Chapter 28 Cosi
Cosi
Commotion outside my office made me look up from the file I’d been reviewing as Pamela and Chuck appeared in the doorway, their faces pale and panicked.
“What?” I shot to my feet, rounding the desk as my worst fears began running through my mind. “Is it Spencer?”
“It’s Ilsa,” Pamela said.
No. The world tilted beneath my feet. “What happened?”
“Aunt Helena called,” Chuck said. “She’s on shift in the emergency room and was there when they brought Ilsa in. Thought you might want to get down there. Fast.”
I was already moving, pushing past them for the hall.
Icy dread pooled in my bones as I shoved through the door and sprinted for the Bronco, digging my keys from my jeans pocket.
The squeal of the tires was a dull screech beneath the blood roaring in my ears.
With a flick of a switch, I turned on the light bar and siren, then stomped on the gas.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be real. It had to be a mistake.
She was fine. I just saw her at lunch. She was fine. She was at school, probably grading papers, sitting at her desk drinking water from her jar.
She had to be okay. I wouldn’t survive it otherwise.
My vision blurred at the fringes as I sped through town, my heart in my throat, not knowing what I’d find when I reached the ER.
The ambulance was parked out front, its back doors open. I took the space reserved for first responders and ran inside.
“Cosi.” Mom was waiting beyond the double doors, arms wrapped around her waist.
“Where is she? What happened? Is she okay?”
The tears in Mom’s eyes made my stomach drop.
“Mom.” My voice cracked. “Where is Ilsa?”
“With the doctors. I don’t know what happened.”
I moved around her, marching toward the nurses’ station. It was empty. Where the fuck was everyone? There was a bell on the counter. I hit it three times fast, the ding filling the lobby.
Nothing. I pounded a fist into the desk and pushed away, marching for the door that led to the ER rooms. Except before I could reach for the handle, it blew open and Helena came out, dressed in teal scrubs, her gray hair twisted into a severe knot.
“Come with me,” she ordered. Her footsteps were muted on the thin blue carpet as she led the way along a hall.
Behind me, Mom jogged to catch up.
We turned one corner, then another, winding past closed doors and empty waiting rooms. With every step, the strength in my legs waned, making it harder and harder to pick up my feet.
“Helena.” I could barely speak past the lump in my throat. “Please.”
She slowed and turned, giving me a tight smile.
Chuck’s aunt had been a nurse at this hospital for years. She was stern, her face set in a permanent pout, and she didn’t believe in sugarcoating bad news.
I’d always respected that she was a straight shooter. But today, I wasn’t sure I could handle a blunt truth. Not if it meant losing Ilsa. “Is she okay?”
“We don’t know yet. Dr. Harris is in with her now. He thinks she’s been poisoned.”
My knees buckled.
“Cosi.” Mom caught me by the arm, holding me up.
“I’m okay.” I found my balance, swallowing the terror, and met Helena’s cool blue eyes. “Is she . . .”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t bring myself to ask if she was going to survive this.
“It’s going to be a while before we know anything,” Helena said. “What I need is for you to remain calm. Come and sit in a waiting room before you pass out. I don’t have time to deal with you too. When I know more, I’ll know exactly where to find you.”
“Come on.” Mom urged me forward, keeping her arm looped with mine as we followed Helena to a waiting room.
She left us to sit in stiff, tweed-upholstered chairs.
“Fuck.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. At any minute, I’d wake up from this awful dream. Ilsa would be asleep beside me in bed. I wouldn’t be in this damn hospital.
I hated the hospital. I hated being tucked away in a room where doctors delivered bad news. The last time I’d been back here was when Spencer was eight.
He’d built a skateboard ramp in the driveway, then proceeded to break his arm. Since then, I stuck to the lobby.
Doctors didn’t deliver bad news in the lobby. No, they saved the bad news for private waiting rooms. This was where they told people that the love of their life was dead.
“I can’t—” I pushed my palms to my eyes, pushing so hard black spots broke out. Thinking about losing her was too much. So I shut it out. I pushed all of the fear, the dread, into a dark, dusty corner of my mind and let the cop inside me take control.
“Did you find her?” I asked Mom.
“No.” She shook her head. “I was leaving the mail room after my shift. I saw them bring her in on a gurney.”
