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It feltlike years before a tired and weary-looking Dr. Green made her way into the waiting area. Luke saw exhaustion dragging at her heels like Jacob Marley’s chains, and it scared him that her trademark serenity was gone. He’d kept his eyes glued to the doorway and willed her to come fill them in since he walked in himself, but now that she was here, he wished just as strongly that she would leave. He did not want to hear what had drained all the color from her face or dimmed the light in her kind eyes.
Logan caught sight of the doctor coming and gripped Luke’s hand. He wasn’t sure if it was to lend his strength or to take some, but either way, Luke gripped his son back gratefully and took comfort from the connection as he stood and met the doctor head-on.
“She’s stable,” Dr. Green told him. “Let me ease your mind on that score first. Andie is stabilized for now.”
“Why?” Luke asked. “What happened? Why di—”
Dr. Green stopped his avalanche of questions before they could start with a calming brush of her fingers on the back of his hand. “We don’t know all the answers yet. Unfortunately, this happens far too often. A pregnancy will be sailing along smooth as glass without any warning signs, and then tragedy strikes. So far, we haven’t found anything that indicates why she went into labor this early. Unfortunately, the only way we will have a chance to determine the cause would be to order an autopsy.”
Luke recoiled. An instant visual flashed morbidly in his mind of his daughter’s impossibly small body on the giant sterile slab of a cold metal morgue table. She was naked and her small limbs stretched out like a frog in science class with a doctor cutting into her. The image was so grotesque Luke felt assaulted, and though he didn’t mean to do it, he shouted his “No!” at the doctor. “I’m sorry. But no. Don’t—God. Don’t cut my baby. Please, don’t do that to her.”
“It’s all right.” She was nodding at him, not offended or even surprised by his outburst. “It’s fine. We don’t have to. A lot of parents—in fact, most parents—feel the same as you. It’s not mandatory by any means. There are some parents who need to know why. Sadly, in a lot of cases, even the autopsy can’t give them the answers they seek.”
“No, then, no,” Luke reiterated. “Don’t touch her. It won’t bring her back anyway. And I… I can’t stomach the thought of you cutting into her.”
“Then we won’t.” Her voice was weighted with compassion. “I promise. As for Andrea, she gave us quite a scare, and we had to scramble, but we’ve got her stabilized, and I believe she’s out of the woods.”
“What happened to her?” he asked, fear ratcheting back up. He was half afraid his mind was going to break, bouncing from grief over his daughter to fear for Andie and back again.
“Her temperature spiked after the baby came. We don’t have a clear indication as to the source, but then her vitals crashed and we had to revive her. The fever points to an infection, so we gave her some high intensity antibiotics and some other medications to help stabilize her. We’ve drawn some labs, and at this point I’m pretty confident she’s in the clear, but we’re going to monitor her for a few days just to be safe. We’ll know more once the test results come back. I just wanted to give you an update on where we were. I knew the wait must’ve been making you frantic.”
“It was,” he told her. “Thank you.” Before he could ask, Kiki’s watery voice broke in and beat him to it.
“Can we see her?”
“Yes. She’s resting and a little loopy still, but she’s alert.”
Kiki was out the door first, her murmured thank you barely audible. Luke was right on her heels.
When they reached the doorway,Luke hesitated. Andie lay on sheets as pale and washed-out as she was. Her face was expressionless, and the lack of displayed emotion made her appear shell-shocked. Her eyes were empty, glassy orbs, and when she turned them his way, he wondered if she actually saw anything at all, because her expression remained as vacant as a mannequin’s. The sight nearly broke him in two.
Kiki didn’t hesitate. The tiny artist let out a half-muffled sob, strode right to the bed, and climbed on. She should have looked awkward or ridiculous, clamoring onto Andie’s bed like a child, but she looked as natural and comforting as a puppy when she wrapped around her friend. Once settled, Kiki had Andie’s head cradled to her heart, one arm under her rubbing soothing circles on her back while the other stroked the grieving mother’s hair. She spoke softly, words of comfort and love, and Luke watched Andie’s icy-cold remoteness begin to melt under the onslaught of love and compassion. A moment ago, Luke would’ve given anything to see animation of any kind in Andie. Now, as her face filled with emotions too deep and terrible for words, he wished to send her mind back to wherever it had found refuge. Because watching anguish burst through that protective numbness about brought him to his knees.
