Uncovering Secrets: The Third Novel in the Rosemont Series (18 page)

Chapter 44

 “Come on, sweetie, it’s time to get up now. I’ve
already let you sleep an extra half hour. You’ll make everybody late if you
don’t get moving,” Loretta said as she brushed the hair from Nicole’s damp
brow.

She
turned on the bedside lamp and carefully regarded her daughter’s upturned face.
She wasn’t seeing miraculous effects from prednisone. If anything, her eyes
seemed puffier. She reached under the covers for one of Nicole’s hands and
recoiled in alarm. It was swollen to almost double its size.

Loretta
stood quickly. “You’re not going to school today, honey. I think we need to see
the doctor again.”

Nicole
nodded.

“We’ll
drop the big kids off at school first.” Loretta slid Nicole’s feet to the side
of the bed and inserted them into her fuzzy pink slippers. “You can stay in
your jammies. We’ll put your coat over them.”

Marissa
and Sean were waiting quietly by the door when Loretta came slowly down the
stairs, Nicole leaning heavily against her.

Marissa
turned scared eyes on her sister. “Again?” she asked.

“It’ll
be okay,” Loretta said with a confidence she didn’t feel. “She just needs a
change in medication. It’s a very common thing.”

Marissa
nodded, but Loretta could tell that she didn’t believe her.

Traffic
was light, and she dropped her older children at school just before the first
bell. She placed a call to Nicole’s doctor and detailed her condition for the
nurse. “We’re double-booked this morning, Ms. Nash. Based upon what you’ve
described, I think you should take her to the emergency room at Mercy
Hospital.”

Loretta
clamped down on the panic rising inside her. “We’re on our way,” she said.

“One
of our doctors is making rounds there now. I’ll tell him you’ll be there soon.”

***

Loretta and Nicole were once more in a private room on
the third floor. The staff needed to perform some tests and would probably
change her medication. The doctor expected to discharge her that afternoon or
the next morning, at the latest.

Nicole
endured all the poking and prodding without complaint and was now napping in
front of the television. Loretta realized she’d forgotten to call Mr. Haynes to
tell him she wouldn’t be at work. She grabbed her purse and tiptoed out of the
room to find Nicole’s nurse. “I have to go to work for a few minutes. Would
that be okay?”

“Parents
have to do it all the time around here. Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll
take good care of Nicole, and we’ll call you if we need you.”

“I’ve
been absent so much—I can’t afford to lose my job.”

The
nurse squeezed her hand. “You’re fine. Don’t feel guilty about it, either. Just
drive safely. And if you’re not back by the time I leave, I’ll tell my
replacement.”

Loretta
smiled, squeezing the woman’s hand back and thinking,
Sometimes an ounce of
kindness is all we need to sustain us.

***

Loretta walked into Haynes Enterprises to find her boss
seated at her desk, preparing the previous day’s bank deposit. The sight pulled
her up short. She knew he hated covering for her.

“I’m
so sorry, Mr. Haynes,” she blurted out. “Nicole got worse, and she’s in the
hospital again. I just came from there.”

Frank
Haynes took in her disheveled appearance and the heavy bags under her eyes and
swallowed the retort that had been on his lips. He cleared his throat. “I’m
sorry to hear that,” he replied.

Loretta
cocked her head. Had she heard him correctly?

“I
can do that,” she said, stepping behind her desk and gesturing to him to get
up. “She’s had all her tests and is napping. The nurse will call me when I need
to go back.” She looked at Frank Haynes, who now stood awkwardly on the other
side of her desk. “This job is very important to me and my family, Mr. Haynes.
I don’t know what I’d do without it. And I’m truly sorry that I’ve been absent
so much. With just the two of us here, I know it makes things hard. I’ll be
here whenever I can.”

Haynes
remained where he was and fiddled with the jar of pens on her desk. “I know
that, Loretta. You’ve done a very good job since you’ve been here.” He lifted
his eyes to hers. “I hope your little girl gets better soon. Stay as long as
you like today, and let me know when the deposit is ready. I’ll run it over to
the bank.” He retreated to his office and closed the door. If he had turned
around, he would have seen Loretta staring at him, eyes wide, as if she’d
witnessed a miracle.

***

Loretta worked at a blistering pace for the next several
hours. After Frank Haynes had shown her such compassion, she wanted to do her
best for him. It was almost four when she poked her head around his door to
tell him she was leaving. “The hospital called. They said that they think the
doctor will discharge her by dinnertime.”

