My Father's Best Friend Read online

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Andrew’s answer was so swift and firm, I knew better than to argue.

  “Okay,” I replied. “Karen, go home, okay? You need to get some rest.”

  They were both older than me, and it felt strange to suddenly be the one calling the shots, but there was no one else to do it. Karen and Andrew were both beside themselves, albeit in different ways.

  Karen surveyed Andrew before nodding. “I’ll come back first thing tomorrow morning.”

  As she passed, I reached out and squeezed her hand, and she gave me a grateful smile.

  With only me and Andrew left, he turned his face to me. For the first time since he’d gotten the call about Raven, it seemed he really saw me. “You go too.”

  “No.”

  Andrew smiled sadly. “You just said there’s nothing you can do here.”

  “There’s nothing we can do, and yet you’re staying, so I am too.”

  Andrew reached over and took my hand. Our fingers interlaced, strong and warm. I brought his hand up and kissed the top of it. The pain seemed to explode from his eyes. It was too much to handle, but I forced myself not to look away. Just the night before, I had confessed my love to this man. Whether or not he’d heard me was beside the point. We’d only been together for a short time, but I was committed. Through thick and thin, I was going to be by his side.

  “How about this,” I said slowly. “I’ll run home and get some pillows and blankets. That way, we’ll at least be a little comfortable here. Is there anything else you want me to pick up?”

  Andrew rubbed the back of his neck. “Why isn’t Jason here? What is he hiding?”

  My heart jerked. “He’s just another kid, Andrew,” I insisted. “He’s probably not very good at driving, but he might be. And, you know, accidents happen to everyone.”

  “No.” His eyes turned steely. “They don’t. I’ve never been in an accident. I pay attention on the road. I don’t want to be like that prick who killed my wife. He wasn’t paying attention, and neither was Jason.”

  Hurt rippled through me, and I sucked on my lips. I couldn’t see into Andrew’s head, but I knew there was a lot going on in there. The pain of his daughter being in a bad accident had probably been doubled thanks to it bringing up the past agony of his wife’s death.

  He was going through so much, and there was nothing I could do about it other than just be by his side.

  “I’ll be back soon.” I squeezed his hand. “Real soon.”

  As I stood to leave, I almost told him not to go anywhere, but I knew wild horses wouldn’t drag him out of that waiting room.

  Chapter 46

  Andrew

  “You’re sure?” I asked, clenching the phone tighter.

  “That’s what the hospital’s blood work shows us, Mr. Marx,” Officer Dean replied from the other end of the line.

  I held my breath, tired of the painful inhales and exhales, and looked over at Raven. Nothing had changed since I last checked her over a minute before. Same machines hooked up to her. Same bruised hands. Same cast on the arm. Same closed eyes.

  She looks dead.

  I hated myself for that awful thought, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d carry the image of Danica’s lifeless body with me for the rest of my days. I didn’t want to have to carry a mirror one featuring my daughter as well.

  “Things are looking good.” That’s what the doctor had said. There was a high chance Raven would wake up sometime in the next few days. Hopefully.

  Part of what the doctors fed me seemed to be bullshit, carefully-polished phrases and words meant to stop me from becoming hysterical. I wasn’t a fool. I knew nothing was certain and that, at any moment, Raven’s health could take a turn for the worse.

  “There was no alcohol in the young man’s system,” Officer Dean was saying. “But there was in Raven’s.”

  “Huh?” I blinked at that, my back going straighter.

  “It appears your daughter was the one who had a drink or two,” he said slowly, talking to me like I was a little kid. “If anything, Jason was being responsible by foregoing drinking.”

  “Responsible?” I hissed. “You call what he did responsible? He ran off the road. He almost killed my daughter. You do know he’s a seventeen-year-old boy, officer? If he wasn’t drinking, he was doing something else. Did the hospital test for everything? Pot? Cocaine? And when the hell did they take this test? If he was drinking, he could have been sobering up by the time they got around to taking his fucking blood.”

