20 Minutes In The Desert, page 12
part #12 of 20 Minute Series
So far, that hope was still very much alive.
But so were all the fears and anxieties that kept Mark from even thinking about trying to get some sleep.
Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, Mark didn’t need a mirror to know that he must have looked a mess right now. Having barely slept since he left England and flew to America with his wife and son, he knew he needed many things as well as sleep, including a good shower and a shave. But there was another reason why he was looking a little jaded.
It was because he had accepted Floyd’s offer of a little smoke on his special cigarette.
Mark had originally turned down the invitation from the security guard to partake in some casual drug use, even if it would have eased his nerves, but as the night had gone on, Mark had found himself increasingly drawn to the idea of having something to calm his troubled mind. That was why he had gone and found Floyd a few hours later and asked if the offer was still on the table. Floyd had laughed and said that it was, and that was how the two men had come to be standing out the back of the clinic in the shadows of the building, puffing away and getting as high as a kite.
Mark initially worried that he had smoked too much of the magical substance, and his wife would be able to tell immediately. That was why he had panicked and started running around the car park at the back of the clinic as if it would sober him up and cleanse his system of the illicit substance that he had just put into it. But Floyd had told him that he was wasting his time after he had stopped laughing at Mark, of course, which was why the silly father had ceased running and decided that water and snacks from the vending machine would be his best friend then.
They call it ‘getting the munchies,’ and Mark had certainly got that after his dalliance with Floyd’s special smoke, eating everything in sight that the clinic had to offer as if it was impossible for him to be full. Candice had watched on in part shock, part admiration as her husband had consumed giant bags of crisps and multiple bars of chocolate beside her in Benji’s room, having no idea why her husband had suddenly developed such an appetite.
She definitely had no idea that it was because Mark had been puffing away with the security guard out back earlier in the evening.
Thankfully, the drugs had done the job for Mark, and they had helped him make it through those dark and difficult hours in this clinic in the desert as he hoped and prayed for his son to wake up. Now morning was here, the effects of Floyd’s cigarette had worn off, and Mark was feeling back to his usual self. He was planning on saying goodbye to Floyd before the security guard finished his shift and went home, as well as thanking him for their secretive shenanigans at the back of the building, but he was hoping that he would have some good news to give the guard too regarding Benji. That was because Mark had told Floyd all about how wonderful his little boy was and how he hoped and prayed that everything was going to be alright with him and his health now.
Floyd had done his best to assure Mark that his son would be okay, but Mark knew that nobody could make that assurance with any certainty. Not the doctors, not the nurses and certainly not a weed-smoking security guard. The only person who could let Mark know that Benji was going to be okay was Benji himself, and he would do that by waking up and giving his father a smile.
So come on, Benji.
Wake up and smile at me.
Mark looked back at his son again, but the young boy was still lying motionless with his eyes closed, so there was no change to report yet. Candice was holding on to Benji’s hand, as she had been doing for most of the night apart from the times when she had taken her turn to go out into the corridor and stretch her legs. Just like Mark, Candice looked exhausted, although her eyes weren’t quite as bloodshot as his. That was because she had always been the sensible one in the relationship.
Candice would never have smoked something from a security guard.
Mark smiled at the sight of his wife sitting beside him because, as worrying as this scenario was, he could only admire her steadfastness and loving nature. Just like him, she would do anything for Benji, but unlike him, she was coping with her emotions in a more natural way. She cried when she needed to, and she stayed strong when she could, unlike Mark, who had used all sorts of things over these last few months to mask his emotions, like alcohol, isolation or whatever the hell Floyd just gave him. But maybe that was normal. People dealt with things in different ways. The important thing was that people survived and got through tough times, and Mark and Candice had managed it.
Now they just needed Benji to manage it too.
The door to the young patient’s room opened, and Mark looked up to see a doctor entering with a clipboard in his hands and a warm smile on his face. Mark didn’t recognise this doctor because he wasn’t the one that they had been dealing with for the last few hours, but he presumed that was because the night shift had ended now and the new staff had started their day.
‘Good morning. I’m Doctor Phillips,’ the friendly doctor said. ‘I believe it’s been a long night for you two.’
Mark and Candice nodded their heads, too weary to make conversation with each other but aware that they had to make an effort with the staff who were trying to help their little boy.
‘Let’s take a look at how Benji is doing, shall we?’ the doctor said before making checks on the various numbers on the screens of the machines beside the boy’s bed. Mark had hated seeing Benji hooked up to so much scary-looking equipment with all the wires coming out of it, but he understood that it was the best way for the medical team to know what was going on inside the patient’s body at all times.
As the doctor jotted down the various recordings, Mark and Candice shared a concerned look because this was not the first time somebody in a white coat had come in here and done this.
‘Should he have woken up by now?’ Mark decided to ask when the silence became too much for him and his wife to bear.
Doctor Phillips stopped writing and looked at the couple before showing them that warm smile of his again.
