5:32 a.m.
I can’t believe this.” Delores angrily disconnected her phone, ending another unsuccessful attempt to reach Nate. “I feel like I’m operating in a vacuum.”
“Coffee?” Richard asked.
She snapped a no, and then instantly ameliorated her tone. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take my distress out on you.”
“I’m as anxious as you are, Delores. More so. I’m the one with terminal cancer.”
She fell back as though he’d inflicted a mortal wound.
He ran his fingers up through his hair. “Now I’m sorry. Lashing out at each other is counterproductive, a waste of energy. Let’s try to keep calm. All right? We don’t know that anything catastrophic has happened.”
“We don’t know that it hasn’t, either. Where is everybody?”
They’d awakened almost simultaneously and, in robes and house shoes, left the master suite. The housekeeper wasn’t due to report to work for another two hours. Delores had asked Richard to get the coffee started while she checked in with Goliad.
Except it wasn’t their trusted facilitator she had found in the study. Asleep on the sofa was their chauffeur, snoring like a warthog. She’d startled him awake with a loud and imperious, Where is Goliad?
That was just one of the million-dollar questions among many. Where was Nate? What was he doing? When he’d taken his departure last night, he’d said he was going home to try to sleep for a few hours, but had insisted they contact him immediately if they received news of Brynn.
Delores had been periodically calling him for the past half hour. All the calls had gone unanswered. Goliad had inexplicably left the house, destination unknown, and wasn’t answering his phone. She was furious with both of them.
She’d declined coffee, but Richard poured her a mug anyway and added the two packets of raw sugar she preferred. He slid it toward her across the eating island. She sat down, took one sip, and then sprang up again.
“On the most critical day of our lives, everybody has abandoned us.”
“Goliad must have given the chauffeur a reason for calling him to watch duty.”
“He told him to come immediately, that he had to leave without delay. He didn’t explain why. To him or to us,” she added with irritation. “How many times have we told him to keep us informed? How hard is it?”
“Maybe the matter wasn’t important enough for him to disturb our rest.”
“But important enough for him to tear out of here?”
“Delores, please stop prowling. Sit down, drink your coffee.”
She slapped her hand on
the granite. “Stop being so damn calm.”
“One of us has to be,” he said, raising his voice for the first time. “What good is becoming hysterical doing you? Or me?”
She sat down on the barstool and reached across the island for his hand. “I’m not hysterical, I’m frightened.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s now less than fifteen hours until Nate must begin the infusion, and nothing toward that is happening.”
“You’ve jumped to that conclusion. On what basis? A few missed telephone calls, for which there are dozens of logical explanations.”
“I disagree. Ordinarily, perhaps, but not today. Nate knows his future is riding on this. Typically when one of us says jump, he asks how high. Now, he’s ignoring my calls? That’s worrisome, Richard. What if he’s become sympathetic to Dr. O’Neal’s cause?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I’ve lost all faith in him.”
“I think that’s premature.”
“Or overdue,” she murmured.
“You were the last to speak with Goliad last night. What was said?”