Silence ticked by, punctuated by the hum of the refrigerator and the echo of his heartbeat in his ears.
Sharp was right behind him, calling for his mom, his steps quickening as if he felt it too. “Jenny?”
With panic tightening his lungs, Lance entered the kitchen. The tidy room was empty, but one chair was pushed away from the table.
“Mom?” Lance’s voice rose with his apprehension as he continued into the short corridor that led to the bedrooms. His mother’s office had once been the third bedroom. The desk light was on, but the computer monitors were dark.
Lance emerged from the office and turned toward his mother’s bedroom. The door was closed, a thin strip of light showing at its base. He knocked. Maybe she’d been in the shower.
But even as the thought passed through his mind, he rejected it. His mother showered in the morning. Jennifer Kruger didn’t just decide to alter her personal routine on a whim.
He knocked on the door. “Mom, it’s Lance. Open the door.”
He curled his knuckles and banged again, harder. Nothing.
“I’m coming in!” he shouted. Sweat dampened the back of his shirt.
The door was locked. He ran his hand along the top of the doorframe, where the simple, cylindrical interior door keys had been kept since he was a boy. He found the key and used it to pop the push-button lock. The door opened.
The bedroom was empty.
With Sharp close on his heels, Lance moved quickly across the carpet to the closed door of the master bathroom. He banged just once, then tried the door. The knob didn’t give. He unlocked the door and pushed. The door cracked a few inches and stopped, something was blocking it.
“Mom!” Lance pushed against the door enough to get his head inside.
Not something. His mother.
She lay on the floor, curled in a fetal position, her legs on the bathmat, her torso and face on the tile. Her face was turned away from him, but her body was still and her skin matched the bone-colored tiles.
He froze for half of a second, his heart stuttering, his gaze on her ribcage watching for respirations, but he saw none.
She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.
Sharp called 911 while Lance muscled the door open enough to squeeze through sideways. Dropping to one knee, he rested two shaking fingers on his mother’s neck. Her pulse beat in a weak rhythm against his fingertips, and he caught the faint movement of her ribs as she took a shallow breath.
Relief rushed through him like a fighter jet. “She’s alive.”
Sharp gave the dispatcher the address and requested paramedics and an ambulance, then he climbed over her and crouched on the other side of her body in the small bathroom. Lance took her pulse and counted her respirations before moving her legs and opening the door all the way. Grabbing the blanket from her bed, he draped it over her.
“Maybe she fell and hit her head.” Sharp ran a gentle hand over her scalp. “I don’t feel any bumps or blood, but that doesn’t mean much.”
Lance stood and scanned the bathroom. When he’d first rushed in, he’d only seen her body. Now his gaze locked on to the sink and the two orange prescription bottles in the white bowl.
Both open. Both empty.
No!
She wouldn’t.
His gaze tracked back to his mother’s face.
Sharp had followed Lance’s gaze. He was tough, but his face paled as he took in the empty bottles.
Lance dropped to his knees. “Oh, Mom.” He bowed his head and put a hand on her forehead, then brushed a lock of hair away from her face. She didn’t react. Her eyelids didn’t even flutter. “I didn’t see this coming.”
Sharp grabbed his arm. “This is not. Your. Fault.”
“I know.” Lance took her hand in one of his. Her fingers were cold. He tugged the blanket over her shoulders, then checked her pulse and respirations again. “She seemed all right when I left her earlier. How could I have completely missed the signs? I was just here a few hours ago.”
“She’s breathing,” Sharp said. “Don’t count her out.”
Her heart rate was the same, but her respirations had slowed. He counted her breaths and kept his fingers on her pulse point, ready to start CPR the instant her breathing ceased or her heart stopped beating.
Time seemed to tick by in slow motion.
Even with his mother’s long and troubled history, he still couldn’t believe she’d try to kill herself.
Ten minutes later, sirens approached. Lance went to the door and let the paramedics in. They rushed the gurney into the bedroom and left it just outside the bathroom while they assessed his mother. Lance stood outside the door, hands curled into frustrated fists at his sides.
Sharp put his hand on Lance’s shoulder, pulling him backward. “Give them some room.”
The medics took her vital signs and started an IV, their rapid efficiency projecting the severity of the situation. One injected something into the IV line.
Sharp scrubbed a hand across the top of his head. Disbelief creased his face. “This doesn’t seem like your mom. Even when she’s been self-destructive, she’s never been suicidal. In fact, when her anxiety takes over, she isn’t thinking clearly enough to do anything except crawl into a dark place.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Lance said.
“Exactly what did she take?” one of the paramedics asked.
“The bottles are in the sink,” Lance said. “One’s for depression. She takes the other for anxiety and panic attacks. I had just refilled them last week so the bottles were nearly full. The anxiety medication is relatively new.”
Once, she took several more medications, but the new drug seemed to take the place of several of her old ones. Lance dropped his head and hooked a hand around the back of his neck.
Sharp frowned. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah.” But Lance didn’t know how he felt. His body was numb. But there was also pain. Pain buried so deep in his heart, it was going to take a scalpel to carve it out.
