The Hiding Place by Karen Harper Page B

not supposed to be in your cabin, but I thought I’d pop in for a sec when I saw your nurse had stepped out for some fresh air. You just have the doctor let me know when I can help. I think it helped you last time to play for hours. I still have all those Phantom songs in my head. My favorite was ‘Masquerade’ and yours was ‘Think Of Me.’ Do you remember?”
    Remember. Yes, she had to remember something. “Think of Me.” Something about Laird? Or was it Tara? Yes, that was it.
    “Call Tara Kinsale,” Veronica whispered, but it came to her ears in the blur of one hissing sound. She wanted to speak clearly, but she had to whisper, too, so no one else would hear. “Tara Kinsale.”
    “Oh, sure. Tara. But she’s been gone from here for a long time—you remember, don’t you? I overheard Dr. Middleton tell them at the reception desk that you might be kind of—well, distracted for a while and wouldn’t be getting visitors, so Tara can’t come to see you right now.”
    “Call her. Say, Jen’s not in Los Angeles.”
    “What’s that? I’m having trouble hearing you,” the angel said, pulling her long, straight hair back and leaning closer. “It’s all right though. You’ll be here for a while, so don’t worry about—”
    Veronica tried again, but her speech still sounded slurred. It was just something they must have given her, but she had to try. “Jen’s not in Los Angeles,” she whispered again. She had more to add, but that was all she had time for now. She heard new footsteps.
    Another voice in the room. “Dr. Middleton says she’s not to be disturbed, Ms. Johansen. She’s on heavy meds for a while because she was so distraught they thought she might hurt herself or someone else.”
    The angel stood up and turned away. “It’s only that we worked closely together last time she was here,” she told the nurse. “Mrs. Lohan is a fantastic organist, classical performance level. I was just assuring her we could work together in the later stages of rehab.”
    “Right now, it’s just the sedatives talking until we can get them all calibrated.”
    “Sure. Well, I know her doctors will let me know when I can help get her back on her feet again and all.”
    The angel-faced girl moved away, and the sour-looking one took her place. Now, who had that angel been? Veronica wondered, and finally surrendered in her battle with heavy, heavy sleep.
    “This used to be my bedroom, when I was a kid,” Nick told Tara as she sat at her desk and he took the only armchair in her office, with Beamer flopping instantly next to his big feet.
    Her insides cartwheeled to think that she, too, had spent hours in his room. “Oh, I didn’t know. I could move my office downstairs, and you could come up here if you want it back.”
    “No, this is fine. If—only if—I decide Claire and I are moving east for a while, I thought you might want to rent the place—at a great price. But I’ll find and stop that lurker first,” he promised, with a glance at the back window. If he was surprised she’d lowered the blinds, he didn’t say so.
    Nick’s promise to find the lurker seemed a small consolation prize for losing Claire, however upset Tara was about someone watching the place. But she nodded and turned away before he could see she was tearing up. She did not want him to think she was as fragile as she felt lately, or he’d really question her ability to look after Claire.
    As hard as she fought accepting the idea, she was becoming obsessed, absolutely haunted, by the possibility she had borne a child of her own and the child had died. She prayed that at least, if she had lost a baby, it had been early in the pregnancy. But, two to one, the doctors didn’t indicate that. And Jen—she would have known about a pregnancy, but she could have been bribed to lie. She had to know the truth, but Veronica had been taken away from her. She was getting so desperate she was considering asking Jordan Lohan—or worse,