My throat was searing like it was being stabbed repeatidly with thousands of knives. I sucked a breath in, which was a huge mistake and I wanted to scream out in agony but something inside of me prevented me from attempting it. I slowly opened my eyes and waited for them to focus as I scanned the room. There was a figure sitting at the edge of the bed and I guessed it correctly that it was Lizz.
“Sh-h-h, don’t talk hon,” Lizz quietly directed.
I frowned at the request but then I suddenly remembered that I had chose the option of having my vocal cords repaired after drinking the tainted water that Marcus had provided for me. I also remembered that the doctor had told me that I would more than likely have to keep quiet until he had given me a “green light” to begin talking once again. I was anxious to find out if the surgery was successful, but again I was scared that it may have failed. Damn, I was so tired, I never would have guessed that I would be completely whipped by this. There were so many questions I wanted to ask Lizz, Lucky for me, she had that “telepathic link.”
“You really need to rest up, Nick, you’ve been through some hell.” She understood the look I shot at her. “Brian is doing fine, he sends his love,” Lizz replied.
That wasn’t good enough for me. I could tell that she had been stressing herself over all of this and she looked like hell. I know that she hadn’t been eating, let alone sleeping through any of this. God, she looked awful for me just coming out of surgery.
My eyes caught a calendar that was hanging on the wall. The date made me do a double take. Okay, my surgery was done on Friday, the 19th. Why in God’s name did the calendar have Tuesday, the 23nd. Did they have me snowed under that long?
Lizz’s eyes followed mine to the calendar. She again read my thoughts. “Drugs are great, aren’t they?” she lied. I managed a weak smile back.
I didn’t agree 100% that this was the truth, but I was too sleepy to fight it at the moment.
“That’s it Nick, rest, it’s what you need,” Lizz soothed as she held my hand in hers. ~*~*~*~*~*~
“Just where the hell did Lizz take off to?” Kevin demanded of Brian as he paced the room, stopping once to look out the window.
“Hopefully resting,” Brian replied. His voice was growing stronger each day and his prayers were answered when he woke up this morning and had his voice back almost to his full potential. His voice would waiver when he talked for extended periods, but at least it was coming back to him thankfully to the speech therapy he had been receiving.
“Somehow I don’t completely belive that,” Kevin sputtered. “Well, since AJ and Howie haven’t made it here yet, I’m going to fill you in on all of the details of what’s been set up for the conference and the other facts. I was hoping Lizz would have been in here to hear this.” Brian nodded solemnly. “Okay, I made funeral arrangements at Repath and Jennings Funeral Home in Tampa. I paid them off to keep this high PR and not to leak any details out. They knew that there would be huge publicity from this stint so they are going to handle this with every instruction I dictated to the letter. The only hurdle I had in this was the fact that Marcus wanted proof that Nick was dead. That elimanted a chance of a “staged creamation” since he wanted a body to view.”
“How are you getting around that?” Brian asked.
“It’s all been taken care of,” Kevin replied, glancing at his watch. “The best of the best in the world that does wax figures did a body image of Nick and I hate to say it, it looks so damned realistic, it’s spooky. You’re gonna swear it’s him in that casket.”
Brian swallowed nervously.
“Okay, the “funeral” has been set up for this Thursday at one o’clock. Nick’s parents have been informed and told of the whys and hows of the whole thing.”
“Oh god, that must have been hard to do,” Brian replied.
“It was, Jane about lost it completely when I talked to her, but I managed to calm her down before she got hysterical. They backed you up with your plan Brian. They said it was the only way to protect Nick and anyone else from getting hurt.”
Brian nodded, relieved that his parents would see it that way as well. He was still worried about how Nick was coming out of all of this, if he was coming out of this.
A quiet tap on the door, stopped Kevin from continuing outlining the plans. “Yeah, it’s open,” Kevin stated.
