Cold Hearts(38)
Sorry.
“Damn it,” he muttered, swallowing past the lump in his throat. Not being able to keep her safe was troubling Cain as much as it was him.
“Bad news?” the doctor asked.
“The only bad news I’m dealing with is what happened to my girl.”
“She had a stalker, I hear?”
“Yeah.”
“Did they catch him?”
Mack thought about what Trey had told him while they were waiting for the ambulance.
“He killed himself,” Mack said, then he turned his head, trying to see what the doctor was doing. “Are you about finished?”
The doctor nodded. “As soon as the nurse redresses this you’ll be good to go. You can fill in the pertinent information as you sign out.”
The moment the nurse finished putting a bandage over the wound, Mack grabbed his hoodie and stood up. She tried to hand him a clipboard, but he shook his head.
“Uh-uh. You already have my pertinent information from a couple of days ago when they brought me in here with this same wound. Nothing has changed. I need to get back to Lissa.”
He walked out of one bay and back into the other as a tech and a portable X-ray machine came out. The doctor who had been working on her was gone, and a nurse was adjusting a drip.
The obvious change was that she now had an IV, was wearing a hospital gown instead of her clothes and had a couple of blankets pulled up to her waist.
He threaded his fingers through hers as he glanced up at the blood pressure reading. “Did she wake up yet?”
Lissa’s fingers tightened on his as he spoke.
The nurse smiled and nodded, and relief rushed through him as he looked down. “Lissa? Honey?”
Her eyelids fluttered. “Mack?”
He felt like crying. “Yes, baby, I’m here.”
“I hurt.”
He looked up at the nurse. “Her head was bleeding. Did it need stitches?”
“No. It was a small cut. We glued it, and now we’re waiting on X-rays.”
Mack rubbed the knuckle of her thumb. “I’m sorry. I thought I could protect you,” he said.
Tears rolled from under her eyelids. “I worked with him every day, and he stalked me every night.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mack said, and then he bit his lip as a wave of pain rolled across his back.
The nurse glanced at him, and then pushed a chair up behind him and pointed.
Grateful that she was so observant, he sat.
Lissa continued slipping in and out of consciousness, which kept him somewhere north of panic. It was almost an hour before the doctor returned.
Mack stood.
“Mr. Jackson, right?”
“Yes. What can you tell me about Melissa’s injuries?”
“We x-rayed her head and her spine. Everything is intact, and there are no broken bones.”
“Oh, thank God,” Mack said.
“But she has a concussion, so I want to keep her overnight.” The doctor eyed the blood on Mack’s hoodie. “What about you?”
“I just pulled a couple of staples loose. I’m good.”
“You already had staples?”
Mack sighed. “It’s a long story.”
The doctor frowned. “Then, I suggest you go home and rest. She’s not going to know whether you’re here or not.”
“But I’ll know,” Mack said.
The doctor’s frown deepened. “Look, we don’t have many patients right now. I’ll have them put her in a room with two beds. I assume you were taking meds?”
“At home.”
“What are you taking?”
Mack told him what the doctor had prescribed.
“I’ll check with your doctor and see if he’ll okay us to dispense them while you’re here with her, and if you use one of the beds, I won’t argue with your decision.”
“Deal,” Mack said.
“They’ll move her shortly. In the meantime, get off your feet.”
Mack scooted the chair closer to the bed and then eased down and leaned back. It was going to be a long night.
* * *
Pinky was still in her room staring at the door, dreading the inevitable knock. She’d heard the police and ambulance sirens, and suspected the worst. They could be responding to a totally unrelated incident, but she guessed they’d found the truck.
She didn’t know how to feel, and it had been too many years since she’d prayed. In her heart, she feared Reece would prevail, which meant he would either kill the woman he was after, then get caught and go to jail, or get away and live to cause chaos elsewhere. On the other hand, if Louis did what he’d said he would do, she would have one more child to bury. It hurt to breathe and she was too scared to cry, so she waited.
