Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) (18 page)

“Please don’t worry,” Aunt Barb said, but her face looked drawn, her cheeks hollow, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She had changed into a wrinkly hospital gown and a transparent blue plastic cap. A light cotton blanket was tucked underneath her legs, and compression socks and booties covered her legs and feet. A plastic port taped to the back of her hand hooked her up to an IV bag hanging above the bed, and a sensor on her index finger wired her to a monitor that tracked her vital signs.

“I love you, that’s all,” Judy said, then stopped herself from saying more, because it was hard to say something comforting when she was so scared. Seeing her aunt in hospital garb, attached to tubes and monitors, made Judy sick to her stomach with fear. She had barely slept for worrying about her and feeling guilt-ridden for what she’d said in the kitchen, within her earshot. They had all glossed over the awful moment last night, but Judy knew that it must’ve terrified her aunt, in addition to infuriating her mother.

Her mother glanced at her wristwatch. “The anesthesiologist said the surgeon is supposed to come in and talk to you. I wonder what’s keeping him. You have to sign the consent forms, and we want to make clear that you’re not consenting to residents or fellows performing the procedure.”

“He’s probably busy.” Aunt Barb rested her head on the thin pillow.

Judy’s mother sniffed. “You’re the first surgery of the day. What can he be busy with?”

“Getting ready for me, I assume.” Aunt Barb shrugged her knobby shoulders, and her hospital gown slipped slightly, revealing a collarbone that was too prominent to give Judy any comfort. She adjusted her aunt’s gown, but didn’t know whether she was hiding the collarbone or keeping her aunt warm.

“Aunt Barb, he’s probably mixing your gin and tonic as we speak. Did you tell him you only like Tanqueray?”

“My court jester.” Her aunt smiled, patting Judy’s hand.

“Ha!” Judy smiled back. “You should see me at work, I provide comic relief.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Don’t.” Her mother lifted an eyebrow. “Did you see when she dyed her hair orange, Barb? Enough said.”

“Mom, be nice,” Judy said, stung.

“Delia, don’t be so crabby.” Aunt Barb patted Judy’s hand again, and a mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes. “Now, if I croak in this operation, you two better start getting along.”

Judy gasped. “Aunt Barb, don’t even joke about that. That’s
not
going to happen.”

Judy’s mother pursed her lips. “Of course not. I read online that this hospital performs more mastectomies than any other in the tri-state area.”

Aunt Barb burst into dry laughter, and Judy joined her.

“Mom, way to miss the point.”

Aunt Barb’s smile faded, and she looked at Judy. “Don’t you have to be at work, honey?”

“No, I don’t. The dep doesn’t start until nine o’clock, so I have time. By the way, I had emailed opposing counsel telling him I had a family emergency and asking him to postpone the deposition, but he said no.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Her mother glanced at her watch again. “It’s already seven o’clock. This is ridiculous. I don’t know why they had us here at the crack of dawn if they were going to make us wait. There’s nothing I hate more than hurry-up-and-wait.”

Aunt Barb looked at Judy with concern. “Feel free to go, when you need to, if you have to prepare. I’ll see you at the end of the workday. That would be great.”

“No, I’ll come back after the deposition, no worries. It should be by mid-afternoon, at the latest.”

“One last thing.” Aunt Barb’s expression fell into grave lines, deepening the folds that draped her mouth. “There’s something important I want to talk to you about, what you said last night, to Frank. When you said I could die.”

Judy shuddered, especially in this grim context. “Aunt Barb, I’m so sorry. Really, I feel horrible.”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Aunt Barb kept her gaze on Judy’s face, her eyes steady and even serene. “It was true, and it’s something we should say to each other. I hadn’t known how to bring it up, but you did, so it’s time we talked about it.”

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” her mother said, averting her eyes.

“Delia, you don’t have to take part in the conversation. You can just listen or don’t, as you wish. I’ll talk to Judy.”

“Hmph.” Judy’s mother folded her arms, and Judy squeezed her Aunt Barb’s hand.

“What is it, Aunt Barb?”

“We say in group that the one with the cancer is never the one who has the hardest time talking about death, and that’s true.” A smile returned to Aunt Barb’s face, but it looked forced. “But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for me to talk about, which is why I hid it from you both. I realize now that I made a mistake. I regret that decision. I’m sorry about that. I apologized last night to your mother, and now I’m apologizing to you.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Judy said, from the heart.

