Chapter 40
NEED TO KNOW WHY
“Any change?”
Blaze turned from where he’d been dozing in the chair next to Arden’s bed to see her mother standing in the open doorway. He hadn’t left her side.
She was still in a coma and all they could do was wait it out.
Tox screens showed PCP. Someone slipped it to her and there was no saying when or how it happened.
He needed her to wake up. He needed her to walk him through her day.
He refused to think about if she woke up. Or if there was any long-term damage. She’d crashed once more but was steady now. At least her heart was.
There was no room in his brain for more.
“No,” he said.
“I should have been told something was going on in her life,” Trisha Charles said. “Arden shouldn’t have been keeping this from me.”
“There isn’t anything I can say to that.”
And he couldn’t worry either.
With Arden not waking up, he had to get her emergency contact, call her parents and arrange for them to get Gracie. They’d rushed to the hospital first, staying there while he updated them, then broke the news he wasn’t just Arden’s doctor, but her boyfriend.
It wasn’t until Trisha and Josh returned after Gracie was sleeping and his sister was staying at the house with Arden’s daughter, that he could fully explain what was going on.
“She’s always been a stubborn one,” Trisha said. “I never thought Billy was the right guy for her. Could it have been him?”
“No,” he said. “There is no way. Someone in this hospital gave it to her. Security is looking into everything and everyone. The same with the Glens Falls Police and Sheriff’s Department. They’ll get something soon.”
They had to because, whoever this was, they were still out there. Which meant they were going to try again.
Whoever it was wanted to hurt him and they did. They tested him. Tested his ability to save the woman he loved.
If he hadn’t known what was going on in her life, he might not have rushed for the tox screen right away, but once they knew what she’d been given, it was waiting it out, then keeping her close.
That meant an officer outside the door and no one allowed in but him and immediate family.
If she hadn’t brought him a sandwich, if he hadn’t asked her to stay while he ate, he wouldn’t have been there to work on her immediately.
Again, his mind traveled roads it shouldn’t be on.
Trisha moved closer to her daughter and sat on the side of the bed, picking her hand up and holding it tight. “She’ll fight back. She always does.”
“She will,” he murmured.
Trisha turned toward him. “You love my daughter?”
“I do.”
“Does she feel the same way about you?”
“Yes.”
“Wish she’d told me that. Wish she told me so much more,” Trisha said. “I hope I get the—” She broke off in a sob.
“You will,” he said. “You can yell at her too. I know you want to.”
Trisha laughed, then cried. “I was so hard on her for years. I told her Billy wasn’t good enough for her. I made it so that she wouldn’t tell me what was going on in her life. That’s on me.”
He moved over and ran his hand over Trisha’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself.” Which was ironic because it was exactly what he’d been doing. “She wouldn’t want that.”
“No,” Trisha said, shaking her head. “She wouldn’t.”
He heard voices outside the door and saw Ford and Clay come in, then Ford’s eyes drop to Trisha. “Any updates?” Ford asked.
“Nothing. No change. She’s still in a coma. Tell me you’ve got something.”
“We do,” Ford said.
“Trisha Charles, these are my brothers, Ford and Clay.” There was no need to introduce the sheriff. He was in uniform on top of it.
“I’ll stay with her,” Trisha said. “If I can?”
“Yes,” he said, then walked out with his brothers, Ford letting the officer know where they were going.
He led them into a room off to the side.
Ford started right in. “Tate has Erika Johnson in holding with security. She won’t talk until she sees you.”
“Erika?” he asked, his jaw dropping open. “What? You’ve got to be joking.”
“No,” Clay said. “Late last night your neighbors finally emailed me the bird camera footage. I saw a gray sedan pull into Arden’s driveway, but the person had a hood over their head. The bike was loaded into the backseat, then they pulled out and I got a partial license.”
“Clay got me up and I ran the plates with the cars of the staff on the list,” Ford said. “I got a hit at the same time Clay called that he’d found something else.”
“What did you find?” he asked. He was still trying to wrap his head around this, but then he remembered Erika was the one who got Arden the water when she was coughing.
None of that was planned. It just happened.
Unless Erika had been waiting for the right time and it fell into her lap.
Yet she was right there helping him save Arden.
Or was she really?
He was too caught up in what he was doing to notice what anyone else was.
“Erika’s social media page. She’d been posting a lot of things about regret, loss, revenge. Trigger words. I was piecing things together to question her and then once they verified whose car it was, it all came together.”
“None of it is for me,” he said. “Nothing makes sense.”
“Tate detained her on the way in.” Ford’s tone hardened. “They’ve brought her to a room. She said she wouldn’t talk to anyone but you.”
