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Prologue
Samara
"Ms.Lansing?"
I glance up from the square section of gray carpeting at my feet, my bleary gaze landing on a blonde in cheerful pink scrubs with brightly colored rubber ducks stamped across them. She gives me a kind smile, her blue eyes full of sympathy.
"That's me," I say, roughly clearing my throat.
"I'm Carly," the blonde says. "I'm here to take you back to meet your niece."
I nod mutely, a little afraid I might cry if I try to say anything else. Until forty-eight hours ago, I didn't even know I had a niece. My older sister, Siobhan, rarely shared much of her life with me. After our mom died three years ago, I resented her for that. I felt like she abandoned me. Now, I find myself questioning everything I thought I knew. Why didn't she just come back home? Was it her choice to keep me in the dark about her life?
I don't think I'll ever have the answer to those questions now.
"I'll be right here." Troian Bronx, my boss and closest friend, squeezes my hand, letting me know she's here for me. Her bright green eyes shine with empathy.
"Thank you," I whisper, beyond grateful to her for making this trip with me. I'm not sure what I'd do without her. It's been an emotional rollercoaster, and it's nowhere near over. Today, I meet Scout, my six-week-old niece. Tomorrow, we bury her mom. Somewhere between now and then, I process the fact that my niece is gravely ill, and my sister was murdered by a motorcycle club.
I'm not even sure where to begin.
Right here, Samara, I tell myself.You start right here.It's the same thing I always tell myself when I'm overwhelmed and under pressure. So far, the mantra has gotten me through every tough day I've faced in my life. It'll just have to get me through this one too.
I'll meet Scout, talk to her doctors, and find out what we're facing. I'll grieve the sister I loved fiercely…the one I'm no longer sure I ever really knew at all. How did she get tangled up with a motorcycle club in Texas? I knew Danny Spangler wasn't a good guy, but I never suspected he was in an MC. I never suspected he'd kill my sister and die in a shootout with police either. I would have come to Texas and dragged her out of there myself if I'd known what was happening.
"The PICU is this way," Carly says, her voice soft as she leads me down gayly painted hallways. Children's hospitals are the saddest of all to me. Murals and bright colors meant to soothe the kids just remind parents and caregivers that this is no place for a child. "It can be a little overwhelming, but Miss Scout is a sassy little thing. She's surprised all of us, to be quite honest."
"What…" I clear my throat again. "What's wrong with her heart?"
"Maybe we should wait for the doctors to talk to you," Carly says, hesitation drifting through her eyes.
"Please," I whisper. "No one will tell me anything." I've talked to an army of social workers and police officers over the last two days, but they've danced around Scout's condition, delicately referring to it in euphemisms that only worry me more.
Carly hesitates for another minute and then sighs softly. "She has a congenital heart defect known as truncus arteriosus. It means that she was born with only one blood vessel leading out of the heart instead of two."
"Oh." Fear churns in my stomach, souring it. I should have pushed harder for Troian to be allowed to go back with me, hospital rules about immediate family only be damned. Her husband, Gage, is a heart surgeon, and she had a transplant as a kid. If anyone can make sense of whatever medical mumbo jumbo they're about to throw at me, she can. "How bad is it?"
"We should wait for the doctors," Carly says, her voice firmer this time, but not unkind.
"Of course," I mumble, my heart sinking. I follow her blindly down one corridor and then another. We pass through a set of security doors, turn right, and then pass through another set. A blue placard beside the second set announces that we've reached the PICU.
"You'll have to scrub up," Carly says, pointing me toward a sink.
She follows me over and instructs me on how to properly scrub up nearly to my elbows. Once she's satisfied, we cross to another set of doors. These open automatically. Organized chaos ensues as soon as they do. The unit is organized in little pods with glass walls and doors between them. A nurse sits between every two, monitoring the patients inside. Alarms and equipment beep all over the unit, with doctors, nurses, and support staff swiftly moving from pod to pod.
Unlike the rest of the hospital, there are no murals or happy paintings here. Everything is subdued, designed for function and expediency more than comfort. The sight tugs at my heartstrings. No hospital is a place for small children and infants, but a critical care unit like this is even less so. The nurse's station in the center is brightly lit, but the individual rooms are darker, allowing the children inside to rest as quietly as possible. Those I can see are all tiny, most not even out of their toddler years.
Carly leads me around the nurse's station toward a room on the right. Wires and machines run this way and that from the metal crib in the center of the room. My breath catches in my throat when I see the baby sleeping peacefully in the center. My heart beats against my breastbone in jarring thuds I feel all the way into the soles of my feet. Her shock of raven-black hair…her pale, porcelain skin…those long, long eyelashes…. She looks just like Siobhan.
I move toward the crib on silent feet, my gaze riveted to the angel inside. She's so tiny. I can't even make sense of the jumble of wires hooked up to her. She has oxygen cannulas in her nose with a thin tube running down her right nostril. Tape and a board hold IVs in place on her arm and right leg. A pulse-ox monitor wraps around one tiny toe. Even with the oxygen, her lips have a blue tinge to them. Her skin is all but translucent, her ribs visible with every labored breath she takes.
My eyes water at the sight, a lump rising in my throat.
"She's sedated," Carly says, coming up beside me. "It helps keep her comfortable."
Comfortable for what?I want to ask…but I don't. I already know.
She's dying.
