Gripping the door handle, her expression tightened. Her lips parted as if she was ready to drop a counterstrike on me, but then she narrowed her eyes and said, "Promise me I can trust you."
"There's never been a time when you couldn't trust me," I replied. That wasn't good enough. The unyielding shine of her eyes told me so. She wanted me kneeling before her, pledging sword and skin. "Yes, I promise you can trust me, Brooke."
She pushed open the front door and we stepped into chaos. Every light in the house seemed to be lit. Competing televisions blared. The scent of fryer grease was thick in the air. People dressed in a rainbow of scrubs were everywhere, streaming in and out of rooms, moving up and down the front staircase, and they were all talking at once. A snowstorm raged outside, and it was the dead of night, but the Markham estate was hopping like Times Square.
Brooke jogged up the stairs, ignoring everything around her. I followed her into a room at the end of the hall where we found Judge Markham sitting up in bed, sobbing, with a gash on his forehead and blood running down his face and chest, smeared on his arms and hands. His shirt was soaked red, the bed linens much the same. Three health aides were positioned around the bed, their hands gloved and ready to block and tackle.
"Oh my god," Brooke whispered before quickly recovering. I ran my hand down her back, but she shook me off. To the aide closest to her father, the one withSherryembroidered on her orange sherbet scrubs, she asked, "What the hell happened?"
"We think he fell out of bed and nailed his head right here," Sherry said, gesturing to the corner of the bedside table. "That, or he was sleepwalking. If that's the case, we're not sure where the injury came from. He won't let us get a good look at it. He was aggressive with Windy and Kayla when they tried to apply pressure and clean him up, which is why we called you."
"You should've called me regardless," Brooke said, not looking at the woman.
Before Brooke moved home, Judge Markham would come into the tavern almost every night. He'd sit at the same small table near the bar and order the catch of the day with a side of seasonal veggies. He drank one scotch on the rocks and requested the dessert menu on Fridays. He'd kept to himself, but the people of Talbott's Cove believed he belonged to them the way the sea and the sky belonged to them. The Markham family was a Talbott's Cove institution stretching all the way back to Talbott himself, and the Judge embraced that legacy. He weighed in on every local matter brought to his attention, recited town history, and lobbied for the region's development.
I'd watched him do this nearly every night, and I'd watched it slip away from him. It'd started with him forgetting his wallet four days in a row. Then, he yelled at one of my servers to turn off baseball reruns and switch to the football game—in July. Not long after that, he came into the tavern wearing slippers with his trousers, dress shirt, and tie.
Two months later, he crashed his car into a tree. Two months after that, Brooke moved back home. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad.
Brooke grabbed a wad of gauze from the table and approached her father. "Buthowdid this happen? Why weren't his bedrails up? There's no reason this should—"
She yelped when he slapped her hand away and kept slapping until I looped my arm around her waist and moved her back. The gauze fluttered down as he cried, settling on the sheets. She wrapped her hand around my arm and she kept it there.
"As you can see," Sherry started, "he's not receptive to touch right now."
"Maybe not, but we can't let him bleed until he cycles out of this," Brooke replied. "What are we supposed to do? I don't want to subject him to an ambulance and medics because it will end with sedation and we know how miserable he is when he's coming down from that."
"Can't be sure," I started, "but it looks like he needs a few stitches. At the minimum, a butterfly closure. I bet Yara Gwynn is"—I paused, not wanting to explain my knowledge of Yara's insomnia to Brooke at this moment—"able to come over if you need her."
Brooke glanced back at me, her brow wrinkled. "Who?"
"Yara Gwynn," I repeated. "She's the doctor who visits all the islands in the Bay. She lives down the street from the sheriff. Doesn't Annette know her? I assumed you all knew each other. She's strange. You'd like her."
"Annette and I don't socialize with other people." She shifted out of my arms, turning to face me. It was a wonder she'd let me hold her that long. "What kind of vampire is she that she wouldn't mind you calling at this hour?"
"The kind who makes house calls on remote islands for a living." I reached into my pocket and retrieved my phone. "I'll text her, if you want."
"Yeah. All right. That would be good." Glancing back to Sherry and the other aides, she said, "Let's see if we can't move him to a chair and get this bed stripped. Someone get an episode ofMatlockgoing. He'll move forMatlock. OrMurder, She Wrote. He likes that Jessica Fletcher. He thinks she's a tough broad."
I stepped back from the action to message Yara. True to form, she replied instantly. The woman did not sleep unless she was on a boat. I glanced up from my phone as Brooke shepherded her father from the bed to a chair by the television.
"It might seem like a small matter, but it's dividing the town," he said, wagging a fist as he shuffled across the carpet. "There's nothing small about running a pipeline through someone's backyard."
"Not at all," Brooke murmured. "Did the people sue the town to bar the pipeline?"
It took me a minute to make sense of that question, but then I realized they were talking about an issue from years—maybe decades—ago. She was asking questions to which she knew the answer, leading him into the well-worn territory of Talbott's Cove political and legal history. It made sense there was a nostalgic comfort associated with those old stories, but nostalgia had to be bittersweet when losing your mind.
"Fifteen minutes," I mouthed, pointing to my phone.
"You better believe they did," he replied. "And I'll tell you something else, young lady, they won." He brushed the back of his hand over his forehead and wiped the blood on his pajama pants. "What's your name?"
I saw the split second where she wilted under that question. Her eyes were cool and distant and lines formed between her brows. "Brooke," she replied evenly.
"That's a lovely name," he said. "Do I know your family?"
She stared at me as she shook her head. "No, you don't know them. They're not from around here."
I arched my brows up, silently telling her,We both know this isn't okay. We know you can't handle this on your own.
