LUCY: The Complete Lucy Kendall Series with Bonus Content (The Lucy Kendall Series Book 5)

by Stacy Green

  24

  I had no memory of the drive to the hospital or the race to the nurse’s station for directions to the cardiac unit. I only knew that the remaining shred of my heart had been yanked out.

  The waiting room on the left, the nurse said. My shoes squeaked against the floor as I ran into the room in search of my mother.

  Joan sat on the edge of a chair in one of the waiting rooms, staring out of the small window. She didn’t acknowledge me, seemingly focused on the trees outside. But I saw the reflection of her eyes flickering back and forth, on high alert.

  “What happened?”

  Her narrow shoulders rounded, the tissue at her mouth now. This was the sort of moment a drama queen like her dreamed up. She needed to be trussed up and coddled, to be the belle of the pity ball. She probably envisioned me dropping to my knees in front of her and offering my life in exchange for her happiness.

  “Mother. Talk to me, or I’ll get a doctor.”

  In the window, her gaze hardened. She slowly turned to face me. Mascara blotted beneath her right eye, foundation caked into the lines of her face–she looked properly grieved.

  “He had a massive heart attack.”

  “From the atrial fibrillation?” That wasn’t supposed to happen. Atrial fibrillation usually caused stroke, and Mac took his Coumadin religiously. Patients on blood thinners lived with AFib for years.

  “A clogged artery,” Joan said. “Something about a widow maker.” She grabbed a fresh tissue and pressed it to her face. “I’m too young to be a widow.”

  Hell if I’d soothe her. “People recover from massive heart attacks all the time. It’ll take awhile, but he’ll be all right.”

  Joan’s head wagged back and forth. “We didn’t have any warning. He just slumped over in the chair talking to that agent.” Her expression twisted. “Which you sent, didn’t you? Asking those questions. This is your fault. And look at you! How dare you show up here looking so disgusting!”

  I’d forgotten about my dirty shorts and stringy hair that couldn’t seem to remain in its knot. Combined with no sleep and desperation, I looked like hell. As if any of that mattered right now.

  “How long was Mac without oxygen?”

  Joan started to cry again. A better daughter would have comforted her, but I needed answers. Thomas Jefferson’s cardiac ward teamed with busy nurses and the occasional solemn doctor. I grabbed the first person I encountered. “Mac Kendall. I’m his stepdaughter, and I need to talk to his doctor.”

  The petite nurse gave me the once over but appeared unfazed about my tattered appearance. She patted my hand. “I think the attending is with another patient, but I’ll tell him you’re here. I’m sure it won’t take very long for the doctor to speak with you.” She gestured toward the waiting room where my mother sat.

  Shoulders sagging, I started for the room while the nurse disappeared around the corner. The doctor could take forever to get to us. I couldn’t sit in that room with Joan. She’d keep whining until I felt so guilty I’d have to say something nice, and I’d be damned if I wasted that kind of energy on the woman.

  I sat down on the floor and prepared to wait.

  A woman in a smart navy pantsuit approached me, a cup of coffee in her hand. “Lucy Kendall?” Her honey-colored hair hung in a bob that softened the sharp angles of her face. Her lips shined with some kind of clear gloss, but she wore no other makeup.

  I gazed up at her. “You don’t look like a doctor on call.”

  She smiled. “I’m Agent Williams. Agent Lennox sent me to keep an eye on your stepfather.”

  “Right,” I said, getting to my feet. “My mother said you were there when it happened?”

  The agent’s smile faded. “I’d just arrived and had introduced myself. My orders were to pretend I was there to question your mother about photos of her daughter that appeared online.”

  “Lily’s death.”

  “Yes.”

  A deep-rooted energy began to course through me. How would Lennox have known about that without speaking with Todd?

  “How did Joan take that?”

  “About like you’d expect,” Agent Williams said. “Your stepfather came into the room, and I introduced myself and explained why I was there. I got the immediate impression he didn’t believe it.”

