Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was time she ran the full battery of testing on Trent, the final drill to close him out as a subject, even though she’d officially washed him out.
It was also time she attended a practice again, showed her face to the press.
She and Trent had decided it was best if their breakup happened during the off-season to minimize the publicity.
The last thing she wanted was a media circus, so she agreed.
But she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she missed him.
Hell, if she was completely honest, she was heartsick about the impending end of their relationship.
They were almost through it, almost at the end of their grand deception.
In a couple of weeks, it would be all over and he would have gotten away with using the serum to bolster his healing and performance and she would have gotten away with stealing the serum and taking his money to participate in the research.
She should feel rosy and happy. But her mother was in decline and now no amount of serum would help, though she’d tried. Her mother was too far gone, the disease too advanced, especially after the fall. The injury had sapped whatever strength or healing power she had left.
She stood on the sidelines by herself. One of the reporters nearby, Mike Foley, approached. She stiffened, though when they made eye contact, she attempted to give him a smile. His was an easy smile. Either he didn’t pick up on her tension or he ignored it with the expertise of a narcissist.
“It’s good to see you . . . Doctor. It’s been a while.”
She could tell he wanted her to give an explanation without him having to ask, but there was no way she would.
Chiefly because she had no coherent explanation.
Since she’d arrived today, the realization struck her that in addition to missing Trent, she missed being here, watching practice.
Missed the easy camaraderie of the players, watching the drills, watching Trent hard at work, even the whistles and shouts of the coaches.
The only thing she hadn’t missed was the cold.
There was no indoor practice for this team.
They toughed it out in the weather, rain, shine, heat, or arctic cold.
She admired that. She shivered. Today was one of those arctic-cold days.
“I’m surprised you’re not up in a box watching. It’s wicked cold out here. You look frozen,” he said.
She did no more than nod in response. In spite of her effort to discourage him, Foley took a step closer and stood shoulder to shoulder with her.
“I see you don’t have your black medical bag with you today.”
Again, there was no way she would answer his unspoken question.
Even if he came out and asked her point blank, she wouldn’t talk to this man.
After all, it was her opening up to him all those weeks ago about her supposed relationship with Trent that had set her up for her current predicament.
The intractable position of feeling too much for a man she had only shared a nasty secret or two with.
After a few beats of her silence, he said, “You okay, Dr. Morneau . . . Charlie?”
Closing her eyes for a second against the disquiet of having to answer to this man’s concern, she realized he sounded sincere. She turned to him.
“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“I’m no psychologist, but you don’t look exactly happy. You’ve been absent lately after being here every day for weeks.” He swept his hand around to encompass the field. “So I’m thinking all is not well with your . . . engagement.”
Her heart sped up. It was the way he said the word engagement, as if he was skeptical about it, as if he knew it had all been a pretense, that made her coil up inside, become defensive of the secret, made her need to hold onto it all the more.
“You would be thinking wrong.” Her words were colder than the air around them.
But Foley was a seasoned reporter and well used to frosty rebuffs.
He didn’t appear to be discouraged in the least. In fact, she was chagrined to see the man smile, one of those annoying, knowing, aha smiles.
Before now, she’d actually liked the man, respected him.
Now she thought of him as the enemy. Because he’d attacked something near and dear to her, the secret of her and Trent’s pretend engagement.
Never mind that it would be over soon. The when and where and how of that ending was something that Charline and Trent would decide.
There was no way she’d let this . . . sports reporter force her hand. Not again.
“You’ve been around this game a while, Mr. Foley.
” She paused for him to nod in acknowledgment.
Her words still cool, much more so than she felt with her chest tight and her angry heart racing.
“Then you must know how tense it gets during playoffs. Me? I’m new at this.
My first year experiencing firsthand, up close and personal all the intensity and focus and monumental effort that goes into winning a playoff game in the NFL.
” She looked at him to see that he got her message.
