He actually met Jaguar’s gaze for a moment, then he looked away.
“Think of it this way, Pops. We both loved her. If nothing else, she was the best part of us. She deserves for us to agree on at least one thing for her.”
Henry looked up again, then he nodded.
Jaguar knew he wasn’t going to get anymore, so he jumped to his feet and hurried to the button on the wall, pressing it. When he turned back to the table, he found his father with his hands over his face, his shoulders heaving in silent tears.
Without a word, Jaguar went back and sat next to him, reaching across the table and grabbing the tissue box, setting it before Henry, then he laid a hand on the back of his father’s chair, not touching him, but he knew Henry would feel the weight of his hand and that was enough.
CHAPTER 7
The phone vibrated on the table. Jaguar looked below the coffee mug in his hands at the display. Pamela Rosen. He groaned and thought to let it go to voicemail, but he slid his fingers across the screen and lifted it to his ear.
“Hey?”
“Jaguar?” came her voice, thrumming with tension.
“Yeah, look, Pam, I haven’t had a chance to even think about what you asked me the other day. My mother…”
“I know about your mother. I’m sorry, Jaguar,” she said and he heard the sincerity in her voice.
He didn’t bother to ask how she’d heard. It was pretty obvious that everyone in Sequoia read the Sequette. He didn’t know how he felt about that, but he figured the death of a rockstar’s mother would move papers at least.
“Thank you,” he said, wondering when the reality of her death would stop ambushing him.
“Is there anything I can do? I can bring food by if you and your father would like me to.”
“The neighbors have been keeping us fed,” he said.
“When’s the funeral?”
“This weekend.”
“Did she have any family left?”
“No, her brother died years ago and her parents have been gone twenty years. I don’t really remember them.”
She fell silent. For some reason, he had the strangest desire to ask how Sophia was, but he resisted the impulse. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do about a daughter he didn’t know and he was so close to escaping again to LA. He didn’t want Pam to mistake any concern he felt for the child to mean actual interest.
“This is so hard,” she finally said, but Jaguar sensed she wasn’t talking to him.
“Is something wrong?” He gripped the phone tighter, unexpected fear racing through him. Curious, he thought. He had some visceral reaction, almost a feeling of worry, for this child he didn’t know.
“Nancy’s dying.”
“Oh,” he said, the fear bleeding away. He didn’t give a damn. She deserved to die for holding a gun on his mother.
“Jaguar, I know this is horrible timing and everything, but…”
“Just say it,” he grumbled.
“Nancy wants to see you.”
Jaguar stared at the table. “She what?”
“She wants to see you before she dies.”
He set the mug down and swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. She wanted to see him? Why? What could she possibly say to him and why the hell would he want to hear it? She’d killed someone because of him, she’d tried to kill him, and she’d held a gun on his mother.
“Yeah, Pam, I don’t think…”
“It’s her dying request, Jaguar. She begged me the other day to call you. I thought she’d forget about it. She’s so doped up on painkillers, but she didn’t. She says she can’t die until she sees you again.”
His father appeared in the door, drawing Jaguar’s attention. He watched the older man shuffle to the coffee pot and reach for a mug. He didn’t remember seeing his father shuffle before, certainly not before his mother died. Henry Jarvis had always been such a powerful man, a force to be reckoned with and intimidating to his son. For the first time, Jaguar felt pity for him.
“Pam, I can’t…”
“Don’t say that!” she begged. “You don’t know what it’s like. She’s desperate to talk to you. She’s in so much pain, but she won’t let go. She says she has to see you. Please, Jaguar, please find it in your heart to grant her wish. She’s the mother of your child.”
She’s the woman who wanted him dead.
He braced his forehead in his hand. He should tell her no, he should attend his mother’s funeral, then he should get on a plane and fly back to LA to salvage his career, but he couldn’t find his voice to tell her that.
“Look, I’ll leave it this way. I’m going down to the hospital now. The kids are at the Y until 4:00. She’s at the Kaweah Delta Behavioral Hospital in Visalia. I’ll text you the address and room number, and you can decide what you want to do.”
He still didn’t answer, staring at the oily swirl of black liquid in his coffee mug.
“Don’t wait too long to decide. It could be any day now,” she said. “I hope you’ll come. I hope you’ll give her her last request.” Then the line went dead and Jaguar closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to go see this woman. He didn’t owe her anything and the truth was he didn’t give a damn if she died or not.
“Are you in trouble?” came his father’s voice right over him.
Jaguar’s eyes snapped open and he looked up at the older Jarvis. “What?”
“Are you in trouble?”
Jaguar frowned. “In trouble?”
“That phone call. That Pam. Did you get her pregnant or something? Like the other one? Is there going to be another crazy woman showing up here with a gun to kill you for it?”
Jaguar sighed. So much for the truce between them. “That’s exactly what it was, Pops,” he said, rising to his feet. “Better bolt the door.” He started from the room.
“Jerome,” said his father at his back.
Jaguar stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
“I didn’t mean that.”
Jaguar turned slowly to face him. Henry dropped his eyes.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
“Okay,” said Jaguar, completely confused now.
