Bones Don't Lie

Not something. His mother.

She lay on the floor, curled in a fetal position, her legs on the bathmat, her torso and face on the tile. Her face was turned away from him, but her body was still and her skin matched the bone-colored tiles.

He froze for half of a second, his heart stuttering, his gaze on her ribcage watching for respirations, but he saw none.

She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t.

Sharp called 911 while Lance muscled the door open enough to squeeze through sideways. Dropping to one knee, he rested two shaking fingers on his mother’s neck. Her pulse beat in a weak rhythm against his fingertips, and he caught the faint movement of her ribs as she took a shallow breath.

Relief rushed through him like a fighter jet. “She’s alive.”

Sharp gave the dispatcher the address and requested paramedics and an ambulance, then he climbed over her and crouched on the other side of her body in the small bathroom. Lance took her pulse and counted her respirations before moving her legs and opening the door all the way. Grabbing the blanket from her bed, he draped it over her.

“Maybe she fell and hit her head.” Sharp ran a gentle hand over her scalp. “I don’t feel any bumps or blood, but that doesn’t mean much.”

Lance stood and scanned the bathroom. When he’d first rushed in, he’d only seen her body. Now his gaze locked on to the sink and the two orange prescription bottles in the white bowl.

Both open. Both empty.

No!

She wouldn’t.

His gaze tracked back to his mother’s face.

Sharp had followed Lance’s gaze. He was tough, but his face paled as he took in the empty bottles.

Lance dropped to his knees. “Oh, Mom.” He bowed his head and put a hand on her forehead, then brushed a lock of hair away from her face. She didn’t react. Her eyelids didn’t even flutter. “I didn’t see this coming.”

Sharp grabbed his arm. “This is not. Your. Fault.”

“I know.” Lance took her hand in one of his. Her fingers were cold. He tugged the blanket over her shoulders, then checked her pulse and respirations again. “She seemed all right when I left her earlier. How could I have completely missed the signs? I was just here a few hours ago.”

“She’s breathing,” Sharp said. “Don’t count her out.”

Her heart rate was the same, but her respirations had slowed. He counted her breaths and kept his fingers on her pulse point, ready to start CPR the instant her breathing ceased or her heart stopped beating.

Time seemed to tick by in slow motion.

Even with his mother’s long and troubled history, he still couldn’t believe she’d try to kill herself.

Ten minutes later, sirens approached. Lance went to the door and let the paramedics in. They rushed the gurney into the bedroom and left it just outside the bathroom while they assessed his mother. Lance stood outside the door, hands curled into frustrated fists at his sides.

Sharp put his hand on Lance’s shoulder, pulling him backward. “Give them some room.”

The medics took her vital signs and started an IV, their rapid efficiency projecting the severity of the situation. One injected something into the IV line.

Sharp scrubbed a hand across the top of his head. Disbelief creased his face. “This doesn’t seem like your mom. Even when she’s been self-destructive, she’s never been suicidal. In fact, when her anxiety takes over, she isn’t thinking clearly enough to do anything except crawl into a dark place.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Lance said.

“Exactly what did she take?” one of the paramedics asked.

“The bottles are in the sink,” Lance said. “One’s for depression. She takes the other for anxiety and panic attacks. I had just refilled them last week so the bottles were nearly full. The anxiety medication is relatively new.”

Once, she took several more medications, but the new drug seemed to take the place of several of her old ones. Lance dropped his head and hooked a hand around the back of his neck.

Sharp frowned. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah.” But Lance didn’t know how he felt. His body was numb. But there was also pain. Pain buried so deep in his heart, it was going to take a scalpel to carve it out.

“Respiratory depression.” A paramedic called out. “We’re going to intubate her.”

Lance closed his eyes, his mother’s words replaying in his head.

I don’t want to be a burden on you.

Had she been afraid another breakdown would be hard on him?

The paramedics loaded his mother onto the gurney and wheeled her out.

Anger, at himself, at the situation, at the fucking world, overcame him for a minute. He turned to the wall and let it out. His fist went through the sheetrock. Pain shot through his knuckles, dissipating his rage.

Sharp grabbed his hand and examined it. “Good thing you didn’t hit a stud.”

His knuckles were scraped, but the damage was minor.

Sharp lifted Lance’s keys from his hand. “I’m driving.”

Lance didn’t argue. They went outside. He climbed into the passenger seat and stared at the swirling red ambulance lights all the way to the hospital.

The ambulance pulled into the ER bay.

“You should call Morgan.” Sharp parked the car in the emergency lot.

Lance shook his head. “Not yet. May as well wait until we find out how she is.”

“Morgan would want to know. She’d want to be here.”

Lance checked the time. Seven o’clock. He pictured Morgan sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, supervising bath time, then curling up with her kids to read bedtime stories. “There’s nothing she can do right now. I’ll call her as soon as I know something.”

The only thing to do was wait.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Morgan paced the living room. Picturing the nasty photos and message, she didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Both worked, she decided.

“Stella took the photographs to the fingerprint examiner,” Grandpa said. “She’ll call when she has some information.”

“There won’t be fingerprints.” Morgan’s stalker was far too clever. Her blood iced over when she thought of him parked on her street, using a telephoto lens to take pictures of her hugging her kids.

“We’re safe here.” Grandpa tapped the blanket on his lap. He’d stashed his own handgun under it. “We’re both armed. We have an excellent security system, and Rocket will let us know if anyone’s outside.”

She took a deep breath. Grandpa was right. Her sister had also arranged for patrol units to drive past the house during the night.

“On another note, I finished reviewing Sharp’s file on Vic Kruger’s disappearance,” Grandpa said. “He crossed every t and dotted every i.” Grandpa frowned. “I can’t think of any other leads he could have chased at the time.”

“Thanks for trying.”

“I’m happy to be useful. I wish I could have helped more.” Grandpa rolled himself away from the table. “I’ll be in my room.”

“I’m going to bed too. Goodnight.” Morgan set her gun on top of her armoire, out of reach of the children. Then she put on her pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt and got into bed. She was still staring at the ceiling when her phone buzzed. She grabbed it from the table, hoping it was an update from Lance. Snoozer and Rocket stirred, then went back to sleep.