Chapter 7

D anica sat outside her grandmother’s cubicle in the ER. She knew Cameron wasn’t working today, but she wanted to call him in to ensure that her grandmother would be okay. Yet, in her heart of hearts, she knew that her grandmother wouldn’t ever be okay. Not really. Danica could hope for a little bit more time with Nana. Still, Danica suspected that her grandmother had a perfectly good idea of when her passing would come. Nana wasn’t psychic for nothing, though even that term made Danica wince.

Her mother had made a mockery of everything her grandmother stood for. And Danica, growing up with the two of them, had made a mockery of anything resembling a family life. Only after her mother had died did her grandmother ease back and open up to Danica about that strained relationship, revealing how much torment had existed between Nana and Daisy. It was sad because her mother had been torn up about the whole second-sight concept and had not been happy to have any association with it. Yet, at the same time, Daisy had been the one who had used and abused her gifts to get favors from people.

Her mother had been mentally ill. Yet nobody ever gave her credit for it or recognized it. Mental illnesses here in this town weren’t treated properly, and, in her mother’s case, it wasn’t treated at all.

People just saw Daisy as loose and strange. Something for the boys to play with on a night out, but nothing to bring home to mama. Yet Daisy had desperately wanted to be brought home to mama. However, after she’d had Danica out of wedlock, without any father hanging around, Daisy’s reputation had been cemented, and not in a good way. Small towns were very unforgiving. They were even less forgiving when it came to the local witch, which is what Daisy liked to call herself. Not a term that her grandmother appreciated in any way because that’s not how Nana had presented herself.

But, when life happened, you found the pieces you could live with, then tried to ignore the rest. At least that’s what her mother had done. Danica didn’t hold any animosity toward her mother. If anything, Danica was just sad, sad for Daisy’s life that could have been so much easier and so much better, but it was hard to put broken china back together again. And, if her mother had been one thing, it was broken china. Daisy used to come home from a date, burst into tears, then throw herself down on her bed, feeling worthless, believing herself to be worthless because the men would treat her that way, and Daisy would allow it.

She was so desperate to get out of what she saw as her nightmare of a life that she would do anything with anyone if they promised that they would take her away from it all. Of course the men promised her everything in order to be with the witch at least once. It almost became a rite of passage in town, something Danica struggled with as well. When she found a lot of the younger men at school, even those just a few years ahead of her, like Cameron’s age, had gone out with her mother just for the experience, Danica was heartbroken.

They did it for the experience, for the laughs, for the giggles, for the chalk one up on a bedpost , as everybody else did. It had been truly soul crushing. Then the girls had laughed at Danica more times than not because her mother was being bounced around the place, like she was nothing but a toy to be played with and then discarded. Because of that, Daisy had believed she was a toy to be played with and discarded, and thus Danica’s life had been hellish right from the beginning. It still broke her up when she thought about it, even now. However, she could do nothing about it back then. She’d been a child herself.

Danica had tried hard to speak to her mother about this, but Daisy wasn’t into listening to the up-and-coming version of herself—Danica—who was trying desperately hard to keep herself clean and out of the same lack of morals her mother had fallen into. That had just made Danica seem like a preachy do-gooder, and her mother had hated Danica for it. She wasn’t that way at all, but there had been no coming back—not when her mother saw Danica as competition, saw her as having a chance to get away from it all, having an opportunity for a better life than Daisy had had.

That had been one of the final straws in her mother’s psyche that had taken her to the last stage. It had been painful for all of them. While Danica had never wished that her mother would die—and certainly not for the attack that she’d put Danica through—it had still been a relief in a way to realize that Daisy would never wake up again.

That made Danica feel like a horrible person too, and her life became messier, as Danica had tried to deal with it while growing up herself. She had talked to a therapist, but nobody really understood the whole psychic part, so Danica had always downplayed that in order to make it seem as if she wasn’t quite so crazy as she came across. Yet, if she couldn’t ever tell the whole truth, how would Danica ever get the full value of therapy? How did you tell people that your mother was psychic and that it drove her crazy because she desperately didn’t want to hear the voices in her head, while she desperately wanted a better and bigger life?

