Paige straightened from cleaning the bathroom vanity and turned toward the sounds of Dusty barking. The sound of a car door closing followed, and then footsteps. Dawn back again today? Apparently Clarissa was really sick.
Paige went to the front door with a wad of paper towels still in her hand. She took a step onto the porch before she realized that it wasn’t Dawn’s car in the driveway. In fact, it wasn’t a car at all. It was a white truck, the words Richardson Construction in red letters on the side.
Her feet stuck where they landed. She wobbled in place for a split second, then turned and retreated, closing and locking the door behind her. She leaned against the door with all her strength, as if expecting a battering ram to begin whacking at the other side at any moment.
Instead, a gentle knock sounded. “Paige, I know you’re in there. Open the door.” Lee Richardson spoke with the voice of a man accustomed to complete and immediate obedience.
Paige pictured herself walking across the room, escaping out the back door, not turning around until she heard the sound of the truck leaving her driveway. But she couldn’t do it. She had run from Atlanta, she had run from the current situation, and she was done running. She flung open the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
She held onto the door. “Talk.”
“Can I come in?”
Anger surged through Paige and her eyes must have blazed, because he just held up his hands and said, “Here is fine.” Then he pointed inside to the portrait of Paige’s parents that could be seen on the buffet opposite the door. “You never told me about your mother.”
“There wasn’t any reason to.” Paige could almost hear the conversation around the Richardson family dinner table. While Tony reported his investigator’s findings, Clarissa spewed her lies and Lee sat there remorseful for ever hiring such a person. “Look, I’m in the middle of something here. Please say what you need to say so that I can get back to it.” She knew her voice sounded harsh, but why shouldn’t it?
“I was wrong.”
“Yeah, I know, you made a mistake when you hired me, you told me that the day you fired me. If there’s nothing new to add, your truck’s right there.”
He took a tremendous breath, then held it for a moment while studying his hands. After he finally exhaled he said, “Have I ever told you what happened to my wife?”
“No.” Paige heard the hardness of her voice and caught herself. “Never the full story.”
“She had this terrible headache. She had always been prone to migraines, so I didn’t think much of it when she first started complaining, but she insisted that this one was different. Finally, I came home from work and drove her to the emergency room, figuring they would give her a shot of something or other and send her home.
“Well, they put her back in a room, and the next thing I know, she’s . . .” He shook his head and flattened his palms against the doorjamb. “I’m sure you learned all about aneurysms in pharmacy school.”
“A little.”
“Best I can figure, it was like a balloon in the blood vessel that went to her brain. The thing popped before the doctor even came to look at her. She died immediately.”
“I’m sorry, Lee.”
“I’ve always blamed the doctors for it. We waited in the waiting room for twenty minutes before she was called back, she’d been back another five without being seen by a doctor when it happened. If they would’ve moved a little faster, done their jobs better . . .”
He looked at her. “They told me it wouldn’t have mattered. The location in her brain would have made it impossible to save her, even if a surgeon had been standing right there. But I’ve never believed that. I’ve always thought it was a failure of the medical system.” He locked his fingers together and rubbed his thumb across the knuckle of his index finger. “I guess it’s people like me who made what happened to you possible.”
“You have no idea what happened to me.”
“I know everything.”
“Clarissa’s version of everything?”
“Well, yes actually. She came to me last night and told me the whole truth—including the way she’d been setting you up.”
Paige started, but tried not to show her surprise. “Yeah, well, now you know.”
Lee held out an envelope. “Here. This is the rest of your signing bonus. At least I can give you that much.”
Paige looked at the envelope and thought how much easier it could make her life right now. But it would make Lee Richardson’s conscience easy, too. His actions had led to Paige’s father selling his beloved work truck, and there should be no relief for that. She took a step back and began closing the door. “What’s done is done. I don’t want your pity, Lee.”
He looked her square in the face. “You’re being stubborn.”
“Be careful on your drive home.” She motioned toward the driveway with her right hand, then shut the door. Before it clicked into place she was sure she heard him say, “I really am sorry.”
