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Olivia’s gaze went to her partner, and the woman in her early forties rose. “Let’s step into the conference room off the hall. This way.”
Once they were in the conference room, Olivia frowned. “What’s going on?”
Lainie pressed her hands together and glanced at James. He shot her an encouraging smile, and she blew out a low breath. “I need to know about that night that you came to my house. The night Adam shot me and I ... um ... shot him.”
Ivy nodded, compassion in her blue eyes. “Of course. What do you need to know?”
“He was dead when you got there, right?”
“Well, he didn’t have a heartbeat when we got there,” Olivia said, “but we managed to get one in the ambulance.”
Lainie gasped, then gaped. “What? B-but I tried to find a pulse and—and he wasn’t breathing.” She was stuttering and couldn’t seem to help it. “I checked.”
“You were in shock, Lainie,” Ivy said.
“Maybe, but I know when a pulse is there and when it’s not. And it wasn’t.”
“No, when you checked he didn’t. You didn’t miss that. But we shocked him,” Olivia said, “several times. And got a heartbeat. He was still alive when we dropped him at the hospital. I don’t know how, but he was.”
Lainie had never actually fainted in her life. She’d passed out from loss of blood. Once. Eighteen months ago. But she’d never fainted from shock. Today might be the day that happened.
“Lainie?”
James’ voice came from a distance, echoing in her ears.
“Lainie?” A hard hand gripped her bicep and gave her a soft shake.
She pulled in a breath, and he led her to one of the black cushioned chairs at the table. She sat.“He was still alive when we dropped himat the hospital. He was still alive—”
“Lainie!”
She jerked her chin at Olivia and Ivy. “Alive?” The two women nodded. “But ... he was dead. He...” What could she say? Olivia and Ivy wouldn’t lie to her. If they said Adam had a heartbeat at the hospital, then he had one. But ... how? “So, he died on the table? In the ER? In surgery?” She didn’t know. She’d never looked at his records and now they’d disappeared.
Ivy shook her head. “I don’t know. We never heard.”
“There’s no record of him ever arriving at the hospital.”
“Well, I can assure you, he did,” Ivy said.
Lainie pressed a hand to her forehead, willing herself to think. “I don’t know who his doctor was.” But someone at the hospital would know. All she had to do was look up the schedule for that day, see who was working, and ask. Surely they’d remember working on him. Right? No, not right. They worked so many traumas, Adam wouldhave just been one more in the lineup. She glanced at James. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Not right now.”
Lainie looked at the women. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” Olivia said. “We’re so glad you survived that night. I’ve looked for you a few times at the hospital, but I guess our paths just haven’t crossed.”
Because Lainie had made sure of that. Shame pushed heat into her cheeks. “I’ll look for you and be sure to say hey if I see you.”
They said their goodbyes, and James led Lainie back to the car. She grabbed the key at the base of her throat and twisted it, rubbing her thumb over the rough edge. Exhaustion threaded through her. A mental exhaustion to go with the physical. “I want to go home.”
“Lainie...”
“But that’s not an option. Right. I can stay at Jesslyn’s or the hospital.” She smiled. “Jesslyn has a really good alarm system.”
“Or we can go back to the lake house,” he said. “I like the security there in spite of the incident on the water yesterday. I turned one of the cameras on the area. If there’s movement there, I’ll get a notification.”
She shrugged. “Okay, the lake house is fine.” As long as she had something resembling a bed, she didn’t care where it was. “In the meantime, I need to go to Bill’s Storage on Carmichael.”
