THURSDAY, 3:24 A.M.
ST. JOHN MEDICAL CENTER
In the hospital waiting room, Harper sat hunched in an anything-but-comfortable chair, her mind reeling as she waited for what seemed like a lifetime for news on Emily. The pain from her head wound throbbed back to life and now she had additional bruises and scratches to contend with. But she ignored them.
Emily was in trouble.
Harper prayed the hardest she’d ever prayed and sipped from a cup of the worst coffee she’d ever tasted. Vending-machine coffee.
You’re all I have, Emily . . .
When Dr. Drew, her therapist, suggested she take time to photograph something else entirely, she and Emily started out on this trip. A healing trip.
The irony was that she ended the trip—on their last day—photographing a murder. And now Emily was hurt because of it.
She wanted to rail at herself for running away, but Heath McKade’s face came to mind. His words floated through her heart and mind—confirming, reassuring, and soothing.
“You didn’t look away this time. You took those pictures. You looked at the killer. You watched him . . .”
Commit the murder. He hadn’t said those words out loud, but she knew that’s what he had meant.
She refused to let the tears fall and instead tried to take what he’d said to heart. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had changed. She sure hoped so, because she had made the decision to stick around. She’d told Heath she wanted to help find the woman’s killer. Those had been bold words, bolder than she truly felt inside. But somehow Heath had understood. She could see it in his eyes. So when he assured her that she’d done the right thing, it was like he was reaching into her brokenness and pushing the pieces a little closer together.
She’d tried to do that for him twice—after his mother left him and his brothers and then again after she died in the fire.
Now Harper wished she hadn’t pushed him away tonight. She’d been the one to call him and ask for help. She’d justified that call with the fact that her survival, Emily’s survival, might depend on him living close enough to help, but part of her had wanted to reach out to someone familiar.
Not anyone. Who was she kidding? She had wanted Heath, when she shouldn’t have.
And then what had she done? She’d cut him off, though gently. She’d seen it in his eyes—he understood that she hadn’t wanted to see him again. That hurt her too. Something about Heath had gotten to her.
Instinctively, she knew he was someone she could fall for, but she’d made a habit of keeping her distance to avoid entanglements.
A nurse approached. “Ms. Reynolds?”
Harper almost spilled her coffee as she shot from the chair. “My sister . . . is she all right?”
“She’s in a room now. You can see her. Follow me.”
That wasn’t exactly an answer, but Harper would take it. It was something. Her sister was alive. She had survived. She had a room. Harper followed the nurse to Emily’s room and almost crumbled to the floor when she walked in and saw her lying on the hospital bed.
Was she asleep? Or was she still unconscious? Tubes connecting to three bags of fluid ran from her arm. Monitors were hooked up. Heart and oxygen. A blood pressure cuff expanded and tightened on her arm.
A white-coated woman turned to her. “Are you Ms. Reynolds?”
“Yes. I’m Harper, Emily’s sister.” Her gut twisted into a tight knot.
“I’m Dr. Malus. Your sister is in a coma. We did a CT scan to rule out a subdural hematoma.”
“Excuse me, a what?”
“Bleeding on the brain.”
“Oh.” Harper found herself sitting. “Is she going to be okay? What’s her prognosis?”
“She’s alive. She’s breathing on her own. For now, we monitor her. We run tests. We wait for her to wake up.”
“And how long will that be?” Harper held her breath, held herself together as she took in the doctor’s words. The movement of her mouth.
“Twelve hours. Twelve months. We can’t know for sure.”
Harper couldn’t look at the doctor anymore. She stared at her sister. Eventually, Dr. Malus left her alone with Emily.
Harper had refused to cry while she waited. But as soon as she was alone, right on cue, her vision blurred. She couldn’t have held back the tears if she wanted to now.
She would let herself feel the pain and get it over with. “Oh, Em . . . I’m so, so sorry.”
She wasn’t sure how many minutes passed before she was able to move her feet—put one foot in front of the other—and step closer until she could touch her sister’s hand. She pressed her fingertips to Emily’s skin.
“Em,” she whispered. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know. I pray you can. I’ve heard it’s possible. Please wake up. Please come back to me. I’ll spend the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am that all this happened, though I know you’d grow tired of hearing it. Please. You’re all I have.” Thinking about Emily’s condition in that way seemed completely selfish.
“I’m going to make sure the sheriff gets the person behind this.” At the very least, she’d stay on top of Taggart’s investigation. Make sure he saw it through. If necessary, she’d offer her assistance and hope he would take it. Anything less would be running away again. Emily wouldn’t get justice, and Harper couldn’t fail Emily.
One thing she knew—without help, she couldn’t find out who had attacked them tonight.
Harper needed someone who held sway in this community as well as with the sheriff.
She knew just the person. If only she hadn’t pushed him away.
At some point—minutes or hours later, she didn’t know—Harper realized she’d fallen asleep in a chair close to Emily. She wanted to pray but had no more words. God knew, didn’t he?
Except for the monitors, the room was silent.
Sterile and lonely.
Heath had prayed for her sister in his truck. She thought back to his rich voice and heartfelt words of faith. Someone at his ranch had been injured. And Harper had acted like such a jerk. She hadn’t even asked him about the injuries before she’d told Heath goodbye. Thinking of Heath made the room seem less lonely, which made no sense.
Harper eased from the seat, her bruises aching and scrapes burning. A paramedic had put a few bandages here and there, but she’d refused more than that. She wasn’t that hurt. No. Emily had taken the worst of it all.
She kissed Emily on the cheek. Gently ran her hand over her sister’s forehead, avoiding the obvious knot. If only she hadn’t dropped Emily, but would that have made a difference?
“I need to see a friend, Em. I need to go pay my respects. I need to see Heath. You’ve always liked him, remember?” And so have I.
He might have left already, but at the very least she could find out how Leroy was doing.
“I’ll be back, Em, I promise.”
Like she’d promised not to drop her. Harper turned to exit the room.
Detective Moffett blocked her way. “We need to talk.”