But feeling sorry for her mother wouldn’t be something Danica could do now either. She paced, just waiting to be allowed into her grandmother’s ER cubicle. When the ER doctor stepped back out and looked at her, he frowned.

She frowned right back.

“You know that your grandmother is quite ill, right?”

“I do know that. That’s why I came back home again.”

He shook his head. “It looks like she just blacked out, and she’s likely to have more of those blackouts as time goes on.”

Danica asked, “Are you sure she wasn’t hit in some way?”

He shook his head. “No bruising. No sign of any injury to her head or otherwise. I know that would be an easy answer for you, but it’s not the answer in this case.”

She sighed. “It’s better than thinking somebody may have come up and hit a defenseless woman,” she murmured, “but I understand what you’re saying.”

“Good,” he replied, with a nod. “I want to keep her here a little bit longer to ensure that she’s fully cognizant and ready to handle life back home again. Do you live with her?”

“I live on the property,” she replied, evading the question.

He nodded. “That’s good. I don’t want to see her living alone anymore.”

“Maybe not. Yet it’s not easy to convince her to go anywhere.”

“I can make it happen,” he declared, shooting her a look.

Immediately Danica’s back went up, and she declared, “My grandmother is fine. I’ll be there, and I’ll look after her.”

He stared at her intently. “I would like to see that you do, but I don’t want to see her back in here for the same injury.”

“You might not want it,” she replied, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t see her back for that or for a different injury, if she’s fallen again.”

“No, of course not,” he noted, giving her a look. “You can’t keep an eye on her all the time.”

She didn’t really like anything in his tone, and it was hard when people were so judgmental because Danica wasn’t sure what she was even supposed to say. She would do the best that she could do, but her grandmother still went out shopping and still walked out in the fields on her own, and Danica wouldn’t try to stop that. It’s what made her grandmother happy.

As soon as the doctor filled out some notes, he added, “I’ll keep her through this afternoon. I’ll check on her then, and, if she’s doing fine, then you can take her home.”

She thanked him, watching as he walked away.

She didn’t know anything about him, but his threat of being able to move Nana and to not let her go home was something Danica hadn’t really considered and certainly didn’t want to consider at this point. To take away her grandmother’s freedom would be brutal. Nana didn’t want to go into a home, and there was no need for her to do so.

Not now that Danica had arrived.

She just needed everyone to understand that her grandmother was no longer alone and was possibly a victim of the circumstances around her. Danica didn’t know what the hell was going on, but the sooner people realized that she was here and that Nana would be fine at home, the better.

She strode into the small cubicle to see her grandmother sitting up and smiling. “See, I’m fine,” she declared, with a smile.

“You might be fine, but the doctor did threaten that he could keep you from going home. And he threatened it in such a way that it made me wonder if he meant forever .”

Her grandmother narrowed her gaze at Danica. “You do know that power goes to some of these people’s heads, but, short of a court order or something of that nature, I doubt he could do much.”

“If you’re deemed incapable or mentally incapacitated…”

“Sure, but barring that, they can’t do it without my permission.” Then she froze, looked over at her granddaughter, and asked, “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

“Of course not,” Danica said. “I’m the one who just warned you, so that whenever that doctor is in your vicinity, ensure you are acting as normal, as whole, and as complete as you possibly can.”

“Duly noted,” her grandmother stated soberly. “It’s a sad world when you fall down, hit your head, and they think you’re not capable of looking after yourself.”

“It is, indeed, but it’s the world we live in. As you well know, we are always under suspicion.”

Her grandmother stared at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Yes, you are right there,” she agreed sadly. “Even if I didn’t want it to be that way, it is a consideration we must keep in mind.” She pleated the sheet covering her waist, as she leaned her head back against the pillow. “When can I go home?”

“Soon enough. He wants to ensure that you’re doing okay into the afternoon. So he wants to keep you here for a few more hours.”

