Delaney's Shadow (42 page)
Authors: Ingrid Weaver
Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub
Delaney was safe; she was standing right next to him.
The woman on the ground was Elizabeth.
TWENTY-SEVEN
DELANEY ROSE TO HER FEET AS SOON AS DR. MCFADDEN pushed through the swinging doors to the waiting room. This wasn’t the doctor who had been on call when Max had been brought to the hospital a week ago. That doctor had been a woman, and she’d had a pleasant smile on her face when she’d come out to speak with Delaney because she’d had good news.
Dr. McFadden wasn’t smiling. The lines around his mouth were tight with tension, and his eyes appeared tired. Delaney felt Max move behind her, and she reached for his hand. “How is she?”
“Miss Graye is out of surgery and has been moved to recovery,” McFadden said.
“Will she be all right?”
“I’m afraid she suffered serious head trauma.”
Delaney recalled Elizabeth’s face as she’d been loaded into the ambulance. Her left eye had been purpled and swollen. Her skin had been streaked with dirt and dried blood. More blood had soaked into her hair. It had come from a gash on the back of her skull. There had been blood on one of the stone gateposts, too.
The injuries couldn’t have been accidental. She’d been attacked, knocked into the gatepost with enough force to crack her skull, then stuffed under Helen’s cedar hedge and left to die.
Please, this couldn’t be happening. This was Willowbank, not the big city. Let it be another nightmare.
The bloody face faded into an image of a baby bird. A tiny, fluffy swallow. It wobbled like a lopsided ball on top of a wooden railing. Beyond it, a yard of patchy grass stretched to a ridge of gravel and a line of trees . . .
Delaney’s chin trembled as she recognized the scene. The bird was on Max’s back deck. He had given her the image to counteract the other one.
She squeezed his hand and returned her attention to the doctor. “How serious is it?”
“We’ve done what we could to relieve the pressure on her brain. There was a great deal of swelling within her skull.”
“What’s her prognosis?” Max asked.
“It’s too soon to make predictions. We’ll have a better idea in another forty-eight hours.”
“Is she awake?” Delaney asked. “Has she told you what happened?”
Dr. McFadden regarded her with sympathy. “At the moment, we’re concentrating our efforts on keeping her alive. Whether or not she will regain consciousness is another matter. It might be wise to prepare yourself for the possibility that she won’t.”
The words rolled past her. She didn’t want to grasp them.
“You told me she’s your stepdaughter, Mrs. Graye?”
“That’s right. Her father was my husband.”
“Does she have any other relatives we could contact?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
“I realize this is a difficult question, but would you know whether or not she signed an organ donor card?”
Delaney closed her eyes. No, this couldn’t be happening.
Max slipped his arm around her back to steady her. “Aren’t you jumping the gun, Doctor?” he asked. “You said it’s too soon to make a prognosis.”
“I apologize,” McFadden said. “My job doesn’t always allow me the luxury of diplomacy. My first priority always has to be the welfare of my patient. All of my patients.”
“When can we see her?” Delaney asked.
“We’re monitoring her closely and aren’t allowing any visitors at this stage. It could be a long night, so I’d advise you to go home and get some rest. I’ll have someone call if there’s any change.”
Max took his wallet from his pocket, withdrew one of his business cards, and passed it to the doctor. “Here’s my number. You can reach Mrs. Graye there.”
They drove past her grandmother’s place on the way to Max’s. The Wainright House was once again dark. The police cars that had arrived with the ambulance were gone. Yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the area between the hedge and the nearest gatepost—the area would be examined more thoroughly once it was daylight. Though Max offered to stop, Delaney shook her head. Helen had been exhausted and about to go to bed the last time she had called from the hospital to check on her. The bad news about Elizabeth would keep.
Max parked his Jeep beside his front door and led her inside. She hadn’t questioned his assumption that she would be staying with him. In truth, there wasn’t anywhere else she would rather be.
His house looked different at night. Without the sunshine streaming across the floor to meld the separate areas, the living room was an island of soft lamplight, rounded fieldstones, and oversized furniture. It was as inviting as it had been in daylight, though in a more intimate way. She went to the empty fireplace, drawn once again to the painting of the storm.
Keys rattled into a ceramic dish. Max’s footsteps moved toward her. “We’ll to need to talk to the cops first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, they’ll want our statements.” She turned to face him. “It’s horrible to think the neighborhood isn’t safe.”
“The neighborhood isn’t the problem. We have to make sure Toffelmire is told what happened. That couldn’t have been a random mugging.”
“Why not? Elizabeth’s purse was missing. Phoebe told me that a woman was mugged down by the lake a few weeks ago, and she was sure she heard someone lurking in my grandmother’s woods.”
“She probably did. Kids use the woods for a shortcut. Teenagers go there to drink. There were stories about a boogeyman in the bushes even when I was a kid.”
“What if it’s real this time? Both Helen and Edgar said there are new people moving to Willowbank. There are always strangers in town during the summer. Who knows what kind of criminals might be in the area?”
“Besides me?”
