Adeline had to get out of here. She didn’t want to be in this room with him any longer. She bent down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Love you,” she murmured. Then she raised up and said to Cyrus, “Get out.” She didn’t want him alone in this room with her mother.
He held her gaze a moment before rolling his chair back from the bed and moving toward the door. She went around him and opened it wide. Hatred seared through her veins. Nothing he’d said had changed how she felt. He was a selfish bastard.
Those beady brown eyes locked with hers one last time. “You remember what I said, Addy. You do it for your mother.”
She bit her lips together to prevent telling him to go to hell. She would find Jamison all right and she would see that he got what he deserved.
But it wouldn’t have anything to do with her uncle or anything he had to say.
When Everett had ushered Cyrus away, Adeline took one last look at her mother, then walked out of the room and let the door close behind her.
The only thing she could do for her mother now was to see that justice was served.
“Let’s go,” she said to Wyatt. “We need to get a new search started.” The old woman, Nichols, had insisted that Prescott and Arnold were being held in a building near the water. Around here that could be most anywhere, but they had to start somewhere.
“Addy.” Wyatt stopped her, a hand on her arm, when she would have headed for the elevators.
She saw the worry in his eyes. “Don’t say it, Wyatt. Don’t say anything. Let’s just find this bastard.”
He hesitated but then nodded.
Her mind spun with possibilities as they started for the elevators. “We need to know how this thing started.” Since their identities had been protected and Grayson hadn’t spoken to anyone related to this investigation, the answer could very well lie with the steps Prescott had taken to find the truth. They needed to determine who else Prescott may have spoken to here or elsewhere. Since she’d disappeared in the area and Adeline’s mother hadn’t given Prescott what she wanted, had someone else? Or had Jamison followed her here?
Who had started this thing? Prescott or Jamison? Bottom line, they needed to know who else might be involved in this somehow. Someone Prescott or Jamison had spoken to. Detectives Ferguson and Cummings were questioning Prescott’s parents again, considering what they’d learned in the past twenty-four hours. Arnold’s parents were deceased. But someone somewhere had to know something.
Since they’d had no luck finding Jamison or the victims from the perspective of how, when, and where they had gone missing, the goal was to continue looking, of course, but also to reconstruct the steps taken by each known player and see where the map led. To find the spot where their paths intersected.
“Just so you know,” Wyatt said, “whatever steps we take, I’m not letting you out of my sight for a second.”
“I know how to take care of myself, Wyatt.” Her mother was dead, yes. Adeline felt vulnerable, yes. But she wasn’t going to tolerate him starting that whole protective bullshit again. “I’ve had training, not tomention a decade of experience, that Prescott and Arnold don’t have. I figure that’s why Jamison is taking his time coming after me. He has to plan the event just right. And when he strikes, I’ll be ready.”
Wyatt started to argue—
“Ms. Cooper!”
Adeline turned back to the nurse’s station. “Yes?”
The nurse motioned for Adeline to return to the desk. Was she supposed to sign something?
Her mother was dead. More of that overwhelming misery rose inside her.
Adeline turned, her movements on autopilot, and headed back to the nurse’s station. Wyatt stayed close behind her. A man stood at the counter, he glanced back once. Young. Not bald. Not Jamison. Adeline shook off the paranoia. Jamison wasn’t here. He’d already done the worst he could here. He would be watching Adeline, that was a certainty, but not this openly.
“Yes?” Adeline glanced from the nurse who’d called her name to the young man still loitering at the counter and back to the nurse.
“This was delivered for you.” The nurse gestured to the huge bouquet of flowers on the counter.
“I was told to bring the flowers here,” the young man explained. He shrugged. “I figured you were a patient.” Anticipation detonated deep in Adeline’s veins. She reached for the envelope, picked it up by the very top corner, and looked at the name written there.
Adeline Cooper.
What the hell?
While she considered the envelope, Wyatt started questioning the delivery guy.
A tinge of fear diluted the pounding adrenaline. “I need latex gloves,” Adeline said to anyone listening.
The nurse immediately collected a pair and passed them to Adeline. The delivery guy was sweating bullets, insisting he had no idea who ordered the flowers. It had been done by phone. All he did was write the message as ordered by the customer and hang around tosee that they were delivered to Adeline Cooper. Was he under arrest? he wanted to know.