She winced. “He just wants the bills to go higher.”

Danica frowned at her grandmother. “Is that your feeling, or is that more than a feeling?”

“It’s common sense. If he can charge us more, then he will.”

Danica considered that, then headed out to the main desk, and asked for her grandmother’s bill.

“Is she being released?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes, the doctor said, now that she’s doing much better, he’ll check on her one more time, but I wanted to pay the bill, so we were ready to go as soon as he comes back by.”

“Okay.” The receptionist quickly spat out the numbers, handing Danica a copy of the bill, and they were high enough to make Danica’s eyes water. The woman asked her, “Don’t you have insurance?”

“No, we don’t.” Danica stared at the bill and shook her head. “Therefore, I’m pretty sure these numbers can come way down.” The receptionist pursed her lips. Danica stared back calmly. She and Nana had not had medical insurance for a very long time, and thus Danica knew the ins and outs. She was well aware that the bills were inflated massively for those with insurance versus those without.

As she waited for the receptionist to respond, Danica pulled out her phone to check the last time she had had a medical bill to see what the percentage had been for her ultimate reduction in bill. She thought she may have paid something like 40 percent of the original amount.

The receptionist clicked a lot of keys on her keyboard and then announced a number approximately 40 percent of the original bill for Nana today.

Danica nodded. “That sounds more like it.”

“You might want to consider getting insurance,” she suggested.

“My grandmother has a pre-existing condition, does she not? So, as you know, the insurance costs would be exorbitant. I can’t afford it, and neither can she.”

The receptionist frowned but stayed quiet.

After all, what could she say? It was the truth. The medical system was broken, and a lot of people didn’t care one way or another because they had insurance. So, it was good as long as they were covered. But the minute something changed within their own coverage, their tune changed as well.

Danica had learned from the best on how to negotiate medical bills. Even as she pulled out her credit card, she withheld it, stating, “It should be at least 15 percent lower if I pay cash.”

Both the receptionist and the other woman seated beside her stared at Danica oddly, then glanced down at the bill and frowned. Danica put her credit card back into her wallet and pulled out the cash that she kept in the back section of her purse. It was a decent amount of money, but she thought she could cover Nana’s current bill, as long as the hospital bill continued to drop.

Finally the other woman grumbled, “We don’t usually do that.”

“Actually you do,” Danica corrected, staring at her. “Maybe you don’t like it, but cash is instant, and you don’t pay the credit card fees associated with those other payments.”

The woman quickly checked on her computer and then nodded. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody do this.”

“There’ll probably be more and more of this happening,” Danica suggested, “when you consider the costs of medical bills these days, and the cost of medical insurance.”

The other woman finally smiled. “That’s fine. We don’t sell insurance here, and almost everybody is covered one way or another,” she said apologetically, looking at her.

“This is how we cover ourselves now,” Danica stated, as she counted out the bills carefully and handed them over.

The receptionist counted the bills too, making sure it was all there, and then she nodded, but she didn’t give Danica a receipt. Danica asked for one. The receptionist repeated, “You need a receipt too?”

“Yes, I surely do.”

The receptionist shook her head and started printing it off. Danica wasn’t sure why the lack of a receipt bothered her, but it did.

When she finally had it, she checked it over carefully, wincing at the numbers that were still incredibly high for an old woman who had just come in to get checked over. “I probably should have taken her to the vet. It might have been cheaper,” she mused.

The receptionist eyed her to see if she was joking, then shrugged. “It probably would have been, but it wouldn’t have been as good.”

Danica thanked them and walked off. She wondered about that. She knew some vets who were pretty damn knowledgeable, and they would certainly have been able to treat her grandmother right—and for a fraction of the cost.

When her grandmother realized that the bill had been paid, she laughed. “That’s a good idea. Let’s go. I won’t stick around for them to close the door on me and to not let me out.”

“They would need the deputies involved for something like that.”

Her grandmother, amid throwing back the blankets and sliding to the floor, stopped and shot her a look.

