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She sucked at her lower lip, half wishing Earl and Rand would just evaporate and leave her to her own devices, half wishing she could lean on one or the other or both of them for support. She paced around the room like a caged lion, irritated that Earl and Rand had seated themselves and seemed to be ready for the long haul. She asked about Catherine and was assured by the staff that someone would be out to give her a report very soon. She was starting to believe they were all a bunch of liars, and she’d come to the conclusion that nurses were trained to be impatient, rude, and dismissive.
After long minutes of pacing with no success, she took a seat across from Earl and Rand, one with a view of the exterior emergency room sliding glass doors and the portico beyond. Her sister Lorelei, one of the few who had escaped Siren Song before Catherine closed the gates, had worked at Ocean Park Hospital as a nurse, and Ravinia had liked her, so maybe they all weren’t entirely bad. She wished Lorelei were here now, but she’d quit the spring before, when she’d met the love of her life, a reporter, Harrison Frost, who’d been following after Justice once he escaped from Halo Valley Security Hospital. Lorelei had fallen hard for the reporter, and after Justice’s death, with nothing keeping them apart, they’d moved together to Portland when Frost was offered a job there. Again, so said Catherine, although her reports were sketchy at best.
Catherine had added that Lorelei was working at a Portland area hospital now, peacefully and happily, which had prompted Lillibeth to ask her breathlessly, “Are they getting married?” Catherine had muttered something disparaging under her breath, which none of them had caught, but it served to remind Ravinia that, for all her rigidity, her belief in protocol—her decision for all of them to live life in a simpler time—Aunt Catherine sure didn’t think much of the institution of marriage. Maybe because she’d never been married herself? Maybe something else? Whatever the case, in this one area, Ravinia actually agreed with her: True love was a myth. It didn’t exist, no matter how many books her sisters read on the subject, no matter how many old romantic movies they caught on their dinosaur of a television set.
“Miss Beeman?”
Ravinia looked up. “Yes?”
A doctor was walking toward her. Finally. She flicked a glance toward Earl, who half stood, as well. He’d wanted to bring Isadora, of course, but Lillibeth and Cassandra had both gone into conniptions at the thought of Isadora abandoning them, so Isadora was forced to stay. Ophelia had been Earl’s second choice, but she’d said it was Ravinia who should go, for reasons yet to be determined. Whatever the case, she was here, and though she wasn’t Catherine’s favorite and vice versa, she was currently the chosen decision maker.
“Your aunt is in stable condition,” the doctor told her brusquely. He was delivering the information but looking past her; his mind was elsewhere. “We’ve moved her to a room and are continuing to monitor her.”
“Is she awake?”
“She’s unconscious, but her signs are good and—”
“What’s wrong with her? Did she have some kind of seizure? What is it?”
The doctor, an older man with a close-cropped gray beard, finally turned his attention fully on her. “She has a contusion near her temple. It appears she fell, possibly slipped, and struck her head from the fall.”
“She fell?”
“The nurse can get you the number of her room. Phyllis?” he called to a harried-looking young woman, who ignored him as she hurried across the room to a set of double doors, which opened with a soft hiss. “Well, when she’s back,” he said. “Excuse me.”
Ravinia stared after him. Could it really be that simple? When she’d run past the ambulance into the lodge, she’d been certain from Lillibeth’s wailing, Cassandra’s dire predictions, and Isadora’s and Ophelia’s frozen attentiveness that Aunt Catherine was practically done for. Ophelia was the one who’d called 9-1-1. She had a disposable cell phone, apparently, a piece of information that would have helped had Ravinia but known it. It really pissed her off the way her sisters kept secrets, but then they’d learned from the best: Catherine.
Ravinia hadn’t waited around. She’d wanted to know how Catherine was for herself, so she’d taken off with Earl and Rand and ended up at the hospital shortly after the ambulance. They had already pulled Aunt Catherine’s gurney out of the ambulance and taken her past those double doors by the time Earl had parked and Ravinia had hurried inside. They’d been waiting ever since.
Now she looked through the exterior clear-glass sliding doors as a vehicle approached and pulled to a halt directly in front. A man jumped out and hurriedly opened the back door of his SUV.
Suddenly Earl was blocking her vision. “I’m going back for Isadora.”
“I can take care of things here,” Ravinia said, irked. “My sisters need her at Siren Song.”
Earl hadn’t wanted to bring Ravinia even though she was the chosen one, but Rand had muscled past his objections, and Ravinia had simply jumped in the car. But now Earl was apparently having second thoughts. He headed toward the door and shot a look at Rand, who was still slouched in his chair.
“I’ll stay,” Rand said.
“You don’t have to,” Ravinia told him quickly. She didn’t want him expecting something for the favor of helping to convince Earl to bring her here.
He simply shrugged.
Ravinia went to find the nurse who’d ignored the doctor—Phyllis—and found her scurrying toward the group outside. A woman had been helped from the backseat of the SUV to a wheelchair. She was wrapped in coats and was hugging herself closely. The man from the car was talking to the EMT who was pushing the woman inside. The woman wore socks but no shoes, and Ravinia realized with a start that she sure looked a helluva lot like that detective from the sheriff’s department. Detective . . . Dunbar. What had happened to her?
She was holding something inside that coat. A baby? Her baby? She’d had her baby in the snow?
The hissing double doors opened, and Phyllis ushered the detective and her entourage through.
“Excuse me, Phyllis?” Ravinia said.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” She was abrupt.
Ravinia wasn’t waiting. “I need the number to Catherine Rutledge’s room.”
“I’ll get it for you in a minute.”
But she followed the group through the doors. Ravinia sent a look to Rand, then followed after them. As the doors started to close behind her, Ravinia looked around for someone to help her who wasn’t busy. There was no such person. Finally, a nurse—her name tag read BARANSKY—appeared, and Ravinia asked her for Catherine’s room number, explaining she was her niece. She, too, was hurrying to meet up with the detective, but she hailed another young woman in medical scrubs, who deigned to look up the information.
