To see him in this kind of panic was rather unsettling. And more than a bit contagious, too. I kept the conversation as quiet as I could and as short as I could. But the end result was the right one.
When Archie wheeled into their circular driveway scant minutes later, she was already on the porch with purse in hand. She waved Arc down when he tried to switch to the backseat.
“I’ll ride in the back, dear, but thank you.” Then before she climbed in, she looked me dead in the eyes. “Perhaps you should take over at the wheel, sweetie. We can give you directions to wherever it is we’re headed to in such a grand rush.”
Excellent idea. In a matter of seconds, I was behind the wheel with Arc still riding shotgun and Mom and Archie in the backseat.
I drove around the fountain and back down to the end of the drive. Then I turned to Archie. “Which way?”
“She’s at the Lake View Convalescent Center in Muldover. Do you know where that is?”
I had to stop myself from whistling. “Yeah. I know the place.” Most people did. It was where the super-rich and famous went when they needed constant twenty-four-hour care. I wouldn’t be able to afford to spend a single night there. Kind of said something about good old Martha.
The town of Muldover was about twenty minutes away, if you maintained the speed limit. Which I did. I could tell that didn’t make Archie all that happy. But I was still of the firm belief that we’d be much more help to Martha if we all made it there in one piece. I was a lot more confident of that being the case now that I was the one driving.
For the most part, it was a quiet drive. At least in the front seat. I could hear Archie filling Mom in on all the details. Not that there were all that many details that we knew at this point.
Basically, we knew that Martha was in a coma and that, if Archie was right—and my witch’s intuition was right there with him on this one—she was trying to contact him. That meant, most likely, that there was something very, very wrong. Time would tell what that was.
The facility in question wasn’t just a building. No. It was almost big enough to be considered its very own town. With a mayor and everything. There were streets and avenues with different names running between the different structures. Not a small complex.
I pulled to the curb and looked back at Archie. “Where to from here?”
“Just a minute. Gabe texted me that information last week.” He dug out his phone and then rattled off the street name and building number. Even with that, it took a few minutes to find the place.
The building was one of the smaller ones. A quiet rose-colored brick tri-story structure with a nice clean landscaped front. The sign out front simply said, “From Oblivion to Here.”
Wow. All this money and that’s the best they could do? Still. Oblivion might be a good word to use for where people in comas currently resided. How was I to know that? How was anyone to know that?
There was a small parking lot at the rear of the building, and I drove around and parked. Then we all got out and walked out, around, and to the front entrance.
That’s also where we met our first hurdle. The doors were locked tight.
Archie pushed the doorbell on the intercom. After a few seconds, a calm voice responded.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. We are here to see Mrs. Martha Donaldson.”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mrs. Donaldson is on a no-visitor list.”
Archie stood a little taller. “I’m sure there are exceptions for close friends and family.”
“Of course, sir, but unless you are on the list of approved visitors, I’m afraid I can’t allow you access to the facility.”
One look at Archie’s set face, and I knew that if he wasn’t currently on the list, he would be within minutes. I halfway expected him to pull out his cell phone, but that wasn’t his first move.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew one of his business cards, with his name in bold burgundy colored calligraphy. Holding it up to the camera, he said, “My name is Archimedes Mineheart, and I’m fairly certain that I am on that list.”
Another short pause. “Just a moment, sir. I’ll have to check.”
I had to give them a thumb’s up for security. Part of me wondered what all the secrecy was about, but a bigger part of me remembered that people in comas really didn’t have any way to defend themselves. Security was a very good thing.
Instead of responding via the intercom, we heard the soft click as the locks disengaged. Archie reached out and pushed the doors open, then held them for us to follow him in.
The nurse waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase frowned when she saw our small group. “I’m afraid only you will be allowed to see Mrs. Donalson, Mr. Mineheart. My instructions are quite clear.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. Then he did pull out his cell phone. “I am on that list of highly trusted friends of the family.” He motioned to all of us. “This is my family.” He waved the phone. “I can call either her son or her husband to ask for them to be added. But we both know that they are not likely to be appreciative of an interruption in their day for something as trivial as this. I, as a highly respected member of the community, personally vouch for my wife and my children.”
She swallowed, then looked at each of us. “These are all members of your family?”
“They are.”
“Then I believe we can make an exception. Just this once, mind you.”
“Thank you. Now, if you would kindly show us to her room?”
We followed her up the stairs to the top floor. Prime real estate up here, as the view to the water was all that much better. They didn’t call this place Lake View for nothing.
As it turned out, Martha’s room did indeed have a breath-taking view of the water. Not that it did her a single bit of good with the state she was in.
Archie, Sapphire, and Arc all crossed immediately to ring her bed. I stayed by the door at the nurse’s side. “Has there been any improvement since she’s been here?”
The nurse shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” Then she smiled. “But there has been no sign of her going further into the Oblivion, either. We take that as a small win. Our hope is that eventually we can call her home.”
