Layover - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Bell is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author whose work has been translated into multiple foreign languages. He's currently a professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he directs the MFA program.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2019 David Bell

Prologue

The nurse opened the curtain around my bed and said there was somebody who wanted to see me.

I tried to read the look on her face. She cut her eyes away from mine, busying herself with the chart that hung on the wall and then asking me to lean forward so she could examine the back of my head. She wore a colorful smock decorated with Disney characters, and when she came close I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke clinging to her clothes. It almost made me gag.

“Everything looks good,” she said, her voice flat. Her shoes squeaked against the floor. “How’s the pain?”

“Throbbing mostly,” I said.

“That’s not surprising,” she said. “You have a mild concussion. You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. Most people who get hit the way you were end up with staples in their scalp.”

“Who wants to see me?” I asked. Each word required effort, like I was pushing them out of my mouth.

I pieced together the previous few hours from the fragments of my concussed memory. The amusement park. My face in the rich, damp earth. A cop standing over me, shining a light in my eyes, snapping his fingers as if I were a fighter down for the count. And then the ambulance ride to the hospital, winding through the county roads, nausea rising with each turn and bump.

I knew I was in Wyckoff, Kentucky, the little college town ninety minutes northwest of Nashville. And I knew what I’d come there for.

And who I’d come there for.

And I knew no one else in town, so if someone wanted to see me . . .

Could it be . . . Morgan? Coming to check on me?

The nurse slipped out through the privacy curtain that surrounded my bed. I heard the sounds of the emergency room around me. The chatter of doctors and nurses. A machine beeping nearby, tracking the rhythm of someone’s beating heart.

On the other side of the curtain, a man’s hoarse voice muttered in response to a doctor’s questions. “No, sir. No, sir. I wasn’t drinking. No, sir.”

The lights above me were bright, making me squint. I needed to use the bathroom, the pressure in my bladder increasing. And a wave of nausea swept through me again, roiling my stomach like a rising tide.

Then a woman pushed aside the curtain the nurse had just exited through. She wore a business suit—tan pants and jacket, a white shirt. She held an iPhone, and the overhead lights flashed off the gold badge clipped to her belt. The glinting hurt my eyes, and I turned away, wishing I could bury my face in the stiff pillow that supported my head.

“Mr. Fields?” she asked. “Joshua Fields?”

“That’s me,” I said, eyes squeezed shut. It felt like a strange statement, announcing my own identity to a stranger. But did I really know who I was anymore?

“How are you feeling?” she asked. She cocked her head, one corner of her mouth lifting. She had a friendly face with big, sympathetic eyes, but her voice was strong, each word landing with certainty and force.

“My head hurts.” I looked down. The blanket came up to my chest, and I appeared to be wearing a flimsy hospital gown with a strange geometric pattern on it. I wasn’t even sure if I still had my boxers on. “And I don’t know where my clothes are.”

“They’ll give those back when the time comes,” she said. “I’m Detective Kimberly Givens with the Laurel Falls police. We spoke on the phone earlier. You remember that, right? I need to ask you some questions, and they’re fairly urgent. Do you think you’re up for that right now?”

It didn’t sound like a question. My heart started to race at a rate that matched my thumping head. If I’d been hooked up to one of those machines that monitored my pulse, I suspect it would have beeped like a video game. Detective Givens lifted one eyebrow, and that gesture served as a repetition of her question.

Was I up for that right now?

Did I have a choice?

“Can you dim the lights?” I asked. “Maybe this overhead one can be turned off.”

The detective looked around on the wall for a moment and flicked a switch with her index finger.

Instant relief. The lower-wattage recessed lights in the room provided gentler illumination. I breathed easier, stopped squinting.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yes.” My mouth felt like I’d been chewing felt. I looked around for a drink but saw none. No way that nurse was coming back while the detective was with me.

“Do you know how you ended up here?” Givens asked. “Do you remember where we found you?”

I closed my eyes again, saw a replay of the same images. The amusement park . . . my face in the dirt . . . the cop shining a flashlight in my face . . . the ambulance ride . . .

Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Are you with us? Can you hear me?

“Somebody hit me,” I said. “I think.”

“You weren’t alone out there, were you?” she asked.

“No.”

“There was another man on the ground near you. Someone had hit him. Likely more than once. Do you remember that?”

I looked down. Even in the dimmed light, I could see my right hand resting on the white blanket. My knuckles were scraped and raw like they’d been dragged across concrete. I felt a sharp ache like I’d punched a rock. I didn’t try to slide my hand under the covers. Givens followed my gaze, staring right at the scraped knuckles, and her eyebrows rose again.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

Givens held my gaze for a moment, and then she said, “Who else was out there with you?”

My lips were as cracked as crumbling plaster. I ran my tongue over them, trying to generate some moisture.

“Mr. Fields? Who else was out there with you?”

I held her gaze and didn’t blink. “You must know who.”

“Tell me where she went,” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“Here’s what happened,” she said. “The police arrive at the scene. We find two unconscious men. Both with hands that look like they’ve been in a fight. Oh, and did I mention . . .” She paused so long I thought she was finished speaking. She drew out the moment, holding her words back, letting me stew. But then she said, “You know, we found other evidence out there as well. Very interesting evidence.”

“What kind of evidence?” I asked, my voice cracking like my lips.

She chose not to tell me. “So, what can we conclude, Joshua? You’re the only one left to explain it all.”

For the first time in my life, I wondered if I needed a lawyer.

So I remained quiet.

“Tell me, Joshua. It’s time.”

The machine kept beeping. A siren rose and fell in the distance.

“You’re not going to tell me how that man is doing?” I asked.

“I really don’t know. But if you start to answer my questions, I can see what I can find out.” She took a step closer to the bed. “See, I bet you’re the kind of guy who wouldn’t want to wonder how that man is doing. Especially if you’re the one who hurt him. You’re a nice guy, right? Not the kind who gets involved in crimes like this. Right?”

The pain at the back of my head came back in a rush....