by Cris Anson
Soren’s ears turned pink. Rolf loved it when he could do that to Soren, the stolid, stoic brother that nothing fazed. Yeah, Mags was easier to embarrass, but when he could stick it to Soren, Rolf felt it was like Fourth of July and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.
With Soren still buttoning his shirt, they walked into the ER waiting room to see Judd Matheson, who motioned them to a corner of the for-once quiet room.
“The so-called orderly’s prints yielded a match,” Judd said without any preliminaries. “The stick you got was filled with succinyl choline, as I guess the doc told you. Obviously for disabling someone who got in his way. The one we found in his pocket, the one we figure had Miss Rosalie’s name on it, would have killed her. Two hundred units of insulin.”
Fantine made a small sound as her knees buckled. Rolf quickly caught her, eased her into a chair.
Looking at Soren, Judd said flatly, “You saved her life.”
Rolf grabbed Soren in a bear hug. “My brother. Always looking out for us. I don’t know how we can thank you.”
“The police chief has authorized a twenty-four-hour guard at ICU,” Judd added. “Whoever wants her gone will try something else, but we’ll be ready.”
Fantine smiled at the “we”. Even retired, Judd would be a formidable opponent, immobilized wrist notwithstanding. She knew he’d even take a turn at the watch if asked. Was probably itching to be asked. “Good.”
She got to her feet. Rolf put out a hand to help her. “I’m okay now. It was just a shock, hearing it so bluntly.”
“Cops aren’t known for their manners. I’m sorry, Fantine.”
She waved away Judd’s apology. “You said you got prints?”
“Matches up to an outstanding warrant. He has a long rap sheet, including aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon.”
“You just catch the bastard behind him. Doesn’t sound like he’s doing this on his own.”
Judd squinted into the distance. “I’m going to pay my buddy a personal call. That DNA test for Hercules just got moved to ultrahigh priority. The waiting time for results is only thirty-six hours. I’ll have an answer soon.”
* * * * *
By the time Rolf and Fantine arrived at ICU, the morning shift was in place, agog over the night’s excitement. Judd had driven Soren and Crystal back to Nonie’s home. Soren had been cautioned against driving for twenty-four hours while his system purged itself of the sedative.
The head nurse, suddenly all business at seeing two of the players in the drama, gave them a quick update—Nonie’s vital signs had spiked at what they assumed was the time of the melee, but she had otherwise spent a peaceful night.
“Thank you, Anne, for letting us know,” Rolf said. It hadn’t taken him long to learn the art of reading nametags without seeming to. He gave her a sassy wink as she nodded them both inside the ICU.
Rolf bent over and kissed the fragile skin stretched over prominent cheekbones. “We’re back,” he murmured, stroking Nonie’s wispy white hair. “The sun is shining really bright and hot today. You know what that’s going to do to those flower buds in your backyard, don’t you? They’re so fat and full and just waiting to burst. They’re going to make such a splashy display that when we bring you home, you’ll want to sit right down on the dirt in the middle of them. And we’ll be sitting right down with you. Fantine and me.”
He lightly kissed her temple then moved to whisper in her ear. “I’ll tell you a little secret. I’m getting real fond of Fantine. She doesn’t take any sh—uh, any crap from anyone. It’s fun trying, though.”
Was that a twitch of her mouth? Did Nonie actually react to what he’d said? Rolf looked up at Fantine, wondering if she’d seen the same.
She had, if her expression was any indication. Her mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide, a hand pressed to her heart.
Their gazes met and she seemed to understand him perfectly. She bent down as well, spoke a little louder than a whisper, so Rolf heard every word. “He’s the one who’s full of crap, Nonie. You should see him winking and smiling at all the nurses. Well, all the female ones, anyway. But he’s really a good guy at heart. He just doesn’t like to show it. I think it has something to do with that bad-boy, macho image, you know? Was Uncle Randolph like that too?”
Nonie’s hand moved. Rolf snatched it up, squeezed it. “We’re here, Nonie. What do you want to tell us?”
