Life Support Read online

  Mrs. Landry’s hand rose to the collar of her robe. “It’s so late. The judge thinks it’s better that she stay with—”

  “No.” Eli cut her off. His jaw muscles bunched. “She’s coming home.”

  “I . . .” Even in the shadows, the woman’s shimmer of tears was visible. “I’m so sorry about this accident, darling. The misunderstanding. I wish you’d called us. I wish . . .” She stepped onto the porch, took her son’s hand.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” Eli dipped his head to kiss her cheek. “No harm done. You’re right; it’s my fault.”

  “Excuse me.” Fletcher took a few discreet steps away, motioning to the other officer that he could go. When he turned back, Mrs. Landry had gone.

  “We’re finished here?” Eli asked.

  “Unless you have something else to add.”

  “No.” Eli dragged his fingers through his hair, sighed. “There’s nothing else.”

  Fletcher tapped his notebook. “Judge Landry heard you leaving the porch. He brandished his weapon thinking he’d frighten a fleeing burglar, stumbled, and it accidentally discharged.”

  “Right.”

  Fletcher caught his gaze. “No injuries.”

  Eli smiled grimly and inspected his palms. “Some road rash when I pitched myself down on the gravel. I’ll take that to the alternative.”

  Fletcher nodded and broached the dicey but necessary subject for the second time that night. “And no reason to think that your father would want to harm you.”

  Eli glanced toward the door, then met Fletcher’s gaze. “Look. I did a dumb thing by going into the house without calling first. You heard what my mother said. My father wasn’t feeling well and was half-asleep when he ran out here. My fault.” His cell phone buzzed with a text, and he read it with a grimace. “I’m screwing up everyone’s night. I was supposed to pick up my dog. Lauren Barclay’s watching him.”

  “Maybe I can help with that.”

  - + -

  “Fletcher.” Lauren stood in the doorway, stunned for a moment. Then her heart climbed toward her throat. “Is something wrong? Is it Jess?”

  “No, no,” he assured her. “She’s fine. I dropped by the hospital and had coffee with her a couple of hours ago.” A corner of his mouth tweaked upward in the same crooked smile he’d sported since grade school. “Took her one of those desserts she likes, from the place down on South Shepherd—you know.”

  “Yes, I do,” Lauren said, hiding an amused smile. This flak-jacketed, gun-toting police officer didn’t want to say out loud that he’d gone into an establishment called Sugarbaby’s to order a chocolate, buttercream-filled cupcake known as the Dippity Doo Dah. For the neighbor girl he’d been in love with all of his life. It was as obvious as the badge on his chest. To everyone but Jess. “Well then,” she said, looking past him and toward the street. “If everything’s fine, what brings you by at this hour?”

  “I’m here to take a dog off your hands.”

  “Shrek?” Lauren’s confusion was accompanied by an unexpected sense of disappointment. “But—oh, sorry. Where are my manners? C’mon in.”

  Fletcher settled onto a kitchen chair while Lauren tiptoed down the hall far enough to hear that things were quiet behind the weather room door. She’d slipped the turban off Shrek when the thunder quit, and he’d been sleeping ever since. When she got back to the kitchen, Hannah Leigh was in Fletcher’s lap. The shih tzu was a wriggling and glossy jumble of black-and-white, with chocolate eyes, a comical and endearing underbite, and a “capricious temperament”—Pamela Barclay’s timeworn euphemism for “Watch your fingers, y’all.” The dog therapist had outed her on that one during their first session.

  “Be careful,” Lauren warned, tapping her Band-Aid. “Your girl’s in a mood.”

  “Nothing new about that.” Fletcher’s smile crinkled the corners of his blue eyes, and Lauren noticed the small scar high on his cheekbone. Pale now and shaped almost like the crescent moon in the July sky the night he’d tried to launch himself from the Barclays’ roof. Wearing his astronaut suit and some shuttle wings he’d fashioned from coat hangers and Hefty bags. All on a dare from Jessica, the beguiling child princess in a plastic crown who waited on the ground to egg him on. Fortunately he snagged a wing on the mermaid weather vane, causing him to merely whiplash over the edge of the roof rather than plunge to the driveway below. Despite his cardboard helmet, Fletcher smacked his head against the stucco hard enough to incur thirteen stitches, a concussion . . . and 75 percent of the blame. Jess was miffed that she’d been faulted at all and refused to speak to him the rest of the summer. Lauren sighed. Fletcher Holt was far too familiar with the phrase “Your girl’s in a mood.”

