AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"You were at your appointment, and you were happy. I didn’t want to take that away from you, not before I was sure it was Mom."
"All right. Where are you now?" Dani asked.
"I'm in her house. They gave me her purse, so I had her address and her keys. I thought I could find some answers."
"Did you?"
"Not yet."
"Text me the address. I'll leave as soon as I find someone to cover the store."
"Maybe you should just wait, Dani. I can tell you what's going on. I don't want you to be under stress."
"Too late for that," she snapped. "And I need to see her for myself."
"Can Steve come with you?"
"He's in court today."
"I hate for you to drive here alone. I don't think Steve would like it, either."
"Well, it's not your decision or Steve's. I'm coming. You should have told me yesterday."
"I didn't want to ruin your night. I love you, Dani."
"I love you, too." She paused. "Maybe you're right, though. Maybe I shouldn't go to San Francisco. Perhaps you should just come home. Mom stayed away from us for twenty years. She didn't want us in her life, Brynn. You don't owe her anything."
"I have to know what happened. I need to find out why she left us. But I can do this on my own." I didn't want to do it on my own, but I did want to protect my sister.
There was another long silence. "No, I'll come. But Brynn, do you really think the truth will make it better?"
"It can't make it worse," I said. But as I ended the call, I wondered if that was true.
CHAPTERSIX
After talking to Dani,I refilled my coffee mug, cleaned up the kitchen, and then called the hospital. Several minutes later, I got Dr. Elizabeth Ryker on the phone. She was a sharp, fast-talking woman, who used a lot of medical terms that made little sense to me.
"Can you just tell me if she's going to recover, if she'll wake up today?" I asked when she finally took a breath.
"We're going to keep her sedated for another twenty-four hours," she replied. "We're monitoring her condition closely, and we're hopeful that tomorrow we'll be able to make additional decisions about her continuing care and prognosis."
"Hopeful?" I asked, grabbing on to that one word. "Does that mean she will recover?"
"I can't be more definitive, but your mother is holding her own, and that's good."
"Okay. Thank you. I'll be in later today to see her." After ending the call, I tapped my fingers restlessly on the kitchen counter, then went out to the car to grab my suitcase. I'd been in such a hurry to leave the day before, I had tossed random items of clothing into my overnight bag, not sure what I'd need or how long I'd be gone. Now, I was glad I'd probably over packed since I had no idea when I'd be leaving.
When I left the house, I saw the truck still in the driveway. I had assumed it belonged to Kade, although there were two garage doors, so maybe it was my mother's vehicle. It seemed strange that she would drive a truck, but then, what did I really know about her?
As I moved down the path to the sidewalk, I saw splashes of dark red on the pavement, and I knew instantly that it was blood, my mother's blood. I stopped abruptly, turning in one direction and then the other. I wondered where the shot had come from. Surely the police had some idea, judging from the way she'd been hit, the projection of the bullets. But if they did, they certainly hadn't shared it with me.
It was a nice neighborhood, with mostly three-story buildings that housed one or two units. I'm sure every house was expensive, which made me wonder how my mother had bought herself a home. Being a music teacher wouldn't pay that much. Just another question to add to the list.
As I opened my trunk, I glimpsed someone staring out the window at me from the home directly across the street. Then the curtain fell. It was probably nothing, but I felt uneasy after what had happened last night. Someone had clearly taken advantage of my mother being in the hospital to break into her house. I needed to be careful.
I grabbed my overnight bag, locked the car, then hurried back to the house, thinking I probably should have told Dani I would meet her somewhere else. But she'd ask a million questions why, and in the end, she'd want to see where our mom lived.
Back in the house, I took a brief shower, made quicker by the fact that my mom's shampoo smelled exactly like her and made me feel very emotional. At risk of sobbing my way through a long shower, I hopped out and changed into dark jeans and a cream-colored sweater, feeling significantly more alert and ready to take action. After considering my options, I left the house and headed to the school where my mother worked.