“What?” Danica asked Nana. “Do you really think any of the deputies around here will let you go, based on your word or mine?” she asked. “If you do think that, you need to remember where you are and what you’ve been through before.” Danica held up her hand, silencing anything Nana would say at this point. “No,… I do remember, and it sucks,” she retorted.

“It sucks, but it’s also reality,” Nana stated. “So, it doesn’t matter how we feel about it. We need to ensure you understand exactly what’s going on and how it’ll be affecting you,” Nana declared. “I love you dearly, but you didn’t used to be foolish, nor I.”

“I am neither of those. Today was a temporary lapse,” she added, with a smirk in her grandmother’s direction. “Come on. Let’s go.”

And, with that, they both slipped out of the room and toward the front exit. Just as they reached the front door, Danica heard a man calling out from behind her and urged her grandmother to continue. “Go on.” Turning back, she saw Cameron walking into the hospital from one of the other doors.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked, frowning at her.

“My grandmother fell and hit her head. I’m just taking her home after being checked.”

He glanced back at the emergency room. “I’m sorry to hear that. You sure she’s okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine,” she said, with a bright smile. “However, I don’t want to leave her alone, so I’ll see you around.” And, with that, she quickly followed her grandmother. Knowing that even though she didn’t want it to be so, she turned to see him standing there, staring at her, his hands on his hips, as if trying to figure out what they were up to—and why it all felt wrong.

She could only hope that he didn’t realize until afterward. Yet he was smart, and absolutely nothing was slow about him. If he got any inkling that something funky was going on, he would be all over it.

The good news was he didn’t know her, at least not yet. The fact that he would likely get to know her a whole lot better was something she refused to look at. After all, what do you say to a guy when he has no clue that you’re about to become lovers?

Her visions, when they came, were hard, fast, and never wrong. What she could see in that moment was the two of them, hot and heavy in the sheets. But what she also realized was that she wasn’t angry about it, and that would be a huge step up for her.

*

Cameron took a few more steps toward the ER department, only to see Bridget, one of the older nurses who had been here since forever, staring at him. “Was it my imagination, or did those two act like they were escaping?” he asked.

She nodded. “I would take it the same way,” she murmured.

“Problems?” he asked, looking at her.

She shrugged. “She paid the bill in cash, after making sure to knock it down quite a bit, so obviously some level of experience there.”

“They don’t have insurance?” he asked, freezing in his tracks and frowning at Bridget.

She shook her head. “We’ve known the old lady has never had insurance, so I’m not surprised that the granddaughter doesn’t either. Yet it’s much more common these days to have it.”

“But it’s all too common,” he added, “that people cannot afford it, particularly if it’s not included with their job.”

“The granddaughter wasn’t very forthcoming with any information, and, because she paid cash, I couldn’t really get too much out of her. I didn’t ask what she did for a living, but honestly she didn’t seem to be very open to answering any questions.”

He nodded. “Can’t say I blame her. Her reception here hasn’t been that warm.” The nurse frowned at him, as he nodded. “Ah, you haven’t been here that long then?”

“Sure, I have,” she stated. “Since forever.”

“Like ten or twelve years?” he asked.

She pursed her lips. “Twenty-five plus.”

“Do you know anything about the attempted murder that happened way back when?” he inquired.

She nodded. “I heard the rumors about it. Some mother tried to kill her daughter, and then the cops weren’t so sure that the mother did it. Something like that. Maybe it was the other way around.”

“ That was the daughter of the mother in question, plus the mother’s mother,” he shared, motioning toward the glass doors.

Her eyes widened, and she stared back outside. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “As far as I understood, the local verdict was very much that the mother did attack the daughter. The daughter spent quite a bit of time in the hospital herself.”

“I heard that, but then someone told me that it was all a cock-and-bull story and how the daughter got away with murder,” she shared, looking around, and then freezing, as she looked back at him. “In fact, I think your brother told me that,” she stated.

Cameron stared at her in surprise. “Jace said that?”

