Once outside, they closed the door behind them, and I ran to the window, ducking low to peer out at them. Uncle Roy’s head banged on the steps from the porch to the walkway and continued bumping along as my mother and grandmother struggled to haul his body up and into the passenger seat of his truck. Once they stuffed him in, head lolling against the window, Mom walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off. Gran followed in our old Chevrolet.
In a late-night trance, I wandered onto the front porch, still holding the imprisoned fireflies. From behind me, Stella’s soft little voice drifted up. “We better let them go now.” I unscrewed the top and shook the jar. It took a few seconds for the dazed creatures to remember what freedom looked like, but gradually they fluttered away. Stella held my hand as we stumbled back to Gran’s big bed and held each other in the dark.
We never saw Uncle Roy again.
Chapter 34
A murmur surrounded me as I swam toward consciousness. The constant buzzing in my ears made it hard to understand what the words meant, but I knew I was no longer in Gran’s bed. My eyelids were heavy and sore. I opened them only enough to allow the tiniest glimmer of light in. But it was bright enough to send excruciating shards of pain through my brain. I reached for my forehead, but the needle and tube stuck in my hand restricted my movement.
I had to be in a hospital, but where was it, and why was I there?
“Grace? Are you awake, Grace?” A soft voice suppressed the buzzing. “Nurse! Somebody get a nurse, goddammit! She’s waking up.”
“Please, not so loud.” I opened my eyes again and tried to sit.
“Take it easy. Here, let me help.” Gentle hands eased pillows behind my back.
“Justin, what are you doing here?” For a second, I thought he was the one in the hospital bed, and I was the visitor. “I don’t know where I am,” I admitted and convulsed with gulping sobs.
A nurse pushed past him and placed a cool cloth on my forehead. “I’m giving you something for the pain,” she explained.
While she and Justin whispered at the end of my bed, flashes of memory returned. I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there, but I remembered crouching down with Marco in front of the trailer.
He finished his conversation with the nurse and sat beside my bed, then took my hand.
“What happened?” I hated the foggy sensation permeating my memory.
“It looks like lightning struck the construction shack and it exploded.” He rubbed my arm, and I noticed a line of stitches from my wrist to my elbow. “You got hit by some flying debris.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned and rested my head on a pillow. “Ben was in that trailer.”
Justin nodded.
“What about Marco?” I thought about the heavy-muscled man with the sweet face and how he threw himself on top of me.
“He’s in pretty good shape—loopier than you, believe it or not, but they expect both of you to be fine.”
Justin explained the blast had rumbled through the land, and local farmers had followed the smoke to the construction site. There had been a store of ammunition in the mobile unit, exacerbating the effect of the lightning strike. The men took us to an emergency clinic. The doctor there had us transported to Vernaza Hospital in Guayaquil.
“How did you find me?”
Justin ran his fingers through his hair, and I saw how exhausted he looked.
“When we found your note, Harry and I weren’t too worried at first. I thought maybe you were right about Balsuto not wanting to hurt you. But the later it got, the more scared we got. Harry put his security people on it right away. Somebody picked up on an explosion in the hills above Montañita.”
He looked away. When he returned his gaze to me, there were tears in his eyes. “We heard there were fatalities but couldn’t find out who had been killed.” He paused and grabbed my hand again. “I thought it was you.” His voice broke.
“But it wasn’t,” I whispered. “I’m fine.” I slipped my hands out of his and touched his cheek, dragging my IV line along. We were in the middle of untangling ourselves when Harry came into the room, carrying flowers, a balloon, and a box of chocolate.
“You’re awake!” He dropped his gifts onto a cart by the bed and leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. “It’s good to see you looking a little more like yourself.”
“Thanks. Justin was filling me in on some details. How long have I been here?”
“They brought you in after eleven two nights ago, so about forty-eight hours,” Harry filled a glass with water for the flowers.
Losing two full days transformed me into an unwilling time traveler, as if my body had been bound to the hospital bed while my spirit roamed. And I had journeyed far from this place. I had returned to the night when my mother and grandmother murdered Uncle Roy.
A young man with a stethoscope appeared. His smooth skin looked as if he had only begun shaving, and when he announced he was my doctor, I didn’t believe him. He was professional and efficient in his examination, though, and agreed I could go home in the morning if I promised to follow post head trauma instructions. I resisted the urge to pinch his cute baby boy cheeks and promised to do exactly what he told me.
Harry kissed me on top of the head and left, leaving Justin sitting by my side.
“You should get some rest. Have you been staying with Harry or at a hotel?”
“Neither,” he replied and titled his head toward the recliner in the corner.
“You didn’t have to do that. I’m fine, actually, I’m super fine.” My pain meds kicked in hard, and