My hands were trembling, every muscle in my body shaking and tense. My knees started to bounce and sitting in this chair only made the anxiety worse. So I stood and paced the small room, raking my hands through my hair. “You don’t have any idea what happened?”
Mom’s chin quivered. “No. But I do need to tell you something.”
I stopped moving. “What?”
“There was a woman with her.” She swallowed hard. “I think she rode in the ambulance with Ilsa. And she might have been the person who found her and called the hospital.”
That cold, icy dread seemed to double. “Who?”
“Gwen.”
I rocked on my heels so hard I took a step backward. “What? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. She’s in the lobby. You walked right past her.”
“The fuck I did.” My hands fisted, and I marched out of the waiting room.
“Cosi,” Mom called, chasing me into the hallway.
I whirled, glaring down at my mother. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.” Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “Remember that game against the Cowboys a couple weeks ago? I thought I saw her at the school that night, but it was quick. And then I started second-guessing myself. It’s been so long.”
Mom had been in a horrible mood that night. Now the reason made sense. “Why would she come in with Ilsa?”
“No idea. I was about to confront her when you stormed into the ER.”
“She better not have left,” I snarled, retreating to the lobby.
Anger surged, and I let over a decade of rage and resentment toward Gwen chase away the fear of losing Ilsa. I gave that fury all of my energy, craving it instead of the terror. I let that anger keep me together.
Gwen was in the far corner of the hospital lobby, sitting stiffly in a wooden chair. She was dressed in jeans, white tennis shoes and a beige sweater that blended with the color of the walls. Her eyes lifted from her lap as I walked into the room. She gulped and rose to her feet.
She was pretty, like she’d always been. Older, like we both were. But her blond hair paled in comparison to my favorite shade of silky brown. Her blue eyes didn’t hold a candle to chocolate irises flecked with gold and cinnamon.
I’d wondered for a long, long time what it would feel like to see Gwen again.
I’d wondered if it would hurt. If I’d still find her as beautiful as I had when we were kids.
If I’d have this overwhelming urge to scream and yell for the pain she’d caused me.
If I’d throw every good memory I had of Spencer’s life in her face.
But as I came to a stop in front of her, I felt nothing. It all disappeared. There was no anger. No compassion. No regret.
Nothing.
Gwen was nothing but a source of information so I could figure out why the only woman who mattered was in the fucking ER.
“Why did you come in with Ilsa?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Hi, Cosi,” she said, glancing past my arm to Mom. “Linda.”
“Answer the question, Gwen.”
She gulped again, her gaze dropping to the badge and holstered gun on my belt. “I, um . . . I saw her walking home from the school. I was going to talk to her.”
“About what?”
She hesitated. “Spencer.”
Part of me wanted to tell her that she had no right to speak my son’s name. But that argument would come later. “Why?”
“I got your last letter. I know I shouldn’t have reached out to him. I’m sorry. I really am. I understand I lost my chance with him a long time ago.”
“That you did.”
Her eyes filled with tears before she ducked her chin to stare at the floor. “I just wanted to see him. Even if it was only from a distance.”
“You were at his basketball game,” I said.
She nodded. “I met her that night. I saw you together and then she was in the bathroom. You said her name is Ilsa?”
“Yes.”
“She had no idea who I was.”
“Why would she?”
Gwen flinched.
If she expected me to be gentle about this, she was sorely mistaken. At the moment, she was nothing more than a witness. And she was lucky I hadn’t called Chuck to take her to the station for questioning.
“I, um . . . I thought maybe if I got to know her—”
“She could put in a good word for you to see Spencer.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, eyes still locked on the floor.
“If you knew my son, you’d know that this manipulative bullshit isn’t the way to win him over.
And using Ilsa? Guaranteed to piss him off.
He’s about as protective of her as I am.
So tell me why the fuck we’re in the emergency room, Gwen.
” I didn’t care that I was shouting. I didn’t care that tears began dripping down her cheeks.
I didn’t care that Mom put her hand on my arm because she knew I was seconds away from losing my goddamn mind.
I only cared about the truth.
“I’ve, um . . . I’ve been coming to town for a while. I’d go to the school in the morning and wait in the parking lot to see Spencer. He looks just like you.”
“Because he’s mine.”