Pieces of Her

“Great.” Palazzolo sat down with a sharp groan.

Gordon nudged Andy down so that he would be the one who was directly across from Palazzolo.

“Okay.” Palazzolo took out her notebook, but not her pen. She flipped through the pages. “The shooter’s name is Jonah Lee Helsinger. Eighteen years old. High school senior. Early acceptance into Florida State University. The young girl was Shelly Anne Barnard. She was at the diner with her mother, Elizabeth Leona Bernard; Betsy. Jonah Lee Helsinger is—was—the ex-boyfriend of Shelly. Her father says Shelly broke up with Helsinger two weeks ago. Wanted to do it before going to college next month. Helsinger didn’t take it well.”

Gordon cleared his throat. “That’s quite an understatement.”

She nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “Unfortunately, law enforcement has had a lot of these cases to study over the years. We know that spree killings aren’t usually spur of the moment. They’re well-planned, well-executed operations that tend to get worked over in the back of the killer’s mind until something—an event like a break-up or an impending life change like going off to college—jumpstarts the plan. The first victim is generally a close female, which is why we were relieved to find Helsinger’s mother was out of town this morning. Business in Charleston. But the way Helsinger was dressed—the black hat, the vest and gunbelt he bought on Amazon six months ago—all that tells us that he put a lot of thought into how this was going to go down. The spark came when Shelly broke up with him, but the idea of it, the planning, was in his head for months.”

Spree killings.

The two words bounced around inside Andy’s head.

Gordon asked, “His victims were all women?”

“There was a man sitting in the restaurant. He was struck in the eye by shrapnel. Not sure if he’ll lose it or not. The eye.” She went back to Jonah Helsinger. “What we also know about spree killers is, they tend to plant explosive devices in their homes for maximum casualties. That’s why we got the state bomb squad to clear Helsinger’s bedroom before we went in. He had a pipe bomb wired to the doorknob. Faulty set-up. Probably got it off the internet. Nothing went boom, thank God.”

Andy opened her mouth so she could breathe. She had come face-to-face with this guy. He had almost killed Laura. Almost killed Andy. Murdered people. Tried to blow them up.

He had probably attended Belle Isle High School, the same as Andy.

“Helsinger,” Gordon said. “That name sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, the family’s pretty well known up in Bibb County. Anyway—”

“Well known,” Gordon repeated, but the two words were weighted in a way that Andy could not decipher.

Palazzolo obviously got their meaning. She held Gordon’s gaze for a moment before she continued, “Anyway—Jonah Helsinger left some school notebooks on his bed. Most of them were filled with drawings. Disturbing images, weird stuff. He had four more handguns, an AR-15 and a shotgun, so he chose to take the six-shooter and the knife for a reason. We think we know the reason. There was a file on his laptop called ‘Death Plan’ that contained two documents and a PDF.”

Andy felt a shudder work its way through her body. While she was getting ready for work last night, Jonah Helsinger was probably lying in bed, psyching himself up for his killing spree.

Palazzolo continued, “The PDF was a schematic of the diner, sort of like what you’d see an architect draw. One of the docs was a timeline, like a bullet point: wake up at this time, shower at this time, clean gun here, fill up car with gas there. The other doc was sort of like a diary entry where Helsinger wrote about how and why this was going to go down.” She referred to her notebook again. “His first targets were going to be Shelly and her mother. Apparently, they had a standing lunch date every Monday at the Rise-n-Dine. Shelly wrote about it on Facebook, Snapchatted her food or whatever. Mr. Barnard told us the lunches are something his wife and daughter decided to do together over the summer before college.”

“Were something they decided to do,” Gordon mumbled, because everything in the two women’s lives was past tense now.

“Were. Yeah,” Palazzolo said. “Helsinger planned to kill both of them. He blamed the mother for the break-up. He said in his diary that it was Betsy’s fault, that she was always pushing Shelly, blah blah blah. Crazy talk. It doesn’t matter, because we all know it’s Jonah Helsinger’s fault, right?”

“Right,” Gordon said, his voice firm.

Palazzolo held his gaze in that meaningful way again before she referred back to her notes. “This was his plan: after he killed Betsy and Shelly, Helsinger was going to take hostage whoever was left in the diner. He had a time noted—1:16, not the actual time but a notation of timing.” She looked up at Andy, then Gordon. “See, we think that he did a dry run. Last week, at approximately the same time as the shooting today, somebody threw a rock through the plate glass window that faces the boardwalk. We’re waiting for the security feed. The incident was filed with burglary division. It took the first mall cop about one minute, sixteen seconds, to get to the diner.”

