Shadow Notes Laurel Peterson (best reads TXT) 📖

had been spinning before being knocked out; now, it felt even worse. Stuff fizzled in the air like a blender full of poisonous fruit and ice.

“That’s the link I haven’t figured out. I told Hugh what I knew, but he was bound by doctor-patient confidentiality. He would never have shared any of this, and he would never have said anything to Winters.” She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

I got up to pace the room, moving gingerly from the French doors to the hall door and back again, weaving around Mother’s boxes like a sheep dog trying to herd them. Daylight had gone and an early moonrise cast eerie shadows in the room. The movement eased some of my jailed emotion. “Would anything cause him to break confidentiality?”

“Hugh was unimpeachable. He had to be or he’d lose all his clients.”

“Paul told me he talked everything over with Maria.”

She stood abruptly and flipped on a light. The brightness hurt my eyes. She was staring at me.

“Maybe someone thought he was going to break confidentiality,” I said.

“What did you do with Hugh upstairs on the night of my Christmas party?”

I sucked in a breath. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Don’t be coy with me, Clara.”

“You’re blaming this on me? How original.” The simmering rage billowed out. “It’s not my fault your beloved Hugh died. Don’t target me.”

Suddenly dizzy, I grabbed the back of her chair for balance. I was lashing out not at her, but at the injustice of Andrew Winters getting away with this for thirty-five years.

Target. That was the word that Loretta used that had been bugging me. That’s how Winters referred to them the night I’d worked over Melton Honey. Did people really refer to their donors that way?

They might if they perceived them not as donors and colleagues but as blackmail opportunities…

“Clara, what did you do upstairs with Hugh?”

“Nothing. I did nothing but ask Hugh about you.”

“About me?”

“I came home because I was worried, Mother. Because I’ve been having dreams for weeks about your running from something. Why do you think I’ve been so persistent? I’m trying to save you—because I didn’t save Father.”

She sat as abruptly as she’d stood, looking as if even the soft chair might break her in half. “Oh, Clara.”

“Why does it matter what I did with Hugh?”

“If they thought he told you about the DNA link or…about the blackmail…they had to stop him before he did either of those things.”

“Then why kill him after he went upstairs with me?”

“Maybe they figured his death would warn me to keep my silence and make sure you kept yours. And if he hadn’t said anything, they’d eliminated the threat that he would tell anyone else.”

“Who else would he tell? The press? You just said he wouldn’t.”

“He talked everything over with Maria.”

I nodded. “What influence would she have over Andrew Winters?”

“None. But she knows someone who would, and I know him, too.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. “That’s enough for tonight, Clara. I need…. We’ll pick this up later, when our minds are clearer.”

I protested but Mother got up, the tray in her hands. “Go upstairs,” she said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

I trudged up to my bedroom, disheartened. We’d started to be honest with each other, but it hadn’t lasted. Mother had spent a long time keeping secrets from me. But keeping secrets was human. Some things just belonged to us and no one else, except when others could get hurt.

Then again, the thought of Mother coming to kiss me good night felt strangely comforting. I put on cozy pajamas, a pair I’d found lurking in a bottom drawer. The pink flannel pants and top were soft and almost sheer from wear. I wrapped myself in a red fleece robe and climbed under the bedcovers, suddenly chilled all the way through.

With a sudden rush of tears, I turned my face into the pillow, smelled the comforting lavender, burrowed into the sheets, hoping that, if I got far enough in, I wouldn’t be the child of a rape victim. I wouldn’t have terrifying dreams, or feel I had to save a woman I barely knew from a menace I didn’t understand.

Mother’s hand on my shoulder startled me. I crabbed back in the bed, nearly kicking her in my haste to scoot away. Half the bedcovers came with me, and before I was aware of it, I was at the edge, scrabbling for something to hold onto, my head pounding at the sudden movement.

She grabbed my arm. “Clara! It’s me!”

Breathing hard, we stared at each other. I shook my head, trying to clear the fog, and felt a deep, painful twinge from the gash.

“I’ve spooked you, haven’t I? With all this talk.” She smoothed the bedclothes. I hunched back into the middle of the bed and propped myself up with pillows. She sat at the edge.

“Yeah.” I felt tears threaten again, stopped talking until I regained control. “My skull and my brain feel cracked.” I attempted a grin, thinking of the slug.

“I wish Hugh were around,” she said.

“He anchored you, didn’t he?”

“Your father did, too.” She ran her hand across the spread, a handmade flowered quilt she’d bought from an artist exhibiting at the Museum of Arts and Design. Bands of aquamarine and silver divided the flower blocks. “I’m glad you’re home, Clara. It’s good to have someone around I can trust.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Being someone my mother trusted seemed like a lot of responsibility. Look at what had happened to the others: dead. I bit my lip.

She motioned to a glass of warm milk on the side table. “I put a little something in that to help you sleep.” She kissed my forehead and got up. “Good night, darling.”

Bathed in the first maternal love I’d felt in a long time, I drank the milk down until it was only a thin film coating the glass. Tucked under the covers, I should have