Turning on his heel, he moved toward the bed, hoping he could find the right words. Pete’s eyes were closed. Vaguely, Clay became aware that the constant beeping sound he’d heard throughout their visit had slowed. A lot.
He was about to grab a nurse when an alarm went off and two hospital staffers ran in the room.
“Is he okay?” Clay asked, wondering where Mia had gone. “Where is his daughter?” he shouted into the hallway toward the nurses’ station. “Can someone find Pete’sdaughter?”
A man pushing a janitor cart gave him a nod and jogged down the hall.
“Cardiac alert,” an electronic voice announced calmly over the loudspeaker.
Four other staff members in scrubs poured into the room, one pushing a crash cart with paddles, another moving things away from Pete’s bed at a lightning pace.
“Clear the room, sir!” someone shouted.
Clay backed out, almost running into Mia as she burst through the door. One look in her anguished eyes was a kick in the chest. He’d been so busy avoiding his family—his father—that he’d failed her unforgivably by overlooking her. He was a PI, and he’d made it his mission to find his siblings and yet he’d missed her. Robbing her of family for years.
And now she stood to lose the father she loved.
Grabbing her in his arms, Clay hugged her tight before she could rush to Pete’s bedside.
“We need to give them room to help him.” Leading her just outside the door, he watched in a daze while the staff crowded the bed in a controlled frenzy of movement.
Clay could hardly breathe. He hadn’t expected this hollowed-out feeling in his chest. He’d been about to make peace with his father. Finally. Forever.
And now?
The chest paddles were out.
Mia shook and sobbed against Clay, her cries noisy and gasping. She clutched her cell phone in a death grip in one hand, her knuckles white from squeezing the device.
“Wait.” A female voice barked from the bedside, her command making the room go still. “I have a pulse.”
Mia lifted her head from Clay’s chest. She watched the freeze frame moment in the hospital room with him, herbody as motionless as everyone else’s in that breathless instant.
A machine at Pete’s bedside beeped once. And then again.
Every gaze went to that machine, where a tiny digital heart flashed on and off the screen. The number twenty-three popped onto the display beside it. Climbed a few digits in the slowest moments of Clay’s life.
“Cancel code,” one of the attendants announced, the words putting everyone back into motion again.
The team with the paddles and crash cart retreated, the apparatus wheeling past Clay and Mia in a blur of red and silver. Doctors and nurses filtered out of Pete’s room until just one nurse remained. All the while, Clay kept his attention on the bed where his father was still breathing.
There was time to make peace. Put the past behind them. For the first time Clay truly understood how big a burden it would be to carry the guilt of a hardened heart with him all his life. Gabriella had tried to warn him, but it had taken this hellish night to make him recognize it.
“Can we see him?” Mia straightened from his side, swiping the back of her hand under both eyes and sniffling, still holding tight to her phone.
Seeing how much she cared for Pete—how deeply affected she would be by his passing—shifted Clay’s perspective even more. Pete had done something good with his sobriety by reaching out to his daughter. He’d changed Mia’s life. Won the affection of a prickly, seen-it-all teen.
Wasn’t that the same thing Gabriella hoped Clay would do once his father was gone? Be a positive influence for his sister. What a sorry wake-up call to realize that, despite all the times he’d denounced his father, Clay might not be ableto live up to Pete’s success in that area. Clay seemed to have a wrecking ball effect on his relationships.
“We can ask.” He led the way into Pete’s room, Mia close behind. Her boyfriend was a quiet shadow a few paces back. He gave the kid a lot of credit for sticking around.
The boy seemed genuinely worried about Mia. As if he could protect her.
Too bad nothing in the world would slow down the deterioration of Pete’s health.
“Can we sit with him?” Clay asked the nurse.
“Of course.” The woman smiled at Mia and waved her closer before speaking more quietly to Clay. “May I have a moment with you privately first?”
