Chapter 7: The Confession

I set my cell phone to awaken me at one AM since I wanted to be awake for Carin's visit. Somehow I knew that she had made a decision concerning us, and I didn't want to postpone our talk until the morning. There would be too much going on then, and now would be the perfect time as it would be quiet and we would be alone. I drifted off to sleep dreaming of Carin.

I was suddenly being kissed and the kiss was butterfly soft, yet I could feel a burning passion just behind the surface. Was this real, was it someone I knew or was this the beginning of a nightmare?

I opened one eye and saw chestnut hair over my face. Soft chestnut hair and I saw a sliver of a pale face. When I looked down I saw red lips and a cute nose. I responded to the kiss and drew my right arm up and around the beauty kissing me. My left arm was kind of trapped by some pointy thing that was hard, but yet soft and yielding. I upped the pressure on the lips upon mine and that started to stoke the fires in my loins. I also started moving my left arm tantalizing the mound resting upon it. Her kiss was rising in temperature as well as I was.

We broke apart, but only enough to speak. I choked out, "I could learn to wake up like that more often. Good morning lover." Now why did I say that? I really don't know if she is my lover, I only know that the way I feel right now I would like for that to be true.

"Oh, lover huh, and who have you been dreaming about? Some past love, or was it someone from your future?"

"I'm not really sure; I was kind of hoping it was you who kissed me, but it might have been the kissing bandit." I said laughing.

"You will pay dearly for that remark; dearly indeed. Now wake up and behave yourself. We have lots to talk about and we are all alone tonight. I even locked the doors, and the main phone has been transferred to your number. So let me get you sitting up, so we can talk."

Carin adjusted the bed, so I was sitting up and then fluffed my pillow. She plopped down on the bed, next to my knees, keeping just out of my reach. "Now, first I have to say, I don't know if I love you, but I have thought about this almost constantly since we talked the other night. I can tell you some things I know to be true.

"First is, I somehow know deep in my heart and my mind that we need to be together. Whether that is as friends, lovers or man and wife, I can't tell you right now because I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you can hear my thoughts.

"Second, we need to learn a whole lot more about each other before I jump into bed with you. Oh that came out wrong because I am in bed with you right now, but I think you know what I mean, right?"

"Yes I do and so far I agree with what you have said. That mimics what I know to be true too. Please go on."

"Okay, thirdly I can accept that once you leave the hospital that you will come to live with me in my home, and stay in my spare room. That is until you absolutely have to leave for your next job. I think you said September or October, right?"

"That was what Cecil told me, but I will not start another job until I find out what is going on right here with all the secrecy about my accident. If that takes too long, then I probably wasn't meant to find out and the accident only happened for me to meet you. I really don't know. I feel as though I am being prodded into doing something I wouldn't normally do. That is to get involved with a mystery that may be dangerous. I don't want to place you in any danger, but you have already experienced it and the only way to keep you from harm is for me to protect you. That might be the reason I am so drawn to you, but I think it is something more than that. I too would like to know more about you so why don't we take the time to talk about our lives up to this point, so we can get over the awkwardness of just meeting and trying to dance around what we are and what we want from life. What do you say?"

"I think that is just what we need to do."

We sat and talked for hours; I think it was 5 am when we quit.

We talked about Carin growing up, going to school and then about her parent's death three years ago in an auto accident. I asked her where and she said it was in Oklahoma City on a trip up there. That was when she moved back into her old house, from her tiny apartment that was closer to the hospital. I asked her if she had any plans for when the hospital closed for good. She explained that she a few feelers out, but nothing yet had come up.

Then I talked about myself, explaining my failed marriage, some of my service work, not the black ops parts, but the Corps of Engineer's work, which led me to my profession now. I told her of my home, but not specifically where, even though I felt I could trust her. I had to consider that if she were to be taken, they could find out too much info about me if I told her everything. I didn't lie to her; I just didn't tell her everything I could have. However, I hoped that what I did tell her would allow her to know much more about the real me, the part inside my tough exterior.

I fell back in exhaustive sleep, and Carin went about her normal business of unlocking the hospital and finishing her paperwork for the evening. Carin had left a note that I was to skip breakfast, but be awakened for lunch.

I slept until I was awakened for lunch and then I found out about her instructions about me sleeping, saying I had had a rough night reliving the accident, which, in a lot of ways, was true. Before I fell asleep I did go over in my mind everything I could think of and remember about it. I did get snatches of faces, places and some pain filled time until no full memory came to me. That must have been when I went into the coma.

Lunch was a treat. I got a hamburger patty, done but not burned to a crisp yet; some beef noodle soup, real coffee, which was gross, milk and one slice of wheat bread and butter. There were some green beans too that were pretty mushy, but tasted great. I think I liked the weak coffee better than the stuff I got today.

I got a call from my insurance agent. They sent an adjuster over to the Waco Police Forensics building, and they looked over the truck and declared it a total loss. They would issue me a check and wanted to know where to send it. Carin had given me her address last night, so I gave my agent that address. I said I would be there for a little while, like a few weeks or maybe more, once I could get out of the hospital. I contacted the credit-card companies and gave them my new address and said it was only temporary, so to continue to send my bills to my home address. I paid almost all my bills on the computer through my credit union, so there would be no change there. I had to give them some personal info before they would send the cards to another address, but I told them to contact Dr. Levitz for conformation and a second conformation was Nurse Carin Winslow, whose home the new address was. That finally satisfied them, and they said the cards would be on the way.

I half expected Fred to come by today, but I guess he was too busy with everything I had him doing. It seemed there wasn't any news on Alan's side either, so I guess I would have to do a little investigating on my own once I was out of here; or maybe while I was here.

