Page 13 of Crosshairs

A smile creased Cora’s face. “I thought you’d left, but I’m glad you came back. Did you and your father have a good visit?”

“About the usual.”

Cora twisted the sheet in her hand. “I do wish you two could get along better.”

“It wasn’t bad. Neither of us drew blood,” she replied with a laugh. Then Ainsley sobered. “Last night you mentioned Charlotte’s diaries.”

“Diaries?”

“Yes. Like maybe you’d found new ones. You were quite insistent that we find them.”

Her aunt searched Ainsley’s face like she might find the answer in it. “My brain is just so foggy.”

“Did anyone stop by the house last night?” Ainsley asked.

Her aunt’s brows lowered. “I ... I don’t know.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “What if my memory gets worse? I have to finish my book.”

Before Ainsley could reassure her, they were interrupted by a light rap on the door and a doctor entering the room. “Dr. Morgan” was stitched on his lab coat. “Good morning, ladies,” he said before turning to Cora. “How did you sleep, Ms. Chamberlain?”

“Fair-to-middling,” she replied.

“Sorry about that, but this is a hospital,” he said with a chuckle.

“How soon can I go home?” Cora demanded.

“Not today.” Dr. Morgan glanced at the chart in his hand.“Your CT scan from two a.m. looks troubling, and the scan you just had doesn’t show any improvement.”

“Will you have to operate?” Ainsley asked and tensed when the doctor didn’t answer right away.

He cleared his throat. “It won’t be up to me. There’s a small tear in the lining of the brain, and if the bleeding doesn’t stop, the neurosurgeon will need to go in and relieve the pressure.” Dr. Morgan patted Cora’s shoulder. “He hasn’t looked at the scan yet, and my thoughts are, he’ll wait for a repeat scan later this morning before making a decision.”

“Isn’t all that radiation dangerous?” Cora asked.

“It’s more dangerous to not stay on top of it.”

“Does that mean you won’t know if she’ll need surgery until early afternoon?” Ainsley asked, glancing at the clock on the wall over the whiteboard with today’s date and the day shift nurses’ names.

He nodded. “And I can’t speak for the surgeon.”

Ainsley patted Cora’s hand. “If I’m going to be back by then, I need to leave now. Don’t give them any trouble,” she said and realized she’d repeated her father’s words.

“Moi?”

Her aunt couldn’t be too bad off if she could joke. “Yes, you.”

Cora’s memory loss weighed on Ainsley as she hurried to her pickup. Given Cora’s age, Ainsley didn’t have a lot of time left with her aunt, but Cora had always been so sharp. The thought of what little time they did have being clouded with confusion and possibly dementia was more than she wanted to think about.

Her thoughts jumped to her father. Why was he concerned about the diaries? Things like that didn’t normally interest him. A thought from earlier crept in. What if he’d been the person who’d tracked water into Cora’s house? She tried to dismiss that thought. Besides, her father had a key and would have no need to break in through the basement.

Unless he’d forgotten his key ...

7

Linc grabbed his chain saw from the back of his Tahoe and hustled to the SAR supervisor. “How about I do this?” he asked as the man pulled the cord on his saw yet again to no avail.

“Thanks, I never can get these things to crank. Need to check on some of the volunteers anyway.”

Linc’s saw roared to life on the first pull, and he went to work cutting away a tree on the now-dead power line. His thoughts drifted to earlier in the night. He hoped Cora was okay, but if she had a brain bleed ... Linc shifted his thoughts, only to have an image of Ainsley crowd into his mind.

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