  “He knew Kelly was missing and that I was trying to find her.” The scenario began to limp together. “He was afraid for me.”

  Williams must have anticipated the guilt beginning to work its way through me. “I assured him you were in absolutely no danger. He seemed pacified, and your mother and I spoke. Mac sat in a chair and listened. He suddenly shook and then went limp. I called the ambulance right away.”

  While my mother had prattled and done absolutely nothing for him.

  “How long did he go without oxygen?”

  Agent Williams hesitated. “I gave him CPR while we waited. The paramedics got his lungs working again but…”

  “Too much time had already passed.”

  “I’m not a doctor,” she said. But her sudden unwillingness to meet my eyes said enough.

  “Is Agent Lennox here?”

  “He’s on his way,” Williams said. “I’m supposed to meet him out front.”

  “Did he tell you what was going on?”

  “Only the bare minimum.” She waited until a nurse had gone by and then stepped closer. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But Agent Lennox believes Kelly is alive.”

  I stared at her. “Why?”

  “He didn’t give me details. He just said he thought this was all part of a big end game and that Kelly’s kidnapper wouldn’t harm her before you played your role.”

  “My role?”

  Agent Williams shrugged. “That’s all he said. But I take him at his word. He’s not one to sugarcoat.”

  Drained, I leaned against the wall. Something much bigger was at play here, and I had the very distinct feeling of being a pawn.

  “Do you want to sit with your mother?”

  I choked out a bitter laugh. “You met her. What do you think?”

  25

  Fifteen minutes later, a tall doctor wearing wrinkled scrubs and carrying a model of the heart arrived. Agent Williams excused herself, and I almost begged her to stay. Inside the waiting room, Joan leapt from her perch and into the doctor’s personal space. “What’s going on with my husband? I’ve been waiting over two hours, and I can’t get any real answers.”

  “I’m sorry for that.” The doctor motioned for her to sit down. I shook my head and remained standing.

  The doctor glanced between the two of us. “The major artery in Mac’s heart was completely blocked. Has he been having any headaches or chest pains?”

  “A few,” Joan said. “He promised to go to the doctor.”

  The doctor held up the model of the heart. Far larger than I’d have expected, the model opened in two pieces. He pointed to the left side. “This is the main side of the heart, and the left anterior descending artery runs down the front. It basically runs this entire side of the heart. When it becomes blocked and isn’t treated, the artery goes down followed by the front wall of the heart. It’s a major heart attack.”

  “But people survive heart attacks all the time,” I said.

  “They do,” the doctor said. “But Mac went without oxygen. Between the CPR and the paramedic’s procedures, he was down over forty minutes. That’s a very long time to go without oxygen.”

  I read the truth very clearly on the doctor’s face. His careful expression and soft, steady voice the sort of things doctors reserved for the worst case scenarios.

  “He’s brain dead.” My voice cracked. “That’s what you’re saying.”

  The doctor grimaced. “No one knows where that nickname came from, especially since some people do recover. But Mac’s case is severe. We’ve taken several different measures and performed various tests. There’s no brain function.”

  My mother’s childish wailing made the
entire scene feel like a terrible soap opera. She paced back and forth, clutching a wad of tissues, alternating between dabbing her nose and her eyes.

  “But, can you really tell this soon?” I asked. “It’s only been, what, four hours? Couldn’t brain function return?”

  Kelly only has fifteen left now. Or maybe less. What the hell did I do?

  The doctor sat his heart on the table. My mother continued to cry. He patted her shoulder but kept his eyes on me. “In some cases, but not this one. Going without oxygen for so long simply destroyed his brain.”

  “Well, we’re not giving up hope,” my mother said. “There’s always a chance for a miracle.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I understand. But I’ve consulted with the other cardiologist on staff as well as the attending neurologist. We’re all in agreement.”

  “Then you’re wrong,” Joan said. “Mac’s strong. Give him a couple of days on life support, and you’ll see.”

  The doctor gave me a compassionate smile. “Lucy?”

  A memory whispered at me. “It’s my decision.”

