Chapter 20
Amber sat in a plastic chair next to the hospital bed where her brother laid. He was awake but remained in a catatonic state, staring emotionlessly at the white ceiling boards above them.
Her heart shattered into a million pieces at the sight of him. His face was bruised black and blue, lips cut and stitched, and his body mummified in bandages.
“Anson? Anson, can you hear me?” Amber called out softly in a quivering voice, gently cradling her brother’s left hand. It was the only body part that was left unscathed.
“He’s lucky to be alive,” an elderly cleaner with a friendly smile said as she mopped the floor in Anson’s room. “I heard from the nurses that he would have died had it not been for the kind gentleman who saved him. What was his name again? Ah, that Williams guy from the tech company! Very famous.” She was a chatty lady, but Amber found no solace in her words. In fact, they felt like a double-edged sword, reminding her of her unending debt towards Fabian.
Amber’s gaze trailed to her brother’s head. A part of his head scalp had been shaved off to make way for a burr hole procedure. The neurosurgeon in charge detected a minor buildup of blood in his brain and had swiftly carried the procedure to relieve the pressure and to prevent any further complications. Her chin trembled as she fought back the tears that threatened to spill out from her eyes.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and called her brother again desperate to get some response from him, “Anson, it’s me, Amber.”
A blink.
Anson?
She could have imagined it, but it seemed to Amber that her brother had just blinked in response to her calling his name. The elderly cleaner stopped in her tracks and craned her neck to get a better view, hungry for miraculous healing and some family drama.
“Anson, I need to ask you something. Blink twice if you understand me.”
Two slow and calculated blinks came, and the heart monitor that was hooked to Anson’s index finger beeped slightly faster.
“He understands!” the cleaner squealed, dropping her mop back in her bucket. A surge of hope began to swell within Amber Banks’ heart.
She gripped his hand tighter this time and leaned closer to his ear, “Blink twice if the answer is yes, and thrice if the answer is no. Do you understand?”
Another two blinks.
Amber sucked in her breath, readying herself for the moment of truth, “Was it Liam Smith? Is he responsible for everything?”
What happened next caught Amber by surprise. The former calm periodic spikes on the heart rate monitor unexpectedly spiraled out of control, and a sudden alarm came from it. Anson’s eyes began blinking furiously as he struggled to breathe through his oxygen ventilator.
For a second, neither she nor the cleaner moved. Both were in shock. Then Amber snapped herself out of the trance and quickly stood up, knocking over her chair, and frantically reached for the emergency button that lay next to her brother. The cleaner ran out of the room shouting for help.
His heartbeat continued to fluctuate in the most worrying manner as a doctor and two nurses swooped in to check on him.
“What did you say to him?!” the doctor yelled over the blaring beeps as he checked his patient’s eyeballs.
A trembling hand flew to Amber’s mouth, “I…I asked him a question…”
“Get him a sedative,” he ordered one of the nurses before turning his direction to Amber, “He’ll be fine, but he needs rest. Do not provoke him.”
Amber gulped, her own heart beating like an incessant drum, “I’m so sorry…” Her eyes fell on her bother, who was still struggling to catch his breath, when the first nurse came in with a syringe. It was agonizing to see him that way, it hurt, even more, to know that she was the one who caused his suffering.
The sedative was powerful, and in a matter of minutes, he was sound asleep and the nurse who had administered the shot turned to face Amber with a disapproving look, “Weren’t you on a drip as well?” Her eyes trailed to the dried blood on Amber’s hand.
Amber quickly hid her hand behind her back, “I’m feeling better. He’ll be constantly monitored right? I mean his room’s just next to the nurse’s station.”
If her suspicions were true, then she needed to make sure he would not be left alone and vulnerable.
The nurse nodded, still frowning at Amber, “Yes. No visitors will be allowed until he is more stable. And that includes you, young lady.” With that, she pushed Amber out of the room.
***
An hour later found Amber still moping outside her brother’s room. She had called to inform Margaret of Anson’s condition and though the older woman insisted on coming, Amber stop her.
“There’s nothing we can do anyway. It’s enough for me to be here,” she had told Margaret over her new phone. After that, she wired her share of the money from the auction back to Fabian’s account. The amount was peanuts to a man like Fabian, but returning it gave Amber a piece of mind. She did not want to be any more indebted to him than she already was.
She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples as she leaned against the observatory window. Her headache was coming back.
“Amber Banks?”
At the sound of a deep male voice, Amber whirled around and came face to face with the blonde detective. A lanky younger man with a little stubble on his chin stood behind the detective, fidgeting uncomfortably. He looked like he had just graduated from the police force.
“Detective Grant!” she called, not happy to see him. Her eyebrows creased, “What are you doing here?”
The detective forced an awkward smile and tapped a light blue paper file on his forehead, “I know this is a bad time, but your brother’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon of Vincent Rodriguez.”
No…
An invisible choking cloud of fear began to descend on Amber, and she had to fight for air to fill her lungs.
This is not a nightmare. I’m awake…
“Amber Banks?”
She shook herself. She was in control, and she had to take charge.
“What do you mean?” she asked, shredding her palms with her clenched fingernails even as she played dumb.
“It means that your brother is under arrest as the main suspect for the murder of—”
She cut him before he could continue. “He’s innocent,” she blurted.
That caught the detective’s interest. He raised an eyebrow looking down at her and a half-smile formed on his tanned face.
“He’s innocent,” he repeated, nodding to himself. A nurse came over to them and his colleague dragged the confused nurse aside to explain the situation at hand.
“Give me a few days. I’ll turn in the evidence.” She was bullshitting, dealing a hand with no ace card.
The detective held Amber’s emerald eyes with his sea-blue ones, as if searching for something and both stood there staring at each other for a while, sizing one another, neither moving nor talking.
Then the detective did something he had never done before, he decided to give in to the redhead, “You have three days. In the meantime, my men will keep an eye on him here.”
Amber almost cried in relief. She could not believe her ears! She was given a second chance!
“Thank you,” she heaved. She held up her hand, showing three fingers, “Three days…got it.”
She would have to move fast. Time was running out for her and Anson. She took one last look at her brother through the glass and wondered when she would see her brother again.
Hang in there, Anson. Everything will be alright soon.
With that, Amber Banks walked out of the hospital building and out into the scorching heat of the sun even as her heart turned stone cold at the thought of what she was about to pull off. She was going to make a deal with the devil himself.