Chapter 20
Spirits soaring, Dove practically flew into her father’s room, only just realizing, when she heard Mitchell’s soft tones behind her speaking to the nurse, that she’d just left him sitting out there.
A part of her was stronger, knowing he was there, but she was fully focused on her father.
And stopped, not far inside his door when she saw the anger glaring at her from his older blue eyes. “What’s going on?” he demanded in a tone she hadn’t heard directed at her…ever. “Why am I here? Did you have me committed? Because I can tell you…” He started to throw off his covers and sit up.
“Dad, no!” she said, hurrying over to him, both arms reaching out to his chest. Not to push him back but to hold on.
He didn’t hug her back but had stopped moving forward, and tears burst out of her.
“You were hurt,” she told him, sobbing. “Please lie back down. At least until the doctor can look in your eyes and make sure you’re okay to get up. ”
The words seemed to placate him. She felt his body relax against her arms, and helped ease him back to the bed.
Sorry to have to let him go, she sat on the edge of the bed beside him, needing to ask him what seemed like a million questions, but completely stupefied and a bit frightened of the uncharacteristic anger he’d spewed at her, she was afraid to say much or do anything until the doctor arrived.
“She’s been called,” she said then, wiping her tears, but feeling the residual of the storm inside her in the trembling of her lips. “The doctor. She’ll be here momentarily, I promise.”
With a wary look in her direction, he nodded. Then slid his fingers in between hers on the hand closest to him and held on.
Her daddy, again.
His grip strong enough to feel healthy, but not at all hurtful.
And…shaky. His eyes seemed lucid, though he appeared a bit lost. And the vitals she’d been reading for two days on the machine beside his bed were the best they’d been.
His pulse ran fast on and off, and she’d been told that was to be expected with the detoxing.
She wasn’t a doctor. But she clung tightly to the hope in front of her.
Along with a possible boatload of anger, anxiety or resentment. She hadn’t needed the doctor to tell her that part. Just as serotonin was a basis of happiness, the liver was a base for the more negative emotions.
A first-year intern had put a call into Peter Welding as soon as Whaler awoke, and he arrived right alongside the doctor before Dove had a chance for any further conversation with her father. The younger employee shooed her out while the doctor examined him and supervised Welding’s questioning.
“It’s a good sign that he was angry,” Mitchell said the second she stood beside him in the hallway. “He’s fighting.”
Nodding, she watched the closed door. The anger had bothered her. But not nearly as much as the accusation had done. But she’d read up on detoxification. Hallucinations were sometimes a part of the process. Most particularly when the person was a heavy drinker.
Her father qualified as that. She couldn’t take his first reaction to seeing her in a personal way. He was conscious. He wasn’t himself.
One step at a time. She knew this stuff. Things were coming to a close. With Fletcher’s arrest in the works, and her father awake, life could turn the corner toward the future. One where St. James Boats was fluid again.
Her father healthy.
Her studio thriving.
And her no longer feeling like Mitchell was her lifeblood to strength and endurance. No longer needing him. Or anyone but herself.
Standing against the wall, she hardly took her gaze off the door. And jumped when it opened five minutes later. As if by choreographed dance or staging, Welding went straight to Mitchell as the doctor came to her.
“He doesn’t remember anything from the time he saw you in his office on Saturday until now,” the doctor said softly, her gaze compassionate.
Dove didn’t need compassion. Couldn’t allow herself the weakness of leaning on yet another human being. “His memories of his time with you are fuzzy, but I understand he was pretty intoxicated then?”
She nodded. Hating hearing her father’s situation being discussed so…realistically. Yeah, he’d been pretty drunk. More like totally wasted.
She just hadn’t wanted to accept that she was losing him one sip, one bottle at a time.
“His pupil response is good,” the doctor continued, talking about running another scan, some more lab work, before she could give Dove any idea as to when Whaler would be able to go home.
Warning that he was already asking for his bottle.
Threatening to leave if someone didn’t bring it to him.
And then telling her that he’d already fallen back to sleep and could be expected to remain that way for a good part of the day.
If he was up and alert by nighttime, they could start him on some solid foods.