The mall cops weren’t the usual rent-a-cops, but off-duty police officers hired to protect the high-end stores. Andy had seen the guns on their hips and never given it a second thought.

Palazzolo told them, “In Helsinger’s predicted timeline of the shooting, he allowed that he would have to kill at least one other bystander to let the cops know that he was serious. Then he was going to let the cops kill him. Helsinger must have thought his plan was fast-forwarded when he saw your uniform and assumed that you were law enforcement.” Palazzolo was talking directly to Andy now. “We gather from the other witnesses that he wanted you to shoot him. Suicide by cop.”

Except Andy was not a cop.

Get up! Do your job!

That’s what Helsinger had screamed at Andy.

Then Andy’s mother had said, “Shoot me.”

“He’s a really bad guy. Was a bad guy. This Helsinger kid.” Palazzolo was still focused on Andy. “We’ve got it all in his notes. He planned this out meticulously. He knew he was going to murder people. He hoped that he would murder even more people when somebody opened his bedroom door. He packed screws and nails into that pipe bomb. If the wiring hadn’t been switched on the doorknob end, the whole house would be gone, along with whoever happened to be inside. We would’ve found nails two blocks away buried in God knows who or what.”

Andy wanted to nod but she felt immobilized. Screws and nails flying through the air. What did it take to build such a device, to pack in all those projectiles in hopes that they would maim or kill people?

“You’re lucky,” Palazzolo told Andy. “If your mom hadn’t been there, he would’ve killed you. He was just a really bad guy.”

Andy felt the woman looking at her, but she kept her eyes directed toward the floor.

Bad guy.

Palazzolo kept repeating the phrase, like it was okay that Helsinger was dead. Like he had gotten what he deserved. Like whatever Laura had done was completely justified because Jonah Lee Helsinger was a bad guy.

Andy worked at a police station. Most of the people who got murdered would fall into the bad guy category, yet she had never heard any of the detectives harp on the fact that the victim was a bad guy.

“Mr. Oliver,” Palazzolo had turned to Gordon. “Has your wife had any military training?”

Gordon did not answer.

Palazzolo said, “Her background is pretty bland.” Again, she flipped through the pages in her notebook. “Born in Providence, Rhode Island. Attended the University of Rhode Island. Master’s and PhD from UGA. She’s lived in Belle Isle for twenty-eight years. House is paid off, which, congratulations. She could sell it for a bag of money—but, I get it, where would she go? One marriage, one divorce. No large outstanding debts. Pays her bills on time. Never left the country. Got a parking ticket three years ago that she paid online. She must’ve been one of the first people to buy here.” Palazzolo turned back toward Andy. “You were raised here, right?”

Andy stared at the woman. She had a mole near her ear, just under her jawline.

“You went to school on the Isle, then SCAD for college?”

Andy had spent the first two years of her life in Athens while Laura was finishing her doctorate, but the only thing she remembered about UGA was being scared of the neighbor’s parakeet.

“Ms. Oliver.” Palazzolo’s voice sounded strained. She was apparently used to having her questions answered. “Did your mother ever take any self-defense classes?”

Andy studied the mole. There were some short hairs sticking out of it.

“Yoga? Pilates? Tai chi?” Palazzolo waited. And waited. Then she closed her notebook. She put it back into her pocket. She reached into her other pocket. She pulled out her phone. She tapped at the screen. “I’m showing you this because it’s already on the news.” She swiped at the screen. “One of the patrons in the diner decided that it was more important to record what was happening on his cell phone than to call 911 or run for his life.”

She turned the phone around. The image was paused. Jonah Helsinger stood at the entrance to the restaurant. The lower half of his body was obscured by a trash can. The mall was empty behind him. From the angle, Andy knew the waitress standing in the back had not taken the video. She wondered if it was the man with the newspaper. The phone had been tilted just over the salt and pepper shakers, like he was trying to hide the fact that he was recording the weird kid who was dressed like the villain from a John Wayne movie.

Objectively, the hat was ridiculous; too large for Helsinger’s head, stiff on the top and curled up almost comically.

Andy might have filmed him, too.

Palazzolo said, “This is pretty graphic. They’re blurring the images on the news. Are you okay to see this?” She was talking to Gordon because, obviously, Andy had already seen it.