“She didn’t ask why she was being detained?” He blinked. The sleep deprivation, the last twenty-four hours, the adrenaline. It all scraped raw. “But she asked for me?”
Ford shook his head. “No. I saw her. She said right away she wanted you. I know guilt. It’s there. It’s up to you though if you want to talk to her.”
“I need to know why,” he said, walking toward the door and following his brothers to the holding in the hospital.
The minute they walked in, Tate moved to the locked door, security pulled the key and opened it, him and Ford going in. He knew damn well Clay wanted to but would stand outside and watch.
Erika sat at the table, her eyes hard and rimmed in red. “Did she die? Did Arden die?”
This wasn’t the young peppy nurse he’d gotten to know in the past eight months. This was someone with a twisted evil flowing in her veins.
Her eyes were dark, her fists clenched, her teeth almost grinding in her anticipation for the answer.
Was this the reason she wanted to see him first? To see if she succeeded?
“No. She’s going to be fine. She’s awake and alert,” he lied.
If Erika was detained walking into the building, she’d have no knowledge that Arden’s future was still in the air.
“No. No, no, no. I’ve waited too long.” Her head pivoting, eyes twitching rapidly. “I’ve worked too hard to get here. I only had one shot. I should have waited. She needs to die like Tyler. You needed to watch it just like me.”
“Tyler?” he asked, his eyes shifting to his brother and Tate.
“My boyfriend,” Erika snarled. “You killed him.”
His head was spinning. Lack of sleep, the turmoil of the past twenty-four hours, now this nonsense. “I thought your boyfriend’s name was Toby.”
“My current boyfriend,” Erika snapped. “Before him was Tyler. We were going to get married. He was stabbed. They rushed him here. You were the doctor on duty. I tried to help him in the bar. I’m a nurse.
It’s my job! I stabilized him before the paramedics arrived.
But you, you killed him after I held him together! ”
She was standing behind the table now, Ford moving forward in front of him along with Tate, their guns out.
Erika hadn’t been charged. She hadn’t been read her rights.
She hadn’t even asked why she was here, yet she was confessing just the same.
None of this made sense, yet it all did in a sick, twisted way.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.
“Yes, you do. A little over three years ago. Your second day on the job. Tyler was brought in with stab wounds to the chest. You didn’t save him. You let him die!” Erika was screaming so loudly there was spit flying out of her mouth.
Jesus Christ.
His mind scrambled for a memory. He’d fought beside a team for that kid. He’d pulled every thread he could.
Then he remembered the screaming girlfriend covered in blood outside the doors.
She was hysterical and he didn’t see anything other than emotions, too focused on his job.
It could have been Erika, but the woman back then had a dress on smeared in blood, her hands covered with it, some on her face with tears mixing in. No features stood out to him.
The Erika he knew wore scrubs daily with her hair pulled back from her face, always offering a smile.
“I brought him back after he coded,” he said through his teeth. “We did everything. He died in surgery. I wasn’t even in the room.”
“You don’t owe anyone any explanations,” Ford said, lowering his gun. Tate’s was still aimed.
“Yes, he does! He killed Tyler, so I need to kill Arden. It’s the only way I’ll be free. If someone else feels what I went through. If he sees what it’s like to go through the pain of losing someone he loves.”
“Are you confessing to poisoning Arden Bellamy?” Tate asked.
It was as if she was finally seeing what she’d done.
Her eyes were more focused. She was staring at Tate’s gun aimed at her.
Then she was nodding her head and coming apart.
“It was going to be you,” Erika said, sobbing and lowering herself into the chair again, her body almost sagging under the weight of her confession.
“I got hired here to make you pay. I applied for a year before I got the interview. I never thought I’d be in the ER with you, but it was fate.
I just had to bide my time and figure out the next step.
But once you fell for her, I thought how much worse it’d be if you had to live with losing someone at your hands you loved just like me. ”
Erika’s head was on the table now as she broke down in tears.
“Erika Johnson, you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Arden Bellamy—”
He walked out of the room as Tate read the rights.
He got his answers, but none of it made a lick of sense.
Ford was fast on his heels.
“Hey, don’t let her get in your head.”
“You heard her. It was supposed to be me.” His hand hit his chest. “I don’t have a child. I don’t have anyone. And Arden’s lying in the bed while we wait for her to wake up. I don’t even know if she’s going to be okay. It’s all on me.”
“Don’t fucking do this to yourself,” Clay said, having followed them out. “I’ve been there. Don’t let something suck you in you can’t control. It wasn’t you. It isn’t going to be Arden.”
He couldn’t stand there and listen to his brothers, just turned and strode back to the woman he loved to watch and wait for her to wake up and prayed the guilt didn’t take him under this time.