‘Fine.’ Her tone was as cold as his. ‘The day Mikhail was murdered, I came into the office and found Aunt Gayle pale as a ghost, clutching her chest. It was her heart.’
Marcus sat straight up in his chair, his bruised back protesting the movement. But he barely felt the pain because panic had gripped him. ‘What? Gayle had a heart attack?’
‘Yeah. A “little” one. Not that she’d ever admit it to any of you,’ she added bitterly.
Marcus closed his eyes. Gayle hadn’t come to see him in the hospital the first week. He hadn’t seen her until Mikhail’s funeral. He hadn’t asked why because he figured she’d been grieving too. She’d raised Mikhail from infancy. His murder must have cut her in two. But he’d never suspected, never even thought that she could have . . .
‘Gayle had a heart attack,’ he whispered, unable to find any other words.
‘I believe that’s what I just told you.’ Jill blew out an annoyed breath. ‘This is where you’re supposed to say, “Why didn’t she tell me?”’
He opened his eyes, met her angry gaze. Figured that on some level he deserved it. ‘I don’t have to ask. I already know why. Gayle puts everyone else’s needs first. She always has. If you think I don’t know that, you’re wrong. And if you wanted me to feel guilty for not knowing she’d been sick, for expecting her to come in and work in the office afterward, then you hit the jackpot. I knew she’d be devastated by Mickey’s murder, but I never once suspected it had pushed her heart over the edge.’
‘It wasn’t Mickey’s death that pushed her over the edge. She hadn’t even heard about that yet. It was you, Marcus.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Me? She heard I’d been shot and that caused her attack?’
‘No. She had her heart attack that morning, hours before you were shot. I found her clutching her chest with one hand and a piece of paper with the other. I called 911 as soon as I realized what was happening, told her to try to relax, to be still, but while I was on the phone with the operator, she closed the document she was working on and hid the piece of paper she’d been holding. All while she was gasping for breath.’
He could see it happening, which just made him feel even worse. ‘So you wanted to see what she’d been working on that got her so upset. I guess I can understand that. I take it that she’d been updating this threat list.’ He glanced at the screen, searching for a threat credible enough, terrible enough to send a fifty-five-year-old woman into heart failure.
‘Yeah,’ Jill said flatly. ‘She’d been cataloguing the threats to your life, Marcus. For years.’
‘I know. I asked her to.’
‘I figured you must have. That’s why I’m angry with you.’
‘I suppose that’s fair.’ Because he was now angry with himself. ‘I shouldn’t have put that responsibility on her shoulders.’
Jill’s glare could slice through steel. ‘No, Marcus, you really shouldn’t have. Aunt Gayle is too old to be worrying about you.’
Marcus frowned. ‘Wait just a minute. Gayle isn’t old. I agree that she doesn’t need to be worrying about me, but she’s only fifty-five. She’s always been healthy.’
‘Not anymore, she’s not.’
New panic slithered down his spine. ‘Just how bad was this heart attack?’
‘Bad enough. The doctor told her that she should be retiring soon.’
‘She only has to ask. She knows I’ll take care of her.’ He heard a note of desperation in his own voice, but he didn’t care. Gayle was family, his second mother since he was old enough to remember. ‘A house in Florida, a nurse to live with her . . . Whatever she wants.’
New ire sparked in Jill’s eyes. ‘She won’t retire. She’s too devoted to you and your family. And now that Mickey’s gone, she doesn’t feel like she can leave your mother.’
‘Then I’ll tell her that she’s retiring.’
‘No. You’re not supposed to know, and if Gayle finds out that I told you, she’ll be angry with me.’
Frustrated, Marcus looked back at his screen. ‘She didn’t log anything on that day, and none of the threats since then have been serious enough to worry about. Certainly nothing so dire that she had a heart attack. Did you find the paper she was holding?’
‘No.’
‘And she never mentioned it? If it was so terrifying that it caused her heart to jump its track, I would have thought she would have warned me at least.’
Jill shrugged. ‘Maybe in all the chaos of Mickey’s funeral and your hospitalization, she forgot.’
‘She wouldn’t just forget. Not something like that.’
Another icy glare. ‘What part of heart attack didn’t you hear, Marcus? Heaven forbid that she think about something besides you and your precious family for once – like her health.’
The temptation to snap that he was still Jill’s boss burned on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back. Because she was right. He swallowed hard. ‘How long was she in the hospital?’
‘Four days.’
Three of those days he’d been in ICU. ‘Where?’
‘Luckily not at County. With you and Stone ending up there, it would have been difficult to keep the news of Mikhail’s murder from her. When I heard what had happened to Mickey, hell, what happened to all of you . . .’
‘You were afraid that she’d have another heart attack.’
‘Yeah, and her doctor agreed. We were able to keep her away from the news – not an easy feat with Aunt Gayle. I broke it to her three days later, with her doctor present. By then Stone was okay and you were at least out of ICU. I could assure her that you two were going to be all right, so that it wasn’t all bad news.’
‘She loved Mikhail,’ Marcus murmured.
‘I know,’ Jill said, her tone softer. ‘She was devastated when I told her. But her heart didn’t fail again, so I was relieved.’
‘Didn’t she wonder why we didn’t come to visit her in those first few days?’
Jill’s tone hardened again. ‘No. She didn’t want me to tell any of you that she was ill. She made me promise to tell your mother that she’d taken a little vacation. But by the time she was stabilized, I’d gotten the news about Mikhail’s murder and that you and Stone were hurt, so I didn’t say anything to anyone. Nobody even asked where she was.’
‘My mother did.’ The words came out in an accusatory tone, which was okay because Marcus was now pissed off with Jill, and to some extent with Gayle too.
Gayle had mothered him when his own mother had fallen into such a deep depression that she hadn’t been able to care for him and Stone herself. It was Gayle who’d put Band-Aids on his skinned knees and elbows, helping him with his homework and teaching him to ride a bike.
And when he was eight years old, it was Gayle who’d sat beside his bed night after night when the nightmares would wake him up – men with cold eyes and big guns, the terrified sobs of his brothers, the gunshots that somehow sounded even louder than they’d actually been. He’d woken scared and screaming for months and months to find Gayle sitting beside him, crooning soft promises of safety. Until he’d told her he’d grown out of the dreams. In reality, he’d just learned how to lie quietly in his bed, pretending to sleep. But he’d always had the assurance that if he called out to her, she would come.
She’d been there for him for almost as long as he could remember. But he hadn’t been there when she’d needed him. He’d been in the hospital, true, but Gayle hadn’t known that. She had denied him the opportunity to take care of her, and that stung. But he was far more upset on his mother’s behalf than his own.
‘My mother called her phone, looking for her,’ he added harshly. ‘When Gayle didn’t answer, Mother sent someone to her house to find her, but there was no one home.’
Jill’s chin lifted, her lips pursed thin. ‘Sorry, but that wasn’t my problem. Your mother had lots of people waiting on her hand and foot. She didn’t need Aunt Gayle fetching and carrying for her too.’
Wow. This – Jill’s contempt for his family – was the bad vibe he’d felt all along.