Insider (Exodus End #1)(143)
Author: Olivia Cunning

“That’s the plan. I was going to wait a few years, but something Toni said last night convinced me that it’s time to sell the company and pursue other ambitions.” She glanced over at Birdie, who was pouring orange juice into five small glasses with strict concentration and aided, apparently, by her protruding tongue. “Toni doesn’t want to run the company. She wants to continue to create. It’s what she loves. What she’s good at. I don’t want to be responsible for squelching that spark in her. I want her to be happy.”

Logan hadn’t been sure he liked Eloise until that moment. A few minutes earlier, he was sure he didn’t like her. But anyone who wanted to ensure Toni’s happiness was a champion in his book.

“So maybe you could ask her what she wants me to do about the book,” Eloise said to Logan. “I think she’ll be open with you. I’m not sure she trusts me much right now.”

Logan shrugged. He didn’t really want to be sucked into Toni’s family problems, but he did want her to follow her dreams. Especially if they included him.

“Birdie?” Joanna said from the stove.

Logan leaned around Eloise to see what the sweet child was up to. She was standing at the counter, a puzzled expression on her typically smiling face.

“Birdie?” Joanna said again, louder this time.

The pitcher of juice dropped from Birdie’s hand as she clutched her chest. Orange liquid spread across the tile at her feet. “Somefing . . . Somefing’s not right, Mommy,” she said, just before she crumpled to the ground.

Thirty-Eight

Toni hoped her family hadn’t managed to scare Logan away in the twenty minutes she’d taken to shower. She traipsed down the steps, tugging a handful of red balloons behind her, hoping they’d bring a smile to his face, just as they’d brought one to hers. In her other hand she carried a copy of the tabloid paper. She wanted to know if Logan recognized Susan in Steve’s wedding photo. Toni still didn’t know how the woman was connected to the band or why she seemed bent on hurting them all, and Steve in particular. Toni was pretty sure Reagan and the rest of them had been caught in the crossfire. Or maybe Susan got off on destroying lives. She’d certainly tried to ruin Toni’s.

When she rounded the corner to the kitchen, all the joy she’d felt at reconciling with Logan was ripped from her in an instant. Her feet rooted to the floor. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The words coming from Logan’s mouth as he knelt over Birdie’s crumpled body and held his ear close to her mouth sounded distant, as though Toni was watching the nightmare in her kitchen from a different dimension.

“She’s breathing,” he said, “but I can scarcely feel her heartbeat.”

“Joanna, call 9-1-1. Have them send an ambulance,” Mom said. She dropped to her knees next to Birdie and pressed her ear to Birdie’s chest. “She was born with a heart defect. They did surgery soon after she was born, but she hasn’t had many problems since.”

“Should we start CPR?” Logan asked while Toni stood frozen in the doorway.

This was not happening. Not happening. Not happening. She couldn’t lose Birdie. Couldn’t lose her. No.

“Her heart’s beating,” Mom said. “Doesn’t sound regular to me. Go get Toni. She’s taken CPR classes; she’ll know what to do.”

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.

Logan jumped to his feet and noticed Toni standing in the doorway, clinging to the ribbons of half a dozen balloons.

“Toni?”

She sucked in a panicked breath. This was just like Dad. She was too late. Daddy was gone. He’d been gone before she’d arrived. She’d been too late to help him. Too late to save him.

Staring wide-eyed at Logan, she shook her head repeatedly. “Not Birdie.”

“Toni! Snap out of it,” Logan demanded. “What should we do?”

The ribbons slipped from her grasp, and the balloons rose to the ceiling, bouncing off the rafters with soft thuds.

“Ambulance is on its way,” Grandma said. “They said if her heart has stopped, we should start CPR.”

“I’m starting chest compressions,” Mom said, linking her hands in a fist.

“Wait,” Toni said. “You said she was breathing.”

Logan nodded. “She is.”

“Then she doesn’t need CPR. It could do more harm than good.” Toni rushed to her sister’s side and dropped to her knees. She could see Birdie’s chest rising and falling. She placed her hand over Birdie’s chest and she could feel her heart beating, but the organ was stumbling over itself irregularly. Something wasn’t right, but this wasn’t like what happened with Daddy at all. Birdie wasn’t gone.

“Birdie,” Toni called in a soothing voice, rubbing the center of Birdie’s chest gently. “Birdie, open your eyes.”

Birdie’s face twitched as if she were trying to open her eyes but couldn’t quite get a grasp on consciousness.

Logan knelt at Birdie’s head and stroked stray strands of hair from her forehead. “Hey there, princess, you’d better listen to your sister. She’s worried about you. Open your eyes.”

“Toni?” Birdie said, and she reached for the nearest hand, which happened to be Mom’s.

Toni sucked in a gasping breath of relief. “Yes, Buttercup, I’m here.”

“Oh, thank God,” Mom said. She lifted Birdie’s hand to her lips, kissing each of her stubby little fingers, her palm, her wrist.

“Is she okay?” Grandma Joanna asked, her knee brushing Toni’s shoulder as she leaned over to look down. “She’s coming around,” Grandma said to the 9-1-1 operator she still had on the phone.

Birdie’s eyes blinked open, and she stared up at Logan, who must have appeared upside down to her. She then turned her head slightly to look at Toni. “Did Logan come to take you away again?”

Toni closed her eyes to keep her tears from falling and shook her head. “No, baby. He’s just visiting.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. If hearing those words hurt him even half as much as it hurt her to say them, she expected to find him lying gutted on the floor. But as much as she loved him, she couldn’t leave Birdie. Not now. Maybe not ever. He had to understand why.

“How are you feeling, Buttercup?” Toni pried her eyes open, but couldn’t see through the blur of her tears.