“We’ve got an hour before we have to get back on the set,” he informed Bev and Ray. “We’ve got to go.”
“And do what?” Darnell started to protest, but the warmth of Thad’s lips on her neck answered that question. She ended the conversation quickly.
“Bye, Mama. Bye, Ray.” The line went dead.
* * *
It was early evening when Bev and Ray pulled into L.A., and, despite being exhausted, their first stop was the hospital. They both wanted to see Dana’s progress for themselves.
As they walked into Dana’s room, Ginny greeted them as though they had been gone for a year, and much to their surprise Dana was propped up in bed welcoming them with a smile. She opened her arms to her sister, and an emotional Bev went straight into them.
“Oh, Dana,” she sniffed, making no effort to hold back the tears. “You don’t know how hard I prayed for this moment. I love you, sis.”
“I love you, too.” Dana’s speech was slow, but her words were said clearly. She looked past Bev to the man standing behind her with misting eyes. “Hi, Ray.”
“Hi yourself.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You look like a million bucks, kiddo.”
“Sure,” Dana said skeptically, but she seemed grateful for the compliment.
A tearful Ginny stood back observing her two children saying words to each other that she had not heard them utter in decades. She touched Ray’s shoulder.
“Let’s go out and give these two a little privacy, okay?”
Ray agreed. It had taken a drastic event to make these sisters realize what they meant to each other, but God had given them a second chance. Who was he to stand in the way of progress? He followed Ginny out the door.
Dana was listening quietly, with occasional comments, as Bev brought her up to date about what had happened since her hospitalization. For the first time in their lives they chatted like sisters who were friends. Bev’s praise of Ray’s actions during this period of crisis was so exuberant that the obvious became clear to Dana right away.
“The two of you are together, aren’t you?”
“What makes you ask that?” Bev answered cautiously, uncertain about Dana’s reaction.
“It’s no problem. He’s a nice guy and he loves you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say the L word.” Bev was embarrassed. Neither she nor Ray had ever professed love for each other.
“I will,” Dana said flatly. “He’s in love with you, and you have to agree with me because I’m sick.”
“You’re pushing it.” Bev chuckled uneasily and quickly changed the subject. “We’ve all been so worried about you. Your family loves you, Dana. Don’t ever doubt that.”
Tears began to well in Dana’s eyes. “I know, Grandy has been calling me daily. She was even trying to come to L.A., but I told her not to. On top of that, I think that every aunt, uncle, and cousin in the country has been at the hospital, called, or sent me something.” She nodded toward the flowers, cards, balloons, and stuffed animals that occupied every available space in the room. “The nurses told me that the hospital has been besieged.”
Dana took a shaky breath. Bev could see that she had been overwhelmed by the experience.
“That’s the Stillwaters family. When we love, we love hard. You know that Mama has been at the hospital practically nonstop. She’s barely eaten or slept since you’ve been in here.”
Dana nodded. “I know, and she told me that you’ve been here, too, and when you couldn’t be, you kept in touch constantly.” She grabbed Bev’s hand. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
Bev let her tears flow as she kissed her sister’s cheek and laid her forehead against Dana’s forehead. The emotions between them formed a silent bond that each had wanted for so long. Bev drew away and swiped at her tears as she drank in the sight of her sister.
She had lost weight during her ordeal. She looked wan and spoke slowly, as if unsure of her words. She had experienced some memory loss, but she was alive. She was alive! Through her sister’s journals Bev had gotten to know her better than she had ever known her before, and had discovered a deeply insecure woman who was unsure of her place in a family that made demands that seemed to overwhelm her—a family that was there by her side no matter what.
“Look at us, we’re some kind of ugly when we cry.” Bev reached into her purse and withdrew a couple of tissues. She gave one to Dana and swiped at her own running makeup. The open purse reminded her of something. “By the way, your friend Renee Ingram has been calling about you. I know Mama must have told you how kind she’s been. Renee even came by the hospital when she was in town. Oh, and look at this.”
Bev withdrew the diamond earring and held it up for Dana to see. “Look what Ray found at your condo, her earring. Some rock, huh? She said that she must have lost it when she was at your house visiting.”
“At my house?” Dana looked perplexed. “When she was at my house with me?” She looked at the earring and then at Bev. “I don’t remember…”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Bev said and patted her hand. “No big deal. I’m going to send it back to her.” She placed the earring back in her purse. “I’ve talked your head off, and you look tired. You get some rest. I’m going to try and get Mama to get some rest, too.”
Exhausted, Dana offered no resistance as Bev smoothed the covers around her body. Bev could see that the problem with her memory was disturbing to her sister. She kissed her brow and headed for the door. As she stepped through it her sister called after her sleepily.
“I think that I do remember Renee coming over to my house. It was the day that I fell down the stairs.”
CHAPTER 23
Ray sat in the private waiting room with Gerald Stillwaters while Gerry and Ginny went to the commissary to eat. It was good seeing Dana awake and alert. He was as excited about her progress as her family, who, according to Uncle Gerald, had caused quite a commotion in the hospital.
