Refrain (Soul Series Book 3) (23 page)

“So am I,” James says. “We’ll donate. Just tell us what to do.”

“Come with me right away.” Dr. Haddow starts back in the direction of the double doors, not even waiting to see if James and Cassie are with him. All three of them disappear. I’m left standing there with questions and no answers. With guilt and trepidation. With barely a hope to hold on to.

But I do hold on. For my girls, I hold on.

IT’S BEEN HOURS.

I think it’s been hours. I’m so numb, so oblivious to everything going on around me in this damn waiting room, we could have been sitting here for a month. That’s how I foresee a life without Kai. This winding meander of minutes and hours and days that blurs into an eternity. That cuts through a desert, a dry existence devoid of life that could have been rich. Could have been flooded with love, but now may be a wasteland.

“You should clean up.” Bristol plops down beside me on the less-than-comfortable couch, its salmon-colored pleather cool against my back. “Ella’s bringing some clothes for you.”

I shrug. Why should I care how I look? How I smell? If Kai doesn’t make it, I’m not sure I’ll ever care about those things again.

“Ruthie is on her way.” Bristol reads a text on her phone. “She just texted me from the plane we sent. They’re about to take off now.”

“San?”

I force myself to listen, to stay engaged because Kai loves them more than anyone else. She would want them here. I think I need them here because they are the only ones who could even come close to loving Kai as much as I do.

“Still no luck.” Bristol twists her lips apologetically. “I’ve been ringing his cell and the hotel in Turks, but I haven’t been able to reach him. I’ll keep trying.”

“Yeah, thanks. Keep me posted.”

Bristol looks down at her phone when it rings.

“This is Ella now.” She puts the phone to her ear and heads toward the exit. “Hey. Where are you?”

I think of the last time I waited in a hospital for Kai. Ella was there then too. She’s a good friend. I was so anxious that night Kai collapsed, and it was just pneumonia. God, what I wouldn’t give for this to be that simple. Maybe Ella will bring the same calm she carried then.

Luke and the band swung through, but we sent them back to the hotel with promises to keep them apprised. Gep sits in the corner on his laptop, probably trying to figure out how this got past us, where we went wrong. Marlon is curled up on one of the sofas asleep. He performed his ass off last night, and the demands of the showcase and all the work he’s been doing for his album are catching up to him. He’s had a long few days. We all have. We all look worse for wear, but I look the worst.

I glance down at my bare chest. The bloodied t-shirt is long gone, probably still in the back of that ambulance. Blood rings my knuckles, dried into the crevices, and tinges my palms. I touch my hair, finding it pulled into thick peeks stiff with the blood from my hands rolling through it. I’m disgusting, but I can’t leave this spot. If there’s news, if something happens, I have to be here. Not knowing is killing me. Not knowing if our baby girl is already gone. Not knowing if Kai’s breathing right now. The last time I saw her, a tube was shoved down her throat. And now someone I don’t know is cutting on my girl.

“Did they tell you anything when you gave blood?” I flick a look up at James Pearson seated on the couch across from me reading.

He peers at me over the round lenses of his glasses. His wife, a faded version of Cassie, came to pick up their daughter a little while ago. Cassie didn’t want to leave, but she was exhausted, and there was nothing she could do to help after she and James gave blood. Which is more than I’ve been able to do.

“No.” James shakes his head, using a finger to hold his place in the book he closes. “They took our blood and told us to wait out here.”

His eyes rove over the half-naked, blood-stained mess that is me.

“Your sister’s right.” He takes off his glasses and holds the stem between his fingers. “You should clean up. You don’t want Kai to see you like that when she wakes up.”

My heart latches onto that phrase.

When she wakes up.

I clear my throat before walking over to sit beside him. I glance at the cover of the book he’s reading. It’s a Bible just like the reverend had at our wedding.

“You, uh, think Kai will be waking up?” I rest my elbows on my knees and glance up and back at him.

He considers me for a few moments before putting his glasses back on and opening his Bible to the spot.

“I believe she will.”

My heartbeat accelerates, and it feels like this is the first time my heart has beaten in hours.

“How do you know?” I demand.

“I said I believe. I have faith.”

That’s not good enough. I know it sounds bad, but the faith of an adulterous pastor who abandons his family for his mistress and love child in Vegas doesn’t comfort me that, if there is a God, He’s on James’ side.

“You don’t put much stock in that, though, do you?” he asks, a smile curving his lips but not quite touching his eyes.

“No.” I shake my head and blow out a defeated breath. “I don’t.”

“You don’t put much stock in me in general, do you, son?”

“I’m not your son.”

I stand up and walk over to where Bristol waits with Ella and the clothes she

brought. The young nurse who gave me paperwork to complete rounds out a little trio of eyes watching me like I might detonate any minute. They’re not far off.

“For me?” I take the bag and manage a small smile for the nurse. “Are you taking me somewhere so I can freshen up?”

She nods, her brown eyes wide and shining. Please don’t let her say she loves my music or she saw me in concert once or knows all my songs by heart. I don’t give a shit. There’s nothing like nearly losing the thing that means the most to you to show you how little everything else is actually worth. Thankfully, she’s quiet as she leads me to a small bathroom down the hall.

It’s the fastest shower I’ve ever taken. The hospital soap and shampoo smell like household cleaners, but they wash away the stench and stickiness of blood. I make quick use of them and tug on jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. I step back into the waiting room and come to a full stop.

