Taryn sometimes came into the store. Just the week before, Claire had helped her make a pair of custom earrings for a school dance.
What was Katherine going through? Claire suddenly hated that she couldn’t help her friend through this, that she was stuck here in a stupid hospital bed instead of offering solace and aid to Katherine when she needed it.
“And the other girl?” she finally asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Riley didn’t answer for a long time, that bleakness turning his eyes a wintry green.
“You don’t need to worry about this right now.”
“Stop saying that. Tell me. Please, Riley.”
He finally spoke in a voice so low that she almost didn’t hear him. “Layla.”
When the name finally registered, icy disbelief crackled through her. Layla. Maura’s daughter. Riley and Alex’s niece. Mary Ella’s granddaughter.
Layla, who had worked in her store sometimes in exchange for beads to make the funky Goth jewelry she adored.
“No. Oh, no. Oh, poor Maura.”
Her throat was heavy and tears spilled over and she was only vaguely aware of Riley reaching for her uncasted hand.
“I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry, Claire. You need your strength to recover, not to worry about Maura and the rest of us left to grieve with her.”
She wept then, noisy, painful tears that clogged her throat and burned her eyes and hurt her heart. Through it all, Riley held her hand in both of his, looking tortured. She wanted him to hug her as he’d done that day in the store, but she knew he couldn’t, not with her casted arm awkward and heavy between them.
He handed her the box of tissues and she must have used half of them before the storm of tears gave way to a deep, primal ache.
“How is your family?” she finally asked.
“Hanging in. We McKnights are tough, but this is...”
“Unimaginable.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Ri. This isn’t what you expected.”
“No, I’m—”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off when the door swung wide and her mother bustled in carrying one of Claire’s beaded bags and her arms loaded with magazines and books.
Ruth stopped in the doorway and did a double take Claire might have found funny if she hadn’t been staggering under the weight of her grief for Layla.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
Riley blinked a little at Ruth’s outrage, then he shuttered any expression.
“Visiting Claire. I thought she might want to know the status of the investigation into the break-in at her store.”
Claire didn’t care anymore. She would have gladly endured the violation and outrage of hundreds of burglaries if it meant Layla could still be alive, with her black-painted fingernails and the mascara she would layer on with a trowel.
Ruth squinted at Claire and the scattered tissues on top of the blanket. She advanced on Riley, her features furious. “You told her, didn’t you?”
This was what her mother had been keeping from her, Claire realized finally, why she was drawn and upset. She had said nothing to Claire yesterday, had prevented Jeff from telling her, as well.
“Yes,” Riley answered. “She asked. I answered.”
“You had no right. No right!”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Mother? Maura is my friend. Alex is my best friend. I needed to know. You shouldn’t have tried to keep it from me.”
Ruth bristled and looked offended, an expression she wore with comfortable familiarity. “I didn’t want to upset you. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”
“A few broken bones, which will heal,” Claire shot back. “I didn’t lose a child!”
Ruth aimed another vitriolic look at Riley. If her mother hadn’t already disliked him, she would loathe him now for going against her misguided wishes.
“What good does it do for you to know right now? You would find out soon enough. Look at how upset you are.”
Ruth would never understand that Claire was angry at her for withholding the information, not at Riley. With her classic myopia, her mother could always figure out a way to make herself the injured party in any conflict, so why bother trying to explain?
“I’d better go. I’ve got to head down to the station.”
He seemed so different from the teasing, flirtatious man who had come into her store after the robbery and her heart ached. “I’m so sorry, Riley,” she murmured, knowing the words were grossly inadequate, but they were all she had available. “Thank you again for everything that night.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better. Take care of yourself, Claire.”
She nodded and watched him go, then settled in to face an exhausting day of busybody nurses and poking, prodding doctors and, worse, having to cope with her mother.
*
“Are you sure you’re okay back there?” Jeff met her gaze in the rearview mirror.
Claire shifted on the backseat of his Escalade, trying to ignore the pain shooting through her muscles with every rotation of the tires.