Page 1 of Hidden Truths

CHAPTER ONE

“DARLINGWIFE,TODAYDr. Clift confirmed our fears. The surgery to remove the bullet from your brain was successful…” Max Di Luca laughed a broken laugh. “That’s what he said. Successful. As in, he removed the bullet, and you lived. But it’s been three weeks. You haven’t regained consciousness. At all. I don’t know how they know, but the doctor said the coma was deepening and you have no chance of survival without life support.” Max took a long, wrenching breath and pressed his forehead to Kellen’s cold hand. When the temperature of her skin registered, he lifted his head and said, “You’re freezing! I wouldn’t want to wake up in a hospital room, either, much less a cold one. Hang on, let me get you a warm blanket.”

He hustled over to the microwave blanket heater, pulled out a narrow cotton blanket and spread it over Kellen’s inert body. He placed her hands under the covers and tucked the blanket around her from her neck all the way down to her toes. “There. Is that better? I want you to be comfortable. I don’t want you to suffer. I want this to be…easy.” He groped for the chair behind him, found it without looking, pulled it close and seated himself. He slid his hands under the blankets and found one of hers—which was slowly warming—and held it. “Remember, when we talked about this surgery, you made me promise I wouldn’t allow you to be nothing more than an unmoving, unfeeling carbon life form on a hospital bed. That if you survived the surgery but didn’t return to light and speech and hope, I wouldn’t keep you beyond your time.” He pulled his hand out of the blankets, reached into the pocket of his jeans, withdrew a massive handkerchief and blew his nose. Honked his nose.

Kellen sat on the chair opposite and watched Max affectionately. God bless him. He was so sad, and he wasn’t afraid to blow his nose so hard it echoed down the hospital corridors. He cried openly for her, and his grief fed her hope that her life had not been wasted, that it had meaning.

She had collapsed at their wedding. Not exactly the right time or place, but when it came to comas, she couldn’t pick her moments. She’d had a bullet in her brain for years, resting there, waiting to move into position and cause her trouble. After a few too many adventures and jumps and bumps and leaps, she had a few problems. Then a few more. Then sure enough, after the wedding ceremony at their winery in Oregon, she had seen Mara Philippi smiling and making conversation with their daughter, freaked out, told Max and collapsed.

That was it.

She didn’t exactly know what happened after that. She hadn’t known anything until right now when she got up off that bed and thought,Huh. This is different.

Now she knew. Max had told her. She’d had surgery, she hadn’t recovered. He hadn’t said it yet, but she was going to die.

She examined her hands. They looked pretty normal. Maybe a little transparent around the edges, and her fingernails were bluish, from the cold she supposed. But the skin tone looked healthy. For someone headed toward death, she felt pretty good.

Kellen looked up at her body on the bed. Those hands were hidden, fingers slightly curved.

Ah, those poor hands.

The bullet had been lodged in the quadrant of the brain that controlled the hands’ fine motor skills. Without being told, Kellen knew she’d lost a lot of those skills. But what did it matter? She was dying.

Max said to the Kellen on the bed, “We’re going to take you off life support. No IVs and stuff. You’ve got about ten days before you pass on. My mom will be bringing Rae to visit you.”

He choked up again.

Rae was their daughter, a wonderful seven-year-old genius smart-mouthed child who Kellen loved so much. At the mention of Rae’s name, Kellen choked up, too, but there were no tears.

No tears. If the Kellen on the bed had heard, she would have cried. But the Kellen in the chair had slipped beyond that human response.

How sad.

“We have somewhere between five and, um, seven days. You’re going to pass on. Personally, knowing you, I’m betting ten days. You’re so damned stubborn and tenacious.”

I am, aren’t I?And looking pretty rough. Someone had shaved her head. Dr. Clift had cracked open her skull. Bandages covered her head everywhere except her face, and the bruising from the incision slid down her forehead, her nose and her upper lip. Weird.

“Here’s the thing. Right now, I’m leaving, and heading to the federal prison where Mara Philippi is incarcerated. You saw her at our wedding. I don’t think you were hallucinating. And let’s be frank. If you weren’t, that means Mara Philippi is free.” He looked up at her IV bag, and as if that reminded him to hydrate, he stood, poured himself a glass of water and downed it. Twice.

Poor guy. He wasn’t taking care of himself.

He came back and leaned his hip against the mattress. “I guess it’s no surprise that a federal penitentiary isn’t a place where you wander in and ask to see an inmate. There are bells and whistles and ordinances and rules, and when you want to see a prisoner who has been convicted of serial murders and is held in isolation on death row—well, that involved some awkward moments.”

She liked that he talked as if she could hear him, and even more that he talked as if he liked her.

Yes. Their relationship had been good. Passionate, smart, controversial, dedicated, and, most important, they had loved each other across years of loneliness. Leaving him now was lousy. Wrong.Bullshit.

She waited to see if lightning struck her for such rebellious thoughts.

Nope. She remained unsinged.

Max continued, speaking to her unresponsive body. “You’ll recall that our winery manager, Arthur Waldberg, is a former inmate of a Texas prison. And you remember Arthur is a miracle of efficiency, with connections everywhere. When I determined I needed to actually see Mara Philippi in person, rather than on some fuzzy video, Arthur leaped into action. He called the warden in Texas, who called the warden in McFarrellville Correctional Facility in Utah where Mara is incarcerated. Apparently, there was some argument about whether or not I’d be permitted to see Mara in person. Because of the viciousness of her crimes, and because…” His voice faded.

Funny. Kellen could hear him in her mind. The prison warden had queried the reasons for the visit, and when he discovered Kellen had been the only one at the wedding who had seen Mara, and that Kellen had then promptly collapsed and gone into surgery, he’d questioned the veracity of her vision.

Rather unfair; she’d had problems, blackouts, mostly, but no hallucinations.

Max cleared his throat, and his voice came back clear and strong. “But in my day, I’ve played college football, led the Di Luca family winery business, raised our child in your absence. I know my way around protocols, rules, government red tape, and—most important—I know how to pull strings and exert influence. I told Warden Arbuckle you were the one who discovered Mara Philippi was not merely the Yearning Sands resort spa manager, but also a smuggler, a murderer and a madwoman.”

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