Haynes
nodded. “You’d better go.”

Loretta
walked into Nicole’s room twenty minutes later. The bed was empty, and there
was no sign of Nicole. She raced to the nurse’s station where a woman she
didn’t recognize rose to meet her. “Are you Nicole’s mama?” she asked. Loretta
nodded, her eyes wide with fear. “Don’t worry—she’s fine. We’ve got a
visit from a therapy dog goin’ on in the children’s lounge. The kids love it.
She was well enough, so I took her down there.” The woman pointed to a room at
the end of the wing. “Go take a look.”

Loretta
released the breath she had been holding and smiled at the nurse. “I guess I
let my imagination run away with me,” she said sheepishly.

“Everybody
does that in this place, honey,” the nurse replied. “Now go have some fun with
your child.”

Loretta
nodded and proceeded down the hall. She paused in the doorway to the children’s
lounge and watched the scene unfolding before her. The young man who’d come to
Haynes Enterprises—
What was his name again? David something
—had
charge of a midsized dog who was patiently fielding all of the hugs, petting,
and even tail-pulling that a passel of sick children could dish out. He moved
his head to one side to gently nuzzle an older boy, and Loretta saw that the
dog had only one eye. Nicole was crouched next to the dog, with her arm slung
across his back, rubbing his left haunch and murmuring, “Nice doggy, good
doggy.” Loretta’s heart caught in her throat. Nicole leaned over and ran a line
of kisses down the dog’s back.

Loretta
approached the dog’s master. “I’m Loretta Nash. We met at Haynes Enterprises.
Nicole is my daughter,” she said, touching Nicole’s shoulder.

The
boy nodded. “I remember. I’m David Wheeler. And this is Dodger.”

“Hello,
Dodger. Aren’t you a wonderful dog?” She turned to David. “How long have you
been doing this?”

“We
just got certified last week,” he answered. “Dodger started out as an agility
dog, but he was injured and can’t compete for a while. Maybe not ever again. So
he became a therapy dog. I think he’s really good at it.”

“He
certainly is. It’s nice for these children to have something fun to break up
their day. Television and books can only go so far.”

David
nodded. “I know. I’ve read studies that show that petting an animal relieves
stress and promotes healing. We learned about it when we were studying to
become a therapy team.”

Loretta
smiled at him.

“Speaking
of fun things for kids, do you know about the Easter carnival at Rosemont next
weekend?”

Loretta
narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

“They
had one last year, and this year will be even better. The hospital is putting
together a section of games for sick or disabled kids. They’ve asked Dodger and
me to come, too. Why don’t you bring Nicole? She’d have a blast.”

Loretta
hesitated an instant too long.

“Can
we, Mommy? I want to,” Nicole lifted bright eyes to her mother.

“I
don’t think we would be welcome there,” Loretta stammered. “Ms. Martin and I
aren’t friends.”

“You
don’t have to be friends,” David replied. “It’s for the community. And it’s
free, too. They just collect a voluntary donation for the town pension fund.”

Loretta
looked at her daughter’s shining face.

“How
can you refuse?” David asked.

Loretta
nodded. If her kids would have fun, she needed to let them go.

Loretta
turned as the nurse called her name. “The doctor has discharged Nicole. I’ve
got her new prescription here to go over with you.”

Loretta
extended her hand to her daughter. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going home.”

Nicole
shook her head and hugged Dodger around his neck.

“You
can see him at the carnival,” Loretta said.

“Dodger’s
getting tired. We should be leaving soon, anyway,” David broke in and helped
Loretta peel Nicole off of Dodger. “We’ll see you next week, at Rosemont.”

Chapter 45

Maggie stepped into Celebrations at six o’clock the
Saturday morning before Palm Sunday. “Thank you for meeting me so early,” she
told Judy Young. “I want to sign off on the wedding invitations and get them ordered
before this crazy week starts.”

“And
rightly so. You’re cutting it pretty close for a wedding at the beginning of
June.”

Maggie
sighed heavily and signed the form Judy put in front of her.

“But
don’t worry,” Judy assured her. “I’ll get them for you.” She placed the order
on the counter behind her. “I’ll have time to send this in before the shop
opens at nine. Where are you headed this early on a Saturday morning?”

“I’m
off to the airport. My family’s coming in on the red eye. I’ve borrowed John’s
Suburban, with the extra seat, to haul them all to Westbury. I just hope I have
enough room for their luggage.”