And in the empty silence of her parents’ home, Paige could only reply, “Yeah, so am I.”
The nurse smiled at Paige as she walked into the unit. “We’ve got a surprise for you today.”
Paige walked into Ora’s room to find her sitting up in bed. A tray sat before her, containing a bowl full of broth and a cup of red Jell-O that was missing a tiny crescent bite.
“Hello, young ’un.” The readout behind Ora’s bed continued to show a steady cardiac rhythm; her monitors glowed and hummed with acceptable oxygen saturation, pulse rate, and respiratory rate. It all looked good, in spite of the grayish cast to Ora’s skin.
“You’re awake!” Paige ran to the bed and hugged her friend as best she could around all the tubing and cords that hung by her bed.
“Reckon I am.” Her voice was weak, but her eyes were clear and focused.
Paige grasped the handrail on the bed and looked at the woman who should not be in this place. Wouldn’t be here now, if Paige had done what was right. She couldn’t even force a smile.
“Take a deep breath, child. Your face looks like you’ve just seen a specter from the nether world.” She picked up the pink plastic cup on her tray and took a sip of water through the bent straw. “Far as I know, I’m still in the earthly regions.”
“Oh, Ora. This is all my fault.” Paige collapsed into a chair at the side of the bed.
“I’ve suspected as much.” Ora coughed once and took two deep breaths. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be an old woman, with an old woman’s heart.” Her pale lips turned up at the corners. Her eyes twinkled with laughter, even if her body was still too weak to back it up.
This gesture heaped hot coals on Paige’s already burning conscience. “It’s not a joke. Ora, your prescription was misfilled. That’s what caused your heart attack. You were taking the wrong thing for several days.”
Ora’s expression did not change. Perhaps she had already been told the truth by a nurse or doctor, perhaps she didn’t quite understand, or perhaps she was just too sick to care.
“I’ve known for a while that Clarissa and Dawn were not following procedures. I talked to Clarissa about it, but I should have reported her.”
Ora squeezed her hand and her eyes began to flutter shut. “I’ve never been one to abide tattletales, myself.” A strand of gray hair fell across her cheek.
Paige smoothed it away from her face. “I’m so sorry.” There was nothing more to say.
Ora slept for a couple of moments, then coughed and opened her eyes. “You know, the whole mistake thing. It don’t make sense to me because I don’t remember my pills looking different.” She pointed toward the little closet in her room. “Bring me my purse.”
Paige went and found the carpetbag tote in the bottom of the closet and brought it back to her friend.
Ora rummaged through it for a few seconds saying, “I declare, things just get harder and harder to find in this thing. I’d get something smaller, but then it wouldn’t hold all my stuff. Let’s see . . . here it is.” Ora pulled out a plastic strip with seven dividers, the letters S M T W T F S on each of the little lids. Her pill dispenser.
“Let’s see here,” she said, opening the lid marked F, “isn’t this what I’ve been taking all along?”
Paige looked at the white tablet, scored down the middle. She turned it over in her palm and looked at the markings, A / MO. The correct marking for the correct medication. “Ora, this is your Toprol XL. Are you sure you haven’t taken any light yellow pills during all this time?”
“Positive. I always use up my old bottle before I start a new one. So me being in here isn’t your fault or the redhead’s or even that careless other one. The fault is mine . . . for living so long my heart wants to take a nap on me.”
Paige thought about all the implications of this new information. The prescription had still been misfilled, there could be no doubt about that, but if none had been taken. . . . “I need to go make a phone call. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow. Okay?”
“I’m not headed to any rummage sales, young ’un.”
“Right.” Paige rushed outside the hospital, waiting only until she reached the parking lot to dial Gary Powell’s phone number. “Mr. Powell, have you counted the pills in the bottle of the Topamax from Mrs. Vaerge’s home? I think she might not have taken any.” Paige recounted the conversation as best she could, answering his questions along the way.
“Well,” he said, “that does put a new spin on things. Let me look into all this and see what we find.”