29. AVERY
AVERY
Of course, Kayla gives us nothing concrete.
I’ve known her all my life, and I’ve never seen her this scared or paranoid.
A part of me feels for her, but then she speaks and that dark lipstick taunts me.
Turning my focus to Dr. Haas, I ignore the throbbing of my hand, still pulsing from when I slapped Kayla.
“Look,” Haas says as he putts a little too heavily, sending the ball way past the hole. “The only thing I can tell you is that Robert wasn’t sick. For a man his age, your father was incredibly fit.”
“Then why avoid my calls?” Rhett snaps.
“Because when you’re a physician to some of the nation’s most important people, you do not simply discuss medical records with a cardiologist in Virginia. We have protocols here.”
“Pompous asshole,” Rhett grits out under his breath when Haas walks away to find his ball. “What I find most interesting is that for a man with a clean bill of health, you are the only ones questioning the postmortem.”
With my heart dropping to the pit of my stomach, I try to take in a deep breath before asking him, “So you think it’s wrong?”
Haas takes another putt half-heartedly before looking up at me. With a soft smile, he wanders over to his ball, closer to where we’re standing. Pausing to take measure of the distance to the hole, he leans over his club.
“No, I don’t think the postmortem is wrong.” Coming closer, he adds, “I did find the news somewhat distressing. I saw him a couple of days before he died. He was looking forward to retiring—in fact, all he could talk about was how he was going to make up for all the lost time with his girls.”
Tears fill my eyes because it was something he would tell me all the time, even when things between us got tense.
Rhett steps closer to me, brushing the back of his hand over mine.
Where most people would smother you with affection, he knows me well enough to understand that it will only serve to break me. And right now, I need to be strong.
“So what do you know that makes you think there’s more to it?” Rowan asks. His arms are folded over his chest, bulging through his long-sleeved Henley.
“Because there is more, isn’t there?” Callie glares between him and Kayla. “It’s why you’re here too, right?”
“No.” Kayla shakes her head, teary gaze flashing to mine before she stares down at her feet and continues. “I’m not here about Robert. He started this even though he knew the fallout it would have.”
“I don’t know where Mr. Henderson is. No matter how many times you ask me, my answer will be the same.
He came to my office two weeks ago, and I did not speak to him, but I did watch him leave.
Yes, he was in one physical piece,” he adds as Kayla opens her mouth to speak.
“But Miss Sloane, I’ve been a doctor for over twenty-five years, and I can tell you that he was not altogether all right here,” he says, gesturing to his temple. “Apart from that, I can’t help you.”
Tugging at the hem of her navy sweater, she looks up at me. “Avery…”
Heavy tears roll down her cheeks, and stupidly, I pity her.
For a moment, I see the girl that bawled her eyes out when her prom date ditched her last minute for the tipped prom queen.
Her tears were so heavy that night that I canceled my own date so we could go together.
Except she already had a backup plan, and I was the fool that ended up alone.
And I won’t let her use me again. I should’ve learned my lesson that time and all the others where she dropped me for something better.
“What, Kayla? We’re not friends anymore, and if you can’t help me, you are of no use to me.”
Straightening, she glowers at me, icy stare daggering into mine with that tick of her jaw that tells me it’s taking every ounce of her energy to stop herself from falling apart.
Just as I had to use mine that day she met me at the pool after my father died and she accused me of being paranoid over Carl’s cheating.
“You know, Carl’s had a real tough time lately. He must be so stressed, and we both know how he likes to find new amusements to take his mind off things. Perhaps he’s grown as bored of you as he did of me?”
“The bad guys are always closer to home than you know,” she spits, taking a step back after she pushes past me. “Robert had it coming, and I hope he’s burning in hell for all the lives he’s ruined.”
If they didn’t confirm the fact that she’s out of her depth, the words would sting, but instead, they roll right off my back as I watch her walk away. I don’t care what she says, I know who my father was, and there is nothing anyone can say to change it.
“What a bitch,” Callie mutters as she turns her attention back to Dr. Haas, but before she says anything, he looks at Rhett.
