Cinderella For A Night. Susan Mallery

know why she’s sick?”

      He hesitated. There was no point in trying to hide the truth. They would find it out eventually. “They think she was poisoned. It was an accident,” he added hastily. “But now they can start working on the best way to get the poison out of her system.”

      A voice came over the loudspeaker, requesting a doctor on a different floor. Betsy closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t go through this again,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “I just can’t.”

      “Mommy?”

      One of the boys spoke. Betsy didn’t respond verbally. Instead she put her arm around him and held him close. The little family seemed to fold in on itself, as if each member gathered strength from the others. Jonathan felt like an intruder.

      He stood and cleared his throat. “Now that you’re here to see about your daughter, I’ll just be going,” he said.

      Betsy’s eyes popped open. She stared at him. “You’re leaving us?”

      Both boys stared at him beseechingly. “Aren’t you Cynthia’s friend?” one of them asked.

      Jonathan shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well, we are friends and of course I’m concerned. It’s just…” His voice trailed off.

      The preteen girl didn’t stay anything. She simply stared at him, tears running down her cheeks.

      Betsy recovered first. “Of course, Mr. Steele. I’m sure you’re a very busy man. It was kind of you to stay this long. Thank you for your concern. We’ll be fine.”

      He wanted to swear at them all. They looked anything but fine. It was the middle of the night and they were all scared out of their minds. The kids had already lost their father and now they had to worry about their older sister. The mother looked as if she was going to lose it at any second.

      He told himself this wasn’t his problem. On the heels of that thought came the realization that Cynthia could have swallowed poison meant for him and there was no way these people were going to make it without some kind of help. For now, he didn’t have a choice.

      He shoved his hands into his tuxedo pants pockets. “I’m going to get some coffee,” he said. “Why don’t I bring you back a cup?” Then he glanced at the two boys. “You two want a soda or something? Why don’t you come along and help me carry everything.”

      Betsy Morgan gave him a genuine smile. “Thank you, Mr. Steele. Those newspaper articles always say you’re a wonderful, caring man and now I know they must be true.”

      “Call me Jonathan,” he said curtly, wondering how he could explain that he was anything but wonderful and caring. In fact he was something of a bastard. But this was neither the time nor the place. Besides, if he stuck around long enough, she would figure it out for herself.

      

      “But what does it mean?” Betsy asked the next morning.

      There weren’t any windows in the waiting room so it was impossible to tell what it was like outside. Jonathan glanced at his watch. Eleven-fifty. Sunday. Barely twelve hours since the ball last night, but he felt as if he’d already lived a lifetime since then.

      “Stabilized means just that,” Jonathan said, trying to keep Cynthia’s mother calm. If she stayed in control, the kids were fine. When she started to lose it, he had four sobbing messes on his hands.

      “Last night she was deteriorating,” he reminded her. “So stabilized is a step up. Next, she’ll start improving.” At least he hoped so. He had enough skin in the game now that he wanted to make sure that Cynthia made a full recovery.

      Betsy looked at him, then folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “You’re being very patient and kind and I really appreciate that. I’m trying to believe what you’re saying, but it’s so hard. I want her to wake up.”

      “I know. Me, too. At least they’ve been letting us in to see her.”

      Just after breakfast Noah Howell had arrived in the waiting area with the news that they could visit Cynthia for a few minutes every hour.

      Betsy tucked a strand of short blond hair behind her ears. She looked weary, with dark circles under her eyes. Last night she’d obviously dressed in haste. She wore a sweatshirt over jeans, and athletic shoes with no socks. Jonathan felt out of place in his tux. He knew that he would have to go home to shower and change at some point, but he wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

      The three kids were seated close to the television, watching a cartoon show. They all looked dazed from what was happening. Dazed and young and impossibly vulnerable. Their concern about their sister touched him, as did Betsy’s love for her child.

      “I can’t survive if something happens to her,” Betsy said in a low voice. “I won’t make it.”

      Jonathan leaned close. “First, she’s doing better and the doctors think she’s going to be fine.” Fine was a stretch, he admitted to himself. The fact that she was still unconscious wasn’t good, but he wasn’t about to remind Betsy of that. “Second, you’ll make it because you have three children depending on you and you’re not the kind of person who walks away from her responsibilities.”

      Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know if I can be that strong.”

      “I know you’ll do what you have to.”

      She sniffed and looked at her three children. “I guess you’re right. It just feels so impossible.”

      Her pain slipped through his defenses and made his insides ache. She loved her children with a fierceness that startled him. He hadn’t known it was supposed to be like that between a mother and her offspring. His mother had walked out of his life when he was only five, leaving behind an angry husband and a confused and sobbing little boy. His stepmother had been kind, but ineffectual against his father’s tirades. Growing up, he hadn’t had much in the way of emotional security and comfort.

      Watching Betsy with her children made him wonder how life would have been different if his mother had stayed, or if his father had forgiven him for being the son of the woman who had left him.

      Jonathan straightened in his chair and forced himself to push away the maudlin thoughts. It was all the in-activity, he told himself. It gave a man too much time to think.

      Movement by the waiting room door caused Jonathan to look up. He saw Jack Stryker standing in the hallway, motioning to him. Jonathan excused himself and stepped out to speak with the detective.

      “You look like hell,” Stryker said by way of a greeting. “Have you had any sleep at all?”

      Jonathan dismissed the question. “I’ll get home later today for a quick shower. That’s all I need right now. What did you find out?”

      Stryker grinned. “I have good news for you, my man. We have recently taken into custody one Harold P. Millingsgate, better known as Harry the Hood. He has as many arrests as he has tattoos, which is saying something. He’s a career criminal, starting out with small stuff in high school and graduating to some impressive felonies. In the past couple of years, he’s moved into killing for hire. He’s wanted for murder in several states, including Texas and he’s willing to talk to avoid extradition to a place where they are more eager to enforce the death penalty.”

      “He’s the one who poisoned the coffee?”

      “He sure is. He’s already handed over the substance—some chemical used for industrial pest management—which I took to Dr. Howell. After looking at a series of photos, Harry identified your brother as the man who hired him to kill you. He was supposed to wait until later this week, but he wanted to head back to New York before the first of the winter storms, so he went to work a little early.”

      Jonathan didn’t know what to say. While he was grateful that the doctors could now figure out how to make Cynthia better, he couldn’t absorb the fact that David had actually hired someone to kill him.