Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2) (14 page)

Nick reached the passenger door of his SUV and had it open by the time I caught up. Gino and Mitch were fanning out across the parking lot, heading for their cars.

“Guess I’m riding with him.” I stabbed my head in Nick’s direction and slid into the seat. My cell phone buzzed as Nick shut my door.

“Jo Oliver.” My voice was heavy, unnatural.

Static jammed my ear, spiced with labored breathing. My shoulders quivered.

I drew the phone away from my ear to check the caller ID.
Mom
. I sighed. “Mom?”

Cement churned through my belly.

“I know you’re there, and I want you to know I love you. Whatever you need, I’m on it, and I love you. Okay?” Tension edged down my shoulder into my bicep, begging my hand to loosen the death grip I had on the phone. I listened as she breathed into the receiver and waited for the words that would not come. She rarely spoke on the phone, but she’d called. Why? A single tear slid down my cheek.

“I love you, Mom. I’ll take care of you. Just sit tight. It’ll be okay.” Stiffness rolled down my body from straining to catch any message she was willing me to hear. The call ended abruptly.

“How is she?” Nick stared at the road. We’d already crossed the line back into Illinois.

“Not so good.” I drummed my fingers on my phone. “Hang on, gonna make a quick call.” He took a sharp turn, and I had to hold on for dear life while punching in the numbers.

“Riverside. This is Cindy. How may I help you?”

“Cindy, hi. Jo Oliver here.” I did my best to smile through the phone.

“Chief Oliver. You must be a mind-reader. I was just going to call you.” Her business-like voice filled me with apprehension. She only snapped into professional mode when something wasn’t quite right.

“What’s up?” I tried to keep my voice pleasant. Or at least in the non-shouting range.

“Well, you might want to stop by sooner than later, if you can. Your mother’s okay, but she’s not as active as we’d like lately.” She was choosing her words carefully. Too carefully.

“And?”
Get to the point!

“And we think maybe you should consider having her reassessed. It might be time to talk about adding more memory care to her daily routines.” She could have been reading from a script. An expensive script.

“I’m open to that. I’ll call her doc and get the ball rolling. Get her on the books for another assessment.” Which meant I’d have to take her to and from said assessment. When was I going to have time to do
that?

“That would be great. I know you’re busy, so I don’t want to keep you. Let me know when you’ve got things set, and we’ll do all we can to help make it happen.” She was dripping in relief.

“Will do. And Cindy? Thanks for all you do for her.”

“That’s my job. And besides, we love your mom. She’s a hoot.”

I ended the call.

“What, pray tell, is a ‘hoot’?” Nick turned toward me, a smile edging over the side of his face.

“I’ve got a better question. Where are we going?” Rows of cornfields streamed by on either side of the two-lane road we were on. Not a highway. Familiar territory, though.

“Just making a little stop on our way back to the station.” He eased up to a stop sign, turning right toward the small town that had grown up on the banks of the Kickapoo River decades before Riverside Senior Living Center existed.

“A little stop? Like a pit stop, maybe?” It was now obvious where he was headed… and that we didn’t have that kind of time.

“You could say that.” He guided the car around a combine ambling down the road, nodding at the farmer as we passed. “More of a house call.”

“You’re a saint, but we gotta get back to work.”

“Ever consider the possibility that we work as we go?” He pulled into the parking lot of a large yellow building. A small sign designated the spot we were in as reserved for the employee of the month.
Great
. They’d love that.

“Uh, not really.” I stared at him, waiting for him to shut off the car. “Ever consider the possibility that we have no time left to figure out how to catch the killer before that poor woman moves from the ‘pre’ to the ‘post’ photo pile?”

“That’s all I’m considering.” He opened his door and slid to his feet.

“Huh? What, are you going to tell me you’re about to do your best work while we visit my barely-there mother? You’re making less sense than usual. What’s going on in that mega-mind of yours?” We headed into the building. “What are we doing here?”

“Taking our best shot.” He pulled the door open.

“Morning, beautiful.” Nick bent down to kiss the cheek of a vibrant-spirited woman with sparkling baby blues that matched her cardigan. A crimson swath washed over her regal face. How long had she been sitting in her wheelchair facing the double doors today? Was someone coming to see her? I offered up a quick prayer for warm arms wrapped around her. Then I bent down and gave her a half-hug. She smiled at my touch, following Nick with her eyes as we passed.

“You should stop over here a few times a week and just do that.” I linked my arm through his and led him down the hall.

“If it means I’d earn a little more time by your side, count me in.”

