Shattered (22 page)

"You better go. It's getting late."

The good-night kiss Scott had interrupted had been because Joel was on the verge of leaving. But now Joel hesitated, glancing significantly toward the open door of her mother's room. A murmur of voices--Scott's and her mother's--could clearly be heard through it.

"I can stay for a while, if you want." It was clear Joel didn't much like the idea of leaving while Scott remained. He'd always been faintly jealous of Scott's presence in her life, platonic and at times downright friction-filled as it was.

"I don't. I'm sure Scott will just stay a few minutes, and then I'm going to shut the door to visitors. My mother can watch
House
if she wants. I'm going to sleep." She would be sleeping on the cot the nurses had brought in for her, just as she had the night before. It was already set up in a corner of the room. Tomorrow she guessed she was going to have to rent a hotel room nearby to use as a base and then shop for clothes and other necessities, but for tonight she was still showering in her mother's bathroom and living out of the suitcase Nola had brought her earlier.

"If you're sure you don't need me . . ."

"I am."

"Okay, then. But only because I have to drive to Cincinnati first thing in the morning." Joel smiled and drew her close for another quick kiss. Then, releasing her, he started walking toward the elevators. Not really wanting to join her mother and Scott just yet, Lisa stayed where she was, rubbing her temples in an attempt to relieve the throbbing headache that nagged at her still. He was about halfway to the elevator bank when he turned around to call to her, "We're still on for Saturday, right?"

"I don't know." Lisa's hands dropped away from her head. She'd said nothing to anyone outside of the little group of people who had found her about the blow she'd suffered. "I'll have to see how it goes. I'll call you if there's a problem, okay?"

He acknowledged that with a wave. Then a faint
ping
announced the arrival of an elevator, and he hurried to catch it.

When he was gone, with no further excuse not to, Lisa turned and went into her mother's room. Her first impression was that it was surprisingly peaceful, more peaceful than it had been all evening. Of course, now there was only one slightly unwelcome but all-too-well-known-to-her visitor, where earlier the room had been full of her mother's friends, most of whom she didn't know particularly well and all of whom seemed to be dying to talk to her. The TV was on, but its volume had been muted. Chilled to the bone after her shower, Lisa had personally turned the air conditioner down earlier, so now its hum was barely audible. And the corridor outside was empty.

After the day she'd had, the relative quiet was a welcome relief.

But she still had to deal with Scott.

Flanked by banks of softly glowing hospital monitors, he stood on the near side of the bed with his back to the door, holding her mother's hand, nodding at something she was saying to him. Lisa clearly heard him reply, "You know I will," and then he broke off to glance over his shoulder as he became aware of her entrance. But it was her mother who spoke to her.

"Annalisa. I want you to--keep your date--Saturday." Martha's tone was unusually stern.

"It's just the Fourth of July thing at the country club." It vexed Lisa to realize that Scott was now privy to information about her date. Clearly her last exchange with Joel had been overheard. Scott regarded her without expression, but she knew how his mind worked. He would be mentally sneering at her relationship with Joel. She kept her gaze focused on her mother. "If I'm going to leave you for any length of time, Mother, it'll be to go back to work, not to a dance."

"You should go--back to work. And you should--go to the dance, too. There is--nothing wrong with me--that wasn't wrong with me--before." Martha took a deep breath. It pained Lisa to realize how much effort it cost her. "I have Andy--and Robin--and Lynn--and any number of friends--to sit with me. I want you--to go about your--normal life."

Lisa walked around the foot of the bed to her mother's other side, which put her directly across from Scott. Glancing at him only briefly, she took her mother's cold hand. It was almost clawlike now, and she hated it that she could feel the bones through the skin. Dressed in a blue hospital gown that left her neck and arms and most of her collarbone bare, Martha looked as fragile as a dry leaf. Her white hair made her face seem almost gray in contrast, and she was so thin that she barely made a hump beneath the blue blanket that was tucked beneath her armpits. Lisa realized with a pang that her arms were practically skeletal. Looking at the various tubes and needles taped to them, her heart ached.