“I think we’re the talk of Cedars-Sinai,” Gerald told him with an amused smirk. “Every Stillwaters with a M.D. behind his or her name has been here, which has kept Dana’s doctors on their toes, I can tell you that.”
“I bet.” Ray laughed with him at the implication.
“Along with the doctors in the Stillwaters family came our legal contingent—the attorneys and judges in the family. Hell, you could feel the hospital quake at its very foundation when they started showing up.” Gerald cackled. “The chief administrator got so nervous that he’s had the doctors declare Dana fit to go to a rehabilitation facility. They want the Stillwaters family the hell out of here!”
Gerald doubled over at that one. His delight forced Ray to smile. He liked this man with the quick wit and benevolent manner. He couldn’t forget how welcoming he had been when he stayed with him in his home.
“What rehab place is she going to?” Ray wasn’t familiar with any in L.A., although he figured that there were plenty of them.
“Oh, we’re taking our baby girl home to Stillwaters.” Gerald stretched his long legs out in front of him and settled back on the waiting room couch. “Ginny has already made the arrangements. One of our nieces is a physical therapist who’ll help take care of her in Stillwaters. As we speak, Ginny’s house is being set up with all of the equipment that will be needed for Dana’s recovery. The doctor said that she’ll be as good as new in a couple of weeks, but back home with us it’ll probably be sooner. I’ll be flying everybody out of here tomorrow.”
“That soon?”
Ray’s stricken reply caused Gerald to raise a quizzical brow. “I see that Ginny hasn’t had time to tell you. Me and my big mouth. I’m sure she’ll let you know that she’ll be moving out in the morning.” Gerald paused and looked at Ray closely. “And I suppose that means that Bev will be leaving, too.”
Ray looked at him steadily, but didn’t reply. Gerald gave him a thoughtful smile.
“You know, son, I don’t mean to be nosey, but I can see what’s happening b
etween you and my niece, and I’m going to tell you up front that I like it, because I like you and I love Bev. She’s like a daughter to me. She’s been through a lot. You probably know this, but she was very young when she lost her husband, and she went through hell.”
“She told me that you were the one who identified her husband’s body.”
“Yes,” Gerald said sadly. “That is, if you want to call what I did identifying. It was more like I identified his wedding band. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a body that’s been underwater for months, but it’s not a pretty sight.”
“I’m glad that I haven’t had to do that.”
“It was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do, especially since there was no face.”
Ray froze. “What do you mean?”
Gerald glanced at the door to make sure that no one was entering before turning back to Ray. “The accident that Colton was in was horrendous. I never told Bev this, and I trust that you won’t either, but Colton was decapitated when his car smashed into the tree and careened into the river. The impact was so hard that the car stripped bark from the tree. They found only parts of his skull later, but no jaws, so there were no teeth that could be used to identify him, and his body was too decomposed for fingerprints. The ring was all that we had.”
Gerald went on to describe how all the family had conspired to save Bev’s sanity during that trying time. However, the man’s voice became background noise to the thoughts whirling through Ray’s head. There was no face. There were no teeth. The ring was all that we had. The only proof that Colton Cameron was dead was a wedding band that could be removed and placed on the finger of someone else.
* * *
Bev noticed that Ray was as quiet and as preoccupied as she was as they drove to his house. Ginny had ridden home with them and was so excited about taking Dana home the next day that she didn’t notice that she was the only one talking. When they arrived at Ray’s house Bev was taken aback when she noticed that her mother had not only packed her own things for their departure, but she had also packed Bev’s things. Seeing her belongings so neatly placed by the bedroom door forced her to face a reality. Her mother’s expectation was that she would be accompanying them to Stillwaters. It also meant that she and Ray would have to part, once again, and it would be different this time. A long distance relationship between them would actually begin and be put to the test.
She didn’t say anything to her mother about the packed bags; she wanted to talk to Ray first. Not only to get his opinion regarding their parting, but to share with him something that was quite disturbing, Dana’s last words to her before she left her hospital room.
Bev lucked out when her exhausted mother made the announcement that she had eaten dinner at the hospital and would be going to bed early. She bid goodnight to Bev and Ray and retired to her room for the evening.
Ray suggested that Bev and he order take-out, but she persuaded him to go out to dinner. She didn’t want to take a chance that her mother might hear what she had to say to him.
They settled on a nearby restaurant. Conversation was limited until after they ordered; then Bev propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her folded hands, and looked at him expectantly.
“If you tell me what’s on your mind then I’ll tell you what’s on mine.”
Ray studied the face of the woman he had come to love more each day. She was not only beautiful, but astute. He wasn’t used to a woman being so attuned to his every mood or caring about his thoughts and feelings as much as she did. Yet there was no way he could share with her all that was on his mind. She wouldn’t believe what he was thinking anyway, especially since it bordered on pure insanity and was based on nothing more than speculation. But he could share with her something else that was heavy on his heart.
“You’ll be leaving me tomorrow,” he said sadly. “I knew that it was coming, but I didn’t want to think about it.”
