Chapter 2

I was in a bed when I awoke, with all kinds of tubes and wires attached to me. I was strapped down to the bed so that I couldn't move. Even my legs were strapped down. I tried to yell, but nothing came out except a croak of some sort. What had happened? The last thing I remembered was the light. Had I really died, and was this heaven? Probably not, so this had to be hell. But ... I thought that I had been a good and honest man. Therefore, I should have gone the other way. Maybe this was some cruel joke of Gail's. Oh, yeah ... Gail. The bitch that ripped my still beating heart from my chest, ran it through the meat grinder, and then tried to hand feed it to me. God, she was a cruel and heartless bitch.

I tried to move a bit to get more comfortable, but I must have pulled on something. There was an excruciating pain in my dick, and I screamed bloody murder. Sound did come out of my mouth this time; and man, was it loud in that room! The door suddenly swung open, and two nurses came running through the door.

"What happened?" said one.

"I don't know! All I know is my dick hurts something fierce! Can you see what happened? Then, please, tell me if is this heaven, or hell."

One of the nurses, a woman of about forty-five or fifty lifted the sheet, and I yelled out in pain, again.

"The tape on your catheter came loose. It was stuck to the sheet and it pulled on the tape and the catheter when you moved."

The younger nurse, who was probably in her mid-twenties, said, "You're not in heaven or hell. You're in Seton Medical Center, Williamson. You've been here for four days, now. The Round Rock police brought you in after your seizure. They found you slumped over the wheel of your truck. You had a seizure of some kind when they tried to wake you, and you were rushed here. You have been here, in a coma, ever since."

"Have my wife and children, or my parents, been informed of me being here?"

"As far as I know, your wife was notified. She has not appeared, so far. Your mother left about a half hour ago, and your father is due anytime now. Is there anyone else we should contact?"

"No, no one. I guess I can wait on my dad and see if he can call my office and let them know. Oh yeah, can I get unstrapped out of this contraption?"

"I'll call the doctor and see what he wants done, but I'm sure that he'll authorize that for you."

"Thank you, Nurse ... ah?"

"I'm Nurse Pamela, but you can call me Pam, and this is Nurse Agnes."

"Thank you both, but especially you, Nurse Agnes. That feels much better now."

"Only trying to help, young man. You said that you have a wife and children and yet they haven't come to see you. That's very strange. I know that they were notified. I heard the officer specifically say that he used your cell phone to call the people on your phone that you identified as 'ICE.' Why would a wife not want to see her husband?" asked Nurse Agnes.

[ICE: that's 'In Case of Emergency.' It is something that should be on everyone's phone. BR]

"I wouldn't mind finding out the answer to that myself. What I remember was that I was at home and had just finished eating dinner when my wife told me she wanted a divorce and that she was taking my children away from me. Then she kicked me out of the house. I drove away, and ended up here. I have no idea why she wants a divorce. I thought everything was fine until she dropped the bomb on me."

"You didn't cheat on her, now did you, Son?"

"No, Ma'am, I would never do that. I love my family too much to do that to them."

Nurse Agnes said, "Well, I won't pry. You try to rest, now, and I'll get with the doctor as soon as I can."

"Thank you both, you've been a big help, but I really would like to get unbound from this bed."

They left the door open when they exited. My dad came walking in about five minutes later.

"Are you alright, Son? You had us both worried. Do you know why Gail just took off with the kids?"

"She did? That bitch! She dropped this on me after supper on Tuesday. I was on my way over to your house, when I had to stop driving. I couldn't see for the tears in my eyes, and my hands were shaking so bad that I could hardly hold the steering wheel. I woke up here about twenty minutes ago."

"What happened, Gerry? I haven't spoken with Gail since last week. I tried calling her at work, at home, and on her cell, but I get nothing. The kids haven't been to school since Tuesday. We have no idea where they are. We're getting kind of worried about them. We were also worried about you, and wanted to know what had really happened that night. After we got called, I went over there, and the house was dark and I couldn't tell whether or not Gail's car was in the garage. Your mom and I spent that first night here with you, and there was no answer when we tried to call Gail. Tell me what she said."

I told Dad everything that I remembered, and then said, "We need to call the police and the FBI. She kidnapped the kids, and I want that BITCH found!"

My dad pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number from memory, then said; "Hal, this is Jim. She kidnapped the kids, told Gerry she wanted a divorce, and kicked him out." A pause then, "Yeah, he said to call you and to get the FBI involved." Another pause, "Yeah, it's been over three days, so the waiting time for a missing person report is up ... Okay, Hal, I'll let him know. See you soon," Dad said. He hung up then looked at me.

While my dad was on his phone, I was thinking, 'My God, what's happening to me? Why am I thinking and saying those things about Gail to my dad? She and then our children have been my whole life since we've been married. How can I suddenly change from a loving husband into a monster like this, thinking all these horrendous thoughts of torture and mayhem against someone that I love, or did love until Tuesday evening?'

"That was Harold Price, the Round Rock Chief of Police. He is going to call Jack Webb over at the FBI and get them involved in this. Nobody at Gail's work seems to know anything about this. They may be hiding the fact that she's still working there, or maybe she skipped on them, too. Do you know if there might be a secret lover or something like that, as the reason for the divorce? Why hasn't she filed if she wants the divorce? Hal is going to check with the County Court Clerk tomorrow, to see if she has filed a petition for divorce yet. Man, this is a real mess."

"Dad, I really don't care where that bitch is! I want my kids back! I want her hunted down like the black-hearted bitch that she is! I don't give a good rat's ass if she is having another one of her 'defense mechanism' episodes. She went too far this time!"

"What do you mean by a 'defense mechanism' episode?" he asked.

I explained how she would suddenly be this mean-spirited bitch every once in a while, and she called it a 'defense mechanism' that allowed her to cope with things that were out of her control or out of her comfort zone. He grabbed his phone after I explained and gave him some examples.

I was thinking all these thoughts of what I would do to Gail if she was to be here right now, again. I've heard about a mother's response concerning her children; you know running into burning buildings and coming out with their robe or dress on fire and not thinking anything about it, or ripping a car door off its hinges to get to their child. It's a mother's response to their child in danger; that plus an adrenaline rush. Well, fathers get it too, and it seemed that mine had kicked in with a vengeance.

I should interject something about my dad. Dad spent 30 years in the Air Force, the last ten stationed out at what is now Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (ABIA) when it was called just Bergstrom AFB. It closed in 1993 and my dad was a part of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, or AFOSI, the Air Force's version of 'NCIS' for the Navy and Marine Corps. As one of their higher ranking special agents, he knew a lot of the law enforcement officers in the area, as well as FBI agents, DEA, DPS (Department of Public Safety – State Police), Texas Rangers, and others whose affiliations were never mentioned, but probably belonged to some alphabet soup organization out of DC, so for him to just dial a number on his phone and get an immediate response was just a part of who he was. He was just my dad to me, but he had a way about him that got people to do things for him. I guess he was owed so many favors that people just responded when he called.