Killer Countdown. Amelia Autin

mental illness? she wondered. She couldn’t keep the question out of the eyes she raised to his.

      To her surprise, he laughed suddenly, a booming sound that reverberated around the room. “No,” he told her, humor lightening the rather severe expression he usually wore. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

      “How do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked quickly, her hand reaching for the door latch.

      “The strap is for my protection,” he told her. “To make sure I don’t get out of bed without a nurse in attendance. To make sure I don’t fall.” He hooked a thumb over his right shoulder, and for the first time Carly saw the harness hooked to an inverted T bar. She followed the strap upward, to the mechanical device that seemed to run on tracks throughout the room, and into what she figured was a private bathroom.

      “What in the world?” Carly had never seen anything like it.

      “It’s actually quite ingenious. And if I really needed it, it’d be a lifesaver. But since I don’t—I never fall when I have an episode, never lose consciousness—it’s a damned nuisance. But it’s hospital policy.”

      “Episode? Fall? Lose consciousness?” Carly felt stupid for repeating his words, but she had no idea what he was talking about. Her first supposition—that he was mentally ill—seemed to be all wrong. He certainly came across as being all there. Except for accepting her as his fiancée...which he knew she wasn’t. So why had he let her in his room? Never shy, she asked, “Why did you allow me in here?”

      “Because I was sick of my own company and looking for a diversion.”

      “That’s the only reason?”

      “Well...” He drew the word out. “Anyone with the nerve to claim she was my fiancée—”

      “I never actually said I was,” Carly quickly pointed out. “I just didn’t correct the nurse’s erroneous assumption.”

      His smile was cynical. “As I started to say, I figured you had to be a reporter, Ms. Edwards.” She jumped when he said her name. “And if you tracked me down at the Mayo Clinic, the only thing to do—the only smart thing to do—would be to tell you the truth and ask you to keep it to yourself. For now.”

      “How did you know who I was? I thought you said—”

      “I didn’t know. Not until I got a good look at you. You used to cover the Hill.” His eyes conveyed it wasn’t just her face he recognized, but Carly appreciated he was enough of a gentleman not to actually say her figure had betrayed her. She couldn’t help the way she looked, and she’d learned early to dress to downplay it as best she could professionally. Her private life was a different story, but she’d taken enough grief in her career over her curves, which tended to make men think of her as nothing but a pretty face with a bombshell body. Good in some ways, she admitted to herself, because men sometimes grew careless of what they said to her. And that had led to her breaking more than one explosive story.

      “But when I let you in,” the senator continued, interrupting her thoughts, “I was praying you were a legitimate member of the Fourth Estate.”

      “The Fourth Estate? I haven’t heard anyone refer to the news media by that title in forever.”

      One corner of his mouth curved upward in a rueful grin. “I’d rather refer to the members of the media by that term than a few others I could think of, including ambush journalists and sleazy paparazzi.”

      “Ouch.”

      “I didn’t say you were, I just said some are.” He indicated the chair set against the far wall. “Would you like to sit down? You’ll pardon me if I don’t rise.” He touched the strap belting him into the bed. “I’d have to call the nurse, and she’d have to strap me into the harness, and frankly, I’d just as soon avoid looking any more ridiculous than I already do.” He touched the mesh cap on his head.

      “You don’t,” Carly said. “Look ridiculous, that is.”

      “Yeah, right.” Disbelief was evident in his tone.

      She laughed. “Really,” she assured him before she sat in the chair, crossed her legs, reached into her capacious purse and pulled out her notebook. This was followed by her mini recorder, which she switched on. She glanced up at the senator and asked, “May I? I like to have a record of what people say. That way they can’t claim I made something up.”

      His expression turned serious again. “No, I don’t mind. But I want you to understand up front that what I’m going to tell you isn’t something I want to publicize to the world. I can’t prevent you from broadcasting it. I can only state this is off-the-record for now, and rely on your journalistic discretion after you hear what I have to say. Deal?”

      Carly considered this for a moment. “I can’t agree not to report what I uncover, not without knowing more. If it’s something that impacts your ability to carry out the duties of your office—you have to see how that would be news, Senator Jones, and I’d have no choice. It would be my responsibility to report it.”

      “Agreed. But this doesn’t have a damned thing to do with my job as a senator. It’s personal. And very private. If I were running for office...maybe it would be relevant and the voters would have the right to know. But I’m not—not yet, anyway. If I do run for reelection, or if I go public with the story, I promise you’ll have an exclusive. Deal?”

      “On those terms...deal.” She leaned forward, her mini recorder in one hand. “So can you tell me exactly why you’re here, Senator Jones?”

      He drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “One word,” he told her, and his dark brown eyes were the saddest things Carly had seen in a long time. “Epilepsy.”

      * * *

      “Epilepsy?” Carly Edwards’s brows drew together in a frown. “How is it this is the first time anyone has heard of this, Senator?”

      “Because I just found out.” Shane waved a hand that encompassed the room. “It wasn’t until I came here that I learned—” He broke off, fighting down the sudden upwelling of emotion. Guess I still haven’t quite accepted it, he told himself. When he finally trusted his voice, he said, “Apparently the head wound I received a few years back caused damage to my left temporal lobe. I knew that at the time and so did my surgeons. But no one knew the TBI—that’s short for—”

      “Traumatic brain injury,” she finished. “Yes, I know.” For an experienced reporter—which Shane knew she was—Carly’s reaction was unexpected. She’d lost all color and her eyes had widened...in what looked like shock. Shock, and recognition.

      He paused a moment, waiting for her to say something more, but when she didn’t he said, “No one knew the TBI would eventually cause focal seizures. It doesn’t happen in every case, but it did in mine.”

      “Focal seizures?” The question came automatically, but for some reason Shane felt she wasn’t really focusing on his answer...and that intrigued him.

      “The official term is focal seizure without dyscognitive features.” He grinned suddenly. “That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? All it means is that it’s a small, localized seizure in one hemisphere of the brain—kind of like an electrical ‘short’ in that area—which doesn’t cause any loss of consciousness, loss of memory or anything like that. In my case it manifests itself with a symptom that can best be described as a sudden chill...accompanied by goose bumps.”

      She seemed at a loss for words. “Is that all? Just goose bumps?”

      Shane allowed his eyes to wander from her face down to her legs—long, lovely legs, he noted—then back up again. And he felt a twinge in his groin he hoped wasn’t too obvious beneath his running shorts. “That’s all. I feel cold everywhere, as if I’ve walked into a freezer. And the goose bumps on my arms, my legs, make it very real. For about thirty seconds. Then the symptoms go away.”

      “But