Ceci, my mother’s day nurse, stood at the nurses’ station. In her dark blue scrubs, she stood out against the pink and white floral wallpaper. Beyond her stood a row of filing cabinets. A small, ornate wooden frame contained a matted display of elegant white script against a black background. Probably some perky dime-store saying. Were any of the residents able to read or remember it? Not
my
mother, that was for sure.

“Thanks for gettin’ here so quick, Ms. Oliver. And for bringin’ his hotness.” She blushed and smiled at us like a high school dean might at a couple she caught necking under the bleachers. A smile I was very familiar with.

“How’s she doing? Any more falls?” We didn’t have much time. Something had to have happened for a staff member to say she was about to call me, and we needed to address it and get back on the road.

“Well, that’s just it. We’re not sure. None of us seen her fall, and she’d been a little more independent lately. She’d been walking up and down the halls and even going to meals on her own until this week.” Ceci shifted her weight, jutting out one beefy hip. She looked down at the floor and back up at me. “There’s been… looks like there mighta been some unexplained bruises in the past few days.” Her gaze fell again as soon as she stopped talking.

“So, what’s your gut telling you? More than a shower incident?” I kept my tone calm.

“She hasn’t had another shower scheduled since you were here three days ago. And one of the bruises is, well, it’s… it’s just suspicious. I could get in trouble for telling you this, but you’ve been so good to my boys and my Billy, I just had to.” She rushed this last bit out.

I put my hand on her arm and lowered my voice to a whisper. “What’s going on, Ceci? What’s so different about this one bruise?”

She still wouldn’t make eye contact. A tear fell down her cheek. “I, um, I really need this job. But you need to watch after your mom.”

Another tear escaped. And then another.

“What am I watching for? What did you see that’s got you so afraid?”

“I didn’t see any
one
thing, but I hear things. I hear a lotta things. And I do see some things… sometimes. And what I did maybe see, well, I can’t be sure.” She raised her head and set her moist gaze square on mine. “But that bruise? It looked an awful lot like a handprint. And I don’t know no more trouble than that.”

Convulsions rippled through my gut, and an iron vise wrapped itself around my head. We’d been investigating complaints of alleged rough treatment at the hands of Angela Murray, Riverside’s director, but she’d come up clean. I hadn’t seen anything suspicious, or I’d have cleared my mom out of there.

I’d had a hard time making the decision whether to pull her out of there or not, and I’d turned to Kira to help me think it through. It was one of the few sessions where I’d left with clarity around a decision I was grappling with. Mom stayed. No place was perfect and I loved the care overall.
Dear God, what have I missed?

I dropped Ceci’s arm and lurched down the hall to my mother’s room, Nick by my side like a whisper. Two quick knuckle raps yielded no response. We pushed through the doorway together.

The hum and whoosh of the oxygen machine greeted me like an old friend. I followed the line into the bedroom and gazed down at my sleeping mother. One stick-thin arm lay out of the covers by her side. Papery skin clung to impossibly small bones. Age spots marked her hand, and a large bruise began above her wrist and spread all the way up to her elbow. Ugly, dark, tubular shapes marred her arm as if four large fingers had fanned out and savagely grabbed it. My eyes traveled up to her shoulder where the skin under her nightgown was discolored near her neck.
What the…?

Nick laid a reassuring hand on my shoulder as I leaned forward to get a better look. Midnight-blue bruises rimmed the skin in front of her throat and on her right clavicle. I caressed her bony shoulder as tears filled my eyes.

Nick whispered, “I’ll be right back. I’ve got a little something in my trunk that will give us another set of eyes when we most want it.”

I nodded and squeezed his hand, sinking into the beauty of his presence in my life at just the right time. At all the right times. Sinking into the warmth of this incredible man who always had my back. How could I have doubted him? Why did I always have to mess things up between us?
Not this time. Not today
.

“Thank you.” I held his hand against my cheek. “Just… thank you.”

The oxygen machine shuddered. Something had changed in the pressure. Mom must be waking up.

“Mom!” I knelt beside her. “How are you feeling? You remember Nick?” I turned to look over my shoulder, but he was already on his knee, one hand grasping my mother’s hand.
What’s not to love?

“Bellisima. Run away with me.” He leaned over and kissed her hand. “While I’ve loved your daughter since the day I met her, I’ve loved you just as much. How are you doing, and what’s going on here?” Nick cooed at her, his olive skin shimmering in the dim light of the room.

My eyes moistened. “Mom, did someone grab you? Has anyone hurt you? Have they laid a hand on you?” There must be phrases she might respond to. I had to unlock a memory, an impression, anything.

Her rheumy blue eyes clouded further. Wispy brows furrowed while she worked her lips. A slow tear slipped down her cheek.

