Jesse was glad for the full belly. Had she tried to deal with this crap on an empty stomach, she was pretty sure that she would have completely lost her mind. The amount of stress deep in her mind about this was disturbing. Paternity test. It was a huge thing. There was no getting around the fact that this was a game changer no matter what the results were.
The basement of the hospital was cold. Jesse wrapped her arms around her body and wished that she had brought a jacket or a sweatshirt, or maybe a full body mask or something. Then she could just sit in the corner and try to pretend that she wasn’t about to lose her damn mind.
“So, you’ve determined that our father did indeed die of a massive heart attack?” Laredo was speaking to the pathologist in that typically businesslike tone of voice that actually spoke volumes about what he was really feeling in that moment. When Laredo was worried about something, he retreated into that extreme politeness and professionalism thing.
They were all in the basement morgue of the hospital. It was cool and dark down here. The fluorescent lights in the hallway did nothing to dispel the gloom. In fact, it was almost as if the horrible pale-green painted walls absorbed whatever was left of the light and then reflected back nothing but a terrifying glow that reminded Jesse of a Halloween haunted house.
Why were morgues always located in the basement? You would think they could put them up on the top floor or something. The roof would be good. That way they could have skylights with natural sunlight pouring into the area that would keep things from feeling so depressing!
“What are you thinking?” Cal murmured. “Your expression is really strange.”
Jesse shuddered. “I was just wondering why we can’t have a morgue on the top floor with skylights.”
“They have to keep it cool or risk speeding up the decomposition process.” Cal’s matter-of-fact answer didn’t make her feel better. Her face must have suggested that, because he grinned at her. “Did I rain on your parade?”
“Yes!” she hissed. “It’s gloomy and totally creepy down here. They need to fire the interior designer who came up with these paint colors.”
“Are you two done with your critique of the morgue décor?” Darren asked drily from across the room. “Because I think the rest of us are waiting for Mr. Mariano here to finish giving us his report.”
Mr. Mariano was a kindly man in his fifties with thinning brown hair and huge gold-rimmed glasses. His eyes were tiny brown specs behind those big glasses. His green scrubs had probably been picked because they matched the paint, the poor man. But at least he was nice. And right now, he looked amused.
“Well, Mr. Hernandez,” Mr. Mariano said. He looked around the room to include all of the men in the vicinity that fell under that heading. “Your father’s case is extremely straightforward. And on a side note, Ms. Collins is absolutely right. The paint colors down here are horrible. This is one of the oldest and most unfriendly areas of the hospital. You’d be surprised at how little attention is given to renovating or redecorating a morgue.” He rolled his eyes in an almost comical gesture of incredulity. “You would think they’d realize that this of all places needs plenty of updating on a regular basis to keep it from being absolutely terrifying to anyone who has a reason to come down here.”
Cal lifted his hand to get Mr. Mariano’s attention. “So, you’re fine with the cause of death? It’s official? You’re going to publish a death certificate, which will then allow us to move forward with pretty much every other aspect of this process?”
“Yes. Exactly.” Mariano waved his hand. “And then you said something about paternity?”
Cal’s face was set in bold lines that gave Jesse stomach cramps. “We need DNA from my father to do a paternity test for Ms. Collins.”
“Ms. Collins?” Mariano’s eyebrows shot up. “You realize that your mother was very adamant that the body not be touched for any additional testing. She casually mentioned paternity, but to be honest, I was thinking that she had been specific for the same reason that other women in her position often are.”
Laredo’s towering frown did not seem to affect the medical examiner. “What are you talking about? What position?”
“Your father was a very wealthy man,” Mariano reminded them. “I realize that most of his assets are tied up in the ranch and into the corporation. I have no doubt that you gentlemen have safeguarded your inheritance in order to make certain that there is no real change in how the company runs after your father’s death. But if someone outside the family were to come in claiming a paternity suit, that could change everything. I believe that is why your mother requested that your father be cremated as soon as possible.”
Jesse’s discomfort rocketed to unprecedented levels. She felt as though she were going to be sick. Avery Hernandez had requested that her husband be cremated just to avoid this paternity business? Why? What did she really fear? Was this about more than what Jesse and Cal suspected? Were there other possible heirs out there? Met knew of at least one more affair. What if Joe Hernandez had other children out there too?
Cal cleared his throat. The sound brought Jesse back to the moment and the room. “What if we demand one paternity test? Just this one? Jesse is technically Joe’s adopted child anyway. It really doesn’t matter—legally speaking—what the results are.”
Mariano scratched his chin. He seemed to be giving this some deep thought. “I suppose that you are right about the legal aspect of things. There is nothing to be gained in that way from proving that Ms. Collins is or isn’t Mr. Hernandez’s biological daughter.”
Cal glanced at his brothers. At one point, he had been afraid they would argue against this. So far