Page 59 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

“It’s taken care of.” He patted her arm. “Your mother will be fine. I need you to do the most difficult thing.”

Beth knew what was coming next.

“I need you to wait.”

By seven that evening, Beth had talked to Detective Ramirez, a fireman, and every nurse on the ward about her mother. But that didn’t bring Lana back to consciousness. After a soggy grilled cheese sandwich in the cafeteria, Beth turned to Jack. “We should head home for the night.”

“What if Prima wakes up?”

“She probably won’t. Not tonight.”

“But what if she does?” Jack twisted a greasy napkin between her fingers.

“You have school in the morning.”

“You have work.” They stared at each other in the fluorescent light.

“Fine. We’ll stay. C’mon.”

Beth and Jack set up makeshift bedrolls out of towels and pillows, one on each side of Lana’s narrow hospital bed. They stayed up late, Beth reading studies about the impact of fire exposure on patients with lung tumors, Jack pretending to do homework. They took turns sneaking glances at Lana whenever the other one wasn’t looking.

By midnight, Jack had finally fallen asleep. Beth rose to close the curtain over the tiny window and check on her mother one more time. No change. In her pocket, she turned over a heart-shaped rock she’d found that morning in the spindly grass. It was pumice, rough and speckled, its surface pockmarked like a tiny moon. Evidence of the life she’d chosen, the home she’d built, as far from her mother’s sleek, hard-edged world as possible. For the first time, Beth considered everything Lana had lost when she came to Elkhorn: the power she wielded, the energy that fueled her battles, the freedom to make her own path. Beth put the stone on the nightstand next to her mother and prayed Lana would keep fighting.

Beth and Jack woke up Thursday morning cramped and disappointed. Lana was still asleep. The hope they’d clung to the night before felt foolish in the sunshine, a cheap and flimsy dream. They folded their towels in silence and each gave Lana one more look, one more chance to save them from a day of clock watching, then dragged themselves out of the room.

Jack went to school. Beth went to work.

At 6 p.m., the two younger Rubicon women stumbled back into the hospital, less hopeful but more prepared, with clean pajamas for Lana, and burritos for themselves.

After an unsatisfying check-in with the doctor in the patient waiting area, Beth sent Jack to get hot chocolate and entered Lana’s room on her own. The only noticeable change was a large bouquet of wildflowers on the bedside table next to the heart-shaped rock. The card read, “I am so sorry. Please call me. I want to know everything you saw, everything that happened, so I can make it right. Wishing you every recovery. V.”

Beth didn’t understand it. But the flowers were the least of the things that didn’t make sense about the situation. Just a few days ago Lana had been strong-arming Beth to help with the investigation. And now here she was, prone on a hospital bed, a bundle of ragged breath and unanswered questions.

Lana looked even smaller than she had the day before, fragile, as if the aura of invincibility that usually surrounded her had cracked and torn. Beth had always seen Lana as one of the strongest women on the planet. That didn’t exactly qualify her as a good parent, but Beth had gotten over that a long time ago. Lana was someone impressive. Someone, she realized, she was proud to know.

The woman in the hospital bed before her had dark bruises, sunken eyes. There was a butterfly bandage over the tiny stitches on her cheekbone. Beth bent down and gently ran her hand over her mother’s patchy hair, picking a tiny black pebble from her scalp.

“What were you doing?” Beth whispered. “Come back to me.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

On Friday morning, after a fitful sleep at home, Beth and Jack arrived at Lana’s room to find an empty bed.

Beth’s heart raced. “Ma?” She knocked on the pocket door of the tiny bathroom. “Are you in there?”

The door slid open. Lana shuffled out of the bathroom and stumbled toward her daughter. Beth flung her arms wide, and Lana fell into them. Jack came over and wrapped herself in from the side. For a long minute never to be spoken of again, the three women hugged.

They resettled around Lana’s bed, Lana propped up against a stack of crinkly pillows, Jack curled on the mattress around her feet, Beth on a plastic visitor’s chair.

“Is one of those for me?” Lana asked, eyeing the Styrofoam cups of coffee.

Beth handed her a bottle of water, twisting the cap half-open. “How are you feeling?”

“I’d be better with coffee.”

“Let’s take it slow, Ma. You’ve been out for almost two days.”

“Not quite. I woke up late last night with a terrible crick in my neck. I would have called you, but I couldn’t find my phone.”