Gep’s on his feet talking with a police officer. Bristol joins them, folding her arms over her chest and double-dutching a glance between them. That look on her face that means she’s just waiting for the right time to jump in.

“But we just have a few questions for Mr. Gray. I promise it won’t take long.” The police officer directs his words to Bristol, who I’m assuming, in her highly professional manner, just denied him. She has this very polite way of telling you things. It’s not until you’re out of her presence that you realize she told you to fuck yourself and you feel the sting of it. By the look on the officer’s face, he’s already feeling the sting.

“What’s going on?”

The three of them turn to me. Gep’s expression is as impassive as always. You could run over that guy’s toe with a Mack truck and he wouldn’t grimace. Bristol looks mad, which she often resorts to when things are out of her control. Anger is her fall back. And the officer looks like he’s just doing his job.

“You needed to speak to me?” I ask him.

“I told him later would be better.” Bristol flays him with a glance. “It’s not the right time, officer.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, we’re conducting a criminal investigation,” the officer says carefully. “I’m Officer Baynard, Mr. Gray. We want to figure out what happened.”

“He’s right, Bris.” I sigh and gesture to the couch that probably still bears the imprint of my butt, I sat there so long. “What do you need to know?”

He asks basic questions about our day leading up to the event, and I answer, not sure what any of that has to do with anything.

“Had you or your fiancée met Anna Borden before tonight?” Officer Baynard asks.

“Is that her name?” I narrow my eyes and divide a sober look between the three of them. “That’s who shot Kai?”

“We met her for the first time yesterday,” Bristol asserts, eyes set on the hands in her lap.

“We did?” Rage climbs from the pit of my stomach over my chest and shoulders until it’s a mist clouding my eyes. “When did we meet her? What are you talking about?”

“It was the girl from the meet and greet,” Gep answers since Bristol seems to have lost her voice. She’s biting her lip and staring at the floor. “The girl who, um . . . fell down.”

The girl Kai
pushed
. The one she thought wanted to hurt me.

“She had a pen,” I say dumbly. “It caught the light, and my . . . Kai thought it was a knife. She pushed her away from me.”

In the quiet we all digest that information. Kai was right. Her instinct about the crazy girl was right. If I’d known she had this in mind, that she would hurt Kai, I would have rammed that pen in my own throat.

“Did she have anything to do with the blood on my car? The message about killing Kai?” My words barge into the awkward silence. “Was that her?”

“Mr. Gephardt did mention that incident, so we questioned her about it.” Officer Baynard clears his throat and flicks a glance at Gep. “She confessed to that too, yes.”

Gep and Bristol look at each other quickly and then away. They knew it was that girl and didn’t tell me.

“So you’re saying the girl who shot my wife,” I say, my voice quaking with rage, not directed at the stupid girl, but at myself, “I
gave
that girl a ticket to the show.”

“Actually I gave her the ticket,” Bristol says softly, her eyes still fixed on the floor. “If you want to blame anyone, blame me. I’m the one who pushed for us to come.”

Bristol gives voice to the silent shriek that’s ripped through my head a hundred times since we climbed into that ambulance. Why did we come here? Why did I ignore my instincts? This is my fault.

“She should never have been at that show.” Anger sharpens my words. “Never gotten close enough to shoot at Kai.”

“Well, you were her target,” the officer says unhelpfully. “She said if she couldn’t have you then no one could.”

It’s like something out of a bad movie. It pisses me off that Kai ended up in the middle of it.

“Where is she now?” I grind the question to little bits.

“She’s in custody at the station,” the officer says. “Actually under suicide watch. Her plan was to shoot you and then turn the gun on herself.”

“Why?” I spit out.

“Why was that her plan?” Officer Baynard’s bushy eyebrows meet at the center of his forehead. “We—”

“No, why is she under suicide watch?” I slam my fist into the palm of my other hand. “Let her do it. Let her kill herself. Why are we stopping her?”

The officer doesn’t know what to do with my feral response. With the anguish and rage propelling my words. I don’t know what to do with them either. I need to walk away.

“Are we done?” I push the damp hair out of my eyes. “My wife is fighting for her life and for our unborn child, so excuse me if I don’t want to waste another second on the loony bitch who tried to kill her.”

I don’t wait for his dismissal, but just walk away over to the window overlooking the street. The Vegas Strip glitters like a distant promise. Like a wavering mirage on the horizon. Is that what our happiness was? Our future? The promise of something that would never materialize?

I clench my teeth against the rage shrieking from my gut. Not at the fucking demented stalker. At
myself
. I did everything but pull the trigger. I gave her a ticket. Here I thought I had all my bases covered, had my girls protected from all harm, when the greatest harm was
me
. Was my blindness. My idiocy.

A sharp sound a few feet away distracts me from my recriminations. Bristol stands against the corridor wall, arms folded across her chest, face set into her usual obstinate lines. There’s no sign of her sleek ponytail, and her hair is free and a little wild around her shoulders. Marlon stands so close I can’t tell if he’s caging her or protecting her, but the expression on his face is fierce, sterner than any I’ve seen him wear before. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but it must be good. It must be working. The tough line of her mouth starts to wobble when his hand cups her chin, tilts her face up. And then I see something I’ve only seen a few times in all the years since we were born within minutes of each other.