“If you need help…son…”
Jaguar’s eyes widened. Son? What the hell? He wanted to scoff, but the more mature part of his brain told him Henry was trying. It was more than he’d done at any other time in his life. “I just have a decision I need to make.”
Henry pulled out a chair from the table. “Come sit down. Tell me what it is. Maybe I can help.”
Jaguar realized his mouth had dropped open. Come sit down? Had Henry suffered a stroke or something? Because he was so bewildered, he walked over and took his original seat again, reaching for his coffee mug.
Henry cradled a coffee mug in his own hands, avoiding eye contact with him. “What’s going on? What was that call about?”
Jaguar took a sip of his coffee to wet his mouth. “Pam Rosen’s Nancy Osborn’s sister.”
“Nancy Osborn? The woman who came here to the house? The woman who says you’re the father of her kid?”
Jaguar blew out air, puffing out his cheeks. “Well, I am the father of her kid.”
Henry’s eyes (an unremarkable blue) snapped to his face and fell away. “I see. You got the paternity results?”
“Yeah, just before Mom…just before the accident.”
Henry nodded, tapping the mug with his blunt fingers. “So, I’m a grandfather.”
“I guess.”
“What does Pam want?”
“Nancy’s dying.”
“Good.”
Jaguar gave a bark of laughter. “That’s exactly what I thought.”
Henry offered him a half-smile.
“Anyway, she’s asking to see me.”
“Nancy?”
“Right. She’s in a psych hospital in Visalia and she’s asking to see me before she dies.”
“Why?”
“No idea.”
Henry l
ooked at a spot in the middle of Jaguar’s chest. “Are you going to go?”
“I don’t know.”
Henry nodded. “That’s a tough one.”
“Yep.”
Henry thought for a moment. Jaguar didn’t push it. He realized it was nice just to sit here with his father and not be at each other’s throats. He didn’t remember the last time that happened, if ever.
“I think you should go,” Henry finally said.
“Why?”
“Because she’s dying. If you don’t go, a part of you will always be wondering what she might have wanted to say. It’ll give you closure. Especially after what happened.”
Closure? He’d never heard Henry use words like that before. Henry was an open book. He had things he liked and he had things he didn’t like and he had things he didn’t understand, but didn’t care to figure out. What the hell did Henry Jarvis know about closure?
Then he said the strangest thing. “I’ll go with you if you want.”
Jaguar sat up straight, stunned into catatonia.
A smile quirked the corners of Henry’s mouth. “But I’ll drive. You scare the hell out of me when you drive.”
Jaguar laughed again. “I haven’t driven in eleven years, old man. That’s my excuse. You scare the hell out of me, so I think I’ll take a cab.”
“To Visalia?” Henry made a swatting motion. “Waste of money.”
“I think we’ve established I’ve got the money to waste.” And just like that he realized he’d already decided to go. He drummed his fingers on the table and stared at his father’s bent head. “Thanks for offering to go with me, Pops.”
Henry met his eyes, then looked out the window over his garden. “Sure.”
Jaguar pushed himself to his feet and carried the coffee mug to the sink. “Better go find a shirt to put over these tattoos. Going to a mental hospital, I wouldn’t want them to lock me up instead.”
Henry snorted a laugh. “Good thinking,” he said and lifted his mug for a sip.
* * *
Hakim pulled into the circular drive before the hospital and stopped before the doors. He draped an arm over the seat and looked back at Jaguar. Jaguar stared at the tan, single story building with its vast rolling green fields surrounding it and thought it was the most non-threatening building he’d ever seen. In fact, it was so nondescript, he looked at Pam’s text message again to make sure they were in the right place.
“I’ll wait for you over there,” said Hakim, pointing to a picnic table under some trees. He lifted a small cooler. “I brought my lunch.”
Jaguar nodded to the man. The taxicab dispatcher had been surprised when he’d asked for a particular driver, but Hakim Adowani was a quiet man and didn’t ply him with questions. Plus, he was an excellent driver. He hadn’t wanted to deprive his father of his only mode of transportation and he’d known he had to make this trip by himself. Sure, it was expensive, but it was only temporary. When he got back to LA, he’d get Maddog and Bruno working for him again and they always drove his limo.
“Thanks. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
Hakim shrugged. “No worries. I have a book to read.”
Jaguar smiled, then pushed open the door and started for the hospital. The doors swished open as he neared, but when he came to a second set of doors, a sign on them said to push the button to the side of the entrance. The doors were clear glass and he could see past them to a reception counter and a waiting room. He stepped to the side and pressed the button.
A crackling sounded and he could see a woman at the counter bend over, talking into a microphone. “How can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m here to see Nancy Osborn.”
She hesitated a moment, then she straightened and walked around the counter, headed toward him. She paused on the other side of the door, regarding him through the glass, then she pressed a button on the wall beside the door.
“Do you have some ID?” she asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his driver’s license. She motioned to the slot beneath the button in the glass. He shoved the license through and waited while she inspected it. She passed the license back to him and walked away.