“I do, because I think it made all of this”—Aunt Barb gestured to the examining room—“more shocking to you and your mother, more sudden. You’re both thrown for a loop, I can see, and it’s because I didn’t tell you about it before.”

“That’s okay, we’re up to speed now. We’re quick studies, and we love you.”

“You’re such a sweetheart, and I love you, too.” Aunt Barb’s eyes filmed, but she blinked them clear. “What’s important is the truth, and what you said last night was the truth. That’s why I’m grateful to you. The fact is that I don’t know if, after all of this, I’ll beat my cancer, or if it will beat me. I don’t know if I’m going to die, but I have to admit the possibility.”

Judy swallowed hard, trying not to cry.

Her mother
tsk
-
tsk
ed. “I don’t know what the point of this is. This talk is negative and morose. Morbid. Melodramatic.”

“Delia, it may be dramatic, but it’s not melodramatic. I’m talking about life and death. There’s drama in that, and I don’t apologize for it.”

Judy shot her mother a pleading look. “Let her talk, Mom. Like she said, if you don’t want to talk, then don’t talk, but don’t silence her. This is about her, not you or me.”

“It’s such negative thinking!” her mother shot back. “She’s about to go into an operation. She has to believe she’s going to get better or she
won’t
get better.”

“Mom, that’s not true,” Judy said, though she could see fear, not criticism, flashing through her mother’s eyes.

Aunt Barb turned to Judy’s mother with a deep frown. “No, it’s
not
true. That’s what I hate the most, that burden. We talk about that in our support group, too. How we put that burden on ourselves, or our family does. I put it on myself for so long.”

“What burden do you mean?” Judy asked gently.

“The burden that if I don’t get better, it’s my fault.” Aunt Barb emitted a quiet huff of frustration. “That if I just tried harder, or thought more positively, the chemo would have worked. That I practically caused my own cancer, which I
didn’t.
My cancer wasn’t caused by my bad attitude, my poor decisions, my eating too many processed foods, or my past sins.”

“We know,” Judy said, trying to soothe her, but her aunt seemed not to hear, glaring at Judy’s mother.

“Delia, it’s okay for me to tell the truth, and the truth didn’t cause my cancer. My cancer was caused by bad luck, and no, I don’t carry some horrible mutation in my cells, like the BRCA mutations. You know, Delia, we don’t even have a family history of cancer.” Aunt Barb kept her gaze glued to Judy’s mother. “I’m trying my damnedest to save my own life. I don’t know if I’ll succeed. But if I don’t, it won’t be because I don’t want to. Trust me, I
want to
, and I’m
trying to
.”

“Mrs. Moyer, excuse me,” said a man’s voice from behind them, and Judy turned around to see a youngish African-American doctor with gold-rimmed glasses and a kind smile. “Good morning, I’m your surgeon, Jim Winston.”

“Oh, hello,” Aunt Barb said, recovering enough to manage a polite smile, and Judy stood up to let the doctor through. Aunt Barb introduced Judy and her mother, and the surgeon explained the procedure, answered everybody’s questions, and had Aunt Barb sign several informed-consent forms, which was when a nurse came in to start a sedative, Versed, administered through the IV bag. In time, her aunt began to doze, but Judy couldn’t bring herself to say good-bye.

“Judy,” her mother said quietly, “you should be on your way now. She’s resting comfortably.”

“Right.” Judy rose and kissed her on the cheek, touching her shoulder, fleetingly reassured by the warmth of her aunt’s skin through the thin gown. “Aunt Barb, I’m going to go now. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” her aunt said, drowsily. Her eyelids fluttered, and she smiled. “See you later.”

“See you later,” Judy said, too, because good-bye sounded too final. Tears came to her eyes, and she was glad that her aunt didn’t see. She picked up her handbag and messenger bag, then gave her mother a quick wave. “Call me as soon as you know anything, okay, Mom?”

“Sure, don’t worry.” Her mother flashed her a brittle smile, and Judy turned away and walked the gleaming corridor to the elevator. She got off the elevator on the lobby floor, and the stainless steel doors rattled open onto a crowd of hospital staff, doctors, nurses, and visiting family. She was just about to step off when her cell phone started ringing.