“I didn’t want to think about it, either,” Bev agreed. “But it’s best that I do go with Mama and see that my sister is settled. It looks as though we’ve laid the foundation for a whole new relationship, and I want to be there for her.”
“And you should be.” Ray took her hands and squeezed them affectionately. He would never have asked her to make any other choice. “But may I make a suggestion?”
“What?”
“You’ve got her journals. Make sure that you put them back before she makes her way back home and the fight is on.” He expected her to laugh at his attempt at humor, but instead Bev’s face crumbled.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Bev withdrew her hands from his and folded her arms across her chest as she tried to regain control of her emotions. His words had reminded her of what Dana had told her, and she didn’t know whether to be sad or mad at what she suspected. Taking a shaky breath, she shared what she knew so far with Ray.
“Dana said that Renee Ingram was at her apartment the day of her accident.”
Ray was taken aback. “What!” His mind raced. “Was it before or after she fell?”
“I don’t know, but why didn’t she tell us that she had been there that day?”
Ray searched for a plausible explanation. “Well, when you called her about the earring she did say that she had been at Dana’s house.”
“Yes, but suppose she didn’t lose that earring before Dana was hurt. Suppose she lost it after.”
“What do you mean?” Ray looked confused.
Bev started to speak, but was interrupted by the waiter with their salads. After he placed them on the table and left, she continued.
“Do you remember when I told you that I had noticed Renee’s earrings in the hospital when we first met her?”
Ray nodded slowly, and then it dawned on him what Bev was saying. “I found the earring before the break-in at Dana’s place.” His mind raced. “Renee broke into your sister’s house.”
“Bingo! After we saw her at the hospital.” Bev was ready to fly to New York, Malibu, or wherever Ms. Thing was and kick her behind. “Now the question is, why did she do that?”
Ray fell back in his chair, reeling from what had been revealed. Then it hit him.
“Wait a minute! When we were driving to Stillwaters, Dana showed me the ring that she wore when she claimed that we were engaged. She told me that she had borrowed it from a friend whose husband had bought her another one with matching earrings.”
“Renee.” That clinched it for Bev, but now what? “Was she there when Dana fell, and if so why didn’t she call 911? And, again, why did she break into Dana’s house?”
The waiter interrupted them, this time with their dinner plates. “The food isn’t to your liking?” The young man looked puzzled as he noticed that neither of their salads had been touched.
Both Bev and Ray looked at the plates before them as if they were seeing them for the first time. Food was secondary at this point. They asked that their salads be removed and waited patiently for him to place the dinner plates and leave. The conversation resumed with a revelation from Ray.
“Bev, if I share something with you, will you promise not to tell anybody?”
Bev was insulted. “I’m not going to tell anybody. Just tell me.”
Ray proceeded carefully. “Uh, I spoke to a friend on the East Coast about Stark Enterprises and he indicated that there might be some sort of investigation going on concerning that company.”
“About what?” Bev dug into her food. She needed substance for this.
“I’m not sure, but my friend used to work with the New York Police Department in the narcotics division.”
“Oh, really?” Bev’s eyes widened. “Do you think that the company might be involved with drugs?”
“I’m not sure,” Ray said, looking at her steadily, “but remember that Mitch used to work for Stark Enterprises.”
Bev stared at him. She lowered her fork to the plate. “So Mitch was involved in drugs, too?”
“I don
’t know, but I’m going to share something else with you that I was reluctant to mention before. The day of Dana’s accident, she called me and said that she had done some snooping around and that she had found something.”
“Found what?”
“I don’t know, but she said that it was serious and that she wanted to show me because I was the only one she could trust.”
Bev didn’t have to ask him the next question; she knew the answer. “And you didn’t want to share this with me because it might have been some sort of evidence that someone in our family killed Mitch.”
“I wasn’t sure. She told me that she would be at my house around six that evening.” Ray rubbed his temples. He could feel a headache coming on. And why wouldn’t it? He might have stepped into a hornet’s nest, and all that he could hope was that neither Bev nor he got stung.
The two of them finished their dinner with minimal conversation as each contemplated the full meaning of what they had discussed. After finishing their plates they rejected dessert, but still remained seated. There were things that needed to be settled.
“Dana doesn’t remember very much before the accident, and the doctors couldn’t assure us that she would,” Bev informed Ray. “That means that she might not remember what it was that she had to show you.”
“Then how did she remember that Renee was at her place?”
“I don’t know, a flash of memory maybe, but we do know that she was there. The only thing is, I don’t really know what it all means.”
“It means that she was in Dana’s house for a reason, and that the last time she was desperate enough to break in.”
“She might have been looking for the earring, but whatever it was I’m really disappointed in her,” Bev lamented. “She seemed so nice.”
Ray held the same sentiments. “It’s hard to think that someone as classy as Renee could resort to something as ordinary as breaking and entering.”
“Do you think that we have enough to go to the police and charge her with that?” Despite her disappointment, Bev was ready to bring her down, if for no other reason than the fact that she might have been there when her sister fell down the stairs but did nothing to help her.
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