‘As I’m sure you have been told, the patients can wake up anywhere between six and ten hours after the procedure. Benji is still very much in that timeframe, and there is nothing here in his notes to suggest to me that there is anything to be concerned about.’
That all sounded very sensible and comforting, but Mark and Candice still wouldn’t believe that their son was okay until they saw it for themselves. For that, they needed Benji to open his eyes, so they both went back to looking at the boy and praying that he would do just that.
Doctor Phillips excused himself and left the room, and the family were alone again, which was how they liked it, but they just wished it was in a nicer setting than this one. Mark wanted nothing more than to be sat at home with his wife and son beside him or perhaps on holiday somewhere sitting on a beach or playing in a pool. That was how families should be together, not like this, in a clinic in a remote part of Las Vegas.
This was no place for a young family.
And this was no place for a child.
Mark reached out and put his hand on top of his wife’s, which was still resting on Benji’s. The three of them stayed like that for a moment before Mark felt some movement beneath his hand and figured that it must be Candice. But it wasn’t.
It was Benji.
He was moving his hand.
Candice felt it too, and she gasped as they both looked at their boy and saw him slowly opening his eyes.
Both husband and wife leapt up from their seats and moved closer to their son so that they could be sure he saw them first and didn’t worry about where he was and what had happened to them. The last thing they wanted was for him to be confused or afraid, but they didn’t need to worry about that because Benji saw both of their faces looking down at him and smiled.
‘I’ll get the doctor,’ Mark said, not wanting to leave his son or his wife at this precious moment but aware that it was probably the best thing to do to get a medical professional on the scene to make sure that Benji really was okay.
Running to the door, Mark pulled it open and looked out into the corridor.
‘He’s awake!’ he cried at the passing nurse, and she jumped a little at the loud cry before composing herself and hurrying away to fetch a doctor. As he waited for them to return, Mark went back into Benji’s room and saw Candice giving him a kiss on the head.
‘You’re going to be okay now,’ she told him, and amazingly, it was true. The doctors had said that the success of this treatment could be measured very early on, and the fact that Benji had woken up within the expected timeframe and in seemingly good spirits suggested that everything had gone right so far.
Mark didn’t want to get his hopes up too much because it could prove devastating if they were to be dashed in the future, but even he had to admit that this was the most optimistic outlook they had enjoyed ever since Benji had been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.
As the family hugged each other, Doctor Phillips re-entered the room, but he had to wait a moment to get near to Benji to make any checks on the patient. That was because Mark and Candice currently had their precious little boy in a bear hug.
They had been so close to losing him.
Now that they had him back, they never wanted to let him go.
Tom *
06:16
Tom Casey had someone in his sights that he never wanted to lose. It was the man he had first seen in the CCTV footage from the train on the day that missing woman, Olivia Harringay, had vanished in London. It was the same man that he had tried and failed to find on those trains after that day. And it was the man whom he had fortuitously spotted sitting ringside at the big boxing event in Las Vegas last night while Tom was in the city on a stag do with friends.
It was the man who Tom was still watching now.
The reason Tom had spent the entire evening keeping an eye on this person was because he knew that if he let him out of his sight then he might never find him again. He didn’t want to do that until he at least knew the name of this man so that he could make some checks and keep tabs on him going forward. But he didn’t have the name yet, which was why he was still watching him.
It had been a long night.
And it wasn’t over yet.
Ever since Tom had spotted the man on the television screen at the boxing, he had changed all of his plans to try and get closer to him. He had told his friends on the stag do that he would catch up with them later as he had left the bar and gone to the arena where he hoped to speak to the mystery man or at least the man he was with, a famous ex-politician by the name of Roger Harrington. Tom’s plan had been a crazy one, but he had believed that if he could just speak to Roger for a moment, then he might be able to find out who he was with, and that way, he would have the name of the man on the train who had been watching Olivia on the day she went missing. But in hindsight, it had been a long shot, and that long shot hadn’t come off.
Tom had gone to the arena and waited outside the area where he knew the VIP audience members would come out after the fight was over. But he wasn’t the only one there. There were autograph hunters, paparazzi and even some people who looked very strange and were most likely stalkers of the rich and famous. Because of those people, there was a healthy amount of security guards in place too to keep the VIPs safe and that had meant that it had been impossible for Tom to get near enough to Roger and his mystery friend when he had spotted them leaving after the fight. Fortunately, he had been able to see which vehicle the two men got into, so he had quickly hailed a taxi and told the driver to follow behind. That was how Tom had been able to keep track of the two men as they had moved down the Las Vegas Strip to continue on with their Saturday night after the fun of the boxing match had come to an end.
From the arena, Roger and his friend had gone to a steak restaurant, which Tom hadn’t been able to get into because he didn’t have a booking, so he had waited patiently outside for the men to re-emerge. They had done so around an hour later, and Tom had approached quickly when he had the chance, pretending to be a fan of Roger and asking the man for an autograph. Roger Harrington had looked surprised to be captured by a fan, presumably because the corrupt ex-politician had very few fans in the world these days, so he had been happy enough to oblige Tom’s request. But it was really the man whom Roger was with that Tom wanted to get closer to, and that was why the police officer apologised for not knowing who the man was and asking for his name.
