visiting hours.”
Stone turned Jessie’s hand loose and felt a sense of panic as the orderly wheeled her away. The need to say something more was choking him, but all he could manage was, “Hey, honey, take care of yourself, okay?”
Jessica felt him patting her knee as she was wheeled away.
“I am not your ‘honey,’” she mumbled, before falling back asleep.
* * *
Someone yanked at the sheet beneath Jessica’s right leg and then rolled her onto her side. With an audible groan, she opened her eyes and grabbed for the bed rail. A pair of nurses-in-training were changing the linens on her bed.
“We’re sorry, Miss Hanson, but this won’t take long, and you’ll feel so much better with clean sheets on your bed.”
Jessica looked at the name tags on their uniforms, then gritted her teeth and hung on. She could have used a painkiller, and she was fairly certain that the clean sheets A. Wren and S. Dexter were determined to give her wouldn’t do a thing for the throb in her temples.
Wren rattled the ice in Jessica’s pitcher and then set it down, satisfied that there was an ample supply.
“Isn’t that a shame about Mrs. Stuart,” she said.
Jessica’s heart kicked out of rhythm as Dexter tucked the corners of her sheet tightly into place. Memory was coming back in swift and sudden flashes. Olivia had been attacked right in front of her eyes! Guilt flooded her conscience. How could she have been so crass as to forget such a thing?
Dexter nodded. “It’s so sad for her son, Hal, too. Imagine having your own mother suffer a heart attack on the day of your wedding!”
Jessica frowned. They had it all wrong. It wasn’t a heart attack. Someone had stabbed Olivia. She’d seen it happen. She touched Wren’s arm and started to argue.
“But, I saw…”
Wren, not to be outdone, patted Jessica’s arm and continued with the story as if Jessica hadn’t uttered a word.
“They said someone found her on the floor by her kitchen table. When they brought her in last night, she was all dressed for the wedding.”
Jessica closed her eyes. Teal. The dress was a teal-colored silk. Her head was swimming. None of this was making a bit of sense.
“It wasn’t by her table, it was by my…”
For all the good it did to say it, the two women were still ignoring the fact that Jessica was trying to speak.
Dexter thrust her arm beneath Jessica’s neck, then slid a fresh pillow beneath her head.
“Here you go. Easy does it.”
Wren poked a thermometer in Jessica’s mouth and began to take her pulse. Once again, Jessica found herself unable to say what was on her mind.
Dexter picked the bloodstained sheets from the floor where they’d been tossed and waited while Wren yanked the thermometer out of Jessica’s mouth and made the necessary notations on the patient’s chart.
“Have you seen where the Stuarts live?” Dexter asked. “I swear, some people have all the luck. That house is fantastic. I always wanted one like that.”
Wren stuck her pen back in her pocket and patted Jessica’s arm. “Yes, well, that house won’t do Olivia Stuart any good anymore. You can’t take it with you, you know.”
Jessica was too shocked by what she was hearing to respond. How could they have found Olivia in her house? She was in my office, I saw her!
Dexter’s voice lowered to a theatrical whisper. “They said Dr. Jennings and Dr. Howell worked on her forever and it was just no use.”
Jessica gasped, and this time when she grabbed at Wren’s arm, she got their attention.
“She’s dead? Olivia Stuart is dead?”
Wren and Dexter glanced nervously at each other, suddenly realizing they’d been gossiping about hospital business in front of a patient.
“Are you a member of the family?” Wren asked.
“No, but—”
Relief spread over both of their faces. “Just rest. It’s the best medicine for what ails you.”
Having dispensed their opinions, Dexter and Wren quickly disappeared, leaving Jessica in a state of confusion. Olivia wasn’t in her kitchen. She was in my office, and she didn’t have a heart attack. Someone tried to kill her. Then she gasped. Someone hadn’t tried to kill her. If Olivia was dead, then the attack had been successful.
But the more Jessica thought about it, the more confused she became. The nurses would have no reason to lie, and it didn’t make sense that someone could attack Olivia in one place and then move her body clear across town and dump it in another place without being seen. Granted, there was a blackout, but the lodge had been crawling with guests.
A fresh wave of pain moved from Jessica’s head to her neck and shoulders. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and closed her eyes. And the longer she lay there alone, the more convinced she became that the blow to her head must have caused her to suffer hallucinations. It was the only explanation that made sense.
She refused to let herself examine the fact that about the same time she was having the hallucination, Olivia Stuart was suffering a heart attack on the other side of town. The coincidence of it all was mind-boggling, but she hurt too much to sort it all out.
Settling back against the pillow, she took a slow, deep breath, trying to convince herself it was going to be all right. In the midst of her thoughts, the door to her room flew open, banging against a nearby chair. She opened her eyes and stifled a groan.
In all her tall, blond beauty, Brenda Hanson burst into the room carrying an armful of wilting flowers. “Jessie, darling! Are you all right?”
Jessica had no time to answer before her sister leaned across the bed and gave her a kiss, unintentionally squishing the IV fastened to the back of her hand and poking the stem of a gladiola up her nose.
“Ouch,” Jessica muttered.
“Ooh, sorry,” Brenda said, frowning as she straightened, then staring at the apparatus they’d stuck in her baby sister’s body. The frown deepened as her gaze moved from Jessica’s hand to her head.
“Ooh, yuck, they shaved off part of your hair, didn’t they.”
Jessica’s hand flew upward in a fit of panic. Slipping her fingers beneath the edge of the bandage, she felt bare skin, then groaned and let her hand fall to the bed with a thump.
“Dog fleas. As if I’m not invisible enough already.”
Brenda sighed. She loved her younger sister dearly, but was of the same opinion their parents had been before their untimely death some years earlier. With regards to looks, fashion sense and her worth on the open market with men, Jessica was clueless. Brenda was all for subtlety herself, but not at the expense of style
