Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Not much, but enough.
Even the cool white of his hair was neatly brushed, the cut as aristocratically elegant as always.
Able to breathe again at this sign that she hadn’t lost the father she’d always known, Elena walked fully into the room. She was grateful for the wide door built to accommodate hospital equipment—it made it easier for her to enter without having to crush her already hurt wing.
The chair beside her father’s bed wasn’t designed for wings. Because angels didn’t usually walk into hospital rooms. Her favored method with normal chairs was to flip them around then straddle the seat, but that didn’t seem right here. She’d resigned herself to a night on her feet when someone knocked on the door before opening it partially.
A familiar face appeared in the gap. “I suddenly thought about your wings and the chair,” Lola whispered before shooting Elena a conspiratorial grin. “I stole this from the admin station.” Nudging the door a little wider, she held up a stool.
The thoughtful kindness made her throat thicken. “Thank you.” Words run past the sandpaper that lined her throat. “That’s perfect.”
Mere seconds later and Lola was gone, Elena seated beside this man who’d once been her papa and was now just Jeffrey. Though linked by bonds of blood dark and colored in agony, they’d long ago lost that first innocent bond of father and daughter.
Misty memories on her mind, of a sunlit kitchen that smelled of vanilla and chocolate and gardenias. The latter from her mother’s scent of choice, a scent that came in a gorgeous crystal bottle that Ari collected once they were empty. Elena had been around seven when she’d caught her father replacing a near-empty bottle with a full one.
“Papa,” she’d whispered. “What are you doing?”
He’d lifted a finger to his lips, his gray eyes sparkling behind the clear lenses of his spectacles. “Let’s see if she notices.”
Elena had giggled, too young at the time to understand that of course Marguerite would notice, and that the gift was a private game between lovers, Jeffrey making it his mission to never allow her to run out of her signature perfume.
“Papa.” The word spilled past Elena’s lips for the first time since Jeffrey had told her about the murder of his own mother, the sound broken and torn. “What happened to us?” She took his hand, that strong hand that had held hers as he walked her down the cold corridors of the morgue so she could see Belle and Ari one last time.
She’d been waking with screaming night terrors, convinced that the monster had made Belle and Ari like him, and that they were trapped forever in a house full of blood. Nothing anyone said would convince her otherwise, so Jeffrey had fought them all to give her a chance to say goodbye.
He’d cried that day, her papa. His broken heart had no doubt shattered impossibly further. But still he’d held the hand of his eldest surviving daughter as he took her to see the bodies of his two murdered daughters. She could still remember the strength and warmth of his grip, and of how he’d zipped up her puffer jacket and put a woolen hat on her head because he knew the morgue would be cold.
“Thank you,” she said, even though he couldn’t read her mind or her memories, even though he lay insensible. “For holding it together after we lost Belle and Ari, and Mama was so wounded.” Not just in the body but in the mind.
Jeffrey, she thought, might’ve made it out of his own black grief if Marguerite hadn’t committed suicide. He’d changed after the murders, of course he had, but Marguerite had been his air and his breath. He’d have done anything for her—even once more become the man he’d been in that sun-drenched kitchen where he’d thrown a giggling baby Beth into the air while Elena laughed uproariously, and Belle and Ari helped their mother with the baking.
“Were our days really that perfect?” Elena said, her throat raw. “Or do I only remember them that way because of what came after?”
Jeffrey’s hand clenched on hers just as raindrops began to hit the window. Not much, but it was definite movement.
“Papa, it’s Ellie.” She squeezed his hand with both of hers. “I’m right here. You’re in the hospital.”
A rasped breath, flickering lashes, a dull gray gaze.
Elena knew she should call the doctors, but they could wait. If he was waking, that was good, no need for alarm. He’d hate them coming in while he was like this, groggy and with his mind dulled, his eyes fogged with sleep.
Either Gwendolyn or a nurse had left a glass of ice chips on the bedside table. The chips were half-melted by now, but she picked out a relatively whole one and put it to his lips. He accepted it, allowed it to melt, then took another, his gaze growing sharper with each second that passed . . . until she knew he saw her.