Sylvie Kurtz - Heart Of A Hunter

“Why wasn’t I called immediately?” Her question screeched across the room, making the nurses at the desk look up. Her bottle blond hair bobbed with every laser-sure step in his direction.

“I’m just coming up for air myself.”

One of Paula’s hands beat the air like a conductor gone mad. “For hours no one answered the blasted phone. I was going out of my mind. Then I had to find out about Olivia from that man.”

That man being Mario Menard, the Aerie’s groundskeeper and handyman. That man was even now installing another layer of protection to keep Paula’s baby sister safe. Sebastian couldn’t figure out if she treated Mario like a nonentity because he was the hired help or because he was always polite to her even when she was giving him her best impression of a third-degree black belt witch. The situation only seemed to get worse after the bankruptcy and suicide of Paula’s husband and Paula had to get a job.

“You were next on my list, Paula,” he said gently. After all, Paula had raised Olivia. Paula had been more of a mother to Olivia than their own mother, who hadn’t wanted the burden of a menopause baby.

“Next? I should have been first. What happened? How is she? When can I take her home?”

“Whoa, there.” He put up both hands against her verbal assault. “She’s coming home with me where she belongs.”

Paula’s eyes narrowed to barbed slits. “She’s coming home with me. We both know she was leaving you. That’s where she was going at that ungodly hour. To my home. Away from you. I figured you were giving her a hard time and that’s why she was so late. I never thought you’d actually hurt her.”

“I would never hurt her. The hour wasn’t ungodly. She left before seven.”

Both of her hands exploded upward. “Seven? That was almost six hours ago!”

“I had other things on my mind—like Olivia and her welfare.”

Paula’s hands hitched to her bony hips. “Her welfare? When have you ever bothered with her welfare? She wasn’t happy with you. You should have seen that years ago. But no, not Mr. Important Deputy Marshal.” She pecked her fingernail into his chest. “You were too busy doing your important job to see that she was dying inside. If you’d once bothered to ask her what she wanted instead of assuming she wanted whatever you wanted, then we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

“Paula—”

“No, don’t Paula me. Your selfishness almost killed her.” Rusty mascaraed tears dripped from Paula’s pale blue eyes. Her voice cracked. “I want to see her.”

“She’s not allowed visitors yet.”

Hand at her throat, she gulped. “How bad is it?”

“We won’t know until she wakes up.”

“Coma?” One hand covered her trembling lips; the other wrapped around her waist. The drips of tears turned to a stream. “Oh, God, no.”

“I have another neurologist scheduled to see her first thing in the morning.”

Paula keened. “Neurologist? There’s brain damage?”

Sebastian tentatively reached for his sister-in-law and patted a shoulder. “She’s going to be okay, Paula.”

Paula’s eyes narrowed and skewered him with pure hatred. “She’d better.”

Sebastian backed away. Knowing what to push was only part of an investigation; you also had to know when to let things slide. This was a slider. He headed toward the entrance.

“Where are you going?” Paula called after him.

“Home to shower and change. I’ll be back.”

Paula’s gaze rested on his shirt and traced the pattern of Olivia’s blood staining the white cotton. “What if she wakes up while you’re gone?”

“You’ll be there to make your final bid for her to leave me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Her shoulders bowed and she wrapped both arms around her stick figure. “I want what’s best for Olivia.”

“Then we agree on one thing.”

EVEN AT EIGHT in the morning, the lights in the hallway outside Olivia’s room seemed unnaturally bright. Such a dazzle should have cheered Sebastian, made him expect the best. But as the doctor exited the room, the brilliant islands of light only served to rush all that could go wrong at him in a giant black wave. Olivia, you can’t die. You can’t leave me this way. We never got to talk.

“How is she?” Sebastian asked, hands fisted deep in the pockets of his pants. He’d demanded the best neurologist available and been told this beat-up dog was it.

Dr. Iverson crossed both arms over his chest like a shield. Fatigue seemed to sag his aging features into bloodhound droopiness. “Prediction of improvement is difficult at this stage.”

Sebastian closed his eyes for a second. Patience, he reminded himself. “When will you know?”

“Again, making predictions at this stage is impossible.” Dr. Iverson shrugged. “There are many factors involved in your wife’s recovery. A loving, stable relationship is a great asset and will do more for your wife than anything we can offer her.”

Stable relationship. A ticking like a time bomb settled in Sebastian’s gut. Would she want to come home? Would she let him help her? He frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means time is the best healer, and she’ll need all the support you can give her. As soon as she wakes up, we’ll know the extent of the damage.”

Damage. He swallowed hard. Trying to ignore the mad ticking, he grasped on to “wakes up.” “She’ll be okay then.”

Dr. Iverson’s forehead wrinkled more deeply. “We’re optimistic, but we’re dealing with an acceleration/deceleration head injury and you should be prepared.”

The ticking flared, started to burn. That could mean anything. Let him explain. “For what?”

“In this type of injury, the head, which was moving forward, came to a sudden stop when it hit a stationary object. In your wife’s case, the driver’s side window. When this happens, we often find bruising of the frontal and/or temporal lobes. Your wife may not be the person she was before.”

“What do you mean?”

Dr. Iverson turned sideways. The good doctor would scram if he got half a chance, Sebastian thought, and blocked the doctor’s route of escape. You’re not going anywhere until I have answers.

“The injury is located on the left hemisphere,” Dr. Iverson said. “She may have changes in thinking, behavior and personality. Problems with motor skills—”

“Like painting?” God, no. Olivia came alive when she painted. She created magic with her colors and brushes. If she couldn’t paint, there would be nothing to hold her home. And he needed her. Why hadn’t he told her so before? Why had he let her go? Because he’d never been good with words—at least the out loud kind.

“Painting. Writing. Organizing,” Dr. Iverson said. “With the temporal lobe involved, she may also have problems with memory. But it’s really too early to tell.”

The ticking stopped and something seemed to implode. “Memory? As in amnesia?”

Dr. Iverson shrugged. “Amnesia. Short-term memory.”

“Temporary?” His fists curled. What if she couldn’t remember him? Their life together? She would remember. She had to.

“We’ll hope for the best.”

Hope? Doctors were supposed to do more than hope. They were supposed to have answers. There was always some other trail to sniff, some other trigger to follow, some other fact to unearth. “Can’t you run some tests? There must be something you can do.”

“We’ve done everything we can for now. When she wakes up, we’ll do a full neurological workup designed to tell us problems with reasoning, memory and other brain functions—”

“When will that be?”

“There’s no way to tell. The sooner the better.”