Elizabeth let her guide her down to the chair. Harper sat down next to her.
“She passed out,” Elizabeth said numbly. She blinked and focused on Harper’s face. “It was just after I saw you . . . after you left.” Harper nodded, recalling seeing Elizabeth in her office before she’d run out of Jacob’s house. “We found more pill bottles in her purse. Jacob thought she might have taken them just before she came up to his office. He had me call 9-1-1, but while I was on the phone, Regina stopped—” Elizabeth gasped, her eyes going wide at the memory. “Breathing. Jacob did CPR, and she started to breathe again, but—”
“Is Jacob with her now?” Harper asked, pulling some tissues out of her purse and putting them in the other woman’s hand, so that she felt them. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. Elizabeth nodded and removed her glasses. She blotted her eyes with the tissues.
“He was so upset. He cares about Regina so much. All he’s done for her—gotten her jobs, paid for her treatments, given her a home to live in . . .” Elizabeth faded off, blowing her nose.
“He obviously cares for her a great deal,” Harper said, sitting back in her seat. She felt numb. “And Regina still loves him. I heard her say so, while we were in San Francisco.”
“Still?” Elizabeth asked, wringing her hands and crumpling the tissue she held.
“Still . . . even though they’re not a couple anymore. Are they?” Harper asked uncomfortably when she saw Elizabeth’s bewildered expression.
“Jacob and Regina? A couple?” Elizabeth laughed mirthlessly and shook her head. “You misunderstood, if that’s what you thought. They’ve never been a couple. Jacob saved Regina. He saved me, too. He’d never sleep with any of us—not the ones he saves.”
“Saves?”
“Regina was a high-priced call girl when he found her ten or fifteen years ago,” Elizabeth sniffed. “It was before he hired me, so I’m not exactly sure about all the details. I’ve helped him out with her over the years; Regina was constantly in crisis. Neither one of them would talk much about how they knew each other. I only know they have a long history. Jacob never gave up on trying to get a better life for her, even though Regina—bless her—gave him plenty of reasons to wash his hands of her. He’s probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on her and countless hours. Who knows why he does it?” Elizabeth shrugged helplessly. “Who knows why he came to my rescue? He’s driven by something. Not demons, though . . .” She faded off, a faraway look on her face. “His angels, I think. That’s what drives him.”
Harper’s heart squeezed tight when Elizabeth sobbed quietly. She dug for more tissues and handed them to Jacob’s assistant.
“He . . . he came to your rescue?” she asked when Elizabeth had composed herself somewhat.
Elizabeth nodded. “Lattice sponsored a job fair seven years ago, and Jacob insisted that people in San Francisco shelters and halfway houses be invited and given priority. I was living in a battered women’s shelter at the time. I was a wreck . . . not even a whole person . . . more like fragments of one. The only thing that glued me together was shame. He must have seen something in me, though. I had secretarial experience, but nothing in comparison to what I do now. He remade me . . . somehow put me back together again, and even added some major parts. He’s good at that. I’m not the only one he’s saved. But Regina . . . I think she was just so far gone, even when he’d found her.” Harper put her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders when she shook again.
After a moment, Elizabeth sniffed and glanced over at her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was just so scary, seeing her like that. It brought back so much. It made me think of what it was like, to be so vulnerable.”
“I can imagine,” Harper empathized, squeezing the other woman’s shoulders more tightly. So many thoughts spun in her head.
If Jacob and Regina had never been involved sexually or romantically, why had he led her to believe that they had? Why would he feel the need to hide amazing acts of kindness and charity?
“He’d never sleep with any of us.”
She thought of Jacob’s sexual preferences, how exciting and challenging she’d found them. It made sense, though, that he didn’t want to expose vulnerable women to his bent for bondage, for fear of traumatizing them.
“Harper?”
She started in surprise at the sound of his familiar, deep voice. She turned and saw Jacob standing in the aisle. His face looked weighted with grief. Her heart squeezed unpleasantly in her chest.
“Jacob?” Harper mouthed, dread settling on her.
“How’s Regina?” Elizabeth asked hopefully, but Harper already knew the answer. She’d read it in Jacob’s eyes as he’d fixed her with his stare.
“She’s gone,” he said.
Harper hugged Elizabeth tighter to her side when she heard the other woman’s miserable moan. She continued to hold Jacob’s stare, though. In that moment, when death hovered around them, she clung onto their invisible bond like she would a life raft in choppy water. Still hugging Elizabeth to her, she reached for Jacob’s hand. He grabbed it, and she inhaled shakily in relief. Somehow, she sensed he was accepting her support and taking strength from their bond. For that, she was profoundly grateful.
• • •
After Jacob had seen to some necessary arrangements in regard to Regina’s funeral, Jim came to get them at North Lake Hospital. Upon Jacob’s request, the driver dropped all three of them off at Elizabeth’s. His assistant had taken the news of Regina’s overdose and death hard.
Elizabeth lived in a cozy little ranch home on a cul-de-sac in Tahoe Shores. Harper cleared the last remnants of the herbal tea she’d made earlier to help calm Elizabeth. It soothed Harper, to do something domestic and ordinary in the midst of a crisis. It helped, to have something mundane to focus on while grief and sadness seemed to cloak Elizabeth’s neat home.
Jacob walked out of the hallway into the living room. She looked up and their stares held. Her heart began to throb in her ears. He looked strained and tired. Yet he was freshly amazing to her. She questioned numbly when that feeling of miraculous wonder at his existence would fade.
Or if it ever would.
“Is she resting?” Harper asked him softly.