“Respiratory depression.” A paramedic called out. “We’re going to intubate her.”
Lance closed his eyes, his mother’s words replaying in his head.
I don’t want to be a burden on you.
Had she been afraid another breakdown would be hard on him?
The paramedics loaded his mother onto the gurney and wheeled her out.
Anger, at himself, at the situation, at the fucking world, overcame him for a minute. He turned to the wall and let it out. His fist went through the sheetrock. Pain shot through his knuckles, dissipating his rage.
Sharp grabbed his hand and examined it. “Good thing you didn’t hit a stud.”
His knuckles were scraped, but the damage was minor.
Sharp lifted Lance’s keys from his hand. “I’m driving.”
Lance didn’t argue. They went outside. He climbed into the passenger seat and stared at the swirling red ambulance lights all the way to the hospital.
The ambulance pulled into the ER bay.
“You should call Morgan.” Sharp parked the car in the emergency lot.
Lance shook his head. “Not yet. May as well wait until we find out how she is.”
“Morgan would want to know. She’d want to be here.”
Lance checked the time. Seven o’clock. He pictured Morgan sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, supervising bath time, then curling up with her kids to read bedtime stories. “There’s nothing she can do right now. I’ll call her as soon as I know something.”
The only thing to do was wait.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Morgan paced the living room. Picturing the nasty photos and message, she didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Both worked, she decided.
“Stella took the photographs to the fingerprint examiner,” Grandpa said. “She’ll call when she has some information.”
“There won’t be fingerprints.” Morgan’s stalker was far too clever. Her blood iced over when she tho
ught of him parked on her street, using a telephoto lens to take pictures of her hugging her kids.
“We’re safe here.” Grandpa tapped the blanket on his lap. He’d stashed his own handgun under it. “We’re both armed. We have an excellent security system, and Rocket will let us know if anyone’s outside.”
She took a deep breath. Grandpa was right. Her sister had also arranged for patrol units to drive past the house during the night.
“On another note, I finished reviewing Sharp’s file on Vic Kruger’s disappearance,” Grandpa said. “He crossed every t and dotted every i.” Grandpa frowned. “I can’t think of any other leads he could have chased at the time.”
“Thanks for trying.”
“I’m happy to be useful. I wish I could have helped more.” Grandpa rolled himself away from the table. “I’ll be in my room.”
“I’m going to bed too. Goodnight.” Morgan set her gun on top of her armoire, out of reach of the children. Then she put on her pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt and got into bed. She was still staring at the ceiling when her phone buzzed. She grabbed it from the table, hoping it was an update from Lance. Snoozer and Rocket stirred, then went back to sleep.
But Sharp’s number displayed on the screen.
She answered. “Yes?”
“Did he call you?” Sharp asked.
“No.” Morgan sat up, her heart tight. “What did Abigail say?”
“We didn’t make it to the motel.” Sharp’s voice lifted goose bumps on Morgan’s skin.
“What happened?”
“Jenny tried to kill herself.” Sharp’s voice broke. “She took a whole bunch of pills.”
“No.” Disbelief rolled through her for a few seconds. Then Morgan jumped out of bed, stripped off her pajamas, and stepped into a pair of jeans. “Is Lance at the hospital?” She shoved her feet into the old sneakers she kept by the bed for middle-of-the-night dog walks.
“No. He went home to get some sleep. Jenny’s on a ventilator and it’ll likely take several days for the drugs to clear her system. The nurses told him to save his strength for when she wakes up. They don’t know about permanent organ or brain damage yet.”
Oh, no.
“Is he all right?” Morgan asked.
“He said he wanted to be alone, but I think he’s in shock.” Sharp sighed hard. “He needs you.”
Under her concern, disappointment raced through her.
He didn’t call me.
“I’m on my way.” Morgan ended the call, then phoned her sister. Stella agreed to come right over. She was at the door in ten minutes. Mac waited in the car and followed her to Lance’s house.
It was just past midnight when Morgan arrived.
She heard the piano from the front stoop, the despondent melody wrenching her heart. Lance’s version of “Hurt” was more Johnny Cash than Nine Inch Nails. Tonight, emotion lent gravel to his voice that sent a chill up Morgan’s arms.
She let herself in with her key. Sadness filled the house as fully as the music. Morgan went to the dining room, where his grand piano stood in place of a table. He played, a glass of whiskey perched above the keyboard.
“Sharp called me.” She slid onto the piano bench next to him. “I wish you had.”
He stopped playing. His hands hovered over the keys, his fingers quivering as if he couldn’t find the right notes. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight.”
She wrapped an arm around his broad shoulders, her heart breaking for him. “That’s OK.”
With his gaze fixed on the keyboard, Lance shook his head. “I can’t even process what happened tonight.” Grief emanated from him, as poignant as the song he’d just played. A sigh rolled through his frame. He breathed again, his chest expanding with painful effort. “I’m used to handling my disasters alone. You have so much on your plate already.”
“Is our relationship that one-sided? If that’s true, then I’m the one who should be apologizing to you.”