Unfortunately, the man had remained elusive and not answered the question, which hadn’t helped Tom out in his quest. Then he and Roger had walked away, leaving Tom frustrated and feeling as if he was never going to know who the man was. But if he had learnt one thing from his years as a policeman back in England, then it was to never give up on a lead, no matter how small or insignificant it seemed, so that was why Tom had continued to follow the two men, believing that he would get another chance to find out the name some other way. If he could get the name, he would be able to pass it on to his colleagues in London, and they would be able to keep surveillance on him much more professionally, potentially finding out if he really did have anything to do with Olivia’s disappearance and even the spate of murders that had been gripping the English capital over the past several months. This was precisely the type of police work that his boss, Paula Walsh, had told Tom to get his teeth into, and while she can’t have expected him to be stalking somebody all over Las Vegas while he was supposed to be on holiday, Tom knew that he owed it to Olivia, and potentially several others, to find out if this mystery man was really a danger to society after all.
From the restaurant, Tom had tracked the two men to a club on the outskirts of the city, which had seemed a very strange place for a wealthy man like Roger Harrington to go. Once again, Tom had been unable to gain access, this time simply because he didn’t have the funds required to get in. While the place had looked like a dive bar, it certainly wasn’t as cheap as one. That had meant more waiting for Tom, who had felt guilty for letting his friends down on the stag do but also increasingly committed to finding out more about the man he had luckily spotted all the way on the other side of the world from where he had first seen him.
But as time went by, Tom started to wonder if his apparent good luck had actually been more like bad luck instead because he had been stuck waiting outside the club for two hours before Roger and his friend came out again. When they did, they took a car back to The Strip, and Tom hailed another taxi to keep tabs. The cars had driven for a while before coming to a stop outside one of the newer hotels in Las Vegas that Tom hadn’t even heard of before, but it was certainly impressive. It was all shimmering glass and water fountains, and it rose up high into the dark desert sky, looking very much like a place where only a fraction of the people in society would ever be able to afford to spend the night.
Roger and his friend had gone inside, and Tom had followed behind at a safe distance, grateful that the security guard on the front door hadn’t asked him for his room number as he made his way in because then he would have lost his target again and been forced to wait for a long time, all night potentially. Having followed the two men through the plush reception area, Tom had watched them both get into one of the elevators, and that had been when he feared that he was going to lose them for good. He knew he couldn’t join them in the elevator without them recognising him from earlier, but if he didn’t get in then how would he be able to see which floor they got out at?
That was when Tom saw the other elevators around the lobby, and he realised something.
The hotel wasn’t just made of glass on the outside.
It was almost all glass on the inside too.
Therefore, he would be able to get in any of the elevators and still see Roger and his friend from a distance. That was precisely what he had done, and Tom had ascended up while counting the floors and keeping track of where his targets were. But they had kept ascending, and they hadn’t stopped until they had gotten all the way up to the top floor. It had been there where Tom had got out of the elevator and seen what it was that had made Roger and his friend go all the way up there.
There had been a huge party underway with sweeping views of the entire city.
Tom had worried that he wouldn’t be able to make it into that venue like had been the case with all the other ones earlier in the night, but fortunately, the price of admission was affordable to him. Having paid the $50 charge to get in, Tom had accessed the party and been able to keep watching the mystery man who was sipping champagne with Roger and talking to a bevy of blonde beauties long into the early hours of the morning. That was when Tom had drunk a little champagne of his own before plucking up the courage to approach Roger again and try his luck a second time in learning the name of the man he was with.
Tom had pretended to be surprised to see Roger at the party and made a joke about how he wouldn’t have asked for his autograph earlier if he had known that he was going to be there. Roger had been so drunk that he hadn’t been suspicious, or simply didn’t care, but that was not the case with the friend who had eyed Tom sceptically and presumably started to suspect that it wasn’t coincidence that they kept ending up in the same place. But Tom had still done his best to chat to the man, offering him his hand to shake in the hope that he would be given a name in return. But no luck. The man had told Tom to leave them alone, and while Roger had seemed surprised at the sudden rudeness, he had been far too drunk to care and was happy for Tom to leave them alone as well.
That had been two hours ago, and now the sun had come up over Sin City, but the party was still going on in this busy bar, and Tom had still not been able to ascertain the identity of this cryptic man whom he had followed over all the place. The venue was still busy despite it being far from an ideal hour to party, but Tom knew that parties didn’t last forever, not even in Las Vegas, and that once Roger and his friend left, he would most likely lose them forever. That was because it was surely only a matter of time until the men took some of these women back to their hotel suites, and as good as Tom was at following people, he wouldn’t be able to follow them there.
