“Yeah. I am. Is she going to be all right?”
He extended his hand first to me, then Willow. “I’m Dr. Jameson. The bullet came within a hair of her aorta. Had it struck, she’d have died before you got her here. We’ve repaired much of the damage, gave her a blood transfusion. With luck, she’ll make a full recovery.”
I gasped, unable to hold my breath any longer. As though I’d been underwater for long minutes, I sucked in a sharp breath. The tension within me eased considerably. “That’s great, thank you, Doctor, thank you. I – we’ve – been so scared she’d not make it.”
“Hayley’s tough, strong. A fighter. She’s in recovery, but still sedated.”
“Can I see her?”
He nodded briskly. “But only for a few minutes. She needs to rest.”
I swiftly kissed Willow’s cheek, then followed Jameson from the waiting room to the elevators. There, he shook my hand again.
“Up to the third floor,” he instructed. “To the ICU. Check in at the nurse’s station, please.”
“Thank you.”
I quickly found the ICU, and was directed to a small room down the corridor. I heard the beep of a monitor and the hiss of a breathing machine before I pulled the curtain aside. I paced in quietly, fearing to wake Hayley if she still slept.
With her skin pale, waxy, her formerly luxurious silvery hair dull and lifeless on the pillow, I feared the worst. That she would indeed die. That I would lose her.
Her faint breath fogged the oxygen tube in her nostrils, and her chest rose and fell steadily under the hospital johnny. The heart monitor beeped in time to her pulse, informing me her heart still worked. Tubes sprouted from needles in both of her arms.
As I paced silently closer, Hayley’s eyes opened.
Like her hair, her green eyes were dull with sedation. Still, her lips quirked upward in a tiny smile. “Hey.”
Smiling, I bent to kiss her brow. “Hey back.”
“You came.”
“I never left.”
Hayley’s eyelids drooped shut, yet I knew she hadn’t fallen back to sleep. I took her limp hand in mine, feeling her grip tighten ever so weakly. I took that as a good sign.
“I can’t stay long,” I murmured. “But I’ll be back.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
***
My eyes gritty from the lack of sleep, I walked to the door of Roxanne’s McMansion. As I rang the bell, and listening to it echo through the house, I wished I hadn’t come. No doubt, Roxanne would once again attack me with fingernails like daggers, and I’d once again be forced to defend myself.
She opened the door.
Roxanne appeared to have aged twenty years since the previous day. Her attractive face was haggard, her hair tangled, and at eight o’clock in the morning she carried a glass of scotch. She eyed me up and down, then turned to walk away. As she left the door open, I accepted her mute invitation to enter.
“Hayley’s in the hospital,” I said, crossing the threshold. “She nearly died.”
Roxanne half turned, sipping her scotch while staring at a painting hanging on the wall of her foyer. “Do you expect me to beat my breast and howl my grief? To cover my head in ashes and wear sack cloth?”
“She’ll recover.” I paced closer to Roxanne. “I’d hoped you’d find some humanity for your sister. Some compassion. I know it’s too much to ask that you find some affection, even love, for her.”
Roxanne glanced at me before turning away again. “What do you want from me?”
“Me? I want nothing from you. It’s Hayley who might need her sister at her side.”
