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I jumped out of bed and yanked on my pants. “Where is she?”
“At Cedars-Sinai, in LA.”
“Will you stay with her until I get there? I’m not sure how fast I can get a flight, but I’m heading to the airport now.”
“I’m not going anywhere, son. I’ll see you whenever you arrive.”
CHAPTER 33
Beck
A MAN STOPPEDme in the hallway as I charged toward the ICU’s double doors.
“Beck?”
“William?”
He nodded and extended his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course.” I stupidly hadn’t asked for his number earlier when he’d called. I’d phoned the number on my caller ID, but he must’ve called from the hospital because it brought me to the Cedars-Sinai switchboard, and I couldn’t get anyone there to tell me anything, no matter how many times I tried. Needless to say, I’d been ready to crawl out of my skin during what turned out to be the nine hours between William’s call and my arrival. I kept thinking the worst would happen before I got here. And now that he was in the hall and not with her… I swallowed. “Is she okay?”
William nodded. “She’s about the same as when I called. The nurses are changing one of her ports, so they asked me to step out for fifteen minutes.”
I looked to the double doors and back to him, raking a hand through my hair. “Okay.”
He gestured away from the ICU. “The coffee is drinkable in the machine. How about I grab us two?”
I nodded. It took every bit of willpower to wait while he punched numbers into the vending machine and got us two paper cups of coffee. But William looked as frazzled as I felt, so I thought he might need a few quiet minutes.
He passed one paper cup to me. “Here you go. Sludge with milk.”
“Thanks.”
“So…” He sighed. “Like I said on the phone, my daughter was very specific with her instructions when she gave me your number. I was only permitted to use it if she…”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I get it. You don’t have to say it. I don’t think I could either.”
He smiled sadly. “Thanks.”
“What happened? Did she have another heart attack? Or has she just deteriorated over the last two-and-a-half months?”
William’s brows puckered. “Do you not know about the surgery?”
“Surgery?”
He closed his eyes. “I’m going to kill my daughter.”
“What surgery did she have?”
“Nora had a heart transplant four days ago. She told me before she went in that she’d told you. I had no idea you didn’t know.”
My brain was still stuck on the first sentence. “Nora had a transplant?”
He nodded.
“But she wasn’t even on the list.”
“She wasn’t until a few months ago. One day she received a FedEx with a letter inside. She spent the entire day locked in her room crying, but the next morning, she came out and told me she’d changed her mind and had an appointment with her cardiologist to get on the list.”