“You’re the heart specialist here, Dr. Reynolds, but I can only think of one way a perfectly healthy man would drop dead of a heart attack.” Haas takes a step toward him. “There is nothing wrong with my records. Nothing more I can tell you or help you with. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Rhett steels beside me, some kind of cryptic understanding settling between them.
“This whole situation is bananas,” Haas chuckles, but the sound is at odds with the grave look on his face, and when Rhett nods a somber thank-you, I know there’s something very wrong.
The drive back to the Morgans’ home is far quieter than I can bear. My heart is thumping in my chest, so hard that it’s making me feel dizzy as I try to make sense of Dr. Haas’s cryptic words.
It’s not exactly the longest ride back to the house, but by the time we get there I’m past being on edge that when Rafe surprises us, I jump out of my skin.
“Whoa there!” he laughs, hugging me. When I don’t hug him back, he pulls away to look me over. “What have I missed?”
“More like what have we missed?” Callie asks, grabbing Rafe by the arm and dragging him downstairs, toward the basement.
“Oh shit.” Rowan blows out a breath following behind them.
It gives me a moment to get my head together before I find Rhett’s soft gaze. There’s a short beat of silence before he completely envelops me with his embrace. He holds me like glue keeping all my shattered pieces together even when the sob I’ve been holding on to pushes out of me.
The pain that’s burning through me is excruciating, and I still have no idea what the outcome of the discussion with Haas was. I’m still as much in the dark now as I was this morning, except there’s no denying that there is more to my father’s death.
It turns out that there are so many levels of pain, and this one is greater than any I’ve felt. Knowing that Dad was robbed of his time with us…it quite simply kills me.
Without letting me go, Rhett walks us into one of the rooms off the entrance hall. It’s so quiet that in a way it’s eerie as he sits in one of Nora’s large armchairs, settling me in his lap.
“Potassium poisoning,” he murmurs into my ear, whispering it like a dark secret that should never see the light of day. “That’s what he meant by bananas.”
Having a reason should make me feel better. I’m certain that it should, except it doesn’t. If anything, it makes me hurt more. My stomach churns and my heart screams inside my chest, its cry thundering in my ears and through my scorching veins.
“But he didn’t eat bananas. He hated the texture and—” My words are choked by the sob that swells in my throat. “And the smell. Dad hated the smell.”
When I try to look up at him, he pulls me right into his chest, keeping me prisoner with one of his strong arms around my waist, while he cradles my head with his free hand.
“You would have to eat something like four hundred bananas all at once to ingest just enough potassium to kill you. That’s four hundred bananas all at the same time.”
“That’s impossible,” I cough, and the rawness of it ripping through my chest into my throat only makes me sob harder.
“It is, sweetheart. That’s why you’d have to inject it.
” The pieces of the conversation with Haas start to click together, but my brain is so sluggish that the picture only comes together when Rhett adds, “The reason the medical records aren’t wrong or missing information is that Robert didn’t have a vaccine. The needle bruising was where—”
Pressing my hand to his mouth, I stop him from saying any more. It’s too painful. Finding out all of this is almost worse than that first second when I understood that Dad was gone. That it truly sunk in and I was alone. I can’t live through that again. It’s too much.
The walls are closing in. The sound of my heart keeping me alive is almost a mockery. The air is too thick. The room is too hot.
I need space, and yet I cannot pull myself away from him. I’ve never needed anything more than I need the shelter of his being right now.
“It’s not okay, sunshine. But I’ll do anything you need to make it better. Whatever you want, Avery. You call the shots, remember?”
“Just…don’t let go.”
“Never.”
True to his word, he doesn’t. Not even when it starts to get dark and the clock chimes that it’s time to get ready.
Instead, he carries me up to the room Nora had made up for us.
He sits me on the edge of the large tub and still holds me to him as he runs the bath.
Even when he strips me of my clothes, he never removes his touch from me.
As if I needed any more assurance, this moment is all I need to tell me that I’ll never be able to live without him.
“We don’t have to go to this thing tomorrow,” Rhett murmurs as he gets in the tub and helps me in with him. “If you wanted to lie low or go home…they would understand.”
“I know.” But I want to.