The nurse rushed in. “Her blood pressure just spiked. What did you—”
Fantine grabbed the nurse’s upper arm. “Breakthrough, I think,” she whispered. “She lifted her arm. Please, hold on for just a minute. Let’s see what happens.”
Rolf bent down closer to the old woman. “Something about my—my father? Wake up, Nonie, and tell me. I won’t leave you, no matter what.”
Nonie’s eyelids fluttered. The beeps monitoring her heart started bipping faster and faster.
“We can’t let her—”
Fantine shushed the nurse. “She needs to tell us something.”
Biting her lip, Nurse Anne quieted, stood alongside Fantine with the attitude that she would indeed stop things if the patient’s well-being required it.
“Come on, Nonie, you can do it,” Rolf urged. “You’re a damn feisty woman. I bet Fantine got that attitude from you.”
Nonie’s lips puckered. “Puh,” she said.
Rolf’s stare never left her mouth. His grip tightened on her fragile hand. “Say it again. Tell me, Nonie. What is it?”
“Puh.” Louder this time.
“Not good enough. I’m going to be in your face until you tell me what’s on your mind. Come on, Nonie, spit it out.” Rolf realized he was all but shouting and struggled to tamp down the volume, the vigor of it, even though he was desperate to make her wake up. “I know you have the guts, the strength, to do whatever you set your mind to. Just say it. Come out of your trance, Nonie, and say it. Say it for me.”
Nonie’s eyes opened. They looked straight at Rolf. Through him. “Pearce.”
She lapsed back into her coma, silent, still, the heart monitor slowing to a steady, monotonous bleat.
Rolf’s heart, on the other hand, almost broke. It was Pearce she’d seen, Pearce she’d wanted, when she looked at him. Damn, it was like his father—his pseudo-father—all over again. She didn’t want him. He’d built it up in his mind that Nonie was his long-lost family, that she’d been over the moon to finally meet him, but it was Pearce she wanted. Not him. Not Rolf, the black sheep of every family he’d tried to belong to.
He barely felt the tug on his arm as the nurse led him, stumbling, out of ICU. His mind was too numb.
* * * * *
“I don’t get it,” Fantine said for the third or fourth time. “Why would she call you Pearce?”
But more than that, Fantine worried about Rolf’s state of mind. It was as though he thought Nonie had rejected him, and he’d clammed up, closed himself off from her concern, waved off her touch with an annoyed glare.
After that episode at Nonie’s bedside, she’d convinced Rolf that she needed some coffee. They sat in the hospital’s cafeteria playing with their plastic cups of mud-flavored liquid. Tight-lipped and distant, Rolf sat across from her, not alongside and close enough to touch, as he would otherwise do. Rolf was a toucher and she loved that about him. But he might as well have been in Outer Mongolia as averse as he seemed on touching her now.
“Forget it,” he growled. “Look, I know you’ll want to stay here to watch over her. Maybe it was an omen that we never had the chance to bring my Mustang up here. I can hitch a ride back with Soren and Crystal.”
“Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going to walk out on that woman in her helpless condition. I’ll keep Soren and Crystal here if I have to tie them to the balustrades. If you want to leave, dammit, you’re going to walk all one hundred and seventy-nine miles. Barefoot, because I’ll burn your high-tops.” Fantine flipped her hair behind her ear. It annoyed her today. She’d left the house in too muc
h of a hurry to pin it up.
“She doesn’t want me around,” he said with an emotion-laden voice somewhere between forlorn and stubborn. “She wants Pearce.”
With a violent motion, she crumpled her used napkin into a ball and stood. “Oh, grow up. Is there a single person in your world who’s more important than you are? When I met you, you were a spoiled brat. Doesn’t look like anything’s changed. You’re still the center of your own universe.”
She scooped up her half-filled cup, closed the lid over it. Stalking to the door, she deposited the detritus in a trash can near the exit. She couldn’t waste her time babying him, stroking his already monumental ego. Nonie needed her.
Her steps slowed as she reached ICU. Nonie didn’t need her anger, her frustration. She took several deep breaths then checked in with the nurse, who politely asked her to wait until the regular visiting time. Frustrated, Fantine began pacing. Was it really Rolf she was angry at? Or was she merely letting Nonie’s dire situation get to her and was venting her aggravation on him?
