Wicked Burn(22)
Author: Beth Kery

“Don’t worry about it,” Vic said from the doorway of the kitchen.

She gave him a harried look of apology before she started for the door.

“Niall,” he said, garnering her attention before her hand reached the knob. He waited until her big eyes met his. “I’ll call you later this afternoon,” he added pointedly.

Her gaze shifted away from his. “Don’t. I mean . . . it’s not necessary. I . . . I have to go.”

Vic stood there after she left, listening. No more voices from the hallway, just the sound of Niall’s keys rattling in the hostile silence.

Niall glanced up when her father approached her in the waiting room of Covenant General Hospital. They’d done nothing but sit and wait since arriving four hours ago.

She accepted the cup of coffee that Niall Chandler Sr. handed her. Niall was a family name, passed on for seven generations of Chandler men. Since Niall and Alexis Chandler hadn’t supplied the required male, their baby girl had been the recipient of that particular family honor.

The original Niall Chandler had made a lasting name for himself almost two hundred years ago by building a financial empire for his descendants through several activities, the milder of which was usury and the more stringent of which would be called extortion and loan-sharking in this day and age. Niall had mixed feelings about reverting to her maiden name a year ago. She’d wanted a fresh start, but the name Chandler was associated with almost as much emotional baggage as her married name.

Almost.

For well over a century now the Chandlers had been squeaky clean in regard to their business activities. Still, the taint lingered sufficiently that Niall’s father didn’t take too kindly to his daughter’s tongue-in-cheek references to their august ancestor’s checkered past.

“You and Mom should go home,” Niall told her father quietly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alexis Chandler said briskly. Her erect carriage hadn’t wilted in the slightest during the interminable wait. Alexis worked out for two hours every day at her health club. Her ramrod-straight posture came from a lifetime of riding horses. She rode rain or shine, every day without fail.

Niall knew firsthand just how strong her mother was, both mentally and physically. Niall herself practiced a fairly rigorous yoga routine, but she nowhere near approximated the magnitude of her mother’s fitness and energy level. During the crisis three years ago—at the frenzied heights of Matthew Manning’s trial—Alexis had been as staunch and solid as a marble pillar while Niall’s world crumbled around her to ashes.

Her mother removed the lid from the coffee cup and blew on the steaming liquid delicately. “We wouldn’t dream of leaving when a family member is in a crisis, Niall. You know that.”

“There’s nothing we can do here, Mom, least of all give comfort,” Niall said wearily. She’d sat like this in waiting rooms too many times not to feel the sense of suffocating helplessness press upon her. This was all part and parcel of the chaos of Stephen’s life, something that Niall knew all too intimately.

Her mother and father didn’t know the half of it.

“They said there was no permanent damage done,” Niall continued. “I was considering going myself.”

Alexis’s hand froze in the act of replacing the lid on her coffee. Her expression was rigid with disbelief when she met Niall’s gaze. “How can you say that? Would you really feel right about walking out of this hospital? Is it because that woman—What’s her name? Menendez?—just got here?”

Niall set her coffee cup on her knee to make it less obvious that she trembled. When would this get easier? Would it ever?

“Her name is Rose Gonzalez. She’s Stephen’s legal guardian now, Mom . . . not me,” Niall added pointedly. “I’m sorry that they contacted you this morning from Evergreen Park. You were the follow-up contact from before . . . from before Rose became his legal guardian. They must not have changed their records yet.”

“Just because you gave up the right to make his legal decisions for him doesn’t mean that you’re not Stephen’s wife, Niall,” Alexis said, her eyes glittering like a pair of cut and polished blue topazes.

Niall swallowed convulsively, keenly aware that her father listened closely to the conversation. She took a deep, fortifying breath.

“I won’t be that for long, either,” she reminded them both, even though it was her mother’s hurt, furious gaze that she met steadily while she spoke.

“Then it’s no wonder Stephen tried to commit suicide again,” Alexis said before she stood and crossed the waiting room. The full cup of coffee landed with a dull thump in the trash can.

She’ll apologize for it when she calms down, Niall assured herself repeatedly as she returned to the waiting room after a stroll around the hospital grounds. She’d told Rose Gonzalez that she would wait to speak with her before she left, but Niall didn’t think she could wait alone in that room another second after her parents’ cold departure.

Her mother’s verbal stab had hurt for many reasons, the least of which being that what she said wasn’t true. Stephen had not in fact tried to commit suicide.

Not this time.

On this particular occasion Stephen had attempted to strangle a fellow patient at the Evergreen Park Mental Hospital and then viciously attacked the two employees who tried to restrain him. He had suffered a dislocated collarbone and several severe contusions in the altercation, which is why he’d been transferred in a heavy state of sedation to Covenant General. Although suicidal behavior was the symptom that Niall’s parents chose to focus upon almost exclusively, her husband had just as frequently become aggressive and even homicidal in the past several years.

Niall possessed firsthand knowledge of both of those particular symptoms of her husband’s psychosis.

In all fairness to her parents, Niall hadn’t always been forthcoming about Stephen’s past episodes of violence toward her. It was painful enough to learn the language of mental illness and to speak of suicide openly. But Niall doubted that many people ever became comfortable talking about how their spouse had once nearly strangled them in a drunken, psychotic rage and had threatened to do something similar countless times since then.

Rose Gonzalez’s kind, open countenance was the first thing that Niall saw when she returned to the waiting room. The Illinois State Guardian always looked polished and professional in her grooming and dress. But her round face, wide forehead, colorful clothing, and plump waistline always made Niall think of a cozy kitchen and savory smells from a bubbling pot on the stove.