Secrets Never Die (Morgan Dane #5)(66)

He left the bedroom and headed down the hall toward the girls’ bedroom. The stench turned his stomach. How were the other two kids sleeping through this? He stripped the bed and carried the dirty sheets and mattress protector to the washing machine. After tossing them in, he returned to the girls’ room, sprayed the mattress with Lysol, and found a pair of clean pajamas. He knocked on the bathroom door. Morgan opened it, and they made the exchange. They’d performed the same ritual a dozen times the previous week.

He’d learned many things in the past three months. Teamwork was essential in parenting. With three kids and two adults, he and Morgan were down a man. If their family were a hockey team, they would be trapped in a never-ending power play in the kids’ favor.

When the washer was running, he returned to the bedroom and donned a T-shirt, intent on giving Sophie his spot in the bed and sleeping on the couch.

Sophie and Morgan emerged from the bathroom, the normally happy, rambunctious child sedate and miserable enough to break his heart.

Instead of climbing in bed with her mother, Sophie leaned on his legs and wrapped her arms around his thigh. “Can I sleep with you and Mommy?”

He lifted her into their bed and put her between them. “Of course.”

Her face was flushed, and she seemed much too small to be that sick.

He touched her forehead. Her skin felt hot. “Fever?” he asked Morgan.

“Yes.” She went to the bathroom for a cool, wet cloth and the thermometer. “I don’t want to give her anything for it just now.”

“Right.” Lance had learned the hard way not to give a vomiting child anything to drink unless you were sure they were done vomiting. Children’s purple liquid medicine was nearly impossible to scrub out of a beige carpet.

Morgan ran the thermometer across Sophie’s forehead. “One hundred two.” She fetched a stainless steel mixing bowl from the kitchen and tucked it next to Sophie. “Just in case.”

They barely dozed for the rest of the night. Sophie was sick several more times. When dawn filtered through the blinds, Lance scanned her face. She was sleeping, but except for the unnatural flush of her cheeks, her face was so, so pale. The hollows around her eyes looked sunken.

He nudged Morgan, who had dozed off sitting up against the headboard. “I don’t like the way she looks.”

Morgan roused instantly. She reached for the thermometer on the nightstand and took the child’s temperature. “One hundred four.”

“She’s too listless.” Lance’s chest tightened. Worry knotted in his gut. This was his first bout with a seriously ill child. Neither Mia nor Ava had been this sick. “This isn’t normal, is it?”

Morgan was already out of bed. She tossed her pajamas into the corner and slipped into jeans. “No. We’re taking her to the ER.”

Lance exchanged his pajama bottoms for a pair of pants lying on the chair. He jammed his bare feet into his running shoes and scooped Sophie into his arms.

“I’ll tell Grandpa.” Morgan stepped into her dog-walking sneakers and hurried from the room.

“We’ll be in the car.” Lance headed for the hallway.

Sophie stirred in his arms and murmured, “I want my bwankie.” She was not the type of child who lugged any special object around. Normally, she was too busy to be bothered.

“OK, sweetheart.” Lance ducked into the girls’ bedroom and grabbed the kitten blanket off the floor. Luckily, she had not puked on it.

He tucked it around her, gave Mia and Ava a quick scan to make sure they were all right, and left the house. Morgan flew out the front door as he buckled Sophie into her car seat in the minivan. Lance saw Morgan’s grandfather standing at the storm door, leaning on his cane, wearing his bathrobe.

Morgan got into the back seat with Sophie. Lance drove the minivan like a patrol car and had them at the entrance of the ER in under fifteen minutes. He pulled up in front of the sliding glass door. Morgan carried Sophie inside, and he parked the car. He jogged across the parking lot, dread gearing up inside him.

He rushed inside and spotted Morgan at the desk, talking to a nurse. Her tote hung from the crook of her arm, and Sophie was draped over her shoulder. Lance hurried over. The second Sophie saw him, she leaned away from her mother and held both arms out to him. He took her in his arms and held her close. Her body felt light and small, and he could feel the heat her body generated through her thin cotton pajamas.

Lance rubbed her back while Morgan talked with the nurse and filled out forms.

“Come right back.” The nurse led them through the double doors and into a small room. More nurses arrived. Lance moved to place her on the gurney, but she clung tightly to him. He tried to gently pry her loose.

“It’s OK, Dad,” the nurse said. “She can sit on your lap.”

Lance’s heart skipped at the word Dad, but he didn’t correct her. He sat on the gurney with Sophie in his arms while the nurse took her vital signs.

The pediatrician who bustled into the room was a young, slender woman with a warm smile. She wasted no time and examined Sophie in a few minutes while Morgan detailed her symptoms.

“There’s a stomach virus going around,” the doctor said. “It’s been brutal on the littlest kids and babies.” The doctor turned to the nurse next to her. “Go find Laurel. Tell her I need her.”

The nurse nodded and left the room. Morgan’s face was almost as pale as Sophie’s. With the vision of a big needle and a screaming child in his head, Lance hugged the little girl tighter. While they waited, the doctor opened a laptop computer mounted to the wall and typed some notes.