No, Rolf needed to get over it. If Nonie called Pearce’s name, it was for a reason. What was she trying to tell them?
She stilled. Yes, Nonie had called out Pearce’s name. But her tone of voice wasn’t that of greeting. No “Oh, hello, Pearce.” Or “Pearce, thank heaven you’re here for me.” Or even “Pearce, what the heck are you doing here?”
Not greeting him. Not acknowledging his presence. “She was accusing him!”
Fantine thought she’d go dizzy from the thoughts caroming from one side of her brain to the other. “She wasn’t calling Rolf, Pearce. It wasn’t soft or loving, the way she’d say my name or Rolf’s. It was like she was pointing a finger at him!”
She had to talk to Judd. He’d known Nonie and Pearce for close to thirty years. He was a retired cop who still had contacts. Between them they could surely come up with some answers. Rushing to the elevator bank, Fantine scrounged around in her handbag for her cell phone. She could barely wait until she was outside the building so she could call him.
* * * * *
Rolf stared at the swinging door through which Fantine had stormed out. Was he so self-centered that he couldn’t see her point of view? Was he only concerned about himself?
Well, why not? He’d spent his entire life pretending he didn’t care. Didn’t care that he really didn’t belong to the grandparents who had merely tolerated him, that both his mother and father had abandoned him.
Okay, yeah, Mags had found his mother up in the boondocks of Alaska. But he had yet to hear what kind of story she’d concoct as to why she never came back for him. How hard could it have been to at least try to contact him? She’d had more than twenty-five years to do it!
And why should he care about Nonie? He didn’t love her. He didn’t know how to love anyone. She was just an old woman who’d made him feel like part of her family for a few days.
But when the chips were down, what had happened? She’d awakened from her coma and looked right at him, but she hadn’t seen him, Rolf. She’d seen Pearce. The guy who’d been there for her for all those years. Her real flesh and blood, the son of her brother, her only family.
He picked up his napkin, ripped off the corner that had dampened from a spill of coffee. Then ripped another piece, and another. He kept tearing until the hapless napkin lay in tiny bits, so intent on the pile of white confetti that he didn’t even feel the tear that slid down his cheek.
* * * * *
“Uncle Pearce? It’s Fantine.”
Pearce had been leery of answering the phone, half afraid to hear the attempt had succeeded, more afraid to know it had failed. He should have heard long before now. Was that bastard still playing him like a child pulling wings off a moth, making him sit on the edge of the cliff for so long without a word?
He relaxed on hearing the bitch’s voice. But only for a moment. Was she calling to give him the good news?
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“We think, that is, the hospital suggested, and I agree, that we all donate blood in Nonie’s name. You know, since they had to transfuse several pints into her after she fell down the stairs. That way she won’t have to pay for what they gave her. It would be considered an even exchange.”
Pearce bit back a snarl. The old bitch could afford to pay for gallons of transfused blood. But dammit, she wouldn’t need any more blood any time soon if Mr. Z. was earning that extra payment he’d have to finagle out of Rosalie’s three brokerage accounts on such short notice. Taking ruthless hold of his emotions, he said neutrally, “I thought they had an age limit for accepting blood donations.”
“That’s just a general guideline and I don’t think you’ve reached their maximum yet. But Uncle Pearce, you’re her family. Surely you’d want her to know that you rolled up your sleeve for her?”
How could he stop where she was headed without actually saying there was no way in hell he’d do that for the old bitch? “I probably need a tetanus shot. You know, those scratches from the rosebush? I wouldn’t want infected blood to get into the supply.”
“Oh, they’ll test you first. Like you said, they want to make sure your blood is usable. Please, Uncle Pearce, it will mean so much to Nonie. And even if they discover you have an infection, at least she’ll know you offered. That’s the important part, that she knows how much you care. And anyway, if you’re infected, you couldn’t be in a better place to discover that than in a hospital.”
Christ, how long would he have to play this game? Z had him by the balls, and Fantine was squeezing him from the other side. He had no choice but to play along.