  “The hospital tests for most common drugs,” Officer Dean replied, an edge to his voice. He conveniently didn’t answer my other questions.

  “What about pills? Huh? I shouldn’t have to tell you teenagers are taking drugs out of their parents’ medicine cabinets now. Think about how many kinds of ways there are to get high!”

  “Mr. Marx, if you’re interested in continuing this conversation, I’m going to have to insist you calm down.”

  I snorted, fire and soot rumbling deep in my chest like I was a dragon. I shut my damn mouth, though. I could do that for a few seconds.

  “We talked to a witness who lives in the neighborhood the crash happened in. Her house is right across the street from where the car spun off the road, and she’s the one who called for help. According to her, a dog ran in front of the car, and Jason jerked to avoid hitting it. It was an accident, Mr. Marx. Nothing more.”

  I cast another glance at Raven, praying she showed some sign of movement. I’d take anything. An overturned hand. A twitching eyebrow. But nothing had changed.

  I sat on the edge of the chair in the corner of the room. I’d slept in it the night before, the blanket and pillow Lanie brought me only providing a small amount of comfort.

  “Why are her injuries so much worse?” I questioned. “Jason has a broken arm, and Raven nearly fucking died. He must have intentionally turned the car so that her side hit the tree. He saved his own ass.”

  A silence followed, and Officer Dean cleared his throat. “Just a minute,” he told someone else on his end.

  “Officer Dean?” I pressed. “This is an important conversation we’re having here. I need your full attention.”

  “And you have it,” he snapped back, “but I can’t offer you anything that doesn’t exist. The reason Raven has sustained worse injuries has to do with the airbags in the car. There were none on the passenger’s side. Only the driver’s had them.”

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. A painful throb had been between my brows the second I woke up, and it hadn’t abated all day.

  “And you’ve talked to Jason,” I said slowly.

  “We have his statement, Mr. Marx. What else do you expect us to do?”

  “I expect you to do your fucking job,” I growled, conscious of the pounding in my temples and my shaking hands.

  “This isn’t a murder case. The Seattle Police Department has real issues to attend to. Have a good night, Mr. Marx.”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but he’d hung up.

  “Shit.” I slammed the phone onto the small corner table, realized I’d done it too hard, and picked it back up to inspect the screen. No cracks. I needed to get a hold of myself, though. I didn’t like losing my temper. It was a trait no one wore well.

  Sighing, I leaned over my knees and stared at Raven. Beyond her bed, the blinds were open enough to show some of the lights sparkling across the street.

  Two days going into two nights. That’s how long I’d been at the hospital. In that time, nothing had changed.

  How long had it been since the nurse came in to check on her? Twenty minutes? Thirty?

  I considered pressing the call button to get someone in but finally decided I was being paranoid. Needing a distraction, I picked my phone back up and debated calling Lanie. She’d spent the night before in the hospital with me, sleeping in one of the cramped chairs, and I’d sent her home in the morning. Our romantic weekend had ended in a fashion quite the opposi
te of what I’d planned, and I didn’t want her to suffer more than she already had. For me, there was no leaving the hospital. Not yet.

  But I figured it would be good for Lanie to get out of the place for a while.

  Closing my eyes, I thought back to two nights before, when we’d been caught up in each other’s arms. Everything had seemed perfect like the whole world was finally bowing down to me. Things I’d never known I wanted were coming my way, namely, things Lanie provided.

  I’d wanted to tell her I loved her that night, but I’d held back. It was too soon, and I didn’t want to ruin what we had. The drama with her dad had just happened, and things still felt a little delicate. I figured I had all the time I needed to tell her how I felt.

  Opening my eyes, I looked at Raven, a reminder that time was an illusion. You always think there’s going to be more of it, but it often doesn’t work out that way. A person can make all the plans they wanted to, but in the end, their lives weren’t theirs to command. There was some higher force at play. Whether it moves with an intention or not, well, I was one of the last people who could answer that.

