Page 56 of You Know Why

Watching over her, I kept imagining Andy and Lucy, dead. I kept seeing Chloe, prone on the floor. All the blood, all the horror, was alive in me, overwhelming me. If we’d found my sister sooner, we could have donated her organs, and she would have been tethered to the machines just like Brooklyn while plans were made to dissect her body and share the pieces across the country, maybe even the world.

I thought about this a lot, that there was nothing left of my sister. At least Brooklyn had a chance to bear and raise her children. Four and Neve were perfect angels, and even if their mother didn’t come back to normal, or, God forbid, didn’t make it through, even if she died, those pieces of her would be left behind. And they would have memories of their mother.

I remembered my own mother’s death and immediately wished I hadn’t gone there. I’ve lost so much. So many people I loved. It hurts, and it’s too much to bear sometimes.

And it’s all Andrew Locke’s fault.

All this thinking, the beeping, the hissing, the sight of Brooklyn’s broken body and the bandage around her head and her eyes shut and the horrors of the past few days . . . I got, understandably, upset. My stomach twisted, and I felt faint.

So I stepped out of the room. I walked down the hall. I used the restroom, splashed water on my face. I cried for all that I’d lost, for what might have been, for the souls of Lucy and Andy, and then I pulled myself together, because my loss was being overshadowed by my gain. Andrew’s children were counting on me. Margot was counting on me. Brooklyn was counting on me.

Somehow, that meant Andrew was counting on me, too. Eventually, I knew that was going to matter. At some point, he and I would be face-to-face again. I wasn’t going to mess it up this time.

And screw the stranger Theresa warned me about. If he came anywhere near us, I would end him, too.

I wiped my nose and got myself a coffee in the family room. I stepped out into the hall just in time to hear an alarm going off. It was coming from the hallway where Brooklyn’s room was located. That made my heart speed up. I started toward her room, and a man turned the corner at speed, running right into me. The coffee splashed on my blouse, boiling hot. I let out a screech; it burned terribly. But he didn’t stop, he kept going, right into the elevator. The doors slid shut before I could get a good look at him.

Soaked, I hurried to Brooklyn’s room, only to find the whole staff gathered. People were running in and out, calling for medications, support, and doctors. I managed to get close enough to see inside. They were working on her like she wasn’t breathing.

A nurse saw me staring and immediately blocked me.

“You need to step away, ma’am.”

“I’m with her. I’m Eden Barrow. I’m on the list. I’m staying the night. I just went for a coffee. What’s happening?”

“We don’t know. She’s tachycardic, her blood pressure went through the roof, and she’s vomiting. Not totally uncommon with a TBI. She didn’t drink or eat anything when you were with her, did she?”

“No, she was out of it. But there was a man, a few minutes ago, who came running from her room. He smashed into me as I left the family room. He didn’t even apologize, just kept going. He got into the elevator.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t recognize him. He was wearing scrubs. I assumed he was a doctor in a hurry. You don’t think he tried to hurt her, do you?”

“Stay right here. I’m getting security.”

They saved her. Thank God. I mean, I don’t know how close to dying she was, but it was very dramatic there for a bit, with all the shouting and the meds being pushed and getting her electrolytes back in order. The doctors chalked it up to the concussion. Poor thing.

But the timing of the man in her room felt too ominous to ignore. Dr. Christie, being an extremely intelligent woman, was suspicious and asked for some more comprehensive blood work that would take days to complete.

I spent two hours being interviewed, first by hospital security, then by a policeman from Atlanta, then, finally, by Theresa, who arrived in the wee hours of the morning, her right hand bandaged, looking like she hadn’t slept in days. It was Theresa who told me the scary parts—the man who’d been in Brooklyn’s room wasn’t on the security video because somehow, the video feeds had been offline starting an hour before the incident.

“It wasn’t Andrew, was it? Who ran into you?”

“I don’t . . . Well, honestly, I don’t know. It happened so fast.”

“Well, we’re afraid someone’s trying to eliminate Brooklyn. This is the second attempt on her life.”

“What do you mean? The SUV outside my house? Was that on purpose?”

“We think it was. The SUV was parked up the street, waiting. We can see it on a traffic camera that’s at the stoplight there on Fox Run. When the door to the house opened, the engine turned on and it pulled away from the curb. Whoever was driving was trying to hit her. Add in this attempt on her life, and she’s not safe.”

She looked at me, really looked at me, like it was the first time she’d seen me in years. Which, in many ways, is the truth—Theresa had been ignoring me for a very long time. I got it. I was an inconvenience. My sister was dead, the case was unsolved, and I reminded her of her failures.

She put her hand on my shoulder. “I think you’re in danger, too, Eden. So is Brooklyn’s sister. With Andrew’s parents murdered yesterday, how they were killed . . . This is bigger than we know.”

“What? You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I were. Is there someplace safe for you to go?”