CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
She looked so pale, so small, so vulnerable, lying there.
Paige shuddered as she approached the bed, her eyes searching for signs of life. It took a moment, but eventually she was able to make out the subtle rise and fall of Chloe’s breath beneath the stiff, white hospital sheets.
She’d come so close to dying. The doctors said it was a miracle she’d pulled through. They’d given her only a slim chance of surviving the six-hour surgery, and less than a fifty-fifty chance of making it through that first critical week, and yet here they were, fifteen days after the shooting, and Chloe was out of the ICU and on the road to a full recovery. There was even talk of sending her home next week.
“Hi, you,” Chloe said, eyes still closed.
“How’d you know I was here?” Paige asked.
“ ’Cause you’re always here for me,” Chloe said, eyes fluttering open, her lips quivering into a smile.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I was just resting my eyes. What time is it?”
“Almost one o’clock.” Paige reached for her friend’s hand beneath the covers. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty damn good, considering. How are the kids?”
“Wonderful. My mother is absolutely adoring playing grandmother. You might have a hard time convincing her to give them back.”
“I can’t thank you both enough…”
“Oh, please,” Paige said. “The fact that you’re alive is all the thanks we need.”
Josh and Sasha had been staying with Paige and her mother since their father’s arrest. The Amber Alert had led to a flood of sightings, and Matt’s car had been spotted in the parking lot of a motel on the outskirts of Pittsburgh at around ten o’clock that night. Fortunately, the children were asleep and unharmed. They’d been returned to Boston, where Matt was currently in jail, being held without bond, awaiting trial for kidnapping and attempted murder.
The phone on the side table rang.
“Would you mind getting that?” Chloe asked.
Paige reached past the beautiful arrangement of white and yellow roses her mother and Harry had sent over the previous day and picked up the phone. “Hello. Chloe’s room, Paige speaking.”
“Paige, how are you?” There was no mistaking Jennifer Powadiuk’s distinctive growl.
“It’s your mother,” Paige mouthed. “I’m fine, Mrs. Powadiuk. How are you?”
“I’ve been better,” came the answer. “And it’s Mrs. Girard now. How’s Chloe doing?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Paige handed the phone to Chloe.
“Hi, Mom.” Chloe held the phone out so that Paige could hear her mother’s side of the conversation. “How are you?”
“About as well as can be expected, I guess. All this worry about you has taken more than a few years off my life.”
Paige rolled her eyes. It was so like Chloe’s mother to make her daughter’s shooting all about her.
“How are things going in Miami?”
“Still settling in. It’s dreadfully hot here. Gerry says it’s much better in the winter months, but I don’t know…We’re heading to Chicago next week for a competition, so that should be a nice break from everything.”
You should only break a leg,Paige thought.
“Anyway, I’ll get going and let you rest. How are the kids?” she asked, an obvious afterthought.
“They’re doing great. Paige and her mother have been looking after them—”