“All right. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Could you please do it now? I have a phlebotomist standing by and have lined up a couple of other donors. She would like to do them all at once. Please, Uncle Pearce. You’ll be coming by to see Nonie anyway. Couldn’t you please do it today?”
He fisted his hand around the phone, the way he wanted to fist it around her neck. Every fiber of his being balked at giving that witch a single drop of his precious fluid. But he still had to pretend to be the loving and caring nephew. “Okay. Where do I go?”
* * * * *
No. he wouldn’t let it be right. It couldn’t be right, Rolf thought as he stared at the confetti he’d made of his napkin. He wasn’t as self-centered as Fantine accused him of being. Okay, yeah, maybe he had been for most of his life. And yeah, he knew the world didn’t revolve around him, that he had to make an effort to reach out to others. To give instead of always taking. He felt that the past week under her and Nonie’s influence had matured him. At least a bit.
So what was the big deal that Nonie thought he was Pearce? Hell, she’d known Pearce for half a century or more, and him only a few days. Christ, she’d been coming out of a coma. Duh. Of course she could have been confused.
Rolf looked around him. People were bustling to and fro, some paying for their purchases at the end of the cafeteria line, some carrying drinks or full trays to tables, some disposing of empty plates. More tables were empty than occupied. How long had he sat here feeling sorry for himself?
Had Fantine gone back to ICU alone? Did she feel like he’d abandoned her?
Whoa.
What if Nonie had woken up and, not seeing Rolf there, felt as if he’d abandoned her? What if she was trying to tell them something about Pearce? Dammit, what if someone was trying to off her while Rolf sat there feeling sorry for himself?
Bile rose up in his throat. What the hell kind of grandson was he if he let someone get to Nonie while he was acting like a clueless adolescent? Nonie had shown him nothing but love and acceptance. How could he do any less?
Jerking to his feet, he felt the urgent need to see her. He left the pile of confetti for someone else to deal with and began running down the corridor to the elevator foyer. A quick scan of the indicator arrows told him none was near his floor. He veered to the fire stairs, took them two at a time to the ICU floor and exploded into the room.
The first person he saw was Nurse Leon. Damn! Had he spent so much time sitting in limbo that the shift had changed again? Christ, he should be shot for being so thoughtless. Grow up, Fantine had spat at him. It was high time he did. For good.
“How is she?”
“Much more brainwave activity. The doctor is very encouraged.”
“Can I go in?”
Leon glanced at the monitors and nodded. “Just don’t go bursting in there the way you charged in here, like you’re Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.”
Chastened, Rolf took measured steps to her bedside, reining in his eagerness only by application of a strength of will he hadn’t used much in his life.
“Hi, Nonie, I’m back.” He could see the vein in her temple throbbing with blood, with life. “The doctor says you’re improving almost hourly. So tell me, are you ready to wake up yet?”
At the sound of his voice, she turned toward him. His heart took a galloping leap. Had she really reacted? Or was it coincidence?
Her hand lifted. More of a twitch, he thought, but he closed his big hand around her slender one. “Nonie,” he whispered, bending forward to kiss that throbbing vein at her temple. “Talk to me.”
His face was a scant inch away from hers. He saw her lips moving. “What, Nonie? What do you want to tell me?”
“Rolf.” It was the merest whisper.
“Yes, Nonie, it’s me.” He could barely force the words out through the constriction in his throat. Nothing had ever sounded so sweet as her voice rasping out his name. “It’s Rolf. Your grandson. I’m here for you. Now and always. I promise.”
“Rolf—beware—Pearce.”
“Beware of Pearce? Why? What did he do?”
“Bad.”
Rolf tensed. “Nonie, you didn’t trip, did you.” It wasn’t a question. “You were pushed. Who pushed you down the step, Nonie? Was it Pearce?”
“Laughed.”
“I don’t understand. Who laughed? When? Did Pearce laugh when he pushed you down the steps?”
The bips on the heart monitor went into overdrive and Nurse Leon came rushing in. “Sorry, man, you have to leave now.”