Jaguar wasn’t sure what was happening until she went behind the counter again and a buzzer sounded on the door. He tentatively pushed it open and stepped inside. She smiled at him. She was in her mid-thirties with her black hair wound up on top of her head. Of Asian descent, she had an open smile that complemented the teddy bear scrubs she wore.
“You’re on the list as Jerome Jarvis.” She gave him a sultry look. “But I’d recognize you anywhere, Jaguar.”
He smiled. Behind her, he caught motion and looked up. A number of nurses stood around the opening of a door, leading to the back of the building, whispering amongst themselves. He swallowed and kept the smile in place. He was used to Maddog and Bruno running interference for him, but he was on his own. Maybe he should have asked Hakim to come inside with him.
“So when’s the next album coming out?” asked the woman.
He glanced at her nametag. Nurse Trina. “I’m told we’re releasing a greatest hits album soon.”
“That’s fantastic,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. “But I’m waiting for something new.”
Yeah, well, so was he, but it didn’t seem to be coming to him. “I’m working on that.” He leaned close to the counter. “I’m supposed to see Nancy Osborn.”
Her expression sobered. “Her sister told me. She’s been asking for you for a few days now. I think it’s really nice of you to do this. I know what she tried to do to you.”
He nodded, glancing at the gathering behind Trina. He wasn’t sure he was being nice, but he wanted to get on with it. This place was making his skin crawl. She bent down and wrote something, then passed it to him. He stared at her flowing script on a nametag that said Jaguar. All righty then. For the first time, he actually would have preferred Jerome.
He slapped it on his shirt pocket and beamed at her. “Can you direct me to her room?”
“I’ll show you myself,” she said. “Just follow me.”
He walked around the counter and met her on the other side, then they had to squeeze through the crowd of people in the doorway. A number of women gave him a flirtatious wink or a sultry hello, and a number of men too. He could swear someone caressed his ass as he passed through them. God, he missed Bruno and Maddog. They would have cleared this place out before he had to run the gauntlet.
Then they were in the open corridor – a gunmetal grey with nothing on the walls, no pictures, no posters, nothing but institutional blankness. The crowd followed them, the whispers loud enough to reach him. Didn’t these people have patients to attend?
Trina turned left, glancing over her shoulder occasionally to make sure he followed and to rake him up and down with her eyes. Most of the time he didn’t notice the attention when he was out in public. Most of the time he was either half-drunk or half-baked, he realized, but he was stone cold sober now. Had he ever thought this was entertaining? Had he ever been flattered by this attention? He wanted to get away, get back in the cab, and ride back to his father’s gated community.
What the hell was wrong with him? He used to love fame. He used to love the constant attention. He craved it. Hadn’t he? Or was that why he’d drank and smoked weed?
She stopped before a room with a security guard at the door. He blinked in surprise.
“We have a few people too sick to be housed in a prison hospital, but we have to have security monitor them just the same,” she told him when she caught his look of surprise. She laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry. Nancy’s so far gone, she can’t hurt you.” Her fingers flexed on his arm as if she were testing his muscles. He forced himself not to pull away.
He wasn’t worried about Nancy hurting him. He just didn’t want to be here. The whole thing was strange. Terrible and strange.
She pushed open the door. “Go on in. It’l
l be okay.”
Jaguar stepped past her into the darkened room. Someone rose from the side of the bed and hurried around to him, but his attention was fixed on the small, shrunken body in the bed. Nancy’s skin was grey, her eyes sunken in their sockets, her lips chapped and cracked. An IV tube ran out of her arm, but besides a heart monitor, there was nothing else attached to her. A pink floral scarf had been tied around her head, but Jaguar could see, where it had shifted, that she’d lost all of her glorious hair.
He remembered her hair, long and flowing, and her plump, curvy figure. She’d been a pretty woman when he’d seen her in the bar, bringing back memories of her as a cheerleader, disdaining him in the hallways of the high school. That night she hadn’t disdained him anymore.
Pam touched his arm. “I’m so glad you came. She’s been asking for you.”
Jaguar glanced into Pam’s face, but he couldn’t speak. He could smell something sour and dusty in the room – decay. Nancy was dying right in front of them. Her breath rattled in her chest and her eyes were closed. He could see her heart pounding beneath the thin dressing gown, her skeletal hands clasped on top of the covers.
“Come on,” Pam said, urging him to the left side of the bed where she’d set up a chair. “She can’t see out of her left eye, so you need to sit over here.”
He sank into the chair, his legs going out on him. This death was worse than his mother’s. This was a horrible way to die. He didn’t wish it on anyone, even Nancy Osborn. Pam leaned over him and touched her hands.
“Nancy, he’s here,” she said softly.
Nancy’s eyes fluttered, her lashes were gone, then they opened. She blinked a few times, the whites of her eyes shot through with red. Then she focused on him. She tried to speak, but nothing came out but a hoarse whisper. Pam grabbed a glass from the bedside table and placed the straw against her lips. She sucked on the straw for a few seconds, then licked the drops off her dry lips with a pale tongue.
Jaguar looked away.
“I didn’t think you would come,” came a voice like sandpaper over wood.
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