Page 106 of Closer Than You Know

She glanced around the room. She was still in the ER. Good. She did not want to be admitted. She wanted to go home. The sooner the better. “Where’s Bent?”

“He had to go see the Riggs family and tell them about their son—the deputy that bastard killed. He almost killed another one, too—the one watching the house—but he survived. Thank God.” Eve drew in a big breath. “Now he and Eric are holding a press conference in front of the hospital. They had no choice. Reporters had taken over the lobby. It was crazy. They were shouting your name.”

“Seriously? Were they planning to hang me?” Oh God, every part of her hurt.

“No,” Eve scolded. “They all know you’re a hero.”

Vera thought of Patricia Patton and her cameraman. And Deputy Riggs. Damn. She was not a hero. People had died. “What about Patrick?”

“He’s locked down in a room.” Eve eased onto the edge of the exam table. “Apparently you gave him a pretty bad concussion, so he’s under observation.”

“I should have killed the son of a bitch.” She remembered thinking that exact same thing last time ... except it had been about his grandfather. Such a twisted family. Then again, hers wasn’t exactly ideal. The thought made her head hurt. God, she was sore.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the photos.”

Vera looked up at her sister. She was no longer the thirtysomething grumpy mortician. Instead, here was the little girl who’d stood at the door soaking wet and not knowing what to do about their dead stepmother on the bathroom floor. Vera thought of all the little cuts that bastard had inflicted on her torso.

“Forget about that,” Vera argued. “Are you okay?” She tried to sit up and grimaced at the pain.

Eve helped her rise the rest of the way up. “I’m okay. Nothing too deep. It took a while for the grogginess of the drug he used to wear off.”

Vera moved a little to find a better position on this damned hard-ass examination table. Treatment rooms weren’t designed for comfort. She finally decided to lean back against the wall. No matter what she did, the pain was still there. Oh well, at least they were alive.

“Yeah. It takes a minute.” She studied her sister a moment. “I love you, Eve. Nothing else matters, okay?” She frowned. “Has anyone called Luna?”

It suddenly felt like forever since Vera had seen her baby sister.

“Bent called her. He told her not to come to the hospital because of all the reporters.” Eve tidied Vera’s hair. “Look, I can’t just forget aboutit. Mainly because when all this has calmed down, you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. You think you will, but you won’t. So just hear me out, okay?”

Vera nodded, not sure she wanted to know the details. Sometimes it felt like she knew too many bad things already. Her mind desperately needed a major helping of good, or at least a break from all the bad.

“Mama said she couldn’t bear the pain anymore. She’d had that last chemo treatment, and we all—including her—knew she didn’t have much time. She wanted me to help her. She said she wanted to take a bath and she wanted to go to sleep. She took extra pain pills. The plan was I would leave her in the tub, and she would go to sleep and slide under the water. Then it would all be over. She said it would be better for everyone. That she wouldn’t be in pain anymore and we could be happy again. She promised.” Eve closed her eyes against the shine of tears.

Vera struggled to restrain her own. “I’m sorry she put that burden on you. You were way too young to deal with something like that. It should have been me.”

“I guess she thought I would be okay because of how I understand dead people.”

Vera supposed that made a sort of sense. But still, their mother should have considered what she was asking an eleven-year-old child to do. Possibly that last chemo treatment had messed with her ability to reason. Or maybe the long-term use of powerful pain meds.

“When she woke up, spitting and sputtering water,” Eve went on, “she just kept trying to do it, but she couldn’t stay under the water. She asked me to help her.” Her voice had softened to a near whisper now. “But I couldn’t do it.” She picked at her fingernails. “I just couldn’t. So Suri did it for me.”

Vera held her breath for a moment. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to breathe, much less to speak.

“Mama begged us, Vee. I guess she was desperate. She knew she would go any day, and she was just tired of the pain.”

Vera nodded. “Of course she was.” She reached out, ignored the fiery twinge the movement generated, and hugged her sister. “You and Suri did what she wanted you to do. I’m just sorry you had to carry that burden all this time.”

How perfectly horrible for her sister. Vera only wished she had known and could have helped. All these years Eve had lived with that nightmare. Anguish squeezed her heart. Made her wish she knew the right words to say to make it better. But she wasn’t sure that was possible.

Eve drew back, searched Vera’s eyes. “After it was over, I was so torn up. It was like, I had murdered my own mama. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.” She shook her head. “All I could think was that Mama had lied because it didn’t feel better.”

“I understand.” Vera ached for her. “It was a terrible thing you had to do, but it was her wish, and that’s all that matters.” She pulled her sister close again and hugged her hard, no matter how much it hurt. “I would have done the same thing. I promise.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she struggled to hold them back. Eve didn’t need tears; she needed her big sister to be strong for her.

They held each other for a long time. Vera just wanted the past to stop haunting them. It was time they were able to move on without looking back. Maybe now they could.

A rap sounded on the door just before it opened. Bent poked his head in. “You ready to go home?”

Vera had never been more ready in her life. She gave Eve one last squeeze. “Yes. Please.”

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