T. Leigh - Gorgeous Chaos

“We’re all here for you,” Colleen said, placing her hand on Alexander’s shoulder and squeezing. “And for her. She’s family.”

“Yes, she is.”

“CAM, DON’T ANSWER IT,” a sweet voice drowsily said as the early morning Florida sun began to rise on Amelia Island.

He groaned, glancing at the beautiful brunette in bed beside him before grabbing his cell phone. It had been ringing constantly for the past five minutes. Whomever was calling wasn’t about to give up.

“I have to, Taylor. It could be an emergency.” He threw back the duvet and climbed out of bed, gazing at her tall, lean naked body, wishing he could just forget about Olivia. No matter how many women he dated, he just couldn’t forget about those beautiful brown eyes.

“Dr. Bowen,” Cam spoke into the phone.

“Dr. Bowen? My name is Detective David Wilder with the Boston Police Department. I’m sending a plane to Jacksonville Airport. We need you up in Boston.”

Cam’s heart began to race. Boston? Why Boston? It must mean … “What’s going on in Boston?”

David sighed loudly. “Technically, you’ll be heading to the Cape. Alexander Burnham has requested you be here. It’s Olivia…”

“Olivia?” he asked quickly, nerves coursing through his body. “What’s wrong with Olivia?”

“I’ll go through all the details during the flight. Mr. Burnham needs you to be there for her, if and when she wakes up.”

Cam let out a quiet sob. What happened?

~~~~~~~~~~

TWO HOURS LATER, CAM was sitting on a luxurious Gulfstream heading north. It took him a fair bit to process the story that the man sitting across from him had relayed. It sounded like something from a horrible movie. Yet it was Olivia’s life.

“We need you to help us understand how this is going to affect her,” the man named David said.

Snapping out of his shock, Cam knew he had a job to do. Olivia needed him…more than she had ever needed him in the past. All her friends and family were desperate for an explanation.

“What everyone needs to understand is this guy’s mental state. I’ve looked at her father’s file. This is someone who went into the Marines at eighteen. He did his time and then joined the agency. Hell, he had already been working on special-ops by the time he was twenty-four. He didn’t meet Olivia’s mother until he had already been working for the agency for quite a while. I don’t want to be the one to say it but, based on everything I see in front of me here, this was someone who used his family as a cover-up for who he truly was…a person with no feelings, no emotion. He had been trained to know what people would expect and how to convince them that he was a well-adjusted member of society. That’s what he was doing all those years. He put on a show, pretending to care about his wife and his daughter, but he was just using that as a front to hide his true nature, including his criminal behavior. You know how it is. You're always less likely to expect the doting husband and loving father to be capable of committing horrendous crimes.”

David shook his head, having trouble understanding. “But my father-in-law, Alexander’s dad…he was in the agency, too. He wasn’t anything like this monster.”

Cam nodded his head. “Yes, and most people can learn to turn it off. It doesn’t appear Jack ever did. He couldn’t separate his CIA persona with his real persona. After a while, he became the person the CIA wanted him to be. He couldn’t separate it so he had no problem killing his wife. She was just another target in his mind. And Olivia…” He paused, trying to block out all the horrible things that she had endured over the past day. “Olivia…” he trembled. “She was just an asset. Nothing more. The minute she failed to be valuable to him, he had no problem disposing of her.”

“But he just stepped aside while she was assaulted,” David urged. “Repeatedly. I just can’t understand why any father, no matter how fucked up in the head you are, could do that.”

“I know,” Cam agreed. “But we have compassion, something this guy never had. He never saw her as his daughter. The bond that most of us have with our own parents never existed between Olivia and her father. Olivia may have felt it, but he never did. Any happy memories she may think she had with him were simply moments that he was playing the part. When push came to shove and he became desperate enough to find that evidence, he was willing to try anything. Including…”

“Fucking bastard,” David mumbled.

Cam nodded his head, all his thoughts consumed by Olivia and what kind of mental state she would be in after going through what she did those past twenty-four hours. The air was thick with silence while both men processed everything. As the plane began its final descent, Cam spoke again, “I’m not sure what we can expect when she wakes up. She’s probably going to have a lot of questions that she may not like the answers to. The most important thing is that she be surrounded by people that love her. Her family.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“CAM! THANK GOD YOU’RE here!” Alexander exclaimed when he heard the door open and glanced back to see him walk into Olivia’s hospital room. He jumped up from his chair and hugged the one person that he knew could bring her back from whatever dark place she would be in when she finally woke up.

“How is she?” Cam asked, his face awash with concern.

Alexander shrugged, fighting back the tears. “No one knows. They don’t know when she’ll wake up. She was…”

“David already told me,” Cam interrupted, knowing that it would be difficult for Alexander to talk about what happened. He walked over to the bed and stared down at Olivia’s lifeless body, fearful of what she would have to go through when she woke up. As if suffering at the hands of the man that gave her life wasn’t bad enough, she would now have to live with that every day for the rest of her existence. Cam prayed she would be strong enough to make it through. He glanced over at Alexander clutching her small hand in his own, his eyes trained lovingly on Olivia, and Cam knew that with him by her side, she could get through anything.

Sighing deeply, he turned to Alexander. “I’ll let you have some time with her. I’ll be here when she wakes up.”

Alexander shook Cam’s hand, looking him in the eyes. “Thank you for being here. For leaving your life to be here for me, and for Olivia. It seems that you’re the only one who knows how to get through to her.”

Cam simply nodded and left the room, heading straight to the men’s room and letting all the pent-up emotions wash over him as he cried for Olivia, praying that she would wake up.

~~~~~~~~~~

“MR. BURNHAM, I’M SORRY.” Dr. Hatheway made a few notes on the chart attached to Olivia’s bed as she spoke to him Saturday afternoon. “I wish I could give you more information, but I just don’t know. All her vital signs are good. But for now, it’s just a waiting game.”

“What can I do? Do you think she can hear me?” The longer she remained unconscious, the more fearful Alexander became that she was slipping further away.

“It’s hard to say. Just talk to her as if she was awake. Maybe if she keeps hearing your voice, it will give her something to fight for. She’s in there somewhere. Give her a reason to come back.” She smiled before walking toward the door. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

He thanked her and turned back to face Olivia. He had never felt so helpless in his entire life. It was the worst feeling in the world, not knowing when or if she would wake up. He vowed to stay by her side until she came back to him. She needed to come back to him.