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She felt his forehead. It was cold to the touch.
Then she noticed a slightly chalky substance in the corner of his mouth. Was that from his drink? She hadn’t noticed it before.
Her hand traveled down to his collar, fingers delving underneath to find a pulse. But there was nothing. His skin felt doughy but cold, like an inanimate object.
Slowly, the horror dawned on Darla Mortenson.
Somewhere in the sky, between Lyon and Venice, something terrible had happened. Because Franklin Tate was dead.
CHAPTER ONE
Daisy Fortune rested in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting area of Independence Court, the assisted living facility where her father had spent the past year, watching the news.
Bad news.
She’d already been in a bad mood, coming here, but the news reporter’s easy skim from a murder uptown, to a burglary downtown, to the dismal state of the economy, was enough to make it even worse.
Not to mention this place. As much as they tried to dress it up with pretty paintings of woodland scenes and cheerful rainbow wallpaper, nothing could hide the simple fact: It was alast stop before death.
Even so, she appreciated its existence. Without it, where would she be? The nurses waited on her father, Edward Fortune, hand and foot, and when he was coherent enough to understand where he was, he always had positive things to say about it.
But she knew his heart was somewhere else.
The nurse came to her as she was deep in thought, so that when she felt a tap on her shoulder, she nearly jumped out of the seat. “Hi, Daisy.”
“Oh. Hi, Sarah. Is everything okay?”
“Yep. Well . . .” She shrugged. “It’s all right.”
That wasn’t a good sign. But then again, none of this was. Every week, it was another test. And every week, it was the same result:Negative.
Which should’ve been a good thing. But now, even a year later, they still had no diagnosis for the ailment that had been plaguing her father.
“So does that mean the doctor still has no answers?” she asked.
It was a good thing they had Sarah. Sarah was always positive, even on the worst of days. Like today. She said, “It means that he’ll keep digging. We’re not giving up, so you shouldn’t, either.”
Daisy sighed. “Of course, I won’t.”
But there were days she wanted to. They’d almost dug to the bottom of a very deep hole. There wasn’t much further they could go. Eventually, they would have to give up and admit that some mysteries of the human body were beyond the help of even the best doctors in the business.
She stood up and went to the door of the examination room her father had been wheeled into, an hour ago. As much as she wanted to see him, another part of her wasn’t sure. She hated seeing him like this. Gone was the even-tempered, always smiling man who’d raised her, replaced by this person she didn’t quite know. During his good days, he was happy and charming, flirting with all of the female staff. On his many bad days, though? He could be downright cruel. It was like a game of Russian Roulette. No one ever knew which Edward Fortune they’d get.
The symptoms came and went, but they meant that he needed round-the-clock care. He was suffering from a weakness in his limbs and confusion at times. One day, he would be a perfectly fit 60-year-old man, and the next he could barely stand and didn’t even know his own daughter’s name. On those days, he’d scream and thrash in bed, as though he were in the midst of being tortured.
During those times, she was the only one who could talk sense into him. She held his hands, reminding him who she was, whohewas, until the spell passed.
Afterwards, he never seemed to remember them, which only made it harder. He never understood why he had to be watched over, twenty-four-seven, and often spoke to her about when he'd return to the Fortune Agency, the detective agency they’d always planned to run together.
She didn't have the heart to tell him that would never happen. The doctors had said so. His spells were only getting worse and more frequent.
As she was standing in the doorway, another nurse appeared pushing him in a wheelchair. His face was red, eyes bleary. Daisy’s heart split. It looked like he’d been crying.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, but he didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge her at all. From the dark in his eyes, she wondered if this was one of the times that he didn’t know her.
The nurse cast an apologetic look. “He’s a little out of it.”
She followed behind him to his room, number 131, which was right across from the nurse’s station, and performed her usual ritual, pausing at the door to wait to see which Edward Fortune she’d get today.