I hacked into a couple of accident data bases, mainly TXDOT, and DPS looking for accidents around the Hubbard area. I did find a few over the years, but not what you could call a trend. What I did find as interesting was the times of the accidents. The times were all about twenty minutes before 8:00 PM. The accidents were not related to time of the year, but to the time of day. All were either hit and run or near miss with accidents from the driver on SH 31. There were never any accidents reported by those approaching SH 31, only drivers on 31. Now that is what I call a trend. All drivers reported seeing something come from the side traveling at a very high rate of speed. If the accident was at night, no lights were detected by the hit-and-run vehicle. Boy this sounds more and more like drug running or illegal moonshine. Hey, believe it or not, moonshine production is not just in the southeast, there is a lot happening elsewhere in the country. Places like the piney woods of east Texas, mountainous areas where there are caves and even desert areas where they can dig underground and dissipate the heat during the day into several areas of the hot sands above them.

Well, I needed to steer Alan on to look up this information to see if he could come to the same conclusions. I would suggest this as a theory and have him research it.

No time like the present, I called Alan, and gave him my possible theory. I then asked if he thought it was a possibility.

"Henry, where do you get your ideas? That is something I never would have thought of. We figure that you were hit right at the crossing of SH 31 and CR 3360. Now that road is pretty straight and there is a slight rise coming up to 31. At the speed you estimated, the yellow beast had to be going fast enough to launch a light vehicle almost up and over the road. Now a heavier vehicle would just follow the road. However, the thing that confuses us is that the road ends just past the lakes over there."

"Alan, would you say that maybe a small seaplane or an LSA could land and take off from that lake or from one of them anyway?"

(LSA = Light Sport Aircraft. You need a license, but the requirements are less than for a full Class 'A' Pilot's license)

"Henry that's brilliant, because the lakes are so small we never even thought of an aircraft, let alone something light like an LSA or even a powered hang glider. Now a hang glider wouldn't have much of a payload, but an LSA would. How did you know Henry?"

"Alan, some of the missions I have been on required us to get in and out of very tight areas. Sometimes it was parachute or parasail in and walk out, but other times we could come in on an LSA, one person at a time or on multiple LSAs. These things only needed about one hundred twenty-five to two hundred meters for take-off and landing. So are the lakes that big?"

"Henry a couple of them are that big, one I think is almost 1800 feet from one end to the other. That would be over 500 meters. So yeah that is a possibility. I will have to check and see if there have been any complaints of any low-flying aircraft around there. There are lots of fishermen around that area, but very few farms, so that could be a possibility, especially if someone could mistake a small plane engine for a boat motor. Wow, thanks Henry I'll get someone on that as soon as I can. If you come up with any more ideas like that you let me know, okay?"

"Will do Alan; I think I'm going for a walk and then back here for some much-needed rest. I think I've been using my brain too much coming up with half-baked ideas like that."

"Henry, on this case I'll take all the half-baked ideas you come up with. So far, you've batted a thousand. See ya later, go exercise and after that sleep, you need it." He hung up and the line went dead.

I closed my cell phone and got up and walked some more around the block and then came back to rest. I have noticed a spring in my step lately that wasn't there earlier. Was that due to Carin or am I actually getting better? Maybe a little of both.

After supper, I slept for a while and then was watching something on the history channel when a nurse comes in to check my vitals and say goodnight. Oh yeah, it's the weekend so Sylvia is off, and so is Carin. Bummer!

Today, Sunday, was slow, I walked around the block about ten times today all told. I am definitely getting stronger. I did my isometrics and a little Tai Chi today and after supper, I did my duty and had a small BM. Before I flushed I called in the night nurse and had her verify that I had one so it could be put on my chart. My God, it becomes a major event when you can take a crap in a hospital. What is this world coming to?

After everything was recorded on my chart by the nurse, and I was safely ensconced back in bed, I turned the TV off in case someone tried again like before.

Monday morning arrived early and Fred showed up with a couple of my favorite morning pick me ups. Real coffee and two biscuits in a plain brown paper sack. He showed up before my hospital breakfast arrived. While I ate, he gave me the sit-rep on Carin. Above and beyond what I had learned on Friday night was her total net worth, and prospects for finding decent work in this depressed economy. She had just seven boyfriends since starting in high school. One almost became a fiancée, but she found him cheating on her and that did not go over well. She was originally charged with assault, but the charges were dropped before trial, although she was arrested and spent the night in jail. Her boyfriend had a severely bruised face and chest, and the girl had a broken jaw.

Steven was extremely lucky the girl had moved when Carin had hit her, or he might have been called stubby afterwards.

Carin caught the couple in her apartment when she came home early one morning with the girl giving her fiancée a blow job. Other than that, she was clean as new driven snow. She lost her virginity in high school after the senior prom, just like a lot of young girls. The boyfriend didn't make it past the first semester in college. Since that time there have been a few men, but no one for much time. Her almost fiancée was the longest at eight months. She had not had a boyfriend for nearly a year now.

I thanked Fred and told him Carin and I had talked for quite a while Friday night, well actually Saturday morning. I told him that I would be staying at her house until I learned more about what happened or my next job came up.

"That's good Henry; I really need to get back down to Austin for both Sheryl and my business. However, if you need anything let me know, and I'll come running."

"I know that Fred. You need to be at home with Sheryl, but if anything comes up, I'll let you know. I think I may be out of here soon. I am getting around good now, and I had my mandatory crap for posterity. Now it is just convincing the doctor I'm well enough I can take care of myself." Just as Fred was walking to the door a nurse came in with my breakfast. "Oh boy food. Man I thought they were going to forget me this morning. First, they feed me nothing by liquids and next that damned wiggly stuff, and afterwards they forget I'm even here."