  “I ran into Eli Landry,” he explained as Hannah circled in his lap, finding the most comfortable spot. “For the second time today. He’d been waylaid by circumstances, so I offered to pick up his dog. I said I’d drop Shrek off on my way back to the station. His daughter was tired and he wanted to get her home.”

  “Oh.” There it was again, that strange sense of disappointment. It made no sense. The only time Lauren had ever been alone with Eli turned into one of her biggest regrets. She should be relieved to avoid him tonight. “You mean you saw Eli again when you took the cupcake to Jess.”

  “Uh . . .” Fletcher hesitated, then nodded as if he’d decided something. “It will be public record. We were dispatched to Judge Landry’s estate less than an hour ago—shots fired.”

  “What?” Lauren’s heart stalled. She thought of Emma Landry’s sweet pixie face, the happy rainbow on her cheek. “What happened?”

  “An accident,” Fletcher explained, lifting his fingers from Hannah’s ear at her warning growl. “Apparently Eli didn’t call before arriving at the house because it was late and he didn’t want to wake his parents. He used his key. Judge Landry woke up, heard him leaving the porch. There have been some burglaries in that community. So the judge grabbed his shotgun and—”

  “Oh, dear God.” Lauren pressed a hand to her chest. “He shot—”

  “Accidentally discharged the weapon,” Fletcher clarified. “Stumbled in the dark. The judge said he never intended to fire, that he racked the round to scare a would-be intruder. I don’t condone it, but I have to admit that sound is a powerful deterrent. Anyhow, Eli supports the judge’s account of the incident, and—hey!” He pulled his arm away as Hannah attempted to sink her teeth into his sleeve.

  “Sorry. Here.” Lauren snatched a treat from the table, distracting the dog. She wished there were a simple way to allay her own uneasiness. “Emma saw all of that?”

  “Nope. Sound asleep.” Fletcher shook his head as the shih tzu jumped from his lap with an indignant snort. “I’ll take Shrek home and it’s all good.”

  Lauren made herself smile. All good. If only that were true.

  - + -

  “His brother,” Eli told the night shift RN assigned to Drew’s care. He repositioned himself—with a scrunch of Styrofoam—in the fuzzy pink beanbag chair next to Emma’s trundle bed. “I’m Andrew’s brother, Elijah Landry,” he clarified, trying to keep his voice low.

  “Ah, yes.” There was a harsh sound on the other end of the phone, insistent, like a suction catheter. “He’s resting better; the sedative is helping. Temperature’s down to 100. He’s still on oxygen, of course. Just a mask now, not that positive pressure machine they started in the ER.”

  “What’s his saturation?”

  “His oxygen percentage is up to 94. We normally like to see 95 to 100, but with your brother’s history—”

  “I know,” Eli interrupted. “I know his history. And I understand the normals. I’m a PA. I run the urgent care downstairs.”

  There was a silence. “Oh. I’m sorry, Mr. Landry. I didn’t put it together.”

  “That’s okay.” He tried not to imagine what else she’d put together, heard from the hospital grapevine.

  “The monitor is showing a sinus rhythm between 88 and 92. The doctor’s order
ed cefepime and vancomycin; blood cultures are pending. Do you want me to read off his last set of vitals? Pull up labs?”

  “No.” Eli glanced toward Emma, her face softly lit by the glow of a Little Mermaid table lamp. One hand was curled against her cheek, fingertips touching the smudged remains of her rainbow face painting. She’d left most of it on Drew’s cheek. “I don’t need to know his labs—any of that.” He closed his eyes for a moment, willing the ache to subside. “Has he tried to say anything?”

  “No. Other than some grunts.” The nurse’s voice was gentle. “I couldn’t get him to squeeze my hand, but he followed me with his gaze. I’m sure of that.”

  “Could I talk with him for a minute?”

  “As I told you . . .” A monitor dinged somewhere in the distance. “He isn’t verbal, Mr. Landry. Right now his eyes aren’t even—”

  “Put the phone to his ear. Please.”