Gordon smoothed down his mustache with his finger and thumb as he considered the question. Andy knew he could handle it. He was asking himself if he really wanted to see it.

He finally decided. “Yes.”

Palazzolo snaked her finger around the edge of the phone and tapped the screen.

At first, Andy wondered if the touch had registered because Jonah Helsinger was not moving. For several seconds, he just stood there behind the trash can, staring blankly into the restaurant, his ten-gallon hat high on his shiny-looking forehead.

Two older women, mall walkers, strutted behind him. One of them clocked the western attire, elbowed the other, and they both laughed.

Muzak played in the background. Madonna’s ‘Dress You Up’.

Someone coughed. The tinny sound vibrated into Andy’s ears, and she wondered if she had registered any of these noises when they happened, when she was in the restaurant telling the waitress she was a theater major, when she was staring out the window at the waves cresting in the distance.

On the screen, Helsinger’s head moved to the right, then the left, as if he was scanning the restaurant. Andy knew there was not much to see. The place was half-empty, a handful of patrons enjoying a last cup of coffee or glass of tea before they did errands or played golf or, in Andy’s case, went to sleep.

Helsinger stepped away from the garbage can.

A man’s voice said, “Jesus.”

Andy remembered that word, the lowness and meanness to it, the hint of surprise.

The gun went up. A puff of smoke from the muzzle. A loud pop.

Shelly was shot in the back of the head. She sank to the floor like a paper doll.

Betsy Barnard started screaming.

The second bullet missed Betsy, but a loud cry said that it had hit someone else.

The third bullet came sharp on the heels of the second.

A cup on the table exploded into a million pieces. Shards flew through the air.

Laura was turning away from the shooter when one of the pieces lodged into her leg. The wound did not register in her mother’s expression. She started to run, but not away. She was closer to the mall entrance than to the back of the restaurant. She could’ve ducked under a table. She could’ve escaped.

Instead, she ran toward Andy.

Andy saw herself standing with her back now turned toward the window. Video-Andy dropped her coffee mug. The ceramic splintered. In the foreground, Betsy Barnard was being murdered. Bullet four was fired into her mouth, the fifth into her head. She fell on top of her daughter.

Then Laura tackled Andy to the ground.

There was a blink of stillness before Laura jumped up.

She patted her hands down the same way she used to tuck Andy into bed at night. The man in black, Jonah Lee Helsinger, had a gun pointed at Laura’s chest. In the distance, Andy could see herself. She was curled into a ball. The glass behind her was spiderwebbing. Chunks were falling down.

Sitting in the chair beside Gordon, Andy reached up and touched her hair. She pulled out a piece of glass from the tangles.

When she looked back down at Detective Palazzolo’s phone, the angle of the video had changed. The image was shaky, taken from behind the shooter. Whoever had made the recording was lying on the ground, just beyond an overturned table. The position afforded Andy a completely different perspective. Instead of facing the shooter, she was behind him now. Instead of watching her mother’s back, she could see Laura’s face. Her hands holding up six digits to indicate the total number of bullets. Her thumb wagging to show the one live round left in the chamber.

Shoot me.

That’s what Laura had told the kid who had already murdered two people—shoot me. She had said it repeatedly. Andy’s brain echoed the words each time Laura said them on the video.

Shoot me, I want you to shoot me, shoot me, when you shoot me, my daughter will run—

When the killing spree had first started, every living person in the restaurant had screamed or ducked or run away or all three.

Laura had started counting the number of bullets.

“What?” Gordon mumbled. “What’s he doing?”

Snap.

On the screen, Helsinger was unsnapping the sheath hanging from his gunbelt.

“That’s a knife,” Gordon said. “I thought he used a gun.”

The gun was holstered. The knife was gripped in Helsinger’s fist, blade angled down for maximum carnage.

Andy wanted to close her eyes, but just as badly, she wanted to see it again, to watch her mother’s face, because right now, at this moment on the video when Helsinger was holding the menacing-looking hunting knife, Laura’s expression was almost placid, like a switch inside of her had been turned off.

The knife arced up.

Gordon sucked in air between his teeth.

The knife arced down.

Laura lifted her left hand. The blade sliced straight through the center of her palm. Her fingers wrapped around the handle. She wrenched it from his grasp, then, the knife still embedded in her hand, backhanded the blade into the side of his neck.

Thunk.