“I had a girl,” Andie sobbed out. “It was a-a g-g-girl.”
“Shh,” Kiki soothed, “I know. Shhh. I love you. Oh, sweetie, it’s so awful. I’m so, so sorry. Shhh, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. I know. I know it hurts. It hurts so fucking much.” She was kissing Andie on the temple, forehead, and on top of her sweat-soaked curls repeatedly, like she was trying to force comfort into her. Luke loved her then and knew whatever strange, outlandish, or awkwardly naked things she did in the future, he would never again have a problem with the quirky artist. She loved Andie, and so now, Luke loved her.
He was rooted to the spot, unable to move forward. What could he say to her? What could he do? How in the hell could he offer her any comfort when he felt hollowed out by his own loss and grief? Then Andie’s drenched, bloodshot eyes met his, and when she looked at him this time, he saw she wasthere. The vacant stare was no longer. Luke clearly saw that the pain she was engulfed in equaled his own, and he found he could move forward after all. Like Kiki, he couldn’t fix what hurt, but he could hurt with her. He sat on the bedside opposite Kiki, took Andie’s free hand in both his, braced his elbows next to her hip, bent his head to press his lips against the back of her hand, and held there. Tears—God, would they ever dry up?—dripped steadily down his cheeks, and he let them come.
“Dad?” Logan stood in the doorway, looking as forlorn as a lost toddler, and Jax was just behind him with a supportive hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, son,” Luke told him, knowing the inner struggle his son was contending with. “It’s good you came, but you don’t need to stay. Go home, see to the chores that can’t wait, and I’ll keep you posted about what’s happening here. Okay?”
“Okay.” Relief wilted his shoulders as the tension left him. Logan looked directly at Andie for the first time, and Luke felt a new stab of pain when he saw his son’s own heartbreak reflected in his expression. “Andie? I’m so s-s-sorry. I really am.”
A sob caught in the back of Andie’s throat, and she didn’t seem to be able to speak, but she nodded at him, and Logan quietly backed away and left.
Jax looked after him for a moment then entered the room to stand at the foot of the bed. He snagged one of the nearby chairs with a foot and sat in it, holding Andie’s foot, because her hands were taken, and Luke watched as he offered what comfort he could. The two men’s eyes met over the woman they both hung onto, and something shifted between them. As Luke gazed into her former friend’s eyes, he felt the years and old hurts melt further away and knew that going forward Jax was back in his life.
Luke found he was grateful for it. He wished it had been the happy birth of his child that brought about this reconciliation instead of the loss of her, but he was grateful nonetheless. As these years had passed, he missed Jax, not Christy, and underneath all the pain, there had always been a yearning for his best friend. After some time—and it was going to take a long time, he knew—he was going to be happy again. He looked back at Andie; they all were.
Chapter 18
Agent Max Shimmer was going blind. When his supervisor first tapped him for this case, he’d been elated. Get out of the city for a while, take on an interesting country case, and work with a small local police department that had a reputation for cooperation. If he was honest with himself—and he was always honest with himself—he thought of this as a working holiday. Arrogance had convinced him he’d be able to solve this case within a few hours and then take a weekend to explore the countryside.
“Asshole,” he muttered, then muttered again when he went to take a glug of the coffee that was keeping him upright and found the cup empty, “Fuck.” He set down the mug with a snap and scrubbed his hands over his face as if he could rub the fog from his brain.
He'd expected slap dash notes and half-assed interviews. What he found was meticulous notes, interviews with people connected to each of the girls to the tenth degree in some places, and every crime scene photographed and documented down to the soil and mineral samples. That damn sheriff hadn’t missed a step, and every time Max opened the files, that fact was again pounded into him as he poured over the other man’s notes.