  “Excuse me?” Joan glared through teary eyes. I caught the warning in them: how dare I try to usurp her.

  Finally, I had the control to break my mother, and it meant the hardest decision of my life. “Two years ago, when that guy on Mac’s roofing crew fell and had a brain injury, Mac came to me about his medical directive. He wanted me to promise not to leave him on life support.”

  Joan’s face reddened, the jackal sneaking through. “Well, you’re going to break it.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “It’s a legal document. Mac designated Lucy with his power of attorney. She has to decide.”

  Mac and I, sitting in our favorite breakfast spot. Our little secret from Joan. Mac asking me to pull the plug if it ever came to it.

  “So, what about it? If I ever needed it, would you snuff me out?”

  Now I looked between the doctor and my mother, whose grief was being superseded by her need to control the situation. She glared at me over her fist of tissues.

  “You’re sure he’s not going to recover?”

  The doctor nodded. “You’re free to take your time with the decision. Your stepfather believed you had his best interests in mind, and I assume you two discussed what he’d want done in this sort of situation.” He glanced back at my mother as if he could sense her bitterness. “But I realize it’s not something you can resolve lightly. I’ll leave you to discuss it.”

  Joan pounced as soon as he left.

  “You cannot kill Mac.”

  Her choice of word almost made me laugh. “Kill him? You can’t seriously mean that. He’s gone.” The urge to cry welled up from my chest. I wouldn’t give her the upper hand.

  “There’s always hope.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Mac didn’t want to live this way. He told me that.”

  She glared at me. “He was distraught. He didn’t know what he was saying.”

  “He signed the medical directive weeks after he asked me. We discussed it more than once, especially after he was diagnosed with Afib. Even though we knew the chance of a stroke from it was small, he was still scared. He didn’t want to live on a machine.” My resolve strengthened as I remembered the heartfelt way Mac talked about the directive. “He knew what he was doing. I won’t let you take this away from him.”

  “You’re the one who will be taking his life.” Her shrill voice made a passing nurse jump. “You realize that, don’t you? If you tell them to shut off the machine, you will have killed him. Is that what you want on your conscience? Taking a life?”

  Instead of bursting into tears, hysterical laughter bubbled from my chest. The sound ricocheted off the walls of the small waiting room, and I heard myself sounding like a wild person. Joan stared back, her expression caught between shock and humiliation. I laughed until my sides throbbed and my throat felt raw.

  Wiping the tears from my eyes, I started for the door. “I’m going to see Mac.”

  “You will not take him off life support.”

  We stared at each other. She dropped her chin, her expression as sinister as I’d ever experienced. I didn’t flinch. “Face it, Mother. This is one thing you can’t milk. But don’t worry. I’m sure you can find online sympathizers even if you don’t have horrific crime scene pictures to post.”

  Joan’s mouth opened, her eyes wide. She looked like a fish out of water, tossed into the boat and gasping for air.

  Too bad she was still breathing.

  I didn’t know what I expected when I went inside the hospital room. The cardiac unit had a different feel to it, a frenetic sort of energy accompanied by the various noises from machines I didn’t understand. Instead of a private room, curtains separated the beds. A nurse moved from one patient to another.

  The ventilator breathed for Mac, forcing air into his lungs with a sound that made my skin crawl. He still wore the shirt he’d been wearing when I left his secret place.

  Now the hot tears came, spilling down my cheeks and soaking the bed linens. He might not have come into my life until I was a teenager, but he’d saved it in a lot of ways. Without him, I probably would have run away from Joan. I might have ended up on the streets and been one of the statistics I now fought for. My knees buckled, and I dropped into the chair beside the bed.

  He and Kelly were the only family I really had. I was about to lose them both, and I couldn’t stop it.

  All the things I’d done to save other people amounted to nothing. I couldn’t save Mac or Kelly. Or my sister. And I would be stuck with Joan.

  I sobbed harder, drawing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms tightly around them.