Lizz popped her head around the door, and slowly emerged, dressed in wrinkled hospital scrubs. “Hi,” she stated, her voice shaky from nerves.
Kevin immediately narrowed his eyes at her. “Where the hell have you been, dressed like that!?” Lizz flinched as the booming of Kevin’s voice assualted her ears. “Oh god, you didn’t” he added quickly when he detected her nervousness.
“Don’t be mad at me Kevin, it was something I had to do,” Lizz defended.
“I’ve gone out of my way buying people off, making plans and ironing out details and you go and do that just because you HAD TO?”
“No, Kevin, it’s okay, Nick’s nurse is cool with this,” Lizz replied, tears starting to well up in her eyes.
“Kev, back down, she’s only trying to help here,” Brian came to her defense.
“If anything goes belly up on this, it’s your fault,” Kevin growled.
Brian shot a dirty look at Kevin after the remark was made. “Don’t let him get to you, it’s been rough for all of us.”
Lizz nodded slightly.
“So, anyway, how is Nick?” Brian asked cautiously.
Lizz’s face brightened through her tears. “Pissed that he can’t talk!”
“Oh god, that’s the best news I’ve had all morning,” Brian softly chuckled. “No side effects from the carbon?”
“Nope, he’s ornery so he’s all good,” Lizz smiled.
“Okay, now I can fill you in on the press conference before Howie and AJ show up,” Kevin interrupted.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Nick’s family pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home, as Kevin pulled up behind them with AJ, Howie and Lizz. This was the plan that Kevin had set up for them just in case Marcus would be scoping out the funeral home. The actual arrangements were made from Tampa, but “Nick” would be in Oklahoma until Marcus had his taste of this and then the casket with the fake Nick would be shipped out to Tampa and a closed casket would be viewed from that point on.
The sounds of the awful piped in music added to the dregery of the situation. Lizz could see out the corner of her eye a oak casket far away in a large room. As they neared the entrance, she felt her stomach turn in knots. ’This isn’t Nick,” Lizz kept repeating to herself mentally. From far away, her heart did a leap as she saw the wax mannequin dressed in a dark blue shirt and patterned tie laying in the casket. As they neared the body, she felt her heart catch in her throat. As much as she tried to convince herself that this wasn’t Nick, she couldn’t push it past that thought. This looked like a ringer for Nick....a dead ringer. Nick’s parents had been told that this was all a staged death, Lizz wasn’t sure about his sisters and brother by their reactions. AJ and Howie weren’t any better. After thirty minutes elapsed, the final test came into the room:
Marcus.
Kevin narrowed his eyes at the man that had caused all of this unwanted pain and suffering. Suprizingly, Marcus had managed to clean himself up halfway decently but his hair was still obviously greasy and combed back, the comb marks leaving a trail from his forehead all the way down towards the back of his dirty neck. The true test came as Marcus approached the casket. No one in the room had thought to touch the mannequin and Marcus appeared to be checking all the details, the scars on Nick’s finger and his forehead, all recreated from photos Kevin provided. Kevin’s breath caught as Marcus reached down and touched the hands and then sickly patted them.
“Farewell my friend,” Marcus softly said to “Nick.”
“Who the hell is that dude?” AJ whispered to Kevin.
“An old manager of Nick’s,” Kevin lied.
AJ bought the lie as he remained seated. Something about the man bothered AJ, but he couldn’t remember where he had seen him. He decided since he had been one of Nick’s manager’s, then that was probably where he had seen him before.
Marcus gave his respects to Nick’s parents and then quietly asked Kevin to step out of the room with him. They barely got out the front door when Marcus pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep drag from it. “I really didn’t believe you at first, but now that I’ve seen it with my own two eyes, I can relax. Carter is dead, his debt has been paid off,” Marcus smirked.
Kevin could feel the bile rise in his throat. Marcus absolutely sickened him.
“But, I still want to see your conference this afternoon too. I am going to see if my momma can watch it in prision,” Marcus’s face soured.
