Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(119)

Lily pulled Rachel onto her lap. Tucked the curly black head under her chin so that waving fuzzy black fronds tickled her nose. “It’ll be OK,” she whispered to Rachel. Wanting so badly for it to be true.

But who better than she knew how untrue it could be? Rachel knew, too. All of them did, even Aaro. She didn’t know Aaro’s story, but she didn’t need to. She knew he had one. She could feel it, vibing off him. All of them knew about stories with bad endings.

Just then, Zia Rosa concluded her cycle of prayers and opened her eyes. They widened as she saw the nurse. “Ehi!” she burst out. “But you are the nice lady from the baby store! How are you?”

The nurse looked blank for a moment, and then her face lit up. “Oh, wow! Yes, it’s you! How ce to see you again! What a coincidence!”

“And how are little Hayden and little Phillip?” Zia’s face lit with a sentimental smile. “I met her at the baby store in the mall,” she explained to Lily. “With her twins. Boy and girl. Sweetest little bimbi, looked just like Bruno and Magda when they were little. My goodness, you didn’t say you were a nurse, too! You must be a busy woman!”

The nurse laughed. “I am. The twins are great. They’re with their dad, watching too much TV. We were visiting Jim’s parents when we met you at the mall, but we actually live here, in Craigsville Heights.”

Rachel slid off Lily’s lap. “Are you going to save Irina?” she asked.

The nurse looked down at her. “Excuse me, honey? Who’s Irina?”

“My little sister,” Rachel explained. “She’s inside Mamma.”

“Ah.” The woman stroked Rachel’s curly head. “We will do our very best for Irina, sweetheart.”

Zia Rosa peered at the laminated nametag that hung around the woman’s neck. “Sylvia Jerrold, LPN. I thought your name was Kate.”

“Ah.” The lady chuckled. “My husband calls me that. My middle name is Katherine. Jim likes the name Kate better.”

“Well, Nurse Sylvia Kate. Is there a chapel here at the hospital?”

The woman hesitated for a moment. “Ah . . . ah, yes, um . . .”

“I have to say a prayer to San Gerardo Maiella,” Zia Rosa explained. “It works better in a consecrated church. Will you show us?”

“Can I go, too?” Rachel tugged at Zia’s sleeve.

“No,” Aaro snarled. “You stay here, until I have backup. I can see all entrances and exits from here and keep an eye on the parking lot.”

Zia Rosa drew herself up to her full height. “Tam needs an intercession from San Gerardo,” she said haughtily. “My nonna prayed to him when her children were born, and they were all born healthy.”

The nurse tucked the clipboard under her arm and gave Aaro a soothing smile. “The chapel is just down at the end of this corridor,” she offered, tentatively. “You can see the door from here, if you poke your head out of the waiting room. It’s, ah . . . it’s really quite safe.”

“No,” Aaro ground the word out. “Don’t make me sit on you, Zia.”

The old lady’s lips began to quiver.

“Oh, no.” Lily wrapped her arm around Zia Rosa’s shoulders. “Just pray to Saint Whoever right here, OK? I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“I am not falling for this manipulative shit,” Aaro said stiffly. “Cry all you want, Zia. The saints can wait for my backup.”

Rachel burst into tears, too. The nurse edged away. Lily didn’t blame her. They must come across as a pack of raving lunatics.

“I’ll, ah, just let you folks work these things out for yourselves,” the woman said. “I’ll let you know more about Ms. Steele as I have more information, so, ah, alrighty, then! Bye! Later!”

The woman scurried away. Aaro’s phone rang. He yanked it out.

“Yeah?” he barked into it. “Of course we are.” His eyes slid to her. “Bruno,” he told her. “And yeah, I’ll pass him over to you, but give me a second . . . uh-huh . . . Tam’s fine, far as we know. A nurse came out, told us she was ste, whatever that means. Val’s with her . . . yeah, Lily’s here. What’s got you all wound up?”

Trying to soothe Rachel and Zia Rosa while eavesdropping on Aaro’s conversation was a challenge, but Lily tracked Aaro’s every word.

“They’re your what?” Aaro’s voice rose. “That’s insane!”

Lily tugged Aaro’s sleeve. “What’s insane?”

Aaro waggled his finger at her, universal sign language for “shut up and wait, you idiot.” “All three of them? That’s not possible, right? That’s not even humanly possible! They must have got it wrong! Right?”

Then Lily saw the man. Or smelled him, actually, before she saw him. He reeked of whiskey, an odor that she viscerally hated, it having been Howard’s drink of choice. She could smell it at fifty yards.

The guy weaved toward them, muttering. He was tall, with stringy dark hair dangling out of a gray ski cap and a puffy down coat. He clutched a photograph in a glass frame in both hands.

She saw him, but her attention was fragmented by Rachel’s sobbing and by trying to gauge Aaro’s reaction to whatever Bruno was saying.

Aaro tensed as the man approached. “Hold on,” he barked into the phone. “Call you right back.” He stepped out between Lily, Zia, and Rachel and the stumbling new arrival.