by Dale Mayer
It had never occurred to him that she’d been unfaithful while he was off on missions, until he’d made that fateful decision to break up with her.
And what a nightmare that had been.
But he’d grown from that, like he had from so many turning points in his life, and he felt like he’d finally come full circle …
With the right woman at the right time.
And wasn’t that something? He wanted to jump for joy and to tell Raina all about his new revelation, but she was buried against his chest and needed his comfort, not his declaration.
She also needed him to be there for her.
And that he could do. In fact, there was no place he’d rather be.
“We need to go,” she whispered, stirring in his arms. “She needs me.”
He did too, but that was for later. Much later.
He tilted her chin, dropped a kiss on her nose, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and whispered, “Come on. I’ll take you.”
Chapter 8
Raina was beside herself when she finally got to the hospital emergency room. For some reason the reaction over her mother’s condition hit her hard as she walked in the entrance—as if finally realizing that, while Raina had been sorting through her own emotions, her mother may have passed away.
As soon as Raina could, she found somebody to ask about her mother’s condition. Raina was redirected to doors to the emergency area, to one of the women standing at the counter. When she repeated her question, the woman smiled.
“She’ll be all right. Her stomach is being pumped right now, and she’s getting the treatment she needs. Please sit and wait. We’ll give you an update as soon as we have one.”
And that was the best she could get. Raina sat down in the emergency waiting area, Reyes beside her. She looked at him and said, “You don’t need to stay. You should be off finding out who the hell did this. I’ll stay here and wait for my mom.”
He linked his fingers with hers, but his facial expression said something was on his mind.
She squeezed his fingers and whispered, “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t want to believe it. But, if it’s true, we need to find proof. What I don’t want to do is go through life wondering what happened. So I give you full permission to go through any of my mom’s personal belongings that you need access to. Surely, between you and Vince, somebody can figure out what the hell is going on.” His gaze searched hers, and she smiled a little tremulously but was more emboldened now that she was here and had heard her mom would be okay. “Please do whatever you can.”
He nodded, leaned forward and kissed her gently on the temple. “I will.” Stepping back, he turned and said, “I have to also see my mother and talk to the staff. I don’t know when anybody last saw your sister.”
“You might as well check out her place too. I’ll give you the keys to her place and mine,” Raina said, the fatigue evident in her voice. She couldn’t believe she’d come so close to losing the rest of her family. She fished out her spare keys. “I’m the only one left to help my mother, so please do what you can for her as well.”
He nodded. “Give me any updates as they come through.”
She smiled. “I will.”
“And I’ll be back in a couple hours. You’ll need to eat.”
She shook her head. “Right now I don’t think I can get any food down.”
“Probably not but you can’t stay here either. Your mom will need a lot of rest and recovery, and there’s no benefit to you staying here, not getting any sleep or food yourself.” With that he left.
She sank into the hard, uncomfortable waiting room seat, her mind completely overwhelmed with everything she’d learned so far this day. The worst and most-destructive suggestion was that her mother might have killed her sister and then tried to kill herself. Raina didn’t want any proof of such an awful suggestion, but, in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder. Her mother had a temper; her sister had a horrible temper. When the two of them were on the wrong side of each other, it was pretty ugly to watch. Yet, even though they fought, they’d loved each other dearly.
What Raina didn’t see was her mother trying to hide or to clean up a crime scene. Nor did she own a gun—at least not as far as Raina knew. But, as had been proven today, she didn’t know all that much about her family, apparently.
So they needed to find out where her sister had been killed, then see if her mother had had a hand in it. If she didn’t, what was her reason for trying to commit suicide? Though there was no proof of that attempt—certainly no suicide note—Raina didn’t see any other way for her mother to have voluntarily inhaled a bellyful of pills. Yes, her mother had dealt with depression, but that had been years ago. Plus she had ongoing frustrations in her work and her life, and she certainly didn’t like that she had no partner and hadn’t had one in quite a while. Yet she wasn’t currently depressed. At least not clinically.
Her mother also worried both her daughters were heading off to lives of their own, and each struggled to eat. But her mother was never suicidal—again, as far as Raina knew. So surely even Reana’s death was not reason enough for a suicide attempt right now for a mother with another daughter and for a mother with her own will to live. Right? So was it really a suicide attempt? Had there been enough pills to do the job? And, if so, why hadn’t they done the job?
Often in suicide cases the attempt was more a half-assed effort, really more a cry for help. When one wanted to commit suicide, there were more successful ways and means—and instantaneous too. Jumping off a bridge to a highway of cement below was usually a guaranteed way. Taking a handful of pills, not so much.
Using all the bits and pieces she knew so far, trying to fit them together, drove Raina crazy. She hopped to her feet and paced.
Finally her name was called. She turned to see a doctor standing in the doorway. “How is my mother?”
He frowned. “She’s still in very serious condition. We’ve pumped out her stomach, and we’ve given her something to stabilize her. She’s on oxygen at the moment because her breathing was compromised.”
