“No, he’s fine. I need to talk to you—in private,” Lana looked at Heathcliff for permission.
“Of course, I’ll run down to the lobby for a bit,” he responded.
He pulled a jacket on, grabbed his golf magazine off the nightstand, and left. Maureen looked after him as if she didn’t want to be left alone, but it was too late. She opened her mouth to say something, but the door was already closed behind him. Lana turned to Maureen, who sat on the edge of the bed, and wrapped her arms around her thin frame.
She pointed to the chair in front of the vanity by the window, and Lana walked over to take the seat. She stopped and looked out the window a moment and saw for the first time, the front row seat Maureen had during the accident. The new light post stood out as a stark contrast to the rest and looked out of place.
Its light colored wood against the aged, darkened color of the others stood out like a beacon on Deleveaux Street. Her brows furrowed, staring down at the spot where she and Kayden lay months earlier.What if I’d just agreed to stay in the room with him like he’d asked? What if I’d just stayed in town the first time instead of running scared?All this swam through her mind. She hadn’t realized she’d been sitting in silence for several minutes until Maureen spoke.
“Are you okay?” Maureen wondered, concern on her face.
Her eyes met the older woman’s, pained, confused. She promised not to shed another tear, and she meant it. They were replaced with something else now—determination.
“Why?” she scolded.
Lana didn’t need to embellish on the question. Maureen’s eyes turned glassy, the rush of tears threatening to release. She could finally see the strong, brave Nurse who jumped into action for Rachel and changed her son’s life. For a while, Lana was a shadow of herself, but she was slowly evolving, changing, and no matter what manner of lies or sleight-of-hand tactic would stop it. Wiping the tears from her face, Maureen started to speak.
“Kim called me a few weeks before the arraignment and wanted to meet in person. She said she had something important to tell me and that couldn’t be said on the phone. Of course, I thought she was insane and refused at first, but she insisted,” Maureen stood and paced the room, her silk gown flowing around her like an apparition.
“She knows all my secrets, all the bad things I’ve locked away and tried to keep from my children. Lana, she threatened to expose them if I didn’t help her, and I felt I didn’t have a choice.”
“So, because of your ego and bad life decisions, she gets away with attempted murder? Do our lives, or the life of our unborn child, mean nothing?” Lana yelled.
The flimsy excuse didn’t absolve her for what she did, and she wasn’t going to let her show of emotions deter her from getting to the absolute truth.
“It does, Lana, it does. It’s the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t have a choice,” Maureen pleaded, approaching her.
She was shaking so bad, Lana thought she would fall over.
“What does she have on you? What was so bad that you needed to ruin our lives over?”
“It’s Vincent,” Maureen said finally.
“Kayden’s dad. What about him?”
Maureen shook her head, staring at the carpet, swirling her toes in it. She was no longer the powerful woman who could bring a room down with one look. To Lana, she looked like a petrified shell of her former self.
“Kim was with me when Vince died,” Maureen said finally.
Lana knew all this already. Kim was there and helped Maureen through her heartbreak, and that’s how they got close.
“That morning when I woke and found Vincent next to me in the bed, there was evidence and a note,” Maureen continued.
“What do you mean, Maureen? What note?”
“Vince took his own life. Kim heard the screams coming from the bedroom and rushed in! That’s when I asked her to help me.”
“Help you do what?” Lana was confused, and the whole story sounded convoluted at the very least.
“Cover up the suicide. The company had started to lose stock, our properties weren’t selling, everything was a mess, but I knew we’d get through it.”
“How could you hide the suicide?” Lana asked her, her eyes boring holes into Maureen’s face.
“Potassium chloride,” Maureen started, “I don’t know where he got it, but the syringe and vial were on the floor by the bed when I found him.”
Lana sat back and ran her hands through her hair. That made sense. As a nurse, she knew that potassium chloride overdose mimicked heart attack symptoms, and since heart attacks released a large amount of potassium chloride in the blood anyway, there was no real way to prove foul play without evidence, which was what Kim helped her get rid of.
“Does she have proof of any of this?”