I glanced at the woman’s name tag, then up into her eyes. Her words sounded like the same type of platitudes that nurses everywhere gave out. But something in her voice told me they meant much more to her than that. I truly believed that she meant every single one of them.
“Does that happen very often?”
She took a deep breath. “Not nearly so often as we might hope, no.” Then she smiled at me. “But this facility has the highest recovery rate of any facility of this type in the nation. As long as they draw breath, there is always hope.” Her eyes went back to the bed by the windows. A bed in full view of the breath-taking scenery on the other side of the glass. A view the woman might never get to see.
It was beyond sad.
“What are her chances?”
“That isn’t for me to say. I’m only a nurse here, you know.” She paused. “But I will say that I believe her chances are better than most. She isn’t on any kind of life-sustaining equipment, as you can see. Martha is breathing on her own, and her vital signs are fairly strong for one in her state. All she really has to do is just, well, wake up.”
Yeah. That did seem to be the main problem here. “What exactly do you do to try to help her? Or is this just a kind of a holding facility?”
She gave me a shocked look. “We most certainly are not a place of limbo, Ms. Mineheart. Our facility has a very active program to try to entice her soul back where it belongs. In fact...”
I don’t like interrupting people in the middle of their speech, but I made an exception for it this time. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that people in comas have wandering souls? That’s the reason they are sleeping?”
Karen shrugged and looked a tad bit uncomfortable. “That isn’t the sanctioned view o
f our facility, no. I probably should not have said that.”
“But it’s what you believe, isn’t it?”
The woman was cool, I’d give her that. I could tell she was greatly regretting her earlier choice of words. That didn’t mean I had to play nice and pretend she never said them. She did. And I wanted an answer. It could be important.
Finally, she looked at me. “It is.”
I couldn’t help myself. I sent out a small trickle of magic to test the waters. Karen squeaked and jumped. Just a little, but yeah, she felt it all right.
That meant only one thing.
Nurse Karen was a witch.
Her eyes narrowed at me. “Just who the devil are you people?”
I smiled at her. “We aren’t on the devil’s side of things, I can assure you that. The Goddess, however, is a different matter altogether. I hope that’s true of you as well.”
Karen’s hand flew up to her chest, where I was guessing a pentagram pendant rested under her nurse’s uniform and touching her skin. Almost every witch I knew wore one that way. My family were no exceptions to that rule. Ours even had our namesake gem at the center.
She stared at me for a good long minute. I waited. This was important too.
Finally, she caved. “I try to keep my religious sentiments to myself. A woman in my position has to be careful. I hope you can respect that.”
I nodded. “A person’s relationship with their God or Goddess is just about as personal as it gets. Not something to go around talking about with other people as far as I’m concerned.”
Karen relaxed a little. “Thank you. It’s not that...” Her words trailed off. “No. I’m going to stop with just thank you, I think.”
“Now that’s out of the way, I think I’d like to hear how you try to call the soul back into place.”
She grinned at me. Yup. An outright grin. “Nothing magic if that’s what you’re asking.” She glanced behind her at the still-closed door. “But I’ll admit to putting just a tingle of power behind my requests on occasion to lend them strength.”
I was kind of betting that little tingle of power was why her facility had an above-average rate of recoveries. It would seem that the Donaldsons had done very well to put Martha in here.
Whether they knew the reason why it was such a good choice or not.
Chapter 5
There was a beeping sound. It seemed to come from Karen’s pocket.
She pulled out a small tablet and then made a face. “Well, I guess it’s time that I found out if I made the right decision in letting all of you in here.” She looked up at me. “I really like this job, by the way. I hope I get to keep it.”
I wasn’t at all sure what she was talking about, and she didn’t seem to want to take the time to explain either.
Karen walked across the room to the side of Martha’s bed, excusing herself as she slid in between Archie and Mom. Reaching down, she turned on the viewscreen of a large monitor on the bedside table.
Almost instantly, a man’s face appeared. He seemed surprised to find that Karen wasn’t alone in the room. But then his eyes lit on Archie and the man broke out into a smile.
“Archimedes! How wonderful to see you taking the time to visit Martha.” He glanced at Sapphire and Arc. “And your lovely wife and under-achieving son, too, I see. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
Archie squirmed a little. Yeah. If not for that soul shadow, none of us would likely be here. I could tell that Archie wasn’t fond of taking credit where credit really wasn’t due him. But what could he say? Martha had called him there?
I didn’t think that would go over very well. Neither, apparently, did Archie.
“I’d say it was good to see you again, Gabe, but under these particular circumstances, I really don’t think that’s the case.”
Gabe sobered instantly. “I’m afraid you’re right there. Horrible business this. And of course, it had to happen at a time when neither myself nor Riley could be there with her. Although I’d leave for the states on the next flight out if I had my way about it.”
Archie frowned at the viewscreen. “You are out of the country?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes.” He hesitated. “It’s pretty hush-hush right now, but the CEO of my company is getting ready to retire. There are three of us in line to replace him. The man insisted that all of us head over to the mother corporation in Japan for a three-month training session. The position depends on our evaluation scores at the end of that. I’ve already taken a week’s sabbatical to come home and get poor Martha situated. If I leave again...”
“I get the picture,” Archie said.
“Well, I don’t.” That was Mom, all right. Frank to the letter. “You’re choosing a promotion over being here for your wife? Doesn’t sound very family-friendly to me.”
“It’s not my choice. Not really. If I come home and blow this opportunity, Martha will never forgive me. This is what she’s had her sites set on for me all along.”
Mom frowned. “I think the present situation would change that.”
“You might. Martha wouldn’t. Just ask Archie.”
Mom turned to Archie with a raised eyebrow.
Archie shrugged. “Gabe is right. Martha is a very determined woman. She’s had a plan for her family from day one. Gabe was destined to become CEO of his company, and their son, Riley, was destined to graduate top of his class at Harvard and join me in my law firm. If she wakes up and either of them has let her down on reaching that path, well, she wouldn’t be happy about it.”
Gabe grunted. “That’s putting it mildly. CEOs don’t retire every day you know. Or every decade, for that matter. This is my once in a lifetime shot at this.” He paused. “That’s why it means so much for me to see you all there with her. It’s good to know she has someone checking in on her.” He made a face. “And not doing that from thousands of miles away.”
Mom didn’t look convinced, but she let it rest. Archie had no reason to lie for the man. But I knew that if it was Mom in that bed, she sure as heck wouldn’t be lying in a room all by herself. We’d have a bloody twenty-four-hour detail going. All trying to coax her back into this realm.
The very thought of that sent a shiver down my spine. I was beginning to have a very healthy respect for Karen and the staff here. They were doing the Goddess’s work.
It was almost enough to make me second-think my career choice.
Almost.
“How long do you have to talk?” Archie asked. “I have a lot of questions for you, but I don’t want to put you in an awkward position there if you have meetings or something you need to get to.”
The view on the monitor shifted, and we could see the inside of what appeared to be a hotel room. A very tiny one. “Different time zones. As long as our days are here, the working day is finished for me. I always check in before and after work with Martha.” He paused. “It isn’t much, but it’s the best I can do. So, yeah, ask away.”
“Let’s start with what happened to Martha. Do you have any idea what brought on the stroke? Had she been feeling ill or anything?”
Gabe shook his head. “Healthy as a horse as far as she’d let anyone know. Not a single medical issue at all. Which was surprising, actually, considering all the stress she had going on. That much stress would drive a normal person’s blood pressure sky high.” He paused. “Although, now that I think about it, that may have finally happened. Could be what caused the stroke. Stress.”
“Well, having a husband out of the country and a son that’s in law school couldn’t have been easy for her,” Mom said. “But I don’t think it would be enough to send her into a stroke. Not if she was as strong of a woman as the two of you say she was.”
“Oh, she’s strong all right,” Gabe said. “But then, everyone has their breaking point, don’t they? It would seem that Martha met hers.”
I stepped into the view of the monitor, even though I didn’t think that made Karen all that happy.
“Hello, Mr.
Donaldson. I’m Amethyst, Archie’s... daughter.” Why was that still so hard for me to say?
Gabe’s eyes widened, then his eyes went to Archie. “Since when do you have a daughter? What, did you just go out and adopt a full-grown woman?”
Archie chuckled and pulled Sapphire a little closer. “Nope. She’s always been mine. We just let everyone know about it rather recently, though.”
“I see.”
I waved at the monitor. There had been a reason I introduced myself. I had a few questions myself.
“Other than the CEO and law school thing, was there anything else your wife was stressed out about?”
He took a deep breath. “There was always something. She took everything to heart in a big way.” He thought for a minute. “I’d say the two biggest stress-inducers was the upcoming fund-raising benefit she was hosting and the whole Home Owners’ Association thing.”
“Could you give me a little more detail on that?”
Gabe just looked at me, then turned to Archie. “I’m thinking this isn’t just a social call here, Archie. What the bloody heck is going on? Do you think her stroke might not have been natural or something? Is Martha in danger? If so, CEO or no CEO, I’m heading home.”
Mom opened her mouth, but a quick elbow jab from Archie, and she closed it again without saying anything. That was a testimony to her love for Archie right there. Mom didn’t bow down easily.
Archie spared me an unhappy glance. Okay, so maybe I had overstepped my bounds a little. Or maybe a lot. I ducked my head and took a step back.
Facing the screen ahead, Archie gave a headshake. “I’ll admit that the thought crossed my mind.” He motioned toward Martha lying still on the bed. “This isn’t the strong woman we know and love. I’m not in the medical profession, but aren’t there usually indicators of something wrong before a stroke happens? You said Martha didn’t have any of that, right?”
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