"Until we get the test results back--" Lisa began, unconsciously chafing her mother's hand in an effort to warm it up.

Martha interrupted. "What difference--can any test results--possibly make? We already know--I'm dying. What are they--going to tell me--that's different?" A flash of her old feisty spirit showed in her eyes.

That was so very true that for a moment Lisa was rendered speechless.

"Miss Martha's right, you know. You can't just sit here night and day." Scott's tone was brusque. "It's not good for either of you. You should come back to work. The job won't wait forever."

Lisa gave him an indignant look that silently, because she didn't care to say it out loud in front of her mother, told him that she didn't appreciate his lack of sensitivity. Given that she'd revealed the direness of their circumstances to him when she'd had to practically beg him for the job, the implied threat struck a wrong note with her, too.

"I'm sure I can count on you not to fire me," she said lightly.

Scott's mouth twisted.

"But I want you--to go back to work." Her mother's fingers tightened on hers. "And I want you--to go to the dance. All those--things. I like--hearing about your--doings. Any number of--people--can sit with me. But you--my heart goes with you--wherever you are. Knowing you're out--doing things--brightens my day."

A lump formed unexpectedly in Lisa's throat. "Mother . . ."

"Don't you--feel sorry--for me--Annalisa. I've had--the most wonderful life. Now I want you--to live yours."

Against her eyelids, Lisa felt the sudden sting of tears.

"Mother . . ." she said again, helplessly.

"You can take tomorrow off, and then I'll expect you back at work on Friday." Scott's tone was maddeningly authoritative. Because she was annoyed with him, because she shot him a look that was meant to be read as
You know what you can do with that,
because he gave her an infuriating little smile in return, the urge to cry receded.

Which was a good thing.

"And then--you're to go to the--country club--on Saturday." In its own way, her mother's voice was as commanding as Scott's.

"Fine." Lisa didn't frown at her mother, but the covert look she shot Scott was deadly. "Work on Friday, country club on Saturday. Got it." In deference to her mother, she swallowed the rest of what she felt like saying. Most of which would have been directed at Scott, anyway.

"I've got to go. I just came by to see how you're doing." Scott's voice was gentle as he addressed Martha. Squeezing her hand, he let it go as his attention turned to Lisa. "Walk me out, would you?"

Typical Scott; it was more of a command than a question. From his expression, she inferred that he had something he wanted to say to her. Which worked for her, because she had something she wanted to say to him, too. With a quick smile for her mother, she followed him out the door, which she closed behind her just to make sure her mother couldn't overhear. There was only one nurse at the nurses' station now, and her profile was turned to them as she talked on the phone. Down the hall, a janitor wielded a mop. Other than that, the area was deserted. They were, to all intents and purposes, alone.

16

"What do you mean
you expect me back at work on Friday?" Lisa attacked first, in a hushed voice that nonetheless was sharp with indignation. The look she gave him sizzled. "In a situation like this, I'm entitled to take personal days off. I checked with human resources just to be sure. And if you recall, just last night you told me to take as long as I needed."

"Yeah, well, I changed my mind. The work's piling up. I got an office to run, and the reason I hired you as a research assistant is because we need a research assistant. If you can't come back to work by Friday, I'm going to have to get someone else."

"I can't believe you're threatening me. My mother needs me!"

"No, she doesn't. Having you sitting there beside her hour after hour worries her to death. She feels like you're sacrificing your life to take care of her."

"And how would you know that?" Even as she snapped the words at him, realization dawned. "Did she tell you that? Is that what you two were talking about in there?"

"Maybe I'm just an astute observer of the human condition."

"Bullshit." She glared at him. Then as she read the truth in his eyes her shoulders slumped a little. "I know she worries about me. I still feel like I need to stay with her."

"The sooner your life gets back to normal, the happier she'll be. And from what I've gathered, she's in no immediate danger."

