my pillow and went downstairs to sit in my big
armchair. I propped my pillow behind my neck, but it wasn’t any
better. The ibuprofen was on top of the refrigerator. Moving again
wasn’t high on my list, but as I couldn’t get comfortable, I
thought maybe it would take the edge off, so I dragged myself to
the kitchen and swallowed three pills.

Back in the chair I was still having trouble
getting comfortable. I stuffed the pillow behind my neck, tried
shoving it behind my back. Nothing.
Damn
. I got up and slid
a
Gilmore Girls
DVD into the player. At least that would
distract me for a couple of hours. For two episodes I didn’t miss a
line. During the third I caught myself drifting once in a while. I
think I slept through a good chunk of the fourth episode, still in
pain but exhausted beyond caring.

At six in the morning I was moving around the
house, whimpering from pain. I knew I couldn’t drive myself to the
hospital. I could barely move my head, for heaven’s sake, but who
could I call so early in the morning? It didn’t seem fair to wake
anyone, so I called the barracks to see what time Steve got off
work and if he was free to take me.

Within twenty minutes Steve was at the door.
I was dressed and had my medical card and cell phone in my pocket,
but my shoes were untied. For the life of me I couldn’t make myself
try and bend down. Steve took one look at me and shook his
head.

“You look like hell. Why didn’t you call an
ambulance hours ago?” He bent down and tied my shoes. “Get in the
car. I’ll feed your animals, and then we’ll go.”

I sat in the car trying not to cry. Every
move I made hurt worse than the last. Forget moving, I hurt just
sitting still. When Steve slid into the driver’s seat I had my
hands clenched in my lap trying to maintain. The first bump we hit
caused my neck to feel as if it was on fire. I cupped the sides of
my neck, trying to keep everything stable.

By the time I whooshed through the emergency
room doors I would have given anything to be unconscious. I
couldn’t think straight, and it was hard to keep the tears out of
my eyes. Steve’s uniform got me through triage in record time.
There are times when it’s really handy to know a cop. Steve elected
to stay in the waiting room when the nurse came to usher me into a
glass fronted room. She pulled the curtain to give me some privacy
and told me a doctor would be there shortly.

I sat in a chair usually reserved for family
members. The thought of trying to lie on the gurney was too much.
Lowering my head would use the muscles that were already screaming
at me.

The doctor was young, but he was gentle with
his hands and kind.

“What have you been doing?” he asked.

“Pulling down a ceiling and then putting a
new one up.”

“A lot of work above your head,” He nodded.
“That’s typical. You’ve got a repetitive motion injury. Tort
Collis; a muscle spasm in your neck. A little Valium,
anti-inflammatory and time will take care of it. Oh, and get some
physical therapy.

“Really?” I asked. “I have to do PT? That’s a
pain.”

“If you want to get better and stay better,
you’ll do PT. What’s the problem with that?”

“Appointments. Remembering them, taking time
out of my day, driving to them, waiting around for them to be ready
for me. It’s a pain.”

“Not as bad as that pain in your neck.”

I swallowed the Valium with difficulty, for
some reason swallowing set off the spasm in my neck. A male nurse
came in and asked me to drop my pants.

“What?” I asked.

“The anti-inflammatory is an injection. It
stings, and it will make your arm hurt for a couple of days. You’ve
got more muscle in your butt, and it’ll hurt less, but if you’d
rather I’ll put it in your arm.”

I figured I was in enough pain and dropped my
jeans.

“Whoa,” he said. “That’s plenty far enough,
believe me.”

So I took the shot in my rear, and Steve took
me home.

Even after I’d taken the muscle relaxer and
anti-inflammatory, I wasn’t pain free. I was most comfortable
sitting straight up, and I thought it would distract me to go down
to the
Star
and work. The only problem with that was I
couldn’t turn my head. I might be able to work around that one, but
I’d also taken Valium. Driving while impaired wasn’t my style. I
found a heating pad and hobbled upstairs like an old woman.

I was flat on my back staring at the ceiling.
The Valium/Tylenol combo was wearing off, and the pain was coming
back. I knew I should force myself into the bathroom to take some
more; it just hurt so dang much to move. I also needed to pee. The
pain I could ignore for a while, but the full bladder required
immediate attention. I rolled onto my side, winced, and then I was
off the bed and on my feet.

I shuffled into the bathroom, trying not to
jar my neck or shoulder and did what I needed to do, which was to
take the dang pills and empty my bladder. I contemplated the
shower. The hot water would feel good on my neck, but the washing
and toweling off part wouldn’t be easy. I could feel the Valium
kicking in, making me sleepy again, and decided against the
shower.

I rolled back into bed trying for a
comfortable position. It didn’t matter if I stretched out or curled
up, my neck would not give an inch. I ended up flat on my back
again, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the pain to go away.
My eyes started to feel heavy.
I bet that Valium isn’t really a
muscle relaxant,
I thought.
I bet they just use it to knock
you out so that you don’t feel the pain.
I had some fuzzy
thoughts about doctors and injections before I was unconscious
again.

