Croix bolted through the front door before anyone else could reach the stairs and disappeared inside. She didn’t seem sore.
Bitch.
Angelina watched the girl go and then looked at Shee. “This has been hard on her.”
Shee grunted.
Angelina opened the screen door. “Having her here was a little like having you back—”
“I got it.”
She walked inside before she had to touch the door. All she wanted to do was go to sleep for a week.
Outside, Bracco pulled away. Bouncing Harley appeared, yapping and twirling, clearly thrilled to see Mommy had returned. Angelina scooped her up.
She kissed the dog and looked at Shee. “Follow me.”
Shee trailed into the elevator. Angelina pulled a key on a long silver chain from between her bosom, took a moment to untangle the squiggling dog from it, and unlocked the penthouse button on the elevator’s panel.
The elevator lurched upward. Thirty seconds later, the metal doors split, revealing a long left-right hallway and a door directly across from them. Angelina knocked on the door and then opened it with another key from the same chain.
Shee’s mind flooded with memories at the sight of her father’s apartment,. As she’d suspected from what she’d seen through the drone camera, little had changed. Dark leather furniture crowded around a television almost big enough to mount in Times Square. The TV was a new addition. Televisions didn’t come bigger than a barn wall back when last she’d visited.
The walls had been repainted a neutral gray, a modern twist on the neutral cream they’d been fifteen-odd years ago. Nothing had frills, soft edges or pastels.
Clearly, her father had remained a bachelor. Shee was surprised to find no sign Angelina had moved in. She could tick off forty reasons why their relationship would have ended with one or both of them dead or incarcerated—their on-again, off-again was the stuff of legends. But still, with them both getting older, she’d thought maybe...
The dark-skinned woman she’d seen on the sofa that day with the drone sat in the same spot, back to the window, a Kindle reader in her lap and a bag of what looked like knitting beside her.
She awoke as the two entered.
“Still here?” asked Angelina.
The woman nodded and gathered her things. “Mi fall asleep,” she said with a deep Jamaican accent.
Angelina motioned from the nurse to Shee and back. “Martisha, this is Mick’s daughter, Siofra.”
Shee nodded. “You can call me Shee.”
The woman grinned. “Nice fi meet yuh.”
Angelina tugged Shee’s arm toward the next room and, with an apologetic smile to the nurse, moved into her father’s bedroom.
The room smelled of antiseptic. Shee recoiled at the memory of every hospital she’d ever had the misfortune of visiting.
Her father occupied a metal-trimmed adjustable bed, lying in the same supine position she’d noted through the drone. From what she could tell, he hadn’t moved a finger.
“You can talk to him,” said Angelina, urging her forward.
Shee fought against Angelina’s prodding. “Can he hear me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I talk to him as if he can. I read somewhere it helps. I dunno.”
Shee took another step and then stopped again, her gaze tracing the white sheets outlining her father’s body.
“I assume you’re staying here tonight?” asked Angelina.
Shee pointed to the floor. “Here?”
“In the hotel.”
Shee thought about the suitcase in her car. She’d packed and checked out of her hotel room before coming to the Loggerhead, though at the time, she wasn’t sure if she’d been planning on staying or running.
She nodded. “Yes. If you have room?”
Angelina laughed. “Mick doesn’t advertise just so he always has rooms free for his pet projects. I swear he gives himself bad reviews online just to keep us empty.” She sat in a chair against the wall. “Your room down the hall is ready to go.” She paused and then added, “It has been for years.”
Shee returned her attention to her father.
Mick looked ashen and frail, nothing like the larger-than-life creature she’d left. She touched his hand and found it cool, his skin thin.
Her eye traveled to his neck. She pulled down the collar of his pajamas.
“Does it look like his throat is bruised to you?”
Angelina stood and flipped on the overhead lights before joining her bedside. Shee pushed the collar of her father’s pajamas aside to get a better look.
“Almost looks like finger marks,” said Angelina, peering over her shoulder.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Shee pulled down the blankets and unbuttoned the pajama top. There were no other marks on his upper torso. She lifted his arm and pulled up his sleeves.
“Here.” She pointed to scratch marks on the back of his arm. “These look fresh.”
Angelina’s brow knitted. “Maybe he fell out of bed?”
“In a coma?”
“Maybe she dropped him trying to change the sheets?”
Shee frowned. “Does that happen?”
“I don’t know. He’s a big guy. I’ll ask her.”
Shee started rebuttoning her father’s shirt and Angelina nudged her out of the way.
“I’ll do that. Go to the other side. Look at his head.”
Shee moved to the opposite side of the bed.
Now, with a better view than the drone had provided, she saw the large scar marring the side of her father’s shaved skull. She ran her finger across it.
“How did he survive a bullet to the head?” she asked aloud, not expecting an answer.
“It’s simple,” said Angelina, patting his pajamas smooth.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He refused to die until he saw you again.”
Shee dropped her gaze to the scar. The man in the bed didn’t feel