“Will
they be here through Easter?”

“Yes.
My granddaughters are on their school break and they wanted to come to the
Easter carnival—which I have you and the others to thank for organizing
and promoting. I haven’t lifted a finger.”

“I
think running this town and planning a wedding is enough, don’t you? You’re
hosting the carnival at Rosemont; that’s plenty. We’ve got everything covered.
All you need to do is show up.”

“Good,
because that’s all I have time for this week. The girls and I are going to pick
out our dresses, attend a cake tasting, finalize the food for the reception,
and something else that I’m forgetting … oh … we’re testing makeup for the
wedding.”

“That
is a lot,” Judy agreed.

“I’m
not sure I require all of this, but everyone else seems to think so. It’s
easier to just go along with it all.”

“This
will be the most talked-about wedding in these parts in more than a decade.”
She looked wistfully over Maggie’s shoulder. “A June wedding at Rosemont. It
needs to be perfect.”

“Argh
… Don’t you start on me, too.” She checked her watch. “I’d better scoot. If I
run into any traffic, I’ll be late.”

***

Forest Smith slowed his pace to a walk, then leaned
forward and grabbed his knees to stretch out his back. He’d set out to start running
again and his back was protesting mightily. After the accident, he missed this
morning routine the most.  It cleared his mind, and he always slept well
when he ran. He was determined to resume the practice. He patted his jacket
pocket and felt the baggie of painkillers that Delgado had given him. Just one
tablet would allow him to continue his run.

Smith
wandered to a small stand of trees at the side of the path where he would be
hidden in deep shade. He removed one tablet from the baggie and held it between
his thumb and forefinger, poised to pop it into his mouth.

Smith
didn’t know how long he remained like this before he dropped the tablet and
crushed it beneath the heel of his running shoe. He opened the baggie and did
the same with the other pills, then pulled out his cell phone and punched the
number for Alex Scanlon.

Alex
answered on the second ring. “Good morning. What’s up?”

“Sorry
to call so early.”

“Don’t
be. I expect you to call anytime you need me, day or night. That’s what my
sponsor does for me and what I’m committed to doing for you. What’s going on?”

“I
just got rid of my stash of pills.”

“Good
for you, Forest. What happened?”

“I
went for a run this morning—first time in months. Running is the best
stress reliever for me. But I couldn’t make it for more than a quarter mile
before my back pain made me stop. I had some pills with me, and I knew one
would give me the relief I needed to continue my run. I almost took it. I had
it in my hand. But I stopped.”

“I
understand how frustrating it is when your recovery from an injury takes so
long that you feel like you’ll never get better, like you’ll never get your
life back. I self-medicated myself for months until I realized I was doing more
damage to myself.”

“I
know that, intellectually, but it’s hard to put into practice.”

“That’s
why I go to the meetings.” Alex paused. “I thought you said at the meeting that
you’d gotten rid of your stash?”

“I
did.” Forest Smith took a deep breath. “That’s the other reason for this call.
Chuck Delgado gave me some pills. On the night of the meeting. He was waiting for
me when I left that night.”

The
line was silent. “You’d better tell me everything.”

“Delgado
knows I’m an addict; I was buying from his people. He also knows I’m assisting
on the investigation. He’s attempting to blackmail me. He’ll keep quiet about
my addiction and illegal purchases if I destroy anything that would incriminate
him or his cronies.”

“I
see,” Alex replied stiffly.

“He
wants to see anything I find that implicates him. I was never going to do it,
of course,” he added hastily. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Alex
remained silent.

“What
I planned to do was see what the documents showed and then decide what to do.”

“Hoping
that there wouldn’t be anything, so you wouldn’t have to face this dilemma?”

“I
guess so, yeah.”

“How
likely do you think it is that there won’t be anything in those documents? He’s
all but confessed. And what about his attempted blackmail? That’s a crime,
too.”

“I
know it is, Alex. Believe me, I know. I’ve been tortured by this whole
situation. My first step was to go to the meeting, to get myself clean.”

“That’s
a good first step, Forest. In your shoes, I would have done the same. I’m not
trying to come down hard on you. Just thinking about how we should handle this
now that Delgado’s made a move.”

“I
have an idea on that, actually. I think we can turn this to our advantage.”

“Meet
me at the office in an hour, and we’ll talk about it there,” Alex replied. “And
Forest—you’ve done the right thing.”