"We're still waiting for test results." She sighed, reluctantly accepting the truth of what he was telling her. "Okay, fine. I'll be at work on Friday."

"Wonderful. Which brings us to what I wanted to talk to you about: How's your head?"

She frowned. "What?"

"Your head. You know." Reaching out, Scott touched very close to the area over her ear where the bump was still tender. "The place where you got hit."

Lisa jerked away from his hand. "Who told you that?"

"A little bird."

"Rinko, I'm guessing. Or your nephew."

"So, you want to tell me about it?"

"No." Her answer was stark. She'd already considered, and discarded, the idea of confiding in Scott. If she did, he would put two and two together, and probably sooner rather than later arrive at the same place she had herself. Although it seemed almost too incredible even to allow herself to believe, she was beginning to feel convinced that the fire, and the attack that had left her unconscious, had happened because she was suddenly interested in what had happened to the Garcia family.

Which was because she had a terrible gut feeling that what had happened to the Garcia family had something to do with her.

Which, if it were true, brought up all kinds of appalling possibilities that would leave her where, exactly?

She didn't know. She did know she was pretty sure she didn't want to find out. But she also knew that this was something she just wasn't going to be able to leave alone.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the cold-case file you took home, would it? The one where the woman who disappeared looked like you? The file that burned up in the fire?"

Lisa looked at him mutely. It was clear from his expression that he knew her well enough to read the truth in her silence.

"You got hit over the head." His eyes were keen on her face. "Hard enough to knock you cold. You were found unconscious in the backyard of the house the cold-case family disappeared from. Which you were checking out because you look like the missing woman." He broke off to lift his brows at her. "How'm I doing so far?"

The sour look she gave him was his answer.

"Batting a thousand, I see." Folding his arms over his chest, he rested a shoulder against the wall. "So, you want to fill me in on the details?"

She glared at him.

"I can keep on guessing, but it's late and I'm tired. Come on, Princess. If you can't tell me, who can you tell?"

For another long moment she hesitated. Indignation at being called a name he knew annoyed her and an innate caution that took fright at the idea of letting anyone else in on what she half suspected warred with her realization that he had hit on the truth: Out of her circle of family, friends, and acquaintances, he was the one person--the only person--both who could help her and whom she could trust.

If she didn't tell him, she would be going it alone. And maybe, under the circumstances, that wasn't too smart.

"I walked around the house." She capitulated ungraciously. "When I checked the back door--okay, I was going to go inside, I know it was wrong and stupid and everything else you can think of to call it, so don't get started--it was unlocked, and I opened it. Then my cell phone rang. It was Rinko, who had apparently just pulled into the driveway with that group of kids you're trying to scare straight. I turned away from the door to answer my phone. There must have been someone already in the house, someone up to no good, because I felt kind of a rush of movement behind me before something slammed hard into the side of my head and knocked me out." She took a breath. "There you go. That's the whole story. Now you know."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "You didn't call the police."

"No."

"Any particular reason why not?"

"Because I didn't want to have to explain what I was doing there, okay?"

"And you didn't want to explain what you were doing there because you're afraid that the fact that the missing woman looks like you means something, right?"

Scott, damn him, had always been too perceptive where she was concerned.

"What could it mean?" she burst out. Now that he'd hit the nail on the head, she found the prospect of him probing at the possibilities terrifying. "That maybe Angela Garcia and I are distant cousins or something? That everybody has a doppelganger, like they say? It's an interesting coincidence, but that's all it is."

He studied her. "Then what exactly are you afraid of?"

"Nothing." Her tone was fierce.

"You took the file home with you, and your house burned, destroying the file and nearly killing you in the process," he said slowly, his eyes intent on her face. "You went by the house where the family disappeared just to check it out and got knocked unconscious by an unknown assailant. That could be just a run of bad luck, true, but let's say for a moment it isn't. Let's say it's all connected to your discovery of the file and subsequent display of interest in it. Hypothetically."