Then she lied for all she was worth. “This is my first, but it won’t be my last. I’m in this for the long haul. ”
He nodded. When she thought he was going to say something more, maybe try to placate her, based on his conciliatory expression, her phone rang. It was loud though muffled where she’d stuck it into her coat pocket. She pulled it out and saw Suzette’s number on the screen.
“Excuse me. I have to take this.” She took a step to distance herself and turned away from the reporter.
“Hello, Suzette.”
“No. Is this Dr. Charline Morneau?” A man’s voice she’d never heard before asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Officer James of the Melrose Police Department. I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am—Doctor.” There was a pause into which Charline’s imagination fed all the dark images of her secrets, all her worst nightmares becoming real.
“I’m afraid I have to notify you that your mother, Marie Morneau, is dead.
” There was another pause. Her heart stopped, and the world around her went still like a freeze-frame in a movie.
“It appears that she may not have died of natural causes. We have reason to believe that it may have been suicide or—”
She screamed, unaware and uncaring of her surroundings, the people around her. “No—she’s not—it can’t be—”
She dropped the phone. Then she felt arms on her, catching her before she fell to the ground and hauling her up. It was Mike Foley. The look of stark concern in his eyes was all she saw.
Ralph Nunley was the next person at her side and she grasped at him as if he were the proverbial lifesaver. But there was no saving her mother’s life. Tears erupted and Ralph took her from Mike Foley and held onto her.
“What is it, Charlie? What’s happened? Is it your mother?”
She nodded and sobbed into his chest, slowly realizing where she was and how inappropriate her behavior was and wondering how she’d lost it so completely and so fast. She took a gulp of air and another and pushed herself away from Ralph, swiping at the cold tears on her face.
“I’m sorry. I . . .” She paused to catch her breath and calm her wild emotions, wrestling them into the constraints of her will. “The police called. My mother is dead. I need to get home.”
“I’m so sorry, Charlie. Of course you need to get home, but no way are you driving. I’ll tell Trent—”
“No. Don’t.” She had no idea why she said it. It made no sense. She looked in the direction of the field to see Trent watching her. He had his helmet off. Ralph waved him over. Then he started trotting toward her.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” Ralph said. “You should tell him.” Ralph stepped back.
Her eyes were locked with Trent’s and as he reached her, the tears started again. Calm, sad tears of grief, not shock, this time. He opened his arms to her, not even knowing what had happened, and she leaned into his strong, sturdy body. He closed his arms around her, whispering words of comfort.
“My mother . . . is dead,” she sobbed. She felt Trent kiss her hair and stroke her back, heard him say something to Ralph over her head.
But she stood there in his protective embrace, feeling a respite from the dark waves of grief lapping at her heart, even if only for a few minutes. She wanted to stay in his arms forever.
Instead, Trent had Ralph drive her home.
The police were still at the house when she arrived, though her mother had been brought to the morgue.
When university police chief Warnecki showed up she wasn’t surprised.
He told her they were treating her mother’s death as suspicious, possibly of unnatural causes, because of the empty bottles of prescription drugs found near her body.
She knew there’d be an autopsy. She knew what they could find, if they were looking for it. Unnaturally high levels of HGH.
“You prescribed her with pain meds and antidepressants, according to the labels on the empty bottles. Can you say how much she might have taken today, since this morning when you last saw her?”
Charline knew what he was asking. “I think there were three or four doses of the pain meds and two doses of the antidepressant medication left after her dose this morning. When I left her.” She spoke in a quiet voice because she had no energy to speak any louder.
It was a monumental effort to speak at all, to stand, to do anything.
Suzette sat in a chair, staring, no longer sobbing.
She’d given her sister a sedative. The police weren’t happy but she told them they could question Suzette more effectively tomorrow after she’d had some rest, after the initial shock of finding their mother dead wore off.
That conversation had sapped the last of her energy, but Warnecki smoothed it all over with the Melrose police.
They weren’t sure what he was doing there, but they didn’t tell him to leave.