Helsinger’s eyes went wide.

Laura’s left hand was pinned to the left side of his neck like a message tacked to a bulletin board.

There was a slight pause, no more than a few milliseconds.

Laura’s mouth moved. One or two words, her lips barely parting.

Then she crossed her right arm underneath her trapped left.

She braced the heel of her right hand near Helsinger’s right shoulder.

Her right hand pushed his shoulder.

Her left hand jerked the knife blade straight out of the front of his throat.

Blood.

Everywhere.

Gordon’s mouth gaped open.

Andy’s tongue turned into cotton.

Right hand pushing, left hand pulling.

From the video, it looked like Laura had willfully pulled the knife out of Helsinger’s throat.

Not just killing him.

Murdering him.

“She just—” Gordon saw it, too. “She—”

His hand went to his mouth.

On the video, Helsinger’s knees hit the floor. His chest. His face.

Andy saw herself in the distance. The whites of her eyes were almost perfect circles.

In the foreground, Laura’s expression remained placid. She looked down at the knife that pierced her hand straight through, turning it to see—first the palm, then the back—as if she had found a splinter.

That’s where Palazzolo chose to pause the video.

She waited a beat, then asked, “Do you want to see it again?”

Gordon swallowed so hard that Andy saw his Adam’s apple bob.

“Mr. Oliver?”

He shook his head, looked down the hallway.

Palazzolo clicked off the screen. She returned the phone to her pocket. Without Andy noticing, she had angled her chair away from Gordon. Palazzolo leaned forward, hands resting on her legs. There was only two inches of space between her knees and Andy’s. She said, “It’s pretty horrific. It must be hard seeing it again.”

Gordon shook his head. He thought the detective was still talking to him.

Palazzolo said, “Take all the time you need, Ms. Oliver. I know this is hard. Right?” She was talking to Andy again, leaning in closer; so close that it was making Andy feel uncomfortable.

One hand pushing, one hand pulling.

Pushing his shoulder. Pulling the knife through his neck.

The calm expression on Laura’s face.

I’ll tell you what I know, and then if Andrea feels like it, she can tell me what she knows.

The detective had not told them anything, or shown them anything, that probably was not already on the news. And now she was crowding Andy without seeming to crowd her, taking up a section of her personal space. Andy knew this was an interview technique because she had read some of the training textbooks during slow times at work.

Horton’s Annotations on the Police Interview: Witness Statements, Hostile Witness Interrogations and Confessions.

You were supposed to make the subject feel uncomfortable without them knowing why they were feeling uncomfortable.

And the reason Palazzolo was trying to make Andy uncomfortable was because she was not taking a statement. She was interrogating her.

Palazzolo said, “You’re lucky your mom was there to save you. Some people would call her a hero.”

Some people.

Palazzolo asked, “What did your mother say to Jonah before he died?”

Andy watched the space between them narrow. Two inches turned into one.

“Ms. Oliver?”

Laura had seemed too calm. That was the problem. She had been too calm and methodical the whole time, especially when she’d raised her right hand and placed it near Jonah’s right shoulder.

One hand pushing, one hand pulling.

Not scared for her life.

Deliberate.

“Ms. Oliver?” Palazzolo repeated. “What did your mother say?”

The detective’s unspoken question filled that tiny inch of uncomfortable space between them: If Laura really was that calm, if she really was that methodical, why hadn’t she used the same hand to take away Helsinger’s gun?

“Andrea?” Palazzolo rested her elbows on her knees. Andy could smell coffee on the detective’s breath. “I know this is a difficult time for you, but we can clear this up really fast if you just tell me what your mom said before Helsinger died.” She waited a beat. “The phone didn’t pick it up. I guess we could send the video to the state lab, but it would be easier if you just told—”

“The father,” Gordon said. “We should pray for the father.”

Palazzolo didn’t look at him, but Andy did. Gordon was not the praying kind.

“I can’t imagine …” he paused. “I can’t imagine what it feels like, to lose your family like that.” He had snapped his fingers together on the last word, but close to his face, as if to wake himself from the trance that the video had put him in. “I’m so glad your mother was there to protect you, Andrea. And herself.”

Andy nodded. For once, she was a few steps ahead of her father.