He glanced at her, his brows dropping in confusion. “I don’t understand. You and your girls deserve someone who can make you a priority in his life.”
“I know you don’t get it, and that’s the problem.” Morgan searched for the right words. “I don’t need to be ranked in your life. There’s no need to queue loved ones in order of importance. People all have different needs at different times. I know that you’re used to going it mostly alone, but that’s not the best way.”
He took a small sip of his whiskey.
“You help me all the time,” she said. “You protect me and my family. You welcomed me and my girls and my nanny into your home when we needed a place to stay. You helped my grandfather shower last week!” Her voice rose, frustration undoing her, and she took two breaths to get it under control. “But you resist letting us help you. Why?”
“You’ve already been through so much. You deserve happiness.”
How could she get through to him? “You must not think very much of me.”
He lifted his head. Confusion cut through the grief in his eyes. “What?”
“Do you think I could just walk away from you because you’ve having a personal crisis? That I’m the kind of person who could turn her back on you because, for a change, you need me?”
He looked away. His hands curled into fists and landed on the keyboard with a soft cacophony of notes.
“And if you’re thinking of being all manly and saying you don’t need help, don’t bother,” she said. “The question was rhetorical.”
How could she make him understand? He seemed beyond words, almost in shock. But if there was one thing she understood, it was grief, that dark place that had sucked her in for two years. The numbness, the hollow, empty pressure that had eaten her alive from the inside out. She couldn’t let it drown him the way that it had held her under. There had been times she hadn’t been able to take a deep breath.
But how? He wouldn’t even hold eye contact with her.
Morgan turned on the piano bench to face him. Sliding one leg over his, she straddled his lap. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His hands settled lightly on her hips, and he leaned back, almost warily, putting as much space between them as their positions would allow.
She settled on his thighs, looped her hands around his neck, and looked down at him. The agony that sharpened his face tore at her.
“Morgan . . .” His voice was harsh, as if he had a hard time speaking.
“Shh.” She kissed him lightly on the temple. When she straightened, his eyes were closed, his jaw tight with restraint.
His lids opened, revealing blue eyes filled with pain and doubt. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said. “Because it’s my turn.”
“You don’t have to do this.” He shook his head.
“Since you seem to be a little confused about the mechanics of a relationship, I’m going to lay it out for you. Straight. No bullshit.” She caught and held his gaze. “A successful adult relationship requires support and sharing on both sides. It’s not a one-way street where one person does all the giving and the other does all the taking.”
He blinked, his gaze dropping.
She took his face in her hands and lifted his chin, but still he wouldn’t look at her. “I love you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She’d wanted the first time she’d said the words to be a romantic moment, but he needed to hear them now.
His gaze snapped back to hers.
She slid her thumbs along his square jaw, her hands cupping it, the stubble rough in her palms. The strength in him amazed her. How had he coped all these years with only one close personal relationship? Sharp was the only person Lance had allowed into his pain, probably because Sharp had been a part of it from the beginning, when Lance had been too young to push him away. And knowing Sharp, he would have bulldozed his way past any walls Lance would have put up.
Her words didn’t seem to sink in, so she said them agai
n, her heart warming. She meant it when she’d said she wasn’t letting him go. “I love you. And not to be conceited or anything, I’m fairly sure you feel the same way. A few months ago, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again. I didn’t think it was possible to find love a second time. But I did. With you.”
His eyes misted. His grip on her waist tightened. But she wasn’t finished. This incredible man had accepted the chaos of her family. He’d banished the darkness from her soul and shown her the light of a brand-new day.
“You listen to me, mister. There is no way in hell I’m letting you go. You’re stuck with me. Whatever problems either of us face, we’ll deal with them together. Have I made myself clear?”
Lance swallowed, the muscles of his neck working hard. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” She pressed her mouth to his, pouring her heart into this kiss. Despite her position, she didn’t intend the kiss to be sexual. She’d just wanted to command his attention, to make contact, to warm what was a soul-deep and bitter cold. She lifted her head, her hands sliding down to rest on his shoulders.
Had she gotten through to him?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lance’s breath trembled in his chest.
She broke him. Every word, every kiss, every caress, battered him down, until the barrier he’d spent decades building around his heart shattered into a thousand pieces like a block of ice dropped from a ten-story building.
She pressed her lips to his jaw, sliding them along his cheek, finding his mouth again.
And once his defenses were gone, there was no containing the flood of emotions that had been safely walled behind them.
Staring into her determined eyes, he was struck dumb by her sheer perfection. Her intelligence and strength and generosity.
The way she loved with full force and didn’t accept his bullshit excuses.
And the fact that she’d chosen him blew him away.
He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “What did I do to deserve you?”
A small smile curved one side of her mouth. “You were you.”
He kissed her. She leaned back in his arms, her softness yielding to the hardness of his body. But he didn’t mistake her soft body or kind heart for weakness. She was the strongest woman—strongest person—he’d ever met.
Bones Don't Lie (Morgan Dane Book 3) Page 17
