The Edge

Mint? Margaret? What was this all about? "You two know each other?"

Maggie Sheffield turned to face me as I stood beside my bed, a sheet and a single blanket knotted around my waist. "Hi, Mac. You've still got some impressive battle scars. You steady on your feet now?"

"I don't know about how steady my feet are, but at least they're holding me up."

Detective Minton Castanga finally answered my question, as he gave Maggie a long, cool look. "Margaret was my wife at one time, Agent MacDougal."

Chapter Thirteen

Laura was in room 511 at Salem General Hospital. I stood quietly by her bed looking down at her. She was breathing smoothly and slowly. They still had the oxygen tubes in her nose and the saline IV in her arm. She was alive and would recover, just as I had. I was surprised that I'd never felt so thankful in my life as I was at that moment, except when Jilly woke up. Someone had smoothed down her hair and pushed it back from her face. All that beautiful hair was strewn over the hard hospital pillow. Unlike me, they'd put her in a hospital gown and pulled the light covers up to her shoulders.

I leaned down, lightly touched my palm to her cheek, and said, "Laura, I'll tell you what they said over and over to me when I was lying helpless flat on my back. It's time for you to wake up now. You've been sleeping long enough. Come on, come back to me."

Her lips moved slightly, forming my name.

I leaned closer, without conscious plan, and lightly kissed her pale mouth. "That's it. Yes, it's Mac. I like the way you say my name. Say it again. Come on, Laura. Come back to me."

"We were just coming in to wake her up again, but it sounds like you're doing a fine job." I turned to see a tall woman in a white coat. She smiled. "Just keep encouraging her to open her eyes. Are you her husband?"

"No," I said, for the first time in my life thinking maybe that didn't sound so bad. I'd known Laura two days. Funny how that didn't seem to matter. "She's a friend," I said, smiling now. "I'm a friend."

"I'm her doctor, Elsa Kiren. Do you want me or one of the nurses to spell you?"

I shook my head. "No, I'll stay. I came out from under the same drug just a while ago. I know what's going on in her head."

"If you need any help, just call out," Dr. Kiren said. "I'll be close by."

I turned back to Laura. I wondered if I'd been as pale as she was now before I'd come out of it. "Laura, listen to me now. I've been thinking about things and here's the bottom line. Somebody drugged you. I was an innocent bystander. Now it's time to wake up so we can figure this mess out. Come on." I lightly slapped her cheek. "Someone tried to kill you, Laura, wake up."

"Stop hitting me, you jerk."

I grinned from ear to ear. "That's right, it's me, the jerk." I slapped her lightly on her other cheek.

She growled deep in her throat, probably just like her cat. "After I leave you, I'll go back to your condo and take care of Nolan and Grubster. You've got to tell me what to do for them. Wake up, Laura, think of your bird and your cat."

Her eyes slowly opened. She looked at me without recognition, then I saw the light slowly rekindle in her eyes, saw memory return. I would swear that I could feel the exact moment that vivid intelligence of hers was under full sail again.

"Hi," I said. "Keep dialing your mind back in, that's it. It just takes time, but you'll get there."

"I don't believe that you would drug me, Mac, but if you did, why?"-

"Keep not believing it because I didn't. Until a couple of hours ago, I was lying on my back, just like you are. Someone got both of us."

That opened her eyes really wide. Any vagueness was now long gone. "My head hurts."

"Yeah, I know. It lessens. Don't worry about it, my headache's nearly gone now. Who got us, Laura?"

"I don't know. It had to be in the coffee. Both of us drank it, you more than me, if I remember correctly."

I saw a shadowy movement off to my right and jerked around to see Detective Minton Castanga standing just inside the hospital room doorway.

I felt Laura tense, readying for battle, beneath my hand.

"He was here before but I was out of it. I don't like him. Send him away, Mac."

"I can't. But don't worry, Laura. This guy isn't bad. He's a cop, Detective Castanga, from the Salem PD. He's here to find out who dropped us both in our tracks. Detective, this is Laura Scott."