And maybe, depending on test results and his ability to tolerate food, get him off the IV in another twenty-four hours or so.
Dove nodded. Reminded herself that Fletcher was exposed, with or without her father’s testimony. And that in spite of the lack of any sign that he was glad to have rejoined the living, her dad had the best chance ahead of him than he’d had since her mother died.
If he’d cooperate. Or even try to.
If he wanted to stick around to share life with her for a few years, a few decades, longer.
If they got through the next few days, she amended the earlier thought a couple of hours later when Mitchell, who’d been in and out, bringing her snacks and conversation in between his appointments, arrived in Whaler’s room with a grim look on his face.
“Fletcher was taken into custody,” his gaze, his tone, didn’t reflect the good news at all, and she braced herself.
“He admits to vandalizing the boat, hoping, since you’ve been completely ignoring him, to get your attention and convince you to agree to sell the place with your dad out of commission.
He also admitted to the shady but not illegal way he’d convinced Hal to leave St. James Boats.
But he adamantly swears he had nothing to do with your father’s disappearance.
Or any harm that’s come to you. He has solid alibis to back up his claims—he was out deep sea fishing this morning—and his phone and financial records show no evidence at all that he’s been hiring anyone else to create havoc in Shelby. ”
Her stomach a knot of lead, standing at the end of her father’s bed in conversation with Mitchell, she stared up at his suit jacket and tie, looking all official and distant from her. “You’re telling me no charges are being filed?”
He shook his head. “He’ll face property damage charges. Has already agreed to have Wicked Winnings fixed, immediately, at his expense.” He paused, and then said, “And based on signed statements, and no law allowing them to hold him in custody, his lawyer forced the department to let him go.”
“What about the spit on my father’s clothes? Did they get a DNA sample from him? Couldn’t they hold him until they get those results?”
Mitchell just looked at her. Deeply. And she felt the crush of a hopeful day gone bad. “The ABI forensics lab ran a fast DNA test while he was in custody. It wasn’t a match.”
Feeling sick, wishing she hadn’t eaten the tuna he’d brought her at lunch time, she said, “So he’s paying cash and using prepaid phones to hire whoever is helping him.”
“It looks that way.”
Mitchell pulled a chair in from the hall and moved hers over next to it. Sat down. Clearly intending to sit with her. Seemingly for as long as she needed.
Dove slid down to the floor, with her back to the wall, legs in the lotus position, and closed her eyes.
If ever there was a time she needed an awareness of her spirits, of her inner ability to maintain ownership of herself and give her strength, it was then.
Because all she really wanted to do was crawl onto Mitchell’s lap, feel his arms holding her close and cry.
Mitchell had Dove for another night. She’d eaten at the hospital, having ordered in, and he’d had dinner with Eli. Mostly to get his head on straight.
Older brothers had a way of homing in on any nonsense in kid brothers and knocking it right out of them.
They’d met at The Cove, mainly because Mitchell was at St. James Boats after finishing the merger paperwork with his physician clients and intended to return there after dinner as well, until Dove was ready to head home. And The Cove was close.
It was also quiet. Something he needed at the moment. The quiet. A lack of noise in his head so he could find the logic in his current situation.
That’s where he’d expected Eli to come in, but the major-case lieutenant had been oddly moot on any mention of Dove St. James other than to mention how impressive her defense against her attacker had been that morning. And to ask how she was doing.
No ribbing Mitchell. And worse, no asking him what in the hell he thought he was doing with Dove St. James. Not even a mention of how out of character it was for Mitchell to be staying so closely involved with the case.
Not that he blamed his brother. With Dawn Ellis now missing, in addition to the three unidentified female bodies on slabs, Eli would be fully engrossed in the case and beating himself up to catch the killer before anyone else got hurt.
Dove had called not long after he’d left Eli and had talked about her father all the way home. Almost as though she couldn’t allow a moment for any other conversation to happen between them. Because she was avoiding the possibility of more bad news?
Or didn’t want to talk about whether or not they’d have sex again that night?
He studied her face when he stopped at a light, trying to figure out where she was at, but read nothing at all. Her expression was blank.