She nodded. “I think so. Though I don’t know why he would have said that. He’s had a bone to pick with Danica for a long time. They used to go out in high school before all this happened, and then he turned against her.”

Cameron stared at her, not sure what to believe and what not to.

“Believing that she killed her own mother? That’s enough reason to turn anyone against you,” she noted, as she walked back to her desk. “Doesn’t change the fact that we still should treat her.”

“We treated the daughter today?” he asked.

“No,” she stated. “The older lady, the grandmother, I guess.”

“Okay,” he muttered, with a nod. “In a way, that makes sense.”

“Why?”

Just then one of the doctors, Dr. Patrick, walked up to the reception desk and asked about Harriet Hartling. “I was coming to check on her, but apparently they’ve absconded,” he noted in a heated tone. “We can’t keep them here legally, but I do wonder at times.”

“What do you mean, you wonder?” Cameron asked, eyeing him carefully.

“I’m not sure Hariett should have left,” Dr. Patrick stated, pausing, then shrugging. “I’m probably the reason for it though, because I told the granddaughter that I could keep the grandmother here if I thought she wasn’t fit to be left alone.”

Cameron exhaled sharply. “Wow. How badly injured was Harriet?”

“She wasn’t injured at all that I could see,” Dr. Patrick replied. “I don’t know. Just something about it seemed off. The granddaughter had asked me if there were any injuries that suggested her grandmother might have been struck on the head.”

“So, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a minute,” Cameron interjected. “What are you talking about?”

“The grandmother was brought in by ambulance, unconscious, and we did the usual. She woke up. She came to on her own,” Dr. Patrick clarified. “She doesn’t have any visible injuries. She wasn’t disoriented, and, by rights, I didn’t have any reason to keep her here. But I did make a comment to the effect that, if we weren’t sure her grandmother was stable, in good shape, and well-looked-after, we were in the position to refuse to release her.”

“Which, as you well know, isn’t true.” Cameron frowned, as he looked at Dr. Patrick pointedly. “That was just a fear tactic on your part. What I don’t understand is why you would do that.”

Dr. Patrick bristled. “What I don’t understand is why you care.”

“Because that’s not how we operate,” Cameron stated, staring at him. “Why would you even do that?” Cameron asked, incredulous.

“Because she’s a murderer,” Dr. Patrick snapped. “Some of these people might have forgotten, but I haven’t. The last thing I want is to see that old lady killed by her granddaughter, just like her mother was.”

“You don’t know that,” Cameron retorted sharply, “and that talk is not welcome here.”

“It’s not your hospital,” he sneered. “So, I wouldn’t be pushing your weight around too much. We all know everything to know about that young woman, and none of it’s good.” With that, he turned and walked away.

Cameron was shocked that this was even a consideration, as it went against all ethical norms. He turned and looked over at Bridget, who stared at the departing doctor. “Is that really a sample of the ethics going on around here?” Cameron asked.

She shook her head. “No, it shouldn’t be. Obviously, if we have a concern, we call Family Services. But nothing I saw warranted concern. Then again… I didn’t speak with the patient.”

“If you have a concern, then I am all for somebody doing a follow-up,” Cameron stated. “I am not against due diligence.… What I am against are threats being thrown around, particularly for someone who’s already struggling to come back to her hometown.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t have come back,” Bridget suggested. “It doesn’t look as if anything is here for her.”

“How can you say that? Who are we to decide? It’s her family home,” he responded, his tone adamant. “She has every right to be here.”

“Maybe, but these people have long memories,” she cautioned. “So having the right to be here is not the same thing as making a good decision to return. You might want to keep that in mind.” As she turned to walk away, she added, “You might also want to remember that Dr. Patrick’s on the board, and no guarantee now that he’ll vote to keep you here.”

“You mean, because I’m against his breaking the law?” Cameron asked, disbelief coloring his tone.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“In that case, I would be happy to leave,” he replied, flint in his tone, “and believe me that there would be a hell of an investigation into this hospital’s ethics.”

With that, he turned and stormed off to his office.