  I only knew that shit happened, and life was short.

  My wife’s death showed me that, but I failed to remember it for long.

  It won’t be a lesson I easily forgot again.

  My thumb hovered over Lanie’s name on the phone’s screen. I wanted to hear her voice just to remember that she still existed, that she was still there if I wanted to go to her. I was too afraid of what I might say, though, too afraid of breaking down. She hadn’t even known me two months yet. To her, I was still strong and capable, the man who built a billionaire-dollar corporation from the ground up, a person who took care of things and stuck to his word.

  I didn’t want her to see me falling apart, to know I wasn’t as strong as I acted.

  So, though it hurt like hell to say no to temptation, I put the phone back down. Going to Raven’s bedside, I smoothed some hair away from her forehead. Her eyelids were soft with no sign of movement beneath them.

  “Raven,” I whispered. “It’s me. It’s Dad. Can you hear me, honey?”

  My throat tightened before I could say any more, and I bit down on my lip. That strangled cry that wanted to come out wasn’t going to. Not on my watch.

  After a few deep breaths, I tried again. “It’s going to be okay, Raven. You’ll wake up soon. And I’ll make whoever is responsible for this pay.”

  I didn’t say the name of the perp, but we both knew who had put her in that hospital bed. And I meant what I said. If Jason did have something to do with Raven’s injuries—and I was almost certain he did—he needed to brace himself for what was coming next.

  Chapter 47

  Lanie

  Erica smoothly pulled her car into a spot in the hospital’s side parking lot but kept the engine on. We sat side-by-side, staring at the building in front of us.

  “Thanks,” I told her again. “You didn’t have to drive me.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “It’s okay.”

  I nodded, eyes tearing up again. This time, I blinked the waterworks away. I’d cried so much already, and I didn’t want to walk into Raven’s room and have Andrew see me this way. I didn’t know how much hope he still possessed, and if he saw me breaking down, it wouldn’t help any.

  “Have you talked to Jason?” Erica asked. She knew the whole story from A to Z. I’d called her on my way home to grab blankets and pillows on Sunday. I knew they probably had those things at the hospital, but I’d needed an hour to break down somewhere Andrew couldn’t see me. Erica, as always, had provided the crucial listening ear.

  “No. He wasn’t at school today. I called his parents, and they said they’ll send him to me if he wants to talk.” I shrugged. “But it’s up to him. There’s no guarantee he’ll come to see me.”

  “Poor Andrew,” Erica whispered.

  “Yeah,” I thickly answered, looking down at the magazine in my lap. I’d brought it in case Raven could hear people talking to her, thinking she might like to hear something other than medical jargon and people crying.

  “He spent last night here as well?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Erica twisted her lips. “It’s gonna be okay.” Unbuckling her seat belt, she reached over and hugged me. I squeezed my eyes tight, embracing her back in the hope that I might be able to absorb some of that killer strength she’d always possessed.

  “I’ll be out here,” she said, drawing back.

  “You don’t want to sit in the waiting room? There’s the main one downstairs that’s nice.”

  “Nah.” She pulled out her phone. “I have some calls to make, and it’s pretty comfy in here. Take your time.”

  “I won’t be that long,” I promised, unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling on my gloves.

  “It’s fine.” She smiled.

  “An hour tops.”

  “Go.” She gently pushed my shoulder. Collecting my bag, I went, bracing myself as I crossed the cold parking lot. The December wind beat against my face, and the quickly setting sun didn’t help matters any. Winter in Seattle was as cold as it had ever been.

  “Hi,” I told the woman at the ICU’s front desk, “I’m here to see—”

  “Oh, yes.” She knowingly nodded and pressed the buzzer for the second doors to open. “He said you were coming. Go ahead.”

