with a woman who looked just like her but older, or maybe it was the other way around.
Instantly, I wanted to give her my condolences and offer my help, but she spoke before I had the chance. “You’re Halliday Valentine, right?”
“I am, and you’re Anna, right?”
“Ye…yes. And this is my mother, Regina,” she said, pointing to the woman next to her.
Scanning her body and face, rigid with anguish, and wondering why she was at the hospital, I asked, “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, her tangled hair sticking to her wet cheeks. “They made me come here to be sure I was okay. That’s all. I’m fine. Fine.”
I’d heard those words before. I’m fine, in Anna’s case, meant she was barely holding it together. I hated that for her…for her newly born daughter…for Gable.
Regina shook her head firmly, pulling her red wool trench coat tighter around her chin. “She’s not fine, Miss Valentine. She’s a wreck. They had to give her a sedative to calm her down, she was so hysterical. That’s why she’s here.”
“Mom, please!” Anna hissed, stomping her foot. “Be quiet and let me talk!”
I didn’t want things to escalate, so I asked in as soothing a tone as possible, “What can I do for you, Anna? How can I help?”
“I…” She gasped, her shoulders jerking from the effort as she pulled her puffy jacket back up over her shoulders. “I need…I need to talk to you. Please.”
Tears began to fill her red-rimmed eyes again, and that was when I took her hand. “How about we do it inside, okay? It’s too cold for you to be out here.” Tugging her hand, I led her back into the lobby and brought her to the row of dark brown chairs next to a table of magazines. “Tell me what I can do for you, Anna?”
“Gable,” she hacked out, her chest heaving. “I need to ask you about Gable.”
That took me a bit by surprise as I encouraged her to sit and looked into her tortured blue eyes. “Me? I’m not sure I understand.”
She grabbed my hand and held it tight, as though she were clinging for her life. “You’re the niece of the other man who was hurt at Feeney’s, right?”
“I am,” I offered quietly.
“Anna,” her mother said with a softer tone, putting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and squeezing. “Maybe now’s not the time, honey. She’s in distress, too.”
But she pushed her mother away and looked to me with broken eyes. “No, Mom, I have to know. I need to know what happened!” she cried, her hysteria clearly rising.
“What do you need to know?” I used great caution when I asked.
“Did your uncle tell you anything about what the man who killed Gable said? Did he say anything about…about drugs?”
I blinked in surprise, gripping her hand. “Drugs? Is that what the man was doing in Feeney’s?”
“I don’t know!” she wailed with a phlegm-filled cough. “I don’t know why he killed Gable. I don’t understand!”
Turning to fully face her, I looked at her distraught face and held her hand tight. “I don’t know what happened, Anna. My uncle’s just out of a surgery about an hour ago, and his husband—we call him Uncle Darling—doesn’t know either. He just walked in on—”
“The murder!” Anna shouted. “Gable was murdered in cold blood, and I want to know why! I need to know what happened to my husband. Everything was going really great. He was attending his meetings and he was sober. But he came home two nights ago and something was wrong. I know something was wrong!”
“Anna! You have to calm down, honey. This isn’t good for you,” her mother pleaded as people traipsing through the lobby began to stare.
But Anna yanked her arm away from her mother again. “No. No, Mother, I will not calm down. I know her uncle knows something. I know he had to have seen or heard something!”
“He’s still heavily sedated, and he was unconscious when he was taken by ambulance from the scene. He only just came out of surgery, Anna. I can’t help you until he wakes up, but do you mind if I ask you a question? What makes you think it was about drugs if Gable was sober?”
Her full lips thinned and her eyes went stormy. “Because he wasn’t right when he came home from work, and he didn’t smell like alcohol. When he was drinking, he always smelled like whiskey. I’d bet anything he was mixed