Page 157 of Call Back

Colt tilted my head back and searched my eyes as he whispered, “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

I shook my head slowly. My world was imploding. My mother was dying. My sister-in-law had held a gun to my head. I’d just seen two people murdered. Maybe by my father. Who, by the way, was alive and apparently keeping tabs on me by using the man I was falling in love with. How could things be okay?

“Let’s go to Lila’s and we’ll get your arm cleaned up. Then we can talk,” he said softly.

I nodded. “Okay.”

Tears continued to roll down my cheeks as Colt pulled away from the curb. If Belinda was right and my father had killed Rowena and Kent, where had he been hiding?

The kitchen. He’d been there the entire time.

I wasn’t sure I could handle the betrayal.

Colt unlocked my mother’s front door and guided me into the house. “Sit down at the kitchen table, and let me take care of your arm.”

“I just want to change,” I said, closing my eyes with exhaustion.

“You can change after I get a bandage on it.”

I sat down at the table while he opened up the pantry and pulled out the first-aid kit. He unwrapped his shirt and cleaned up the wound with alcohol, which had me jumping out of my chair and crying out in pain.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, looking distressed. “If we don’t get it clean, it will get infected.”

“Do what you need to do,” I said through gritted teeth.

He’d just wrapped the bandage around my bicep when my phone started buzzing in my purse on the table. I nearly dumped out the gun in my clumsiness to get it out. Colt picked up the phone and gave me a worried look. “It’s the hospital.”

I sat upright, my heart racing as I took the call. “Hello?”

“Magnolia, this is Vanessa at Vanderbilt. I know you’re at your big party, but your mother’s taken a turn for the worse. I think you should come back as soon as you can.”

I nodded, unable to speak.

Colt took the phone from me and said, “We’re on our way.”

He practically carried me out to the truck and then raced to the hospital, driving well over the speed limit. It still took us twenty minutes, and my heart was beating like a rabbit’s the whole time.

The nurses were waiting when I rushed off the elevator, and they didn’t seemed bothered by the bandage on my arm or the spots of blood on my dress.

“Momma?” I asked.

Vanessa, the nurse who had helped me with my hair, walked around the desk. The look on her face sent my heart straight into my throat. “We started giving your mother a round of antibiotics before you left, but as you know, she was already weak from her chemo and the infection. Her body was worn out.” She paused, holding my gaze. “Magnolia, your mother passed ten minutes ago.”

“No,” I said calmly. She was mistaken. “Momma changed her mind. She wanted to spend more time with me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Vanessa said.

Colt had put his arm around me at some point, and he pulled me closer. “Maggie, let’s go sit down.”

“No,” I said more insistently as I pulled away from him. “She said she was going to spend more time with me.”

Tears filled his eyes. “She wanted to, Mags. I know she did.”

The elevator doors opened, and I knew without looking that my brother had gotten out. “What’s going on with my mother?”

“I’m alone,” I whispered, overwhelmed by the concept. I’d been alone while I was living in New York, yet it had been a different type of alone. I’d always known my mother was only a phone call away if I needed her. I was as good as an orphan.

“No, Mags,” Colt said, holding me close to his side again. “I’m here.”

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