Something heavy and warm was beside me on the
bed. It kept bumping me, making my neck hurt. The cat pawed me on
the arm, nicking me with her claw.

“Go away, Annabelle, that hurts.”

“I’m not Annabelle.” The voice was deep and
unfamiliar.

I struggled to open my eyes but could not. I
felt him lift me off the bed and wanted to call out, fight,
anything. But all I did was slip back into oblivion, my mind filled
with panic.

My neck hurt. I was sitting, reclined in a
chair; the room was vibrating, and a low-pitched humming masked
voices nearby. I kept my eyes closed knowing I was in trouble,
trying to figure out just how bad it was. I couldn’t move my head
at all, not because of the pain, but because I was being restrained
somehow. I couldn’t figure it out. If I tried to feel things out
with my hand, I’d tip them off to my consciousness.

“Sir, are you sure she’s OK?” Concern was
audible in the voice.

Who are you?
I thought.
I do need
help. Please help me.

“She’s fine. It’s just the Dramamine. The
stuff knocks her out cold. I told her not to take so much of it,
but will she listen to me? No.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

I heard her move off. Shit. My brain was
clearer now. I remembered thinking Annabelle had scratched me.
That was no cat scratch. Somebody’s been drugging me
. The
noises began to make sense to me. An airplane. I cracked my eyes
and confirmed my suspicions. I was in the window seat of the first
row, a bulkhead in front of me. Obviously, I’d been drugged.

I opened my eyes wide and looked at the thug
that stood between me and my freedom. He was a tall, muscular man
with a close-shaved head of light brown hair and hazel eyes. My
first thought was that he hadn’t shaved in at least a week, and
then I realized he had carefully cultivated the look. His beard and
mustache were too long to be sloppy living but too short to be
considered a true beard. He wore a blue button-down shirt, open at
the neck, and blue jeans. The smile he gave the flight attendant as
she passed seemed calculated to disarm: charming and deadly.

I shifted in my chair and addressed him
quietly.

“I have to pee. If you stick me with that
needle again, I’ll wet my pants. That will leave you to explain to
everyone within smelling distance why the airplane stinks like
urine.” My hands explored the restraint around my neck as I talked.
It was hard plastic with foam around the edges. No wonder I
couldn’t move my head. Now I knew why the emergency doc didn’t give
one to me, it didn’t help the pain.

He looked at me and rubbed the furrow between
his brows.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. You need to let me go pee.”

“I wheeled you down the ramp in a wheel
chair. They think you can’t walk.”

“I couldn’t walk then because I was
unconscious. Now that I’m conscious again, I can walk. I have to
pee.” I raised my voice, hoping the noise would make him
nervous.

“Fine. Go pee, but I’m putting you out again
as soon as you come back. I hate flying; I don’t want to have to
deal with you too.”

I unbuckled and got unsteadily to my feet. A
wave of nausea washed over me, and I put my hand to the bulkhead,
breathing deeply.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes and
swallowing hard. “I just have to get my air legs.”

“What the heck are air legs?”

“Air legs. You know, like sea legs but in the
air.”

“God.” He shut his mouth and looked at me
sourly as I stepped around his feet and legs.

We were only about three feet from the front
toilet. I managed to shut the door before I started puking. Damn
drugs. I ripped off the collar. It was impossible to puke properly
with it on, and I was making a mess. I managed to empty my stomach
and felt much better except for the huge mess I’d made. I cleaned
up as best I could, peed just for good measure, and stood with my
ear against the door.

I waited until I heard the flight attendants
chatting and cracked open the door.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

They turned toward me, and the blond looked
from my face to the collar in my hand and back.

“Are you supposed to take that off?” She
asked.

“I need your help.”

She turned as if to get the guy I was
with.

“No!” I cried.

She startled and turned back to me, her face
grave.

“You can’t tell him,” I said. “Do you have a
pen and paper?”

The second flight attendant, a petite
brunette who looked to be in her mid-twenties, handed me a pencil
and the pad she wrote her drink orders on. Both the women looked
worried, and the brunette kept looking furtively at the door to the
cockpit. I wrote Fogel’s name and number on the paper along with my
own.

“Can you contact this man? He’s a sheriff in
California. Tell him I’m on this plane and where and when we’re
landing. OK?”

The blond looked at me with pity in her
eyes.

“You do know that causing panic on an
airplane is a federal offense, don’t you? This isn’t a game.”

“Listen,” I said. “I don’t know what that guy
I’m with told you, but I was abducted from my home. I need you to
call Sheriff Fogel. If it’s a hoax, you can have me arrested at the
airport.”

“Lucky for you,” the brunette said, “we have
to take this seriously, but boy, will you be in trouble when we
land.”

The blond looked disgusted. I could tell if
it were up to her they’d be tearing the paper into little shreds
and putting me back in my seat.

“I can’t go into the cockpit with you in the
bathroom. You’ll have to go back to your seat.” The brunette was
trying to push me back into the main cabin.