Chapter Three
CJ swiped at her damp cheeks with the backs of her hands. She stared at her fingers . . . her palms. Blood. So much blood. Her hands trembled.
The man had turned the gun on himself and fired.
Right in front of her.
She pushed away from the closed bathroom door and dared to look in the mirror hanging over the sink.
Dark circles underscored her eyes. Her hair was a wreck. Probably full of tissue fragments. Blood splatter from the older brother had trickled and soaked into her scrub top, leaving a trail of crimson tears to join the swath of the younger brother’s blood across the hem of her top.
She ripped off the top, flung it to the floor. The legs of her scrub pants . . . her knees . . . she was covered in blood.
Desperation rising in her throat, she rinsed her hands, pumped frantically at the soap dispenser, then scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.
Over and over she washed her face, hands, and arms until her skin felt raw.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Her lips quivered. “Hold it together.” Her body shuddered as if to defy her command.
The image of the boy lying on the pavement, his older brother crumpled in a motionless heap next to him, would not be erased. She squeezed her eyes shut again and again. The picture just kept reappearing.
The runaway driver had been captured scarcely a block away.
He’d spilled his guts. He and his deceased friend had been drinking heavily all evening when they were supposed to be babysitting.
A beer run had left the older brother’s new toy, a Beretta 9 millimeter, unattended at the house with the kid, who was supposed to be asleep.
Now the mother had two dead sons.
She didn’t even know yet. The cops hadn’t been able to track down her place of employment.
CJ swayed, sagged against the wall, and slowly slid down to the floor.
Closing her eyes, she let the sobs erupt.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t lost patients before, patients she’d been fighting to save with every ounce of knowledge and skill she possessed. The kid had pretty much bled out before he got to her. It wasn’t her fault.
The older brother couldn’t live with the guilt.
A no-win situation for all involved.
The cell phone on CJ’s hip vibrated.
She ignored it.
Calls at this time of night were either work, and she was at work, or Shelley.
She couldn’t deal with her sister’s problems right now.
Maybe that was selfish, but CJ had spent the better part of her life picking up the pieces for Shelley and, before that, for their mother.
These days, on the rare occasions when CJ bothered to go home for a visit, she stumbled over her sister’s self-inflicted misfortunes and the resulting disasters everywhere she turned.
Right now, CJ didn’t care what her sister needed. She didn’t possess the energy to care. There was nothing left inside her except utter exhaustion and regret.
The insistent tremor against her waist warned that the caller wasn’t giving up.
I am not answering.
She’d ignored Shelley’s call the night before.
It hadn’t been easy. Definitely out of character for CJ.
But she’d done it. Shelley had obviously conveniently forgotten that their last conversation had resulted in their worst argument to date.
Shelley had told CJ in no uncertain terms to stay out of her life.
CJ had done just that. Her sister couldn’t have it both ways.
When her cell shook with a third attempt to get her attention, CJ couldn’t hold out any longer.
“Dammit, Shelley.” CJ snatched the phone from its holster. She read the number on the screen. Huntsville area code but she didn’t recognize the number.
CJ tucked it against her ear. “Patter—” She cleared her throat. “Patterson.”
“CJ?”
A frown tugged at her throbbing forehead, then recognition flared. “Braddock?”
Why the hell would he be calling her? CJ was reasonably sure she’d made herself very clear the last time she and the detective had spoken. If Shelley was in trouble again, CJ didn’t want to hear about it. And under no circumstances did she want to hear from him for any other reason.
“I hate like hell to have to make this call.”
What was he talking about? Where was the cocky tone he typically used with her?
The slow-motion replay of the anguished older brother firing that weapon, sending a significant portion of his scalp, skull, and brain spraying through the night air, reeled before her eyes even as realization unfolded in her weary mind.
Dread kinked into a thousand screaming knots in her gut.
Taking her silence for the shock and uncertainty it was, Braddock went on, “CJ, I am so sorry to have to inform you . . . Shelley’s dead.”