“Easy, bellisima. It’s okay. We’re here with you now, and we’re not going to let anyone hurt you again.” Nick lightly brushed greasy hair away from her eyes.

Was she being properly cared for? How much had I been missing while wrapped up in my job and the drama of my personal life? What else was going on here?

Her eyes closed, and she inched her hand over to rest on Nick’s arm. I stood, watching the two of them, on the verge of tears. She opened her eyes, fixing them on me as she pointed a bony finger my way and fought to speak above the whir and hum of the oxygen machine. I nudged Nick over and bent closer.

“Catch her, Josie. You have to stop her.” She rested from her work, letting her arm fall back by her side, eyes still trained on mine.

I cupped my hand around her face, whisking away a tear with my thumb. “Who, Mom? Who hurt you?”

“She did. The big one. The mean one.” Her voice wisped through the air.

The big one
. “The director, Mom? Angela Murry?”

“You know. You know her. You stop her.” Her eyes closed before she finished sputtering.

I leaned down close. Kissed her cheek. “We’ll catch her. Before she hurts anyone else.”
But how many people are we hunting for?
A bead of sweat trickled between my shoulder blades, and my face flushed. Nick brushed past me, and I eased closer to her bed.

I squeezed my eyes shut and asked Jesus to call down angels of protection to set up camp all around her. I tugged open the drawer in the night stand next to the bed and found my mother’s ancient Bible. I opened it up and peered down to read the first verse I found—from Isaiah.

“
For I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children… Then all flesh shall know that I am the LORD your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Warm power flowed over me as I read the verses, first to myself and then out loud for my mom. The muscles in my arms and legs lengthened, relaxed. A lethal panther unfurled its graceful power within me. The power met my fury, sealing my resolve.

God, if the person hurting these defenseless seniors comes across my path,
this monster is mine to capture and kill.
I closed the Bible and replaced it in the nightstand. Nick appeared. We stepped away from the bed, and I took his hand in mine, turning toward the door. He stopped me, pointing to a spot above the door and then to the mirror facing her bed. Cameras
. Good boy.
That was fast.
I grinned, nodding my head as we hit the hallway, our steps in perfect synch.

“Let’s do this, Nick.”

Faint odors of recent baths and “accidents” woven in with ammonia assailed us.
Was this normal?

I looked at Nick and grimaced.

“Smells like compassion to me.” He shrugged.

Three staff members clustered around the desk.
Shouldn’t they be out checking on the residents
?
Is
this
normal?

“Good morning, ladies. Anything new going on with my mother?” I couldn’t stop myself from using my Police Chief voice.
Let’s hope it gets us somewhere. I’m a step away from using a whole lot more.

They paused a beat too long and looked at each other. The tattooed blonde answered first. “Uh, not that we know of. Like what?”

I leaned over the counter and touched her wrist. “Like anything you know of that might cause the severe bruising around my mom’s neck?” My tone had gone from cop to lawyer.

Tiny beads of sweat broke out on the blonde’s forehead. She looked at her comrades before responding. “Uh… well… you know how it is, ma’am…”

She wasn’t new, but I couldn’t remember her name. I made a show of looking at her plastic tag. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me,
Pam
.”

A loud beep erupted from the monitor behind her. A red light flashed, and a room number came up.
1214.
The women exchanged worried glances. At Pam’s nod, two of them hurried down the hall. “
This
is how it is. We serve over seventy seniors here with varying levels of care needs. Some days are smoother than others. Everybody here loves your mom, and nobody’d want to hurt her. This is the first I’ve heard of bruising of any kind on anyone here, and I promise you I’ll look into it. Would you like me to call you after I’ve spoken to everyone on shift in the last few days?” Her eyes hardened.

“Yeah, I would. I’d like that a lot. You know what I’d like even better? Chatting with Ms. Angela Murray. You’ve got all my numbers, right?” I leaned an elbow on the desk.

“Yes. And once Director Murray gets in, I’m sure you’ll hear from her.” The beeping erupted again. “Excuse me. I’m needed.” She hurried down the hall.

Nick and I followed her on our way out of the facility. Room 1214 was the last door on the right. Muffled sounds were coming from the open door. As we got closer, a low moan wafted out. We both looked into the room.

Arnie, a large, wheel-chair-bound man, was lying on the floor. The three women were working him back into his chair. He turned his grizzled head in our direction. Recognition flashed in his cloudy eyes. We gazed at each other for several seconds. The women tugged at him in unison until they got him upright in his chair and began to buckle him in. A slow tear built in his one good eye and slipped over the lid. I nodded at him and turned away with stinging eyes.

What was really going on when no one else was here?