One hour passed, and then a second hour. It was nearing midafternoon, and she had finally fallen asleep from exhaustion when someone knocked. At first she thought she was dreaming, and then they knocked again and she heard them saying, “Mrs. Parsons. Mrs. Parsons, are you there?”
She scrambled out of bed and stumbled to the door, oblivious of the mashed-flat side of her hair where she’d been lying and the mascara smudged beneath one eye.
Trey Jakes saw the fear on her face. “Mrs. Parsons, I’m Chief Jakes. We spoke earlier. May I come in?”
She stepped aside, then shut the door behind him as he entered.
“So did you find him?” she asked.
Trey sighed. “Yes, ma’am, and I want you to know that your call saved a woman’s life.”
Pinky’s belly knotted. “Did you arrest him?” she asked.
Trey shook his head. “No, Mrs. Parsons. I’m sorry to inform you that your son took his own life.”
Pinky thought she’d been prepared for those words, but when she heard them she moaned and staggered backward.
Trey caught her before she fell and settled her down onto the side of the bed.
“I can’t believe Louis actually did it. I thought for sure Reece would win out.”
Trey didn’t know how to begin, so he just launched in. “Look, it became obvious to all of us that your son had some kind of mental illness. He kept yelling and crying and arguing with himself. Was he schizophrenic?”
She reached for a tissue and blew her nose, glanced up at the cop and then down at a bare spot on the rug.
“Forty-two years ago I gave birth to twin boys. Reece and Louis. Reece was oldest by five minutes, and strongest. Louis was weak and sickly. When they were eight, Reece came in one day and told me Louis wasn’t breathing. I ran out and found him facedown on the ground, his face mashed into the mud. His death was ruled an accident, but my husband said different. He said Reece had the sickness—the bad blood that ran in his family. He said Reece had killed Louis, and then he went into the garage and hanged himself.”
Trey was shocked. “Your husband... Lord. Did you believe him?”
She drew a deep, shaky breath.
“Not at first, but then, as the years went by... When Reece was thirteen, he came into the house one day, talking. I thought he was talking to me, but he said no, he was talking to Louis, and then this other voice came out of his mouth and it was Louis to a T. I didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t have the money to take him to any doctors, so over time it became the three of us instead of the two of us. Reece began to develop an obsession with women and Louis was afraid of them, and that’s how they’ve been all these years.” Silent tears rolled down Pinky’s cheeks. “So now I bury him.”
“Louis’s truck was in the supermarket parking lot. I had one of my deputies drive it here for you.” He dropped the ring of keys into her hand. “It wasn’t part of the crime scene, and neither is his house. I believe he was renting that place, so you’re free to remove his personal effects. I wouldn’t wait too long. The landlord will be doing it for you if you don’t.”
Her fingers curled around the keys as she remembered Louis’s words. There’s a will in the lockbox in the closet. All of Reece’s money will go to you.
She didn’t know how she felt right now, but happy about coming into money wasn’t part of it. She looked up, seeking some kind of absolution for her family.
“I don’t know how to feel. My son tried to murder someone and now he’s dead, but there was a small part of him that struggled to be good.” She wiped away the tears and, in true Pinky fashion, got down to business. “Will I be notified when his body is released?”
“Yes. I gave the authorities your contact information.”
She fingered the key ring, glad the cop hadn’t asked her if she had a license. “Thank you for bringing me his truck.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry for your loss, and I’ll let myself out,” Trey said.
Pinky followed him to the door and turned the dead bolt after he left, then faced the room. She’d come to Mystic for a handout and instead had become the catalyst for her son’s death. Fate could be a cruel bitch. Pinky knew that better than most.
Her heart was pounding and her belly rolling as she felt the food coming back up her throat. She staggered to the bathroom and threw up until she could no longer stand, then dropped to her knees and held on to the toilet bowl until her belly was as empty as her soul.
* * *
Mack’s sleep was restless. The nurses kept coming into the room every few hours to wake Lissa. It was part of the process of caring for a concussion by making sure the victim hadn’t slipped into a coma.