bristled. “No one asked for your input.”
It was Shawna’s turn to sigh. “Look, as much as I hate to admit it, Jack’s right. You need to keep strong.”
Jack moved toward the door. “When Pop wakes up, will you at least give me a call?”
“Sure,” Shawna said.
I let her do the talking. If I had my way, he’d be the last person I called to tell the good news, but in this case I bowed to Shawna’s diplomatic skills.
He zipped his jacket, pulling up the collar in preparation for heading outside. His gaze shifted to me. I stiffened.
“Take care of yourself, Killian.” His tone had a certain softness to it, as if he were trying to connect with me. To reach out and touch the part of me that had once loved him.
“You, too,” I said curtly.
He walked out and Shawna shot me a quick look. “Still haven’t gotten over him, have you?”
I stiffened. “What makes you say that?”
“The fact that your hostility has an undeniably passionate edge to it.”
She looked me up and down and shook her head knowingly. “No doubt about it, sistah, you’re still holding a torch for that one.”
“Boy, are you living in a dream world.”
I glanced away so she couldn’t read any more of the raw emotions flickering across my face. Shawna was only three years older than me, but she had a tendency to take on the role of the all-knowing older sister, a trait that never ceased to annoy me. Basically, I hated her uncanny ability to read me.
“Well, he’s gone and that’s all that matters for now.” She picked up a small package on the bedside table and slipped out a premoistened swab. She leaned over the rail to moisten Charlie’s chapped lips around the adhesive tape securing the breathing tube in his mouth.
“Jack’s been pretty decent about staying out of our way these past few years. I can’t really fault him for wanting to stop by and see Pop now.” She glanced up, her dark eyes wistful. “Pop never hated anyone in his entire life. He didn’t even fault Jack for testifying against him in court. He forgave him—told all of us to forgive him, too.”
“Guess I’m not as kindhearted as Pop,” I said. “But then, he’s always been soft when it came to dealing with Jack. In fact, he was too kindhearted toward all of us. None of us deserved him. Or Claire.”
Shawna reached up and touched my shoulder. “Save it, sweetie. He’s gonna pull through this. He’s too strong to give up.” She swallowed her own obvious pain. “Craig Gibson, Pop’s lawyer, stopped by yesterday. Charlie has a health proxy and a will. He appointed you as the executor of his estate and gave you power of attorney.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Me? Why me?”
Shawna shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that the suit who stopped by here said for you to get in touch with him as soon as you arrived.”
She glanced over at the clock hanging over the head of Charlie’s bed. “Too late now, but he wants to see you in his office tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp. Something to do with Charlie’s will.” She patted my arm. “Now get some rest. You need to be fresh for Pop in the morning.”
I nodded, shrugged into my oversize down jacket, zipped it up and headed for the door.
“Oh, wait,” Shawna said.
I turned back.
Her face had that worried, indecisive look she got when she wasn’t sure she wanted to share her information. Big sister syndrome—what degree of truth do you tell the little ones?
“Just say it,” I said.
“Some weird stuff has been going on.”
“Weird how?”
“People showing up in Pop’s room who no one knows. And it’s always when one of us isn’t right here in the room.”
I walked back over to the bed. “You’re talking about people who aren’t hospital staff, right?”
Shawna nodded. “One time, I came back in after going down the hall for ice and the hose from his respirator was off—just laying on his chest. He couldn’t breathe. His lips were blue.”
Fear tightened in my belly. “What did the nurses say?”
“They said the hose pops off like that sometimes. But an alarm is supposed to go off. For some reason, it didn’t happen that time.” She paused for a moment and then continued, “When I asked if anyone had been in the room, they said some guy stopped in for a quick visit. No one knew his name and by the description, it didn’t sound like anyone Pop knows.”
From her expression I could tell there was more. “Tell me the rest.”
“Well, when I came in last night, Craig was on the phone in the hall and when I walked in the room, some guy was leaning over the bed fiddling with Pop’s IV tube. Soon as I walked in he dropped it and said something about it looking fine and hightailed it out of here. None of the nurses knew who he was.”
“Have you told the police all of this?”
Shawna nodded. “They told me I was overreacting. They won’t put a guard on him no matter what any of us say.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and punched in a number. “Then we’ll get our own. Dickie Petrova from the old neighborhood opened his own security business. We’ll use him.”
“That’s going to cost us a mint, Killian.”
I shrugged. “I’ll pay for it.”
Dreams of upgrading my cabin in the woods on my tiny piece of heaven right outside Keene Valley flew out the window like a puff of wood smoke escaping from a cast-iron stove, but I didn’t care. Pop’s safety was more important, and he would have done it for me, for any of the kids. That and more.
Until I found out what was going on, Pop was getting twenty-four-hour protection. And his lawyer was going to have a lot of questions to answer tomorrow when I arrived at his office. Something was going on and it didn’t add up to a simple hit-and-run case.
Chapter Two
The front doors of the hospital slid open and a frigid wind whipped up Crouse Street, stirring up scraps of trash lining the sidewalk and spraying my face with small, gritty grains of dirt-encrusted snow. I reached up and brushed a hunk of hair out of my eyes.
A sense of disorientation hit me for a moment as I stood on the front walkway. I’d grown up in Syracuse, on the west side. A part of the city not many people visited. When I’d been sent to live with Charlie and Claire, I’d discovered a whole new Syracuse, one I hadn’t really known had existed—the world of suburbia.
Suburbia had been a place with elegant Tudor-style homes, tiny, manicured front lawns and neat wooden porches with wide, comfortable porch
