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“Don’t leave this house, Aurora! Fuck.” I snatch my phone from my pocket and hit dial on the run, striding through the door and preparing to chase her outside if that’s the way she goes. But when she turns and heads up the stairs in the same breath Malone answers, I spin on my heels and head into the formal sitting room.
“Yeah?”
“Her mother is dying,” I bite out. “Like, right now. It’s happening. What plans have you got in place to get her there?”
“Banks! None,” he booms. “I’m not on Rory duty, you are! I’m busy searching for the guy hunting her down.”
“Her mother has minutes to live! We’re at the end. No way is it going down this way.”
“That hospital is overflowing with the carnage of some shit that happened this morning,” he argues. “A commuter accident or something. They have press on the front doors, and traffic is backed up so no one is driving from one end of this street to the other today. No one is moving unless you walk.”
“Another accident?” I growl. “Orchestrated by Vallejo’s men?”
“I don’t know, Banks. Maybe! Chances are they know the woman is on her last legs. If they want to be where the girl is, and they want things to be noisy so she gets popped during the mess, then yeah. Probably was them. It’s what I’d do.”
“Yeah,” I snarl, “color me surprised, Mafia Boy. So what the fuck is the plan? What do I do for this girl whose mother is on her deathbed?”
“I don’t know! It sucks, okay? I get it, I really do. But if she goes down there today, it’s not likely she’ll live to talk about it tomorrow. Now, I’m gonna move past the ‘Mafia Boy’ dig and allow you that grace, because you’re a little stressed right now, and you’re dealing with some big shit. We all are. But you’re wasting your time, and you’re wasting mine, by taking shots at me. Keep her at the fucking house. Keep her alive. If she needs to be angry at someone, tell her it’s on me. Make me her villain. You’ve already set me up to be the bad guy anyway, and I don’t give a fuck if she likes me or not. I just care that you keep her safe.”
“Malone! We can’t take this moment from her.”
“We don’t get a choice,” he snarls.
“And if it was your mother?” I demand. “Or mine. You’d just let her rot?”
“My mother is already dead,” he bites back. “She died alone. Probably in a shallow grave. I didn’t get to say goodbye either. But ya know what? I survived it. And right now, that’s all I need for Rory. To survive.”
Just like that, he kills our call and leaves me speechless for a beat. Reeling. Hurting for the girl upstairs. And for the mafioso kid who, if I take his word for it, never really wanted to be mafia in the first place.
“Fuccckkkk…” I crush my phone in one hand and push the other through my hair. Then I glance toward the ceiling as it creaks and moves beneath Aurora’s weight. Exhaling and dropping my head, I scroll my phone screen and hit dial on a different number.
A different person.
A back-up plan, because despite the words Rory spat at me, I did think ahead. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
Bringing the phone to my ear, I wait only a moment for the other end to connect and hear a woman’s saddened voice. “This is Brenda.”
“Hey, Brenda. This is Detective Banks.”
She sighs, heartbroken but accepting. “She can’t come down here, can she?”
“No,” I exhale. “She can’t. It’s not safe. How is Eleanor? I want it straight.”
“We’re at the end.” She takes on her nurse voice, and not that of the sweet, caring friend who wants to make this easier on a dying woman’s daughter. “Minutes,” she explains. “Perhaps an hour. I can’t say for sure at this point. But she’s already out.”
“Unconscious?” I question. “She won’t come back to say goodbye?”
“Unlikely. She’s floating on morphine, Detective. Now we wait for her heart to give out.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I draw a deep breath until my chest expands and my lungs ache, then I exhale again and start up the stairs. Slow. One torturously deliberate step at a time. “Let’s set the video up so she can see her mom and lie with her till it’s done. Turn the machines off so she doesn’t have to listen to them. She hates the sound of thebeep-beep-beep.”
“Yeah.” She’s already in the room. Already prepping things, just like we’d discussed. “I’ve removed Eleanor’s catheter and positioned her so she’s comfortable. Blankets are pulled up, and her gown is neat.” She pulls the phone from her ear and fusses with the screen so I hear the rustle and movement.
It takes her a moment, but she has the screen moving automatically from black to a video, so I get a blurry view of the hospital room I’ve already studied. The machines surrounding her. The IV pole with a bag hanging from it. “It’s time,” Brenda murmurs, setting the phone down on the bedside table, presenting me with a view of the frail and tiny woman. Eleanor’s skin is already a sickly gray. Her scalp, too shiny and bare. Her collarbones, too noticeable.
There’s nothing left but a beating heart.
But it’s that heart that has loved and carried Rory throughout her life. It’s that heart that fed her baby while she grew, and the same one that raised a little girl all on her own.
