Searching For Jenna novel Chapter 9

"Aw, he's not that bad," Darren lied.

"Whatever," Bobby said and waved as the van pulled away.

A sharp pain in Jenna's head made her wake and cry out. She tried to open her eyes, but they wouldn't work. Jenna tried to open her mouth to scream, but it wouldn't open. She started to panic and tried to get up from where she was lying. She was flinging her arms and legs trying to find the ground.

Suddenly, several pairs of hands were on her, holding her down. Someone was trying to tell her to calm down. She couldn't stop fighting the hands. Where was she? Why were these people holding her down? And then, blackness came, and Jenna flopped back to the bed.

Special Agent Dana Tamaski had jumped to her feet from the chair she was sitting in next to Jenna's bed when Jenna started flailing her arms and legs. Two nurses and an attendant rushed into the room. Dana went to the bed and tried to help them hold Jenna down. Jenna was a big girl. It took all five of them to restrain her so the nurse could inject something into Jenna's IV that made her slip back into the solace of sleep.

"Will she always be like this when she wakes up?" Dana asked.

"Hopefully not," the nurse said. "But it's hard to tell. The doctor hasn't been back around to say whether she suffered brain damage. The pain might be what woke her. She's going to be in a lot of pain for a while." The nurse checked Jenna's vitals, made notes on the chart and put it back into the plastic pouch at the end of the bed.

Dana sat back down in her chair. Taking out her phone, she texted Jonas and gave him an update on Jenna's condition. Hopefully, she would wake up soon so they could question her about the body in the freezer. She also made notes about the nurses who had come into help Jenna and to sedate her. Even though no one was supposed to know that this young woman was Jenna Matthews, Jonas had given Dana orders to be on the lookout for anyone who took too much interest in the young woman on the bed. As far as the hospital staff knew, Dana was waiting to find out who Jane Doe was and how she had gotten so badly beaten.

Dana picked up the magazine she had been reading from where it had fallen to the floor when she jumped up. It was going to be a long night if Jenna didn't wake up in a somewhat calm state. Fortunately, she could always log into the hospital's Wi-Fi or watch television on the TV on the wall across from the bed in this private room.

Jenna jerked and whimpered in her sleep. Dana looked at her watch. Another agent would be coming soon to sit with Jenna. Dana's supervisor wanted to make sure an agent was with Jenna when she woke. They were hoping to get a clear description of the woman Jenna saw in her father's freezer so they could try to match it to a missing person. Dana was convinced that Michael Matthews was a serial killer, but her supervisor and the rest of her team thought he was a part of a human trafficking ring. It was hard to say. He could be involved with both. What better place for a serial killer to find victims than through a human trafficking ring?

Dana looked at Jenna who continued to whimper. Was she dreaming? Dana wondered. Was she remembering the beating her father had given her? Maybe that was why she woke up flailing her arms earlier, Dana surmised.

A tall woman dressed in black dress slacks and a burgundy blouse walked into the room. Dana stood and stretched. Her replacement, Ada Parsons, was here.

"How's she been?" Ada asked.

"She woke swinging her arms and legs earlier," Dana said and pointed to the restraints on Jenna's arms and legs.

When Dana returned around noon the next day to relieve Ada, she asked, "Anything new?"

"A lot of moaning," Ada said as she got up and stretched. Her pressed slacks and blouse were now wrinkled from sitting for so long. "The doctor came by and checked in on her this morning. He told the nurse to work with the pain medicine and try to get her to wake up. I think she may have been out for all this time because they were keeping her sedated."

Dana shook her head. "I told the doctor that we needed to talk to her as soon as possible."

"Well, maybe it was better for her to stay asleep to heal a little before we start on her," Ada reasoned.

"I suppose that's true," Dana agreed. "Matthews bonded himself out of jail last night, so we need to get her on her feet and out of circulation. He knows he did enough damage to require medical attention. For all we know, he already has the people he's working for trying to find her."

"I'll get with some people in the tech department and have them look for searches for her at hospitals in and around Evansville. Maybe we'll get lucky and be able to trace someone back to the big fish," Ada said.

"I've never been good with luck," Dana said. "Right now, she is the only person we know of that can tie Matthews to a missing girl. If that girl has the same tattoo, we can prove that he is involved with the human trafficking ring out of Cincinnati." Dana looked toward the closed hospital room door before leaning close to Ada and saying in a low tone. "Defoe is convinced we'll be able to squeeze Matthews enough to get him to cough up some people higher up in the food chain of that organization. But, we have to find that body, and keep Jenna alive so she can identify it as the one in the freezer."