  The way she said “he” made me wonder if Andrew had committed further crimes to gain a bad reputation at the hospital. As if shouting at the staff wasn’t enough.

  Raven’s door was open halfway, but I knocked anyway. Andrew turned, coming over to draw the door open the rest of the way. Bags rested under his eyes, and there seemed to be new lines in his forehead. Somehow, he’d aged years in the last two days.

  “Hey,” I breathed, stepping up to his chest and wrapping my arms around him. His piney scent surrounded me, and I inhaled deeply. All day long, through the parent-teacher meetings and the paperwork and the lunch duty, this is what I’d been waiting for. I’d come to the hospital hoping to comfort Andrew and Raven, but the truth was that I also needed them as well.

  For a long moment, Andrew did nothing, and my mind started to freak. Had something else happened? Had the doctors delivered bad news?

  But then he put his arms around me and nuzzled his face into the top of my head. “Hi,” he replied.

  Turning my face sideways, cheek against his chest, I looked at Raven. It seemed impossible that someone with such vivaciousness and spunk could be reduced to a limp body lying in a hospital bed, but I was looking at just that with my own two eyes.

  “How is she doing?”

  Andrew pulled away with a sigh. “The same.”

  I pressed my lips together and studied his face. “That’s not worse. She still might wake up soon, right?”

  Andrew raked his fingers through his hair and collapsed into a chair. “That’s what they said.”

  “Andrew.” I didn’t know what my next words were. They got caught in my throat on the way up. Going to him, I squatted down and took his hand. His despondent eyes shifted my way. “Have you been sleeping?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Trying.”

  I nodded. “Can I go and get you something from the cafeteria?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  I just nodded again. If the right words exist, I prayed, please send them to me now.

  Nothing came. That same sense of helplessness was all that filled my heart.

  Grabbing the other chair in the room, I dragged it over next to Andrew’s and had a seat. “Erica drove me over here. She had some errands in the area. So I’ll have to go soon, but I can come back later tonight.”

  Andrew grimaced. “Lanie, you need to rest. Don’t let this fuck up your life.”

  “This is my life.” The words were stronger than I’d expected them to be, and I almost felt embarrassed over such a huge confession. But I’d said it, and there was no going back. Taking Andrew’s hand, I gave it a squeeze.

&nb
sp; His rueful smile nearly broke my heart. “I really blew our romantic weekend.”

  “What?” I sputtered. “None of this was your fault.”

  “I know, but still.”

  “Still nothing. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  We fell into a silence, listening to the beep of the machines and the rolling of wheels in the hallway.

  “I brought a magazine,” I said after a few minutes. “Teen Trend.” I pulled it from my oversized purse and held it up for inspection.

  “What’s that about?”

  I shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out. I was thinking I can read it to Raven.”

  “She’ll like that.” His chin trembled the slightest bit, and I rubbed my thumb over the top of his hand. His eyes grew wet, but just as it looked like he might cry, he stood.

  “I’m going to get some coffee,” he announced.

  “Okay.” I stared after him, keeping my sigh held back until he’d left the room. “Well, girl.” I looked over at Raven. “Are you ready to hear about all the hot trends for this New Year’s Eve?”

  By the time Andrew came back, I’d gotten through one article about new and creative ways to wear glitter and one about the most shocking celebrity breakups of the last year. Needless to say, I was learning a lot.

  “Where’s your coffee?” I asked, noting no cup in his hand.

  “Huh?” He barely looked my way before walking to the window.

  Fear filled me, and I put the magazine down before glancing at Raven. “What happened?”

  “It’s these cops.”

  “Let’s go talk in the hallway.” I slowly stood. It had occurred to me while reading to Raven that if she could hear the articles like I wanted her to, she could probably hear everything else we were saying.

  In the hall, I closed the door behind us. Andrew had already set to pacing, walking up and down along the hall. A bad kind of tingling covered the back of my neck.

  “What’s going on with the police?” I asked.