When sleep finally came, it hadn’t lasted long. The nightmare of the fire returned to haunt her. Her mother gasping for a breath. Dr. Butler performing CPR.
Dr. Butler showing her the paper that could have ruined her career.
He insisted he wanted to protect her and he’d saved her mother.
Her heart stuttered. Although as far as she knew, he was the only one who’d seen that paper. He’d supervised Gloria Inman’s treatment.
Could he have made the mistake, then falsified the paperwork so he could blame her if Inman or another staff member pointed the finger at him?
Chapter Six
Peyton spent the morning on pins and needles while she made rounds with her patients. She pushed her mother outside in her wheelchair to have lunch in the garden. Soon winter would set in, and they’d have to stick to the indoor dining area, although the facility boasted a room with floor-to-ceiling windows to let in light and allow patients to enjoy the beautiful outdoor scenery while inside.
“Where did you run off to yesterday?” her mother asked as she sipped her sweet tea. “I missed you at lunch.”
Peyton hadn’t expected her to remember. “I had errands to do for the Gardens.” They’d stopped discussing the fire years ago. She wanted her mother to focus on sweet memories, not the scariest one of her life.
“I’m so glad you’re here with me,” her mother said.
“Me, too, Mama.” She intended to keep it that way. This morning she’d searched the news for the story on Barry Inman’s arrest, but found nothing. The police were keeping it under wraps for some reason.
Perhaps until they had enough evidence to prove he set the fire.
She didn’t know the man well enough to say whether he was capable of arson and murder or not. Unless he hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt.
But that was impossible. A person who set fire to a hospital where there were critically ill and disabled patients would have to realize that everyone might not survive.
Her mother finished her chicken salad and took another sip of her tea. “You missed Val yesterday.”
Peyton went still. Was her mother confused or had her sister found them?
Peyton wiped her mouth with her napkin. “What do you mean? I missed Val.”
“Why, she came by when I was taking my afternoon nap. I woke up and there she was.”
She’d thought her mother had been confused about the strange man showing up, but apparently there had been a man, the one who’d left that envelope in her apartment. Maybe her mother could describe him.
Maybe she was right about Val, too.
“Was Val here before or after the man came?” Peyton asked.
Her mother’s brows pinched together. “What man, honey?”
Peyton gritted her teeth. “Yesterday you said a strange man came by and told you he left me something.”
Worry knitted her mother’s face, then confusion and frustration. “I...don’t remember a man.” She looked up into Peyton’s eyes, searching. “What’s wrong with me, Peyton? Why can’t I remember things anymore?”
Peyton’s heart broke. Once upon a time, her mother had been a strong, independent woman. Detail oriented. She’d worked in a research medical lab analyzing rare virus strains for the CDC in Atlanta.
“Our memory gets shorter as we get older,” Peyton said, giving her a version of the truth that her mother could handle. Broaching the words Alzheimer’s or dementia or the fact that doctors suspected her mother had contracted one of those unnamed viruses and it had attacked her brain agitated her to the point where she had to be sedated. The first time they’d broached the possibility of a virus, her mother had insisted she needed to go to work and find a cure.
It was too late for that now.
“Mom, you said you saw Val yesterday. But we haven’t seen her in three years, and you were sleeping. Could you have been dreaming?”
Irritation flashed in her mother’s eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t during my nap. It was...in the afternoon in the garden.”
Peyton patted her mother’s hand to keep her from becoming agitated. Although Leon said he’d seen a pretty young girl in the garden last night.
Had her sister found her and her mother?
* * *
LIAM CONSIDERED CALLING AHEAD for an appointment with Dr. Butler but decided not to give him a heads-up. If the man hadn’t been truthful about Mrs. Inman’s death, he’d had five years to perfect his lies.
And if he’d covered for another employee, Liam didn’t want to give him time to alert the other person they were digging into