Balancing her mother against the vanity, Jo turned on the cold water in the shower. She grabbed her mother by the arms, pulled her into the stall and dunked her head under the frigid water, which soaked Jo’s blouse and hair and set her own teeth to chattering. Her mother’s head rose, and she moaned her protest as the water drenched her hair and pajamas.
Her mother coughed and sputtered but her eyes did not open. “Come on, Mom, open your eyes. Nothing is so bad that you have to do this.”
Her mother’s head dropped limply to the side, and Jo’s own panic exploded. God, this could not be happening.
Outside, the distant wail of sirens grew louder and louder. And then she heard a loud knock on the front door. Jo eased her mother to the shower stall floor, shut off the water and ran to the front door and opened it. “My mother is in the bathroom. She’s taken an overdose.”
A tall, female paramedic with a wide face and dark hair bound in a ponytail glanced at her partner who rushed up to the house with a med kit in hand. “Do you know what she’s taken?”
“I don’t.” She hurried toward the bathroom. “She’s been on antidepressants since my dad died a few years ago. But I can’t find the bottle.”
“And you are her daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I need for you to step back and let us work. Okay?”
Spouting facts was all Jo could think to do to help. “She’s fifty years old. She has normal blood pressure and she drinks . . . sometimes too much. She does smoke. Works sixty-plus hours a week.”
“We got this.”
Caught in her own thoughts Jo didn’t move as more inane facts sprung to mind. Her mother loved pink. Talked about gaining weight when she ate ice cream. Used to line dance but hadn’t since her dad had died.
The paramedic checked her mother’s pulse. “Out of the room now, ma’am.”
Jo backed out of the room, barely noticing that her shirt and face were drenched from the shower. A cold chill settled in her bones, and her teeth chattered. She pushed the damp strands of hair from her face as she listened to the paramedics work on her mother.
What had Smith known that was so bad that her mother would try something like this? Could his letter and her questions really have pushed her mother to attempt something so drastic?
Her hands trembling, she went to the kitchen and opened the trash can lid. She dug through the rubbish, found an empty fifth of Scotch but didn’t see a pill bottle. Frustrated, with nerves frazzled and strung tight, she upended the can, dumped it in the center of the kitchen and dug through the discarded cigarette cartons, yogurt containers and fried chicken scraps. At the bottom she found the bottle of tranquilizers. It was empty, and judging by the very recent date on the bottle, it had been nearly full.
She quickly replaced the trash in the can and washed her hands. As she hurried into the living room with the bottle, the paramedics wheeled her mother out of the bathroom, strapped to a gurney. Her mother’s face, mouth and nose covered with an oxygen mask, was as pale as the sheets on the gurney.
Jo hurried to the female paramedic. “I found this in the kitchen.”
The woman read the bottle as she pushed it in her coat pocket. “Good. That will help the docs.”
“Can I ride with you?”
“No, ma’am. No civilians in the ambulance.”
“Then I’m going to follow you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jo retrieved her purse and phone from her mother’s bedside and hurried to her own car.
A police officer was by the waiting fire truck. “Ma’am.”
Jo clutched her keys in her fist. “I need to follow the ambulance.”
“Can I get your name?”
“Jo Granger.” The lights of the ambulance bounced off her windshield. “You can ask all the questions you like at the hospital. But I need to follow.”
His gaze roamed over her wet hair and soaked shirt. “Are you fit to drive?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” It wasn’t until she was behind the wheel of the car and caught her reflection in the rearview mirror that she understood the concern in the officer’s voice. Her hair was plastered against her head and her mascara was running. She looked crazed.
Brody got the call from DPS patrol that Dr. Jo Granger had called in a 9-1-1 for her mother. After he’d left Jo’s house, he’d put the word out that if her name ended up in any report, including parking tickets, he wanted to know about it.
It took him less than twenty minutes to reach the hospital, park and push through the emergency room doors. His boots clicked, hard and purposeful, on the tiled hospital entrance floor. He stopped at reception long enough to introduce himself to the duty nurse and find out Mrs. Granger’s status. Resting comfortably and her daughters were with her now.
He spotted Jo the instant he rounded the corner of the waiting room closest to Mrs. Granger’s room. Jo leaned against a wall, her arms folded over her chest, her head cocked to the side as a tall blonde spoke angrily and waved her arms as she spoke. In contrast Jo was quiet, virtually emotionless, as she stood there and listened. He’d seen that same look on Jo’s face before. It had been when she’d told him she was pregnant, and he’d lost his cool. At the time he’d thought she was cold and unfeeling, but now he could see the reaction was purely defensive.
He approached in time to hear the blonde say, “I blame you for this, Jo. If you’d left well enough alone she’d have been fine.”
“If I’d left well enough alone, Ellie,” Jo said evenly, “she’d be dead.”
“Mom wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t pushed.” Ellie’s face wrinkled with anger. “It’s all your fault.”
Brody stepped up. “Jo.”
At the sound of Brody’s voice Jo looked up at him, relief and sadness flickering before she caught herself. “Brody. What are you doing here?”
His gaze was only for Jo. “Word gets around. I came to see how you’re doing.”
She offered a wan smile. “I’m fine.”
“Jo’s always fine,” Ellie said. “It’s our mother that’s not fine and in the hospital bed.”
Brody shifted his sharp gaze to the blonde. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Jo straightened. “I’m sorry. This is my sister, Ellie Granger. Ellie, this is Sergeant Brody Winchester with the Texas Rangers.”
Ellie folded her arms over her chest. “This is a family matter, Ranger Winchester. I’m not sure why you feel like you need to be here, but I think it’s best you leave.”
Brody didn’t budge. “If you would excuse us, Ms. Granger, I’d like to speak to your sister.”
Ellie’s gaze narrowed with such contempt that his ire bristled. “She’s needed here.”
Jo pressed her fingertips to her temple. “Mom is stable, Ellie. I c
an step away for a moment.”
“Yeah, like always. Do what you want.”
Jo stiffened and faced her sister. “Be quiet, Ellie. Be quiet and go sit with Mom. I’ll be in soon.” When Ellie looked as if she’d protest, Jo’s frown deepened. “Go.”
After Ellie flounced back into the hospital room, Brody took Jo by the arm and guided her to a small waiting room. “Can I get you coffee or something to eat?”
“No, I’m fine. And I can’t be gone from Mom long.”
“Won’t kill your sister to wait a moment or two. Tell me what happened.”
Jo drew in a breath as if she were conjuring strength from thin air. “Mom tried to kill herself.”
He’d only met Candace Granger once and that had been in the hospital right after Jo’s miscarriage. Tense and emotional hadn’t come close to describing their sole meeting. He’d offered to pay the hospital bills, but Candace had told him to get out of her daughter’s life. She’d take care of Jo going forward.
“Did she leave a note?”
“No. And I had to dig through the trash to find the pill bottle. This was no idle attempt.”
“Is this because of your questions about Smith?”
She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a crumpled letter. “I should have taken better care of this, but in the rush with Mom and the paramedics I didn’t think.”
The letter trembled in her hand. He took it.
“It’s a letter from Smith. He found a way to get a letter to my mother.”
He read the letter, his anger growing with each second.
“It makes no sense,” Jo said. “Dad has been dead five years, and I wouldn’t be the first child that found out her father wasn’t her father. It would have been difficult but not life shattering.”
Brody chose his words carefully. “There could be more between your mother and Smith.”
“I thought about that, but I have no idea. If anything happened between them, she never breathed a word to anyone.” She shoved out a breath. “And it takes a lot to rattle Mom. She’s as tough as a rock.” Her hands shook as she ran her hands over her hair. “What did Smith know?”