She frowned. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
He took her by the shoulders. “I’m not saying there isn’t crime in Willowbank. It’s got its share of muggings and breakins like any other town. I just think with everything else that’s happened lately, it’s too much of a coincidence that Elizabeth would be attacked when she’s on her way to see you.”
“You’re right about one thing; she must have been coming to see me. It’s the only reason she would have been at the house. But why would she do that? She knew the meeting had been postponed.”
“She probably wanted to catch you when you were alone. She sure wasn’t pleased to have me hanging around the last time.”
“Then where was her car? She rented one at the airport. We saw it yesterday.”
“She could have taken a taxi. Or she might have wanted some exercise and decided to walk there.”
“Not in those heels. That wouldn’t be something Elizabeth would do, anyway. Walking isn’t an efficient enough exercise for her. She works out on a Bowflex so she can get maximum results for her time. Maybe she was carjacked. Whoever hit her could have stolen her car. It still could have been random.”
“Sure, it’s possible, but it’s more likely that she was targeted.”
She rubbed her arms against a sudden chill, then pulled away from him and went to sit on one of the leather couches. “First the hit-and-run, then this. Why?”
“Well, we can be sure she wasn’t the one responsible this time.”
“No, but maybe I am.”
The cushion creaked softly as he sat next to her. He laid his arm across the back of the couch behind her shoulders. “Just because your life would be easier without her doesn’t mean you brought this on.”
As usual, he zeroed in on what she’d avoided facing herself. Having Elizabeth out of the way would definitely make her life easier. And that did make her feel guilty. “I never wished her any harm. I just wanted her to stop.”
“Sure. She was being a pain.”
“My grandmother called her a spoiled brat, but she was wrong. Elizabeth wasn’t indulged; she was neglected.”
“Poor little rich kid, huh?”
“You think I’m crazy for sympathizing with her, but she made herself tough in order to survive. Inside, she’s not that way at all.”
He stroked her hair.
“She did want to make peace. I saw it on her face at the restaurant.”
He traced her ear.
“And now this happens before she can resolve anything. It’s just not fair.”
“Newsflash, Delaney. Life isn’t fair.”
She turned her head to kiss his fingers. “There you go again, being the cynic. We’re quite the pair.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like two halves of one whole.”
He dropped his hand to the front of her blouse. “Sounds sexy. Want to go to bed?”
The laugh surprised her. After the previous several hours, she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of it. “Thanks for your help tonight, Max.”
He tapped the top of her breast. “I intend to get rewarded.”
“Did you make up the baby swallow you showed me?”
“No, that was a memory. There was a nest under the eaves last summer. A few fell on the deck when their mother pushed them out. One sat there for a few hours, trying to get up the nerve to fly.”
She smiled, thinking of this unquestionably virile man watching baby birds. “It was very cute. Did he finally do it?”
“Mmm?” He slipped open her top button.
“Fly.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s sweet that you kept track of them. The image was very vivid.”
Two more buttons slid from their holes. He fingered the edge of her camisole. “That’s because I used it.”
“How?”
“For a painting. They looked different by the time I put them on canvas.”
“I’ll bet. They probably were straining to launch themselves into the sky, in spite of the approaching wind that could break their wings to smithereens.”
“Something like that.”
“I’d like to see it, Max. Is it in your studio?”
“It’s already sold.”
“Oh.”
“But there’s something else upstairs you’ll enjoy.”
She sighed. They both knew this was where they’d been heading this evening before they’d been interrupted, and yet . . .
“Don’t overthink it, Deedee.”
“It doesn’t seem right to enjoy myself, with Elizabeth in the hospital. I realize she despises me, but I’m her only family.”
“We’ll worry about it tomorrow. Picture the bird.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. The lopsided ball of beak and feathers stole back into her mind.
“Flying’s a natural urge. It wants to fly, whatever the weather throws at it. Doesn’t matter how long it sits there to think about it, either; the outcome’s going to be the same. So it decides, what the hell, might as well let go and enjoy itself while it can.”
“You’re a philosopher as well as a cynic.”
“Nothing that complicated.” He turned her so that she was half lying across his lap. “I’m just a man who’s doing his damnedest to get naked with you.”
She lifted her hand to his cheek. “You’re a lot more than that, Max.”
He turned his head to nibble her fingertips, then tongued her index finger into his mouth. He drew on it gently. An identical sensation seized her nipple.
She shifted her legs on the cushion to fit herself more fully into his embrace. The familiar tang of his soap mixed with the scent of the leather couch.
The car smelled like leather from the heater within the seats. Stanford’s lime aftershave hung thick in the air, making it difficult for her to breathe. Delaney lowered the window a crack, filled her lungs with fresh air, and returned her hand to the wheel.
Delaney jerked away from Max. She hugged her arms to her chest.
He held up his palms. “All right, I said no tricks, but I slipped, okay?”
Stanford grabbed her forearm. She cried out as the car swerved.
The memory disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. Delaney pushed herself backward along the couch until she squeezed into the corner. She tucked her legs beneath her, brushing at her arm, trying to erase the feel of Stanford’s grasp.
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