“Look, guys,” Palazzolo finally sat back in her chair. “I know you’re thinking I’m not on your side, but there are no sides here. Jonah Helsinger was a bad guy. He had a plan. He wanted to murder people, and that’s exactly what he did. And you’re right, Mr. Oliver. Your wife and daughter could’ve been his third and fourth victims. But I’m a cop, and it’s my job to ask questions about what really happened in that diner this afternoon. All I’m after is the truth.”

“Detective Palazzolo.” Gordon finally sounded like himself again. “We’ve both been on this earth long enough to know that the truth is open to interpretation.”

“That’s true, Mr. Oliver. That’s very true.” She looked at Andy. “You know, I’ve just realized that you haven’t said one word this whole time.” Her hand went to Andy’s knee with almost sisterly affection. “It’s all right, honey. Don’t be afraid. You can talk to me.”

Andy stared at the mole on the woman’s jawline because it was too hard to look her in the eye. She wasn’t afraid. She was confused.

Was Jonah Helsinger still a threat when Laura had killed him? Because you could legally kill someone who was threatening you, but if they weren’t threatening you and you killed them, that meant you weren’t defending yourself anymore.

You were just killing them.

Andy tried to think back to this morning, to fill in the blanks with the video. Could Laura have left the knife in Jonah Helsinger’s throat, taken away his gun, and then … what?

The police would’ve come. Dispatch would’ve radioed in an ambulance, not a coroner, because the fact was that, even with a knife sticking Herman Munster-like from the side of his neck, Jonah Helsinger had not been dead. No blood had coughed from his mouth or sneezed from his nose. He had still been capable of moving his arms and legs, which meant his carotid, his jugular, were likely intact. Which meant he had the chance to remain alive until Laura had killed him.

So, what would’ve happened next?

The EMTs could’ve stabilized him for the ride to the hospital and the surgeons could’ve worked to safely remove the knife, but none of that had happened because Laura had braced her right hand near Jonah Helsinger’s right shoulder and ended his life.

“Ms. Oliver,” Palazzolo said. “I find the lack of communication on your part very troubling. If nothing’s wrong, then why aren’t you talking to me?”

Andy made herself look the detective in the eye. She had to speak. This was her time to say that Laura had no other choice. My mother was acting in self-defense. You weren’t there but I was and I will swear on a stack of Bibles in front of any jury that my mother had no other choice but to kill Jonah Lee Helsinger.

“Laura?” Gordon said.

Andy turned, finally breaking out of Palazzolo’s vortex. She had expected to see her mother lying in yet another hospital bed, but Laura was sitting up in a wheelchair.

“I’m all right,” Laura said, but her face was contorted in pain. She was dressed in a white gown. Her arm was strapped to her waist in a Velcro sling. Her fingers were held stiff by something that looked like a biker’s glove with the tips cut off. “I need to change, then I’m ready to go home.”

Gordon opened his mouth to protest, but Laura cut him off.

“Please,” she said. “I’ve already told the doctor I’m going to sign myself out. She’s getting together the paperwork. Can you pull up the car?” She looked annoyed, especially when Gordon didn’t move. “Gordon, can you please pull up your car?”

“Dr. Oliver,” Palazzolo said. “Your surgeon told me you would need to stay overnight, maybe longer.”

Laura didn’t ask the woman who she was or why she was talking to the surgeon. “Gordon, I want to go home.”

“Ma’am,” Palazzolo tried again. “I’m Detective Lisa Palazzolo with the Savannah—”

“I don’t want to talk to you.” She looked up at Gordon. “I want to go home.”

“Ma’am—”

“Are you hard of hearing?” Laura asked. “This man is a lawyer. He can advise you of my legal rights if you’re unfamiliar with them.”

Palazzolo frowned. “Yeah, we’ve already do-si-doed that two-step, but I want to get this straight with you, on the record: you’re refusing to be interviewed?”

“For now,” Gordon intervened, because nothing made him stand more firmly by Laura’s side than to have a stranger challenge her. “My office will call you to schedule an appointment.”

“I could detain her as a material witness.”

“You could,” Gordon agreed. “But then she could stay here under doctor’s orders and you’d be denied access to her anyway.”

Laura tried, “I was under anesthesia. I’m not competent to—”

“You’re making this worse. You realize that, right?” Palazzolo had let the helpful, we’re-on-the-same-team façade drop. She was clearly pissed off. “The only people who are quiet are the ones who have something to hide.”

Gordon said, “My office will be in touch when she’s ready to talk.”

