Closer Than Blood by Gregg Olsen

bed, her face turned away from the window. Her right hand held the steel tube of the bed rail. Her fingers no longer looked like the mother’s hands that had once caressed her daughter. They were gnarled sticks, dipped in a milky blue. Her once-marmalade hair was now white.
    â€œMom?”
    Bettina’s head turned, her eyes flickering with recognition.
    â€œKendall, you’re here.”
    Kendall bent down and kissed her mother’s rice-paper skin.
    â€œYou warm enough?” she asked, fussing with the pale yellow coverlet that had been her mother’s favorite.
    â€œI’m fine, dear. Daddy and I were talking about you last night.”
    A nurse had told Kendall that correcting her mother was not necessary and, if it didn’t bother Kendall too much, to play along.
    â€œYou can’t change what a person knows, even if it is wrong,” the nurse had said.
    Kendall patted her mother’s feet.
    â€œWhat were you two conspiring about?”
    Bettina smiled. “Just how proud we are of you.”
    Kendall shook her head and poured some water from a white plastic pitcher on a stainless-steel tray that the staff had brought in. She glanced around the room, noticing that her mother’s collection of miniature porcelain shoes had been boxed up. The room was looking more and more institutional.
    Bettina lifted her head and sucked on the straw, her lips groping the tube as if she were feeling it instead of attempting to drink. Her eyes met Kendall’s with a look of warmth, appreciation. She nodded as she leaned back on her pillow, which Kendall had fluffed slightly in the moment that she had been able do so.
    â€œYou’re a good daughter, Kendall.”
    â€œI try. Would you like me to sit with you?”
    â€œThat would be nice. Tell me, dear, what are you working on?”
    â€œSame old, Mom. Bad people doing bad things.”
    â€œSending lots of people to jail, I hope. Might do them some good.”
    â€œSome, not all,” Kendall said. “Remember, sending people to jail doesn’t make anyone better.”
    Bettina smiled. “No, it doesn’t. But it makes me feel better.”
    It was funny how that moment would recur between Kendall and her mom now and then. She was an officer of the court, a detective no less, and she could clearly see that her mother and she had both been right: sending someone to jail didn’t do much for the inmate, but it did make everyone else feel a little better.
    She thought of Tori and Jason. She hadn’t been sure if she would bring it up to her mother. Bettina had known both of them back in the day. She’d be interested, for sure. She might even be a little judgmental. Her mom could be that way.
    â€œMom, we got some news that Tori O’Neal’s husband was killed.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago,” Bettina said.
    Kendall shook her head. Her mother was having a very “good” day indeed. “Not the husband in Hawaii. Her new husband. He was shot in their home in Tacoma.”
    â€œTacoma?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI never liked that girl,” Bettina said.
    Kendall nodded. “I know, Mom. You’ve told me. Tori’s latest trouble made me think of Jason.”
    â€œJason was very handsome, wasn’t he?”
    â€œYes. He was.”
    Kendall didn’t allow her eyes to tear up. She couldn’t start that now.
    â€œI loved him, Mom,” she said.
    Bettina’s washed-out blue eyes studied her daughter’s face, looking for something, but not seeing it. “I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did,” she said.
    Kendall nodded. “I know. I’m just not sure about everything back then. If . . .” Her words trailed off.
    â€œI know where you’re going, honey,” she said. “And we can’t talk about it.”
    â€œCan’t we talk about it now, Mom? It has been such a long time.”
    â€œLeave it alone,