  “Mac.” I kept my lips close to his ear. “I just want you to know I love you. That you’ve been better to me than I deserve. And I don’t want you to go. Because I need you.” My throat felt as if it were going to split in two. “Normally, I’d find a way to get what I wanted. I’m good at that, you know. Learned from the best. But this is different. There’s nothing I can do except let you go. A decent person would be grateful to have that option, but I’m not one of those. I’m angry. Not at you, but at the world. Lily’s gone. Kelly’s damned near gone, and now I’m going to lose you. I guess there’s some truth to cosmic payback. Maybe God decided to punish me for all the bad things I’ve done.” I wiped my eyes. “It’s too late for me to do anything but bring you peace, but I swear to you, I’m going to do the right thing about Kelly. I’m going to tell Agent Lennox every bad thing. That’s Kelly’s only chance.”

  Mac’s breathing didn’t change. The room remained exactly as it had been when I entered it, and yet I sensed a shift, as if he were somehow sitting next to me and prodding me.

  “And Joan. You said I’ve convinced myself my life isn’t worth anything because I didn’t save Lily. You weren’t wrong, but I think there’s more to it. More than I ever allowed my brain to process. But now all these things are fighting to be heard, and I don’t think I can ignore them. So Joan and I…well, you were the one person who kept us together at all. And it should be her lying here right now. God knows I’d have no trouble pulling the plug. But instead it’s you, and it’s just not fair.”

  I could almost hear him laughing, reminding me how life wasn’t fair. That was the fun of it, he always said. Fairness is boring. What’s a day without some challenge?

  His hand felt strangely cold in my own, as though the machine didn’t make his body create any warmth. The essence that made up Mac had gone somewhere else, and I could only hope it was a better place than this world.

  I stood and leaned forward to brush my lips over his forehead. “Tell Lily I love her.”

  My feet dragged the floor as I left the room and flagged down the nearest nurse. “I’m Mac Kendall’s stepdaughter. Please tell his doctor I’m going to honor his wishes and end life support.”

  26

  Inside the waiting room, Joan paced, a rattlesnake ready to strike. I braced myself for her tir
ade. “I’m going to have him taken off the ventilator.”

  “You can’t do this to me.” Joan’s fists balled up like a toddler’s during a tantrum.

  “Mother.” I felt the darkness soaring in my chest. For as long as I could remember, my mother had caused nothing but hurt and anger. I never measured up to her standards. Lily didn’t either. We spent the early part of our childhood trying to please her even though her standards changed with the seasons. Lily occasionally made Mother happy, but I couldn’t remember a time Joan had praised me without an agenda. I’d been the second child, the one she couldn’t afford and didn’t want, and she saved her best manipulation tactics for me. “This isn’t about you. It’s about Mac. It’s what he wanted, and I’m going to honor his wishes.”

  Her lipstick had smudged, making her frown look even more twisted. “He’s loaded with medication. He won’t feel any pain. But I will! I’ll know he’s gone, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Because of you.”

  The irony devoured the last of my resolve, and I burst into hysterical laughter. Joan’s gaping mouth and stretched open eyes made her look ridiculous. I laughed harder.

  “Stop it,” she hissed. Clenching her tissue in her bony hand, she stepped toward me, her grieving expression changing into murderous rage. “You quit embarrassing me, or I’ll make you sorry.” She subtly raised her fist. The laughter evaporated.

  I narrowed my eyes, my jaw muscles clamped so tightly pain shot up my skull. I recognized the sensation. I experienced it just before I killed the trucker last winter. Before I gave Cody Harrison the fatal dose of heroin. Before I injected Preacher with ketamine and then smothered him. All of my victims had realized the look meant something terrible was about to happen to them. Joan was no different.

  She stiffened, the cords in her neck taut. Her fist dropped. Fear glittered in her eyes. “I just don’t think we need to draw that sort of attention.”

  “I don’t care what you think.” The words seemed to rip out the last stitch. “You can’t do anything to stop Mac’s passing because he didn’t want you to. He knew you would drag out his life for your own selfish benefit. You’d have done the same thing to Lily.”