Free Blast From The Past 3 by Faith Winslow Page A

try and track either of my numbers.
    “No,” J.R. said, running his fingers along my arm. “It wasn’t your cell phone.
    “It was Gretchen.”

~ Chapter 16 ~
     
    If there was a contest for the most thorough medical examination of all time, hands down, the doctors at Lutheran General would have won it that day. The examination they gave me took forever and involved running tests on every system, muscle, and fluid in my body.
    Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most thorough—or longest—examination in the history of the world…but it certainly felt like it. The longer I was awake, the more I came to, and the more I wanted to know about how I’d ended up in that hospital. I wanted to know how J.R.—or whoever—had found me, who’d “saved” me, and what had happened to my captors. When you’ve got questions like these on your mind, even a quickie exam feels like the world’s most attenuated one.
    Finally, after I’d been poked and prodded for what felt like hours, I was cleared for visitors, and J.R. (who’d been hanging around the whole while) was allowed back into my room to see me.
    He came and sat at my bedside, and I looked at him, silently asking him for details.
    “It was pretty dangerous for you to do what you did,” J.R. said, picking up on my cues. “There’s a lot that could have gone wrong from you arranging some chance run-in between Tommy and Gretchen… But, luckily, it ended up working out to your advantage.
    “After Gretchen saw you and Tommy together at Burger Bistro, she stewed over things for a while, and then decided to call me. She used my work lines and answering service, and I didn’t get her messages right away—but, when I did, I responded to them immediately.
    “She told me about seeing you guys together, and she told me more about Tommy. She explained how aggressive and severe he’d been with her when they were together, and said she’d long been suspicious that he was up to no good before—and after—they dated.”
    J.R. leaned over me and brushed his fingers through my hair. “She went on and on about what a ‘bad guy’ Tommy was and said she wasn’t even sure why she was calling me, but she knew that she had to. She said she figured Tommy might have his hand at play in all of this, and that I might want to look into him before letting all the blame fall on you… Little did she know we were already working on that.”
    I tried to sit up in my bed, to make the conversation more of a conversation and less of a monologue, but J.R. shook his head and calmed me again by running his fingers through my hair once more.
    “I tried calling you, but got no answer,” J.R. went on. “And I went to your apartment, but you weren’t there… That’s when I told myself enough was enough… I couldn’t keep playing private investigator behind the scenes. It was getting too dangerous. With all I knew about Tommy at that point, I was afraid…and, apparently, I had good reason to be.
    “I decided to do what I should have done earlier. I called the cops—and, while I was still on the line with them, they called in the FBI… Believe it or not, the name ‘Tommy Ferguson’ rang a bell with them. The FBI already had him on their watch list, and already knew about his affiliation with Gretchen—and about his relationship with Stephanie.
    “When I told them you were missing—even though you weren’t ‘missing’ according to legal standards—they put out a covert manhunt for you. They checked Tommy’s, but found nothing, and then put out feelers in Stephanie’s neighborhood… Once they confirmed that there was suspicious activity around her house, they initiated stake-out, and I did everything I could to convince them to let me join them.
    “We were parked outside of Stephanie’s house for about two hours when they made their move and tried to move you… The FBI apprehended them—and I can only assume they’re interrogating them as we speak. Who knows? As soon as I found