Saving Meghan(115)
There was a second when Meghan seemed suspended in midair, but she soon lost her footing and started to go over. Becky lunged, closing the gap between her and Meghan in a single stride. Becky’s feet left the ground as she stretched out her body, reaching for the blur of motion in front of her like an outfielder making a diving grab. She latched on to the sleeve of Meghan’s sweatshirt as she went over the edge.
Becky fell to the ground with a thud, somehow without letting go of her hold. Momentum and body weight dragged her perilously close to the ledge. She thought for a second she was going over, too, before someone gripped her ankles hard, arresting her forward slide. Becky spun her head to see Zach, hands latched to her legs, his feet braced against the rooftop, his contorted expression showing the strain of a weight lifter.
In the next instant, the burning, unyielding ache in Becky’s arm lessened as a group of police, Spence and Capshaw joining in, clambered over the ledge to pull Meghan up to safety.
A moment after that, Becky was on her back, chest heaving, eyes fixed on the night sky. Noises swirled around her like hurricane winds. Meghan broke from the crush of police to reach her mother. She landed on Becky’s body like a blanket, tears streaming down her face, blood dripping from her wounds. Becky hugged her daughter tightly, stroking her hair. She gazed disbelieving into Meghan’s eyes, awash with relief. It was then that Becky became aware of something wet and sticky painting the palm of her hand. Feeling around the small of Meghan’s back, Becky watched in horror as her daughter’s eyes rolled white.
The scream rising in Becky’s throat spat out a single word. “Medic!”
CHAPTER 59
MEGHAN
I visited my father’s grave two days after his funeral. He didn’t have a tombstone yet, but one was coming. Mom and I got a bit lost trying to locate his plot, but the guy who ran the place helped us out. The dirt covering Dad’s casket was like a scar on the green earth. I couldn’t believe he was six feet underground. Weeks later, it still seemed surreal to think he was gone forever. Mom and I put a bouquet of flowers on his grave—daisies and marigolds as bright and sun-filled as the cloudless sky. I asked Mom for some time alone, and she agreed to wait for me in the car, but only after I assured her I could find my way back.
That is how I found myself alone, on my knees, talking to my dead father, smoothing the dirt covering him with a lazy brush of my hand.
“Hi, Daddy … it’s me, Meghan.”
I laughed—who else would call him Daddy? I wondered if he could hear me. Was he watching? Was he one of the birds flying overhead? Was he the butterfly that flittered near my face? Or was he just gone?
“I hope it’s okay down there,” I said, struck by a rush of emotion that made the wound on my back flare up. “I got stabbed, in case you didn’t know—I’m assuming you don’t know—by your girlfriend, of all people. That bitch.”
I laughed again awkwardly. I was never comfortable cursing in front of my father.
“The scalpel cut only muscle. I’m going to have a nasty scar but, besides that, I’ll be fine. My injury wasn’t the reason it took so long to bury you, though.
“Sorry you had to be in the morgue, but the medical examiner had to figure out what killed you first. Turns out it was this thing called heartbreak grass—a fitting name because, you know, lots of heartbreak here. It’s a kind of Asian vine or something, and it’s, like, super poisonous. You have to test for it specifically, which is why it took so long to confirm what Nash said she gave you. I guess she bought it at an herbal shop in Chinatown, or at least that’s what she told the police. In small doses, it can be used for medicinal purposes, but she didn’t give you a small dose, did she?
“Looks like she was as crazy in love with you as she was crazy. It kind of broke my heart—there we go again with heartbreak, right?—when I found out you didn’t actually do any research on doctors who specialize in mitochondrial disease. I wanted to believe you thought I was sick enough to go searching on your own. But nope. It was Dr. Nash, your gal pal, who told you all about mito, and Dr. Fisher, and you just went along with it, not having a clue that she was going to try to set Mom up.
“Anyway, I figured you should know Dr. Nash’s plan in detail so that if you still have any feelings for her, you can let those go, because she is one evil bitch—oops, there I go with my mouth again. Sorry!”
I smiled, because I wasn’t sorry at all.
“So here it is in full, straight from her police confession, and that’s what I came here to tell you, because I think you deserve to know the whole story. When you described all my symptoms to Dr. Nash, she latched right on to mito and Dr. Fisher. She knew Dr. Fisher would diagnose me with mito because he did that a lot, I guess. She wanted Mom to think that I had a serious illness because she was eventually going to tell her the exact opposite.
“That’s where the heartbreak grass came in. Those strange and sudden symptoms I had at home happened because Dr. Nash put some extract of that heartbreak grass in my flask of vodka that I thought I’d done a good job of hiding. The police told me she found it one afternoon when you two were having a rendezvous at our house, which you cleverly timed around Mom’s workouts. God, Dad, how could you?
“Anyway, those new symptoms that didn’t quite fit with mito gave Dr. Fisher a reason to get a GI consult with her—which she knew he’d do. Now Nash could set up the whole Munchausen’s thing by telling Mom that my issues, everything I was feeling, were all in my head. She knew Mom wouldn’t buy it, and would refuse to believe a less dire diagnosis is a sign of Munchausen’s, which I suspect you already know.