Page 178 of Homeport

“It’s okay. I’ve got my heap out there. I’ll be fine. You tell Andrew I hope Elise is okay, and. . . I’ll see him around.”

“Annie, I meant what I said earlier. He needs you.”

Annie dragged off her party earrings, rubbed the blood back into her earlobes. “He needs to count on himself. He needs to know who he is and what he wants. I can’t help him with that, Miranda, and neither can you.”

She couldn’t seem to help anyone, Miranda thought when she was alone and staring down at her hands. Nothing she’d touched, nothing she’d done over the last months had resulted in anything other than disaster.

She looked over her shoulder as she heard footsteps on the stairs. Ryan came down, skirted around her, then saying nothing, brought her to her feet and into his arms.

“Oh God, oh God, Ryan. How many more?”

“Ssh.” He stroked her back. “It was his own gun,” he murmured in her ear. “The same one I found in his room. Someone shot the poor bastard with his own gun. There was nothing you could have done.”

“Nothing I could have done.” She said it wearily, but pulled back to stand on her own. “I want to go to the hospital, check on Elise. Andrew’s there. He shouldn’t be alone.”

He wasn’t. It surprised Miranda to see her mother in the waiting lounge, staring out the window, a paper cup of coffee in her hand.

Andrew stopped pacing when she came in, then shook his head and began again.

“Is there any word?” Miranda asked him.

“They stabilized her down in emergency. X rays, tests—they haven’t come in to tell us the results. The resident on duty downstairs thought concussion, but they want to do a CAT scan to rule out any brain damage. She was out a long time. She lost a lot of blood.”

And some of it, he noted, stained the hem of Miranda’s dress.

“You should go home,” Andrew said. “Ryan, take her home.”

“I’m going to stay with you, just the way you’d stay with me.”

“Okay. Okay.” He rested his brow against hers. They stood linked while Elizabeth turned from the window and studied them. When she caught Ryan watching her, her cheeks pinkened slightly.

“There’s coffee. It’s neither fresh nor palatable, but it’s very strong and hot.”

“No.” Miranda moved away from Andrew, stepped forward. “Where’s Father?”

“I—don’t know. I believe he was going back to the hotel. There was nothing for him to do here.”

“But you’re here. We need to talk.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Jones.”

All three of them turned, made Cook’s mouth twitch. “Guess that’s pretty confusing.”

“Detective Cook.” Miranda’s stomach was quickly sheathed in ice. “I hope you’re not ill.”

“Ill? Oh, oh, hospital, sick. No. I came down to talk to Dr. Warfield once the doctors clear it.”

“To Elise?” Baffled, Andrew shook his head. “I thought you were with robbery. Nobody was robbed.”

“Sometimes these things are connected. The homicide boys will talk to her. Going to be a long night. Maybe you can tell me what you know, give me a clearer picture before I talk to Dr. Warfield.”

“Detective . . . Cook, is it?” Elizabeth moved forward. “Is it really necessary to hold an interrogation in a hospital waiting room while we’re waiting with some degree of distress for test results?”

“I’m sorry for your distress, ma’am. Dr. Jones.”

“Standford-Jones.”

“Yes, Elizabeth Standford-Jones. You’re the victims’ employer.”

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