  There was a rustle, the gentle hiss of misted oxygen. And then a rattle that was his brother’s breathing.

  “It’s me,” Eli told him. “Your brother . . . Trouble,” he added, using Drew’s old affectionate heckle: “Here comes Trouble.” Still apt, he supposed. Some things never changed. “I love you, Champ. I’ll see you at breakfast. Pancakes, blueberry syrup, and—” He heard a phlegmatic cough. A painful wheeze.

  “I should suction him,” the nurse advised, coming back onto the phone. “Was there anything else?”

  “No. Thanks. That’s all.”

  Eli disconnected from the call and sat there for a long moment, listening to a duet of snores: Emma’s small puff and Shrek’s deeper exhalations, accompanied by the occasional yip and vigorous paddling of the Newfoundland’s legs. A blind dog with bad hips giving rabbits an Olympian chase. As much a reality as Drew eating his favorite breakfast in the morning.

  Or rainbows being painted by angels . . .

  Eli’s gaze moved to the wall above Emma’s head, to the cross she’d hung there using a thumbtack from his office and a piece of fishing line. It was made from leaves she’d braided together on Palm Sunday, a service she’d attended with her grandparents. Eli had been working. He volunteered to do that most Sundays now. Because those shifts were always busy and often short-staffed. And because . . . Eli closed his eyes. Because he and God were parting ways. It was the one thing he couldn’t explain to Emma, couldn’t seem to find the words for. Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy—she’d asked, and he’d answered with the truth. He’d tried to do the same with his scientific explanation of rainbows. But God? Deny God’s faithfulness, his mercy . . . take that from her? How did he do that? How do I call my doubts a truth?

  He’d accepted too many brutal truths. Drew’s brain injury—that effective loss of his one true friend. His mother’s crippling grief and his father’s disappointment in every choice Eli made afterward. Since then, he’d seen comrades die in war despite desperate efforts to save them. He’d had a woman he thought he loved leave him, and even worse . . . Eli leaned forward to touch Emma’s hair. He’d had to accept that she also chose to abandon their beautiful child with never a backward glance. His doubts about God were a culmination of all that, a slow and inevitable erosion of faith. Like a seawall giving way to season after season of merciless storms.

  And then there was tonight. Eli fought a wave of nausea, recalling bits and pieces of what still seemed so surreal. His mother’s voice up the long pathway. His jog toward her in the darkness. Then the sounds of footfalls coming his way. His father’s face lit against the hedges, that angry shout. The shotgun racking. And Eli’s own desperate attempt to identify himself.

  I did that, didn’t I? He knew it was me . . . right?

  The judge had been adamant in his insistence that he’d believed there was an intruder. He’d been completely lucid when giving a statement to the police, even cited Governor Perry’s 2007 signing of the castle doctrine and stand-your-ground law, with specific numbers and each subsection. If he’d been drinking, there was no overt evidence. No slurred words or bloodshot eyes. And no apology to Eli either, but that wasn’t surprising. His mother, on the other hand, had apologized to everyone. Lemonade with apologies.

  Eli’s pulse quickened as his cell phone rang in his pocket. It was his mother.

  “No, Mom,” he assured as he stepped over Shrek and moved toward the door in the darkness. “I wasn’t asleep. In fact, I was going to call you. Is Dad still awake?”

  “No, dear. Fast asleep. He hasn’t slept much the last few nights and wasn’t feeling well most of today. Then with what happened with Drew and tonight—” Her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry, Son. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Fine. But . . . when you said he hasn’t been sleeping and wasn’t well today, what do you mean exactly?” Eli held his breath. She knew what he was asking. She’d be torn between defending her husband and . . . protecting me? Did he know it was me?

  “Restless, that’s all,” she explained. “You know the judge; being on sabbatical doesn’t stop him from debating every issue at the club, the homeowners’ association, or on the TV news.”

  “Is the 12-gauge back in the study? Closed up in the gun case?” Cases, plural. Julien Landry’s study was lined with them—custom-made in mahogany, illuminated by halogen lights, and complete with a built-in valuables safe and an electronic humidor for guests’ cigars. He owned dozens of guns: bird guns and rifles—one of which was a prized gift from a former vice president. The judge had pistols, too. . . . “Does he still keep that handgun in his bedside table?”

