Page 54 of I’ll Be Watching You

The door opened and Margo walked in.

“Give me a second,” Ava said.

Margo closed the door behind her. “It’s getting late, you have a flight to Colorado Springs in a few hours, and we have things to discuss.”

Margo was assessing her, and it made Ava uncomfortable. She rose, straightened her spine, and walked to her closet for her shoes. She slipped on three-inch heels that matched her charcoal-gray skirt, and from the corner of her eye saw Margo roll her eyes.

Ava was barely five foot one. Even in heels she was shorter than all her children and all her siblings.

“You look exhausted,” Margo said. “But put together.”

“I’m tired, Margo. I need coffee.”

“And food.”

“I can’t eat.”

She walked out of her bedroom and Margo followed. “It doesn’t have to be bacon and eggs, just a little something.”

Margo wasn’t usually the one worried about what people ate and when. Ava realized she must look worse than Margo said.

“I made oatmeal,” Jack said when she walked into the great room.

Her son was leaning against the counter finishing his breakfast. The thought of eating the thick cereal made her stomach roll over.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“You didn’t eat much last night. You need something or you’re not going to be any help to Dad.”

Ava frowned, pulled out a piece of wheat bread from the bread box, and put it in the toaster. “This is about all my stomach will handle right now, Jack.”

She stared at the toaster, willing herself to get her act together.

She was a fifty-nine-year-old professional woman, a lawyer, a former prosecutor, someone who never took crap from anyone.

And she felt like she’d had a house land on her.

“Do you know anyone at Honor House?” Margo asked.

Ava glanced at Margo. “Yes, why?”

“That’s where Liz and Georgia volunteered, and I remember Dad had been supportive of the charity. Georgia gave us the names of two trial recipients. Jim Novak had a bad reaction to the drug and that’s how Dr. Klein suspected the results were altered because his data had been excluded. In addition, Christina Aberdeen committed suicide in the middle of the trial, and her data also wasn’t included. Lu couldn’t find a death record for Jim or James Novak in the last four years, so he might still be alive. She also couldn’t find a current address or phone number, so maybe he moved. It’s worth asking him about the trial—he might know something important, even if he doesn’t know it’s important.”

“The director of fundraising is Grace Poling, a personal and professional friend,” Ava said. “She’ll help if she can. I’ll send her a note that you want to talk to her.”

“Thanks,” Margo said. She pulled out her phone and typed in the name.

Ava noticed that Jack and Margo exchanged worried looks. She mouthed something at him, but Ava couldn’t tell what it was. The tension in the room was giving her a headache—the vast amount of coffee she’d drunk over the last couple days contributing to it.

She turned her back on them because she needed to get her head in the game. Game? It wasn’t a game. It was Cooper’s life. It was the lives of her family.

She usually had a spine of steel, but today, she felt like a feather could knock her over.

She had to find a way to get through this or she would be good to no one.

Luisa said, “Mom, we found Nadine Wallentine Pierce. She’s an oncologist at the VA in Austin, and we think you would be the best person to call her.”

Naddy Wallentine. Cooper’s first love. Ava wasn’t jealous.