The hinge of Palazzolo’s jaw stuck out like a bolt on the side of her face as she gritted her teeth. She gave a curt nod, then walked off, her jacket swinging as she made her way toward the elevator.

Gordon told Laura, “You should stay in the hospital. She won’t bother you. I’ll get a restraining order if I—”

“Home,” Laura said. “Either get your car or I’ll call a taxi.”

Gordon looked to the orderly behind the wheelchair for help.

The man shrugged. “She’s right, bro. Once she signs that paperwork, we can’t keep her here if she doesn’t wanna stay.”

Gordon knelt down in front of the chair. “Honey, I don’t think—”

“Andrea.” Laura squeezed Andy’s hand so hard that the bones moved. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t be in a hospital again. Not overnight. Do you understand?”

Andy nodded, because that much, at least, she understood. Laura had spent almost a year in and out of the hospital because of complications from her surgery, two bouts of pneumonia and a case of C. difficile that was persistent enough to start shutting down her kidneys.

Andy said, “Dad, she wants to go home.”

Gordon muttered something under his breath. He stood up. He tucked his hand into his pocket. His keys jangled. “You’re sure?” He shook his head, because Laura wasn’t given to making statements she wasn’t sure about. “Get changed. Sign your paperwork. I’ll be out front.”

Andy watched her father leave. She felt a familiar guilt ebb into her chest because she had chosen her mother’s demands over her father’s wishes.

“Thank you.” Laura loosened her grip on Andy’s hand. She asked the orderly, “Could you find a T-shirt or something for me to change into?”

He bowed out with a nod.

“Andrea.” Laura kept her voice low. “Did you say anything to that detective?”

Andy shook her head.

“You were talking to her when I was being wheeled up the hall.”

“I wasn’t—” Andy wondered at her mother’s sharp tone. “She asked questions. I didn’t tell her anything.” Andy added, “I didn’t speak. At all.”

“Okay.” Laura tried to shift in the chair but, judging by the wince on her face, the pain was too much. “What we were discussing before, in the diner. I need you to move out. Tonight. You have to go.”

What?

“I know I said I wasn’t going to give you a deadline, but I am, and it’s now.” Laura tried to shift in the chair again. “You’re an adult, Andrea. You need to start acting like one. I want you to find an apartment and move out. Today.”

Andy felt her stomach go into free fall.

“Your father agrees with me,” Laura said, as if that carried more weight. “I want you out of the house. The garage. Just get out, okay? You can’t sleep there tonight.”

“Mom—”

Laura hissed in air between her teeth as she tried again to find a comfortable position. “Andrea, please don’t argue with me. I need to be alone tonight. And tomorrow, and—you just need to go. I’ve looked after you for thirty-one years. I’ve earned the right to be alone.”

“But—” Andy didn’t know what the but was.

But people are dead.

But you could’ve died.

But you killed somebody when you didn’t have to.

Didn’t you?

Laura said, “My mind is made up. Go downstairs and make sure your father knows the right entrance to pull up to.”

Gordon had picked them up at the hospital before. “Mom—”

“Andrea! Can’t you just for once do something I tell you to do?”

Andy wanted to cover her ears. She had never in her life felt this much coldness from her mother. There was a giant, frozen gulf between them.

Laura’s teeth were clenched. “Go.”

Andy turned on her heel and walked away from her mother. Tears streamed down her face. She had heard that same edge to her mother’s voice twice today, and each time, her body had responded before her mind could shut her down.

Gordon was nowhere in sight, but Detective Palazzolo was waiting for the elevator. The woman opened her mouth to speak. Andy kept walking. She took the stairs. Her feet stumbled over the treads. She was numb. Her head was spinning. Tears rolled like rain.

Move out? Tonight?

As in now? As in forever?

Andy bit her lip so that she would stop crying. She had to keep it together at least until she saw her dad. Gordon would fix this. He would make it better. He would have a plan. He would be able to explain what the hell had happened to her kind, caring mother.

Andy picked up the pace, practically flinging herself down the stairs. The anvil on her chest lifted the tiniest bit. There had to be a reason Laura was acting like this. Stress. Anesthesia. Grief. Fear. Pain. Any one of these things could bring out the worst in a person. All of them wrapped together could make them go crazy.

That was it.

Laura just needed time.

Andy felt her breathing start to calm. She rounded the stairs at the next landing. Her sweaty hand slipped on the railing. One foot hit sideways on the tread, the other foot slipped out from under her and she found herself flat on her ass.