Page 58 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

It was now or never.

Lana placed her tote bag on the windowsill, creating a buffer between her and the broken glass. She rose from the chair, sat on the bag, tucked her knees to her chest, and started sliding toward the parking lot.

Midway through her slow-motion slide over the broken windowsill, Lana remembered she still hadn’t canceled her membership at Body by Pilates Beverly Hills. For four months now, Fritz had been charging her to lie in bed three hundred miles north of the studio while he yelled at other women to raise their pelvic floors. But maybe Pilates worked through osmosis, because she could feel her obliques flexing, her abdominal muscles straining in synchrony with her hamstrings. In her head, she heard Fritz demand one more thrust, and she toppled all the way out the window.

She landed with a curse and a thud on the asphalt.

Freedom; it hurt like hell. She could already feel the bruise forming on her right butt cheek. Her hands were scraped, her face bleeding. And her wig was missing. She glanced up and saw it hanging like a hostage from the broken window. But the fire was just a few feet from the window now. She had to get out of there.

In all the commotion, it seemed that no one had seen her heroic drop into the parking lot. Firefighters rushed past her with hoses aimed at the building. A cluster of office building refugees flowed the other way, into the street. Part of her was relieved no one saw her. Part of her was disappointed. But most of her was hot, in pain, and wishing for her European mattress.

“Lana! Lana!” She heard Victor’s voice before she saw him, red-faced, eyes wild, running toward her from the throng in the street. “Dios mío! Let me help you!”

Lana remembered him smiling down at her and closing the library door. A cocktail of fear and fury flooded her brain. She forgot everything she’d taught herself about interacting with men. She scowled. She may have even barked.

When Victor didn’t slow, Lana fished one of her shoes out of her tote and brandished it at him, metal spike out.

“Don’t come any closer,” she growled.

Lana started crawling as fast as she could in the other direction, right into the shins of a burly firefighter. Her eyes made it from the tips of his steel-toed boots up to the base of his suspenders before she collapsed.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and fell into unconsciousness.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jack was in the school library, trying to craft the perfect response to an online ad for a used twenty-two-foot single-hull Catalina for sale in San Luis Obispo, when her mom called to tell her Lana was in the hospital for injuries related to a fire. Jack had about eighty-five different questions, but Beth cut her off.

“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” Beth said. “Meet me in the parking lot.”

As they sped north, toward a black tornado of smoke hovering over the freeway, Beth told Jack what she knew.

“Holy shit,” Jack whispered. “Is Prima going to be okay?”

Beth clutched the steering wheel tighter. Nothing made sense right now. Ever since Lana’s brain surgery back in the fall, a part of Beth had been holding her breath, waiting for the call that confirmed the worst—that the tumors had spread, or treatment had failed. Now Beth saw those fears as pedestrian lightweights compared to the monstrous nightmare of the truth. An hour ago she’d received the call, an angry swarm of phrases like structure fire and embedded glass and bleeding unconscious that still buzzed in her head, making it difficult to drive. She prayed for the nightmare to end, to right itself, for her mother to rise like a phoenix as she always had. Someone who burned as bright as Lana couldn’t just turn to ash.

At least, that’s what Beth was hoping. “I don’t know, honey. The hospital, they didn’t tell me much. But your Prima’s a fighter. We’ll see.”

Beth had never worked at London Nelson Memorial Hospital. She signed in like a civilian, scanning the reception area in hopes she might see a former colleague, a friendly face. There was no one. Once they were finally admitted, Beth hurried through the maze of hallways, Jack jogging to keep up. They found Lana in a single room near the OR, lying still and shrunken on a bed in a pink-striped hospital gown.

Beth flagged down the attending physician, a wiry, bald man with glasses and pursed lips.

“I’m looking for information on a patient,” she said. “Lana Rubicon.”

The doctor looked Beth up and down. “Just coming on shift?”

“No. I’m her daughter.” Beth stood a little taller in her scrubs, attempting to project competence. “How is she?”

“Your mother is breathing on her own. Her heart rate is normal.”

Beth could hear what he hadn’t said. “But she hasn’t woken up?”

The doctor shook his head. “Not yet.”

“My mother has lung cancer. Do you think there’s a possibility of lung collapse or breathing impairment? If she inhaled too much smoke from the fire . . .”

“Her airway is clear, and so far, we haven’t identified any breathing issues.”

Beth was relieved. Then she remembered something. “What about bleeding? She’s on blood thinners because of a blockage in her carotid artery, and . . .”