Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN ROOM SEVEN
Margaret Bennett was dying in Room Seven of Saint Mary’s Hospice.
By the time we reached the building, the afternoon sky had turned the color of wet cement.
Jack rode his motorcycle behind my car.
Boone and the other two bikers followed him.
I had asked why they were coming.
Boone answered without hesitation.
“Jack never walks into trouble alone.”
The hospice receptionist looked alarmed when four members of the Iron Saints entered behind me.
Jack had removed his gloves.
He still wore the leather vest.
The silver medal rested against his black shirt.
A nurse stepped into our path.
“Only two visitors at a time.”
Boone nodded toward Jack.
“He’s family.”
The nurse looked at me.
I could not say the word son.
Not yet.
“He’s with me.”
Jack and I continued down the hallway.
Neither of us spoke.
Every step brought back something I had spent thirty-two years trying not to remember.
The hospital room.
The empty crib.
My mother telling me not to ask questions.
My father refusing to look at me after I returned home.
He died six months later when his truck went off Black Hollow Bridge.
Everyone said he had fallen asleep while driving.
Margaret said grief had made him careless.
I had accepted that too.
The door to Room Seven stood partly open.
My mother looked smaller than she had that morning.
Her gray hair spread across the pillow.
A clear tube carried oxygen beneath her nose.
Her eyes remained closed.
I entered first.
“Mom?”
Her eyelids moved.
“Laura?”
“I’m here.”
Her voice sounded dry and distant.
“Did you bring him?”
Jack stopped behind me.
I looked back.
His face showed nothing.
I moved closer to the bed.
“I brought someone.”
Margaret opened her eyes.
She looked at me first.
Then she saw Jack.
The monitor beside her bed changed rhythm.
Her lips parted.
Her whole body went rigid beneath the blanket.
Jack stepped into the light.
Margaret began shaking her head.
“No.”
Jack said nothing.
“No, no, no.”
“Mom, calm down.”
She reached for the call button.
Jack took the silver medal from beneath his shirt.
He held it where she could see.
Margaret stopped breathing for several seconds.
“Where did you get that?”
Jack’s voice remained controlled.
“It was around my neck when I was brought to Thomas Mercer’s house.”
Margaret stared at him.
“He was supposed to throw it away.”
The sentence entered the room like a blade.
I gripped the bed rail.
“You knew Thomas Mercer?”
My mother looked toward the door.
“You should not have brought him here.”
“You asked me to bring my son.”
“I was confused.”
“No.”
Jack moved closer.
“You knew I was alive.”
Margaret’s face twisted.
“Thomas promised he would take you far away.”
“Why did he have me?”
“To protect you.”
“From whom?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Jack struck his palm against the wall.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes opened again.
I had never seen anyone speak to my mother that way.
I had also never seen my mother look afraid.
“Did you take my baby?” I asked.
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“I saved him.”
“From what?”
“From the people who were coming for him.”
“What people?”
“You would not understand.”
“I have spent thirty-two years mourning a child who may be standing beside me.”
My voice cracked.
“You will make me understand.”
Margaret looked at Jack.
“You have his eyes.”
“Whose eyes?”
“Daniel’s.”
I turned toward her.
“Who is Daniel?”
My mother’s gaze moved back to me.
“Your son’s father.”
I shook my head.
“His name was Evan Cole.”
“That was the name he gave you.”
The room became very quiet.
Jack leaned toward the bed.
“What was his real name?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Daniel Pike.”
Jack’s face changed.
“Pike?”
Margaret began crying.
“Dr. Samuel Pike was his father.”
The name from Jack’s adoptive father returned between us.
I remembered the hospital corridor again.
A tall man in a white coat arguing with Margaret.
He had not been a stranger.
He had been the grandfather of my child.
“What happened the night Luke was born?” I asked.
Margaret turned her face away.
“I cannot.”
“You can.”
“They will come.”
“Who will come?”
“The same people who killed Samuel.”
Jack placed both hands on the bed rail.
“Did you kill him?”
Margaret’s head snapped toward him.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
The monitor accelerated.
Margaret struggled to breathe.
I reached for the nurse button.
She grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
“Black Hollow Cemetery.”
“What?”
“Your father’s grave.”
My skin turned cold.
“What about it?”
“There is a box beneath the headstone.”
Jack watched her carefully.
“What is inside?”
“The names.”
“What names?”
Margaret’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
A shadow passed beneath the door.
Her fingers dug into my wrist.
“The children.”
The door slowly opened.
A man in a dark suit stood outside.
My mother looked at him.
The terror on her face answered every question before he spoke.
“Laura,” he said calmly.
“You should not have brought strangers into a private family matter.”
I recognized him immediately.
May you like
Sheriff Raymond Calder.
The man who had investigated my father’s death thirty-two years earlier.