  “No. It’s put away. They’re all put away in the cases in his study.” Was there a quaver in her voice? “They’re locked. I checked. Twice.”

  Twice . . . Eli flattened his palm on the hallway wall, shut his eyes as his weight sagged against it. Since when had his mother ever checked anything to do with guns? Though she’d hosted countless gun club members, firearms were a foreign language to Anita Landry. Still, she’d stood alongside her husband tonight and corroborated his story. It was a believable one; his father had made it clear he was prepared to take up arms in defense of his castle. Except tonight the intruder was Eli. A night Judge Landry had been sleepless and “under the weather.”

  “Mom . . .” Eli told himself that he had to press further. Had to say it. Emma was with me tonight. My mother is sleeping in that house. “I think you should hide the key to the gun cases.”

  Eli waited through a stretch of silence, knowing his mother’s response could provide an answer to questions that had been turning his life upside down. Questions about his father’s drinking, his mother’s level of concern. In his entire life, Eli had never seen her take a stand against his father. Anita Landry wouldn’t hear of it. But—

  “Mom? Did you hear me? I think you should hide that key.” He glanced back toward the glow of Emma’s bedside lamp.

  “I did,” his mother said finally. The tears in her voice tore at Eli’s heart. “I hid the key in my Bible. Just for now. I love you, Son. Your father loves you too. He does.”

  WHAT IS THAT?

  Lauren bolted upright in bed, her heart pounding. The sound was real, not a dream. Shrill, earsplitting, insistent. She slid from bed, mind tumbling. Her gaze jerked to the bedside clock: 5:20. Not yet dawn. The sound continued, relentless, as she headed toward the hallway. It wasn’t the security alarm; she hadn’t set it. The smoke detector? A fire? Oh, please . . . No smoke. But there was barking, too. All of it coming from the weather room. Lauren stumbled forward, her confusion compounding. What was happening?

  She lurched through the doorway and nearly tripped trying to dodge a frenzied Hannah Leigh. She recovered her balance and slapped her hands over her ears, temples pounding at the cruel screech. “What’s going on?” she yelled, frantically scanning the room for the source of—

  “Hurricane!” a voice shouted behind her.

  Lauren whipped around.

  “It’s the hurricane warning,” Jess explained, cupping her hands around her
mouth. “And it’s turned up way too loud.”

  Lauren looked toward the windows, struggling to understand. “There’s a hurricane?”

  “No. There’s a loony mother.” Jess managed a deadpan expression despite her boisterous shout. “Here, let me . . .” She hurried to the desk against the far wall, tapped one of several devices beside the computer. The horrendous screeching stopped. And miracle of miracles, Hannah’s barking ended too. Without a bribe.

  “Yep,” Jess reported, scanning the device. “A tropical depression has been upgraded to Tropical Storm Eloise, moving at twenty-two miles an hour in a westerly direction into the Gulf of Mexico.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Want to toss a coin for first dibs on the dry shampoo?”

  “I can’t believe this.” Lauren groaned, knees weak with relief at the end of the chaos. She pointed to the jumble of monitoring equipment beside her parents’ computer. “Where on earth—?”

  “eBay.” Jess dropped onto the couch, rubbing the side of her neck. “Our mother’s a freak.”

  “Well, thanks for stopping that. I think I was close to a coronary.” Lauren joined her, noticing the dark circles under her sister’s eyes and how sharply her collarbone protruded at the opening of her blouse. She thought of Fletcher’s cupcake, wondered if Jess had secretly given it away. Then she caught sight of the multiple Band-Aids on her sister’s feet. Blisters, no doubt. How many hours had she run? It was far from the first time Jess had done something like that. “You’re home early.”

  “Census was low. I volunteered to go home and save the department a few bucks; administration will like that. I have to score points where I can.” Jess’s eyes met Lauren’s. “I am sorry about earlier. Gayle’s on me about everything. I knew she’d make a federal case over my being late.”

  “I doubt that. She’s always been on your side.”

  “Sure . . .” Jess yawned, grabbed a pillow appliquéd with rain clouds, and stretched out her long frame. She wedged her head against Lauren’s hip.