“Excuse me.” Judy wedged her way through the crowd, digging in her purse for her phone. She worried it was a nurse or doctor upstairs, or even opposing counsel calling about the deposition. “Hello?”

“Judy, it’s Father Keegan. Do you remember me from Madre de Dios Church in Kennett Square?”

“Of course, Father,” Judy answered, relieved. “How are you?”

“Fine, but my question is how you are. I read on the local patch online that you were assaulted at your aunt’s house last night. Is that true?”

“Yes, thanks, but it wasn’t serious. Thank you for asking.” Judy switched mental gears, crossing the lobby and leaving the hospital for the bustling street. People hurried this way and that, heading to work, and Seventh Street was clogged with traffic. Pewter clouds covered the sky, and the air was chilly.

“Do the police have any suspects?”

“No, not that I’ve heard yet.” Judy looked around for a cab, wondering how much to fill him in on about Iris. “They think that it was prowlers in the area, but I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?”

“We made an unfortunate discovery, that Iris seems to have been hiding a large amount of cash in my aunt’s house.” Judy went to the curb to hail a cab, but there was none in the rush-hour stream of cars and buses.

“Really?” Father Keegan said, his tone hushed. “I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true. I saw with my own eyes.” Judy had to get going if she wanted to prepare for the deposition. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but I’m afraid that Iris might not be as innocent as we all thought she was.”

“She is, I know her.”

“We’re talking about $50,000 in cash, Father.”

Father Keegan gasped. “Something’s wrong. I’ve known Iris for as long as she’s been in the country.”

“I hear you, and I had a better impression of her, too. So did my aunt. She’s heartsick over this, betrayed by a dear friend, and it comes at a difficult time for her.”

“I’m sorry, but you must be mistaken. Judy, something is very wrong with this situation. There’s another reason I called you this morning.” Father Keegan’s tone turned grave. “It was to let you know that last night, someone broke into Iris’s apartment on Point Breeze.”

“Oh no,” Judy said, surprised. “Was anybody hurt? What about her roommates?”

“No one was home.”

“Thank God. What time did this happen?” Judy spotted a Yellow cab in the distance and hustled toward it, waving.

“Maria Elena came home around eight o’clock, and the place was a mess. The lock had been broken on the exterior door, and the interior door was broken, too.”

“So that must’ve been directly before they went to my aunt’s place.” Judy’s thoughts raced. The cab flashed its headlights at her. “They tried Iris’s apartment first, then my aunt’s. Was anything taken?”

“Some of the girls’ jewelry, but it wasn’t valuable. Iris’s bedroom and the entire apartment had been ransacked.”

“They were looking for something. The money.” Judy reached the cab, her thoughts racing. “So this confirms what I suspected. That no matter what the police say, the prowlers at my aunt’s house were not random. Iris was involved with some very bad actors, who must have known she was hiding money. Now that she’s gone, they’re trying to find the cash.”

“That can’t be what’s going on.”

“It is.” Judy climbed into the cab and closed the door behind her. She reached into her wallet, slid out a business card, and handed it to the older cabbie, so she wouldn’t have to interrupt Father Keegan. “What do the police say?”

“They don’t know, of course. Maria Elena didn’t report it.”

Judy realized belatedly that her question was naïve. “How did you find out about it then?”

“Through the grapevine, then I confirmed it with Maria Elena, whom I think you met.”

“Were there any witnesses? Did anybody see anything?”

“If they did, nobody’s telling Maria Elena. This is not a community that snitches. They’re afraid of retaliation. It’s like the inner-city, even though it doesn’t look like the inner-city.”

“Father, you should tell Maria Elena and the other roommate to get out of that apartment. Whoever Iris was in cahoots with hasn’t found the money yet. They might come back or even hurt those girls.”

“That isn’t possible,” Father Keegan said, incredulous. “Iris would never break any law. She wasn’t in cahoots with anyone. What do you believe she was involved in, exactly?”

“I have no idea. I’m guessing it was some sort of drug dealing, if not hard drugs like heroin, then prescription pills, or maybe just trafficking in pills that you could buy cheaper in Mexico and bringing them into the United States. How often did she go back home?”

“Never,” Father Keegan shot back, firming his tone. “She never missed Mass, and she was always working at the mission. Your theory is simply wrong. You don’t have any proof, do you?”