At every word Raina’s heart sank. “So she really did try to kill herself?”
The doctor shrugged. “Unless somebody force-fed her the pills, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
She pressed a hand against her temple. “I guess you see a lot of family members who look at you in complete shock and say, ‘There’s no way they would have done that’ …”
He nodded. “Unfortunately that’s very true. People seem to have an inner life that nobody else knows about. Was your mom depressed?”
“Not recently. At least not that I know of. My sister was murdered during the night. I was at Mom’s house to tell her, and that’s when I found her.”
“So maybe someone else told her?”
“Possibly.”
“Were they close?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Very close.”
“Then there’s your most likely explanation,” he said. “She probably wouldn’t have done this under normal circumstances, but, given the intense emotional shock, that would likely push her over the edge.”
With that he left, leaving Raina once again full of dark thoughts. If her mother had found out, how? Who could have possibly told her?
She walked to the front desk and asked the receptionist, “Do you have my mother’s personal belongings? I can’t find her cell phone.”
The woman looked up at her in surprise and then walked to the paper bag on the back counter. She checked it out and returned. “Here they are.”
Raina went through it. When she found her mother’s phone, she pulled it out and smiled. “This is what I need. Thank you.” Not giving the other woman a chance to argue, she returned to the waiting room and sat down. She checked her mother’s call history. There were several phone calls. One was from Annemarie, made early this morning.
Frowning, she picked up her phone and called Reyes. When he answer
ed, she said, “Something is odd about the call history on my mom’s cell phone.”
“What?”
“The last call to my mother was from your mother this morning.”
She heard the catch in Reyes’s voice as he sucked in his breath. “Interesting,” he murmured. “She didn’t say anything about that earlier.”
“Can you find out if she called my mom and said anything to her? Did she break the news to her?” She could hear the edge building in her tone. “I really wouldn’t appreciate it if she did that. My mother shouldn’t hear such news over the phone, and she shouldn’t have been left alone afterward.”
“No,” he said, “it wasn’t Annemarie’s place. Let me talk to her and see.” He hung up.
She hated to place that burden on him, but Annemarie was not the easiest of people in the first place. What Raina didn’t know was how long those pills had been in her mother’s stomach. The police had arrived at the restaurant about eight o’clock with the news about Reana. It was noonish when Raina had arrived at her mother’s house. If the doctor confirmed that the pills were in her stomach for four hours or less, then chances were her mother had ingested the pills after the phone call Annemarie had made to her mom. And that had been the last call on her phone today.
Raina could feel anger, irrationally maybe, but still a burning anger that somebody might have broken the news to her mother. It was for the police or the next of kin to do. But then the police should have contacted her mother first too. Instead they’d come to the restaurant, hoping to catch the killer. She understood their reasoning, but someone else should have gone to her mother’s place.
At that, she straightened and looked out the window. She didn’t know for sure that another cop hadn’t been at her mom’s place. Frowning, she pulled out the business card the officer had given her at the restaurant and made a call. When he answered, he sounded distracted. She identified herself and then asked, “Can you please tell me if somebody went to my mother’s house to let her know about my sister’s death?”
“I might be able to find out. Why?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but we did tell the other officers to contact you about it. My mother supposedly attempted suicide this morning, and I want to know how she knew about my sister’s death or if her suicide attempt was completely unrelated to my sister’s murder.”
His voice lowered with compassion. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, “but I need to know whether the police did a notification. Mom’s in the hospital, and I am too. She’s had her stomach pumped, and she’ll survive the overdose, but she’s still in a delicate state.”
“I’ll check and get back to you.” And he hung up.
That was probably the best she could hope for at this point.
Still it sucked. As soon as she was allowed to, she went into her mother’s little cubicle and sat down on the chair beside her bed. Raina held her mother’s hand, gently stroking her fingers back and forth. “Mom, it’s okay. No matter what’s happened, it’ll be okay.”
She kept talking to her for a long moment and then realized there was absolutely no response, so she laid her mother’s hand gently across her belly and just waited at her bedside. She continued to go through her mother’s cell phone, seeing if anything else was going on that maybe Raina didn’t know about. She didn’t want to think of it as encroaching on her mother’s privacy, but, if her mother had a relationship that Raina didn’t know about or if something else was happening that upset her to this extent, then Raina needed to know.
She hated feeling like she was snooping, but she went back several days, then read forward. Instead of Reana discussing her sexuality, Reana discussed Reyes’s return. And how she was worried and upset about it.
That blew Raina away because there was absolutely no need for this response. Reyes had no intention of even seeing her. Reana had kept silent about the real reason for their breakup. Given that, it made sense she’d be worried about what Reyes might say to set everyone straight.
Her mom’s texts to Reana had reassured her that Reyes would likely not even talk to her. It had been two years, so why would he? Or, at least if he did, it would be as if everything had changed and how they were friends now. Reana made it clear that she didn’t want that. She wanted him not to talk to her, but she also didn’t want him to talk to anybody in her circle.
Raina continued to read through the text messages between mother and daughter but found nothing earth-shattering. She went to the other text messages and found one from a boyfriend from a few years ago. He’d contacted her a month ago, asking about going out. She’d suggested coffee, and a date was set, which was in two days.
Raina frowned as she thought about that. “Why would she commit suicide if going on a date in a couple days?”
Or had she been so upset and distraught over her daughter’s death that she didn’t even think about the upcoming date? That sounded more likely.
After spending another twenty minutes on her mother’s cell phone, Raina realized nothing here gave her any answers. She pocketed the phone and pulled out hers. As she did, it rang, and Reyes’s number was displayed.
“Hey, what did you find?”
“Not much,” he said. “My mom is pretty distraught.”
“Yeah, I imagine,” Raina said. “I called the officer to see if anybody there had gone to my mother’s house, letting her know. He said he didn’t think so, but he’d get back to me.”
“Yeah,” Reyes said. “Mom is not talking.”
*
Reyes really hated the fact that his mom wouldn’t give him a straight answer. It made him very suspicious. After he hung up from Raina, he turned to look at his mom.
His dad held her close, shooting Reyes a hard look. “Surely we don’t need to ask her any questions right now?” his father said.
“Yes, we do.” Reyes stood his ground. “Mom, I need to know if you told Melissa about Reana’s death.”
He watched his mother’s back stiffen. She spun on him in outrage.
But he refused to back down. This was way too important.
And, as she realized that, she started to cry again.
“Stop the waterworks,” Reyes said sharply. “I love you dearly, but this is not the time for more dramatics. Melissa tried to commit suicide this morning. And we need to know who the hell had contact with her before that. We have a record of your phone call. Did you or did you not tell Melissa about Reana’s death?”
His father turned to look down at Annemarie. “Please tell me that you’re not the one who broke the news to her. That wasn’t your job.”
Annemarie looked up at him, her eyes huge, and she whispered, “I know, but I couldn’t not. I figured she needed to know.”
“No, you didn’t think that at all,” Reyes said. “As usual, you’ve stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. And Melissa is now in the hospital in critical care from emptying every pill bottle she had in the house, trying to stop her pain. She shouldn’t have been alone this morning—not to deal with that on her own.”
At that, Annemarie burst into more tears and threw herself against her husband’s chest. The two men glared at each other, but Reyes continued, “Dad, this is too damn important. We have a murdered young woman. We have another woman so distraught that she may have tried to commit suicide. And we have the third and final remaining family member who we need to know is not in any danger.”
At that Reyes’s father understood. “Yes, you’re right,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I was forgetting about Raina. She must be absolutely devastated.”
“Not only did she find her mother almost dead,” Reyes said, “but she took the blow of finding out about her sister this morning. She also had to identify Reana at the morgue. And then she went through her mom’s cell phone to find out Mother had called Melissa. Mom, did you have any contact with Reana last night?”
His mom stiffened and turned to glare at him again. This time though she wiped her
eyes free of moisture. “Are you accusing me of having anything to do with Reana’s death?” she asked.
This time he was gratified to hear she was at least being reasonable and understood how severe this was. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he said. “But, so far, you’ve not given me any answers.”
“I don’t have to justify myself to you,” she snapped.
“No, you don’t,” Ice said, stepping into the office. “But, if you don’t, you are permanently damaging a relationship I don’t think you really want to lose.”
Annemarie stiffened. Even Reyes was surprised at Ice speaking up. But then he shouldn’t be. Ice understood people. She understood relationships like very few people he knew.
Annemarie stared at Ice with a frown on her face. “What does my son accusing me of murder have to do with a relationship I want to keep?” she asked stiffly. “And this has nothing to do with you.”
“That’s not true,” Ice said. “Because I was here during the last meeting between Reyes and Reana. Somewhere between that meeting and first thing this morning, when her body was found, that young woman was murdered. That was followed immediately by her own mother trying to commit suicide. So, before the police look to the mother for means and a reasonable motive for killing her own daughter, we have to find out exactly who the players are in this game. Your son is only trying to get to the bottom of this. So stop stonewalling and give him the answers he needs, or let’s all go to the police station, where you can give them the answers they need,” she said in a cool voice.
There was silence in the store, so everyone could hear Annemarie’s answer. She stared at Ice in horror and then turned to look at her son.
He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“Yes, I spoke to Melissa. Yes, I told her about Reana’s death. Sally from the restaurant called me this morning after hearing the news. No, I’m not happy with myself. I don’t like that I did that. I should have waited for the police or for a family member to give that notice. But Melissa and I have been friends for a long time. We were almost sisters by marriage, if Reana and Reyes had married. I did feel I was a close-enough familial connection that I should tell her, but I can see now how that was a mistake. I can also see it shouldn’t have been done over a phone call, nor should she have been alone at that time. Once I hung up, honestly I got so busy that I never thought about Melissa again. And that makes me feel very small.”