Whoa.“You’re overreacting to a simple question, Mother.” Adeline backed off. This wasn’t going to evolve into a battle. She hadn’t come here for that. “But if discussing the case upsets you that much, we won’t talk about it.” Jesus Christ. It was a simple question.
“Good.” Her mother picked up the plate Adeline had used and started toward the sink.
This conversation had officially gone from odd to totally bizarre. Did Adeline stay or go or apologize or what?
The plate crashed to the floor. Adeline jerked at the sound. Broken china and cookie remains lay scattered over the linoleum. Her mother stood, a step from the sink, her back ramrod straight, and turned to Adeline. That she didn’t say something or rush to clean up the mess triggered an alarm that Adeline didn’t want to acknowledge.
She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but couldn’t come up with the right words, so she covered the two steps that separated them and crouched down to pick up the mess on the floor.
Her mother swayed.
“Mom, you okay?” Adeline shot to her feet. Barely caught her mother as she crumpled.
“Mom?”
Her mother’s eyes were wide with pain and fear. She tried to speak ... couldn’t. The fingers of one hand clutched at her chest.
Shit. Shit. Shit.Adeline lowered her mother to the floor. “It’s okay. I’m calling for help.” Adeline reached for her cell.
Pounding on the front door echoed through the house. She ignored it. Keeping one eye on her mother, she gave the 911 operator the necessary information.
“Addy!”
Wyatt. He’d obviously opened the front door and stuck his head inside.
“Kitchen!” she shouted back.
Irene’s eyes rolled back and her body tensed.
Adeline dropped the phone. Checked her mother’s carotid pulse. Where the hell was her pulse?
Wyatt stamped into the room. “Why in the Sam Hill was the door unlocked?”
Adeline looked up at him, fear crushing her windpipe. “Help me.”
30
Singing River Hospital
Pascagoula, Mississippi; 6:37 p.m.
Adeline sat in the molded plastic chair in the deserted waiting room. The smell of pain and sickness had invaded her lungs. She felt cold. The stupid Christmas tree in the corner mocked her.
It was the day after Christmas and she’d done this to her mother. She truly was a bad daughter. A really bad daughter.
All these years she’d thought she had escaped the evil Cooper genes, but she’d been wrong.
Heart attack.Her mother had suffered a heart attack. Not a massive episode, the doctor had assured during the brief update Adeline had gotten half an hour ago, but enough to admit her mother for additional testing and further observation. Just in case.
As soon as Irene was settled Adeline could see her. They’d run her out of the ER exam room because her presence seemed to distress the patient.
Bad, bad, bad. She was a bad daughter.
“This isn’t your fault.” Wyatt sat down next to her and shoved a cup of coffee her way.
“You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be.” He gave up and set the coffee on a table next to a stack of out-of-date magazines. “You love your mother. Yourmother loves you. Nothing you said or asked prompted this event. You have to know that.”