Chapter 59

THURSDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 10, THE RETREAT

Breakfast on Matthews' Mountain was hectic, but fun. Last night, Diana had assumed that General Whitworth and his family would like to have time to themselves, so she and Jeff's younger wives had brought supper to the Whitworth's suite. Then Barbara's appetite later screamed for more food, and she, her sister and the General had found the Matthews waiting for them in the kitchen. With the return of the helicopter, and Dave returning from a night out with his wives, everyone had been introduced. This morning Whitworth and his wives walked into the kitchen to the laughter and efficiency of the clan women as they prepared the morning meal.

Shortly, all were loading their plates at the bar. Embarrassed at her appetite, Barbara put a moderate amount of food on her plate. When she, her husband and her sister-wife returned to the table from the breakfast bar, there was a steak waiting for her.

Diana smiled at Barbara. "Extra food until your weight comes back. Your appetite will moderate in time." Diana didn't tell her that the information had come from Little One, via Jeff.

Caitlin and Alesha Turcott were already eating when the General and his family came into the kitchen, and were finished almost by the time the others sat to eat. Dave saw Caitlin eyeing the drive on the monitor. "I just came back from plowing it out. You won't have any trouble."

"Thanks Dave," both women said, then after kisses, Alesha's on the cheek and Caitlin's hard on Jeff's mouth, they rushed off to work.

"Doggone it Dave," Jeff said, "I told you to have a talk with that snowplow company. I know they come up regularly with their plow, but they need to do it early enough so you don't have to get out before dawn to plow the road out. Or hire someone else to do it, if you want to. Maybe, Steve Sperman (their closest neighbor) would like to make a little extra money..."

"And take my fun away?" Dave laughed as he poured maple syrup on his pancakes. "You plan your day while you run — well, when weather permits — and I do the same as I plow out the driveway and road up here. Besides, I'm up by four every morning, anyway. I just can't sleep any longer than that." Realizing that Jeff was going to try and insist, Dave went quickly on, "If I get tired of it, I'll get someone set up to do it. You keep it plowed out the rest of the day; at least let me have my fun first thing in the mornings."

"I'm still feeling a little guilty..." Jeff began.

Diana looked up from the other end of the big table, "What my husband is verbally dancing around," she said, a smirk on her face, "is we have been keeping him ... busy in the early mornings. Caitlin has an early day, and her job is stressful right now, so she needs our husband for a while before she goes to work. Of course, you know what that leads to."

"All right. All right," Jeff laughed, "we're embarrassing the girls."

Nat, Nicki, and Whitney were blushing, but all ears just the same.

Barbara and Ellen were both giggling, then they suddenly hugged. "Oh, gosh, I feel wonderful," Barbara gushed as she turned to the others. "I thought I would be dead by now. I just ... I just ... It's so wonderful to be alive," she finished, fighting back tears of joy.

HOSPITAL IN FLORIDA:

"Two milligrams of Ativan IV," the doctor snapped as soon as he forced his way into the room.

Of course, the charge nurse already had it in her hand awaiting his order.

"Aren't you glad you didn't pull the IV catheter?" Harris said as he gripped the woman's arm to steady it for the nurse as she hooked up the IV.

Soon the Ativan began to take effect and the thrashing and back-arching eventually stopped. Fred had continued his comments to Brenda trying to calm her, "Easy, Brenda. Easy, Baby. You're okay..." his voice soothing as he chanted it over and over.

"Why are you suddenly calling her, 'Brenda?'" Doctor Harris asked, his tone frustrated.

Fred was still holding his hands on the young woman's shoulders, albeit a lot more gently now that the drug was taking effect. He was standing on the opposite side of the bed from the doctor and looked up to catch the doctor's eye. "Doctor, if I told you, you would start thinking I'm nuts, and I don't need that right now. So, let me just put it this way. You need to run that EEG again. I think you're going to find a whole lot of brain activity this time."

"Mr. Wilson, we already ran the tests twice..."

"And does she look like someone who is brain dead?" Fred broke in. "Doctor, please, just run the tests again. Then you and I will have a sit-down and a little talk. Chances are you still won't believe me, because I suspect that what I tell you will pretty much fly in the face of all your training, but you will know the truth — at least as far as I understand it myself."

Doctor Harris started to object, but sighed instead. "Okay, it's a deal, if ... you and your family step out and let us do our job. She doesn't need to be restrained any longer..."

"My family will step out; I will stay," Fred said, his face only a few feet from the doctor's as they stared at each other across the narrow bed.

A little later:

"Lieutenant Dodson is waiting in your office, Doctor Harris," his receptionist said. (Since Doctor Harris was a Hospitalist, he very seldom saw outpatients, so his receptionist doubled as his secretary.)

"Thanks, Julie."

When Harris walked into his office, Lieutenant Dodson was sitting in the doctor's chair with his legs across the corner of the desk, a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Well, I see you have made yourself to home," Harris said, dryly.

Dodson didn't move, but just said, "Yeah, I've always wanted to know what it felt like to be a doctor."

"And how does it feel?" Harris said as he came around the side of his desk. "And get your feet off my desk."

"My feet aren't on your desk. My legs are. I made sure my shoes didn't touch your desk. And besides, you put your feet on your desk all the time."

"Well, the key word there is 'your, ' as in my desk. Now move your butt so I can sit down."

Dodson chuckled and got up to sit in a chair on the other side of the desk as Harris took back his seat, the joking conversation typical of the two. Doctor Harris looked over at his friend, "So, have you found out anything about our Mr. Wilson?"

Dodson hesitated for a moment, just long enough for Harris to notice and start to frown. "Yeah, you might say that." Dodson pulled his cell out of its carrier on his belt and held the instrument up. "See this? Look like a can opener to you? Well it is. It damn sure opened a can of worms."

Harris just stared at him as Dodson slipped the cell back into its home. "Look, Harry, I've had one hell of a morning. I don't need riddles right now..."

"I remembered going to a three-day school in Atlanta a couple years ago," Dodson broke in. "It was one of those where we listened to a lecture part of the day, then did a hands-on thing to test out what we had been taught. We were divided into groups of four with one of us appointed the lead investigator. The class was pretty well done. They had rooms and each depicted a crime scene. We were given the information from the real crime scene they were depicting..." It was obvious that Harris was losing patience, so Dodson changed direction with his little lecture.

"Anyway, I was partnered with a brand new sergeant from Atlanta, and we got along really well. We exchanged cards and said we would keep in touch, but we never did. I pulled out his card, and while driving home after leaving your office last night, I gave him a call. I told him about Wilson, and he said the name was familiar, but he couldn't place him at the time. He said, he would give the evening shift detective lieutenant a call and ask around for me.

"To make a long story short, I got two calls last night, and six this morning when I got to work — and four more after I left the Sheriff's office — minus the seat of my pants, incidentally. The Sheriff wasn't a bit pleased to have been trying to answer to two chiefs why one of his detectives was asking about a retired police detective who they seem to think hung the fucking moon. Then when I got back to my office, I got a call from some guy — Mark something or other — who was ready to get in his car and come down here, just in case Lieutenant Wilson might need some help.

"According to these people, Wilson is the greatest detective God ever made. Wilson did favors for a bunch of people, and continued to do so until a few months ago when his wife died with a massive heart attack. This Mark guy said she appeared to be in the absolute best of health before the attack. She exercised and was adamant about her diet. One day she and Wilson were eating lunch and she just keeled over."

Harris took a slow breath, then quietly said, "Do you have her name?"

"Uh, yeah," Dodson said as he pulled out his ever-present notebook and thumbed to the place. "Brenda. Brenda Wilson."

"Oh, shit," Harris said under his breath.

Dodson sat up straight. "What's the matter, Doc? You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Harris was quiet for so long that Dodson was beginning to get concerned, then, "Maybe I have," the doctor said, "Maybe I have."

THE RETREAT:

Jeff and the General sat in Jeff's lab. Whitworth looked around him at all the equipment. "What is all this, anyway?"

Jeff chuckled and crossed his legs. "I guess you could sum it up by just saying, money — with a capital M. Even though I borrowed as much as I could, I still could afford little of the equipment I needed when I was struggling to put my radar together. I designed it in modular form and had each piece built by a different lab, hoping that no one would figure out what I was building until I firmed up my patent. Now that I can afford to have my own equipment, I'm gradually setting up a real lab. I might still have to have some of the work farmed out, but I hope I can get by without too much."

"And what are you working on now?"

Jeff just grinned at him.

"Oh, fuck, I know you're not going to tell me. I thought I would just give it a shot anyway, though," the General laughed.

"Actually, one day I just kinda had a brain storm about it..."

"Like you did the radar, I'll bet."

"Well, yeah. I'm a little amazed that someone hasn't thought of my next invention, yet. But then again, maybe they have and the patent has been bought up and buried by one of the big corporations. I've spent some time researching that, but I don't dare go into detail as I search for fear that I'll give my idea away in the process."

"So, do you think it will make the money the last one did?"

"If I'm right — and it works. And if no one has patented the idea yet, it should revolutionize a big industry, plus making a bunch of people happy, besides. Although, it's probably going to piss off several big corporations that have been gigging (Southern expression meaning to exploit — rip off) the public for years."

"In other words, Hell yes," Whitworth laughed. He brought out a small instrument and turned it on. "I need to talk to you about some sensitive information." After a moment, "This says we're secure, but I'm a little uneasy with those men working on the firing range over there."

"The lab is double-walled, and contains everything I could think up to detect and defeat spying, plus several anti-spying additions from Frank Wainwright. Yeah, there are construction workers in the basement, but they're a couple hundred feet away. If we were in my office, we would be almost above them, so they would actually be closer. The double walls here in the lab are, among other things, designed to keep anyone from listening with a laser, and it would be detected, anyway, as would anything else I can think of. Plus — and here's the biggie — Little One will tell me if anyone tries. Our technology is little more than a snigger factor to her. She will instantly jam any signal sent out of here, or the retreat. And any passive device is still easily detectible by her. We're secure."

The General was quiet for a moment, then, "I think you're keeping some things from me. And up to a point, that's fine, but there are things going on that I want to know about. Let's start with this Queen business. I've heard the comment a couple of times and they're referring to Diana, who by the way, is far too young to be the mother of your daughter. Want to start with that?"

Jeff glanced at the monitor, "Diana is coming," and he got up to open the door for her.

When the door closed behind her, Diana came into Jeff's arms, kissing him as though Whitworth weren't even there. As she pulled back from him, her hands still on his arms, Jeff glanced at the General. "General Whitworth wants to know about our Queen Bitch and why you look so young."