Closing her eyes, she let the sobs erupt.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t lost patients before, patients she’d been fighting to save with every ounce of knowledge and skill she possessed. The kid had pretty much bled out before he got to her. It wasn’t her fault.
The older brother couldn’t live with the guilt.
A no-win situation for all involved.
The cell phone on CJ’s hip vibrated.
She ignored it.
Calls at this time of night were either work, and she was at work, or Shelley.
She couldn’t deal with her sister’s problems right now.
Maybe that was selfish, but CJ had spent the better part of her life picking up the pieces for Shelley and, before that, for their mother. These days, on the rare occasions when CJ bothered to go home for a visit, she stumbled over her sister’s self-inflicted misfortunes and the resulting disasters everywhere she turned.
Right now, CJ didn’t care what her sister needed. She didn’t possess the energy to care. There was nothing left inside her except utter exhaustion and regret.
The insistent tremor against her waist warned that the caller wasn’t giving up.
I am not answering.
She’d ignored Shelley’s call the night before. It hadn’t been easy. Definitely out of character for CJ. But she’d done it. Shelley had obviously conveniently forgotten that their last conversation had resulted in their worst argument to date. Shelley had told CJ in no uncertain terms to stay out of her life. CJ had done just that. Her sister couldn’t have it both ways.
When her cell shook with a third attempt to get her attention, CJ couldn’t hold out any longer.
“Dammit, Shelley.” CJ snatched the phone from its holster. She read the number on the screen. Huntsville area code but she didn’t recognize the number.
CJ tucked it against her ear. “Patter—” She cleared her throat. “Patterson.”
“CJ?”
A frown tugged at her throbbing forehead, then recognition flared. “Braddock?”
Why the hell would he be calling her? CJ was reasonably sure she’d made herself very clear the last time she and the detective had spoken. If Shelley was in trouble again, CJ didn’t want to hear about it. And under no circumstances did she want to hear from him for any other reason.
“I hate like hell to have to make this call.”
What was he talking about? Where was the cocky tone he typically used with her? The slow-motion replay of the anguished older brother firing that weapon, sending a significant portion of his scalp, skull, and brain spraying through the night air, reeled before her eyes even as realization unfolded in her weary mind. Dread kinked into a thousand screaming knots in her gut.
Taking her silence for the shock and uncertainty it was, Braddock went on, “CJ, I am so sorry to have to inform you ... Shelley’s dead.”
Chapter Four
3021 Appleton Street, the Mill Village
Huntsville, Alabama; 2:00 p.m.
CJ shoved the gearshift into park, turned off the ignition, and stared at the two-story house she’d called home for most of her life.
The entire structure leaned to one side as if it were weary of standing this last hundred or so years. What little cheap green paint that remained on the century-old wood siding was faded and peeling. The numerous patch jobs on the once white roof were so old they had blended into a dirty variation of grays and blacks. Gutters sagged, their downspouts dented and dangling precariously. The grass stood high enough that passersby likely thought the place was deserted.
And it was . . . now.
Her sister was dead.
Emotion abruptly resurrected and churned deep inside CJ. She lifted her chin in defiance and, just as suddenly, it settled back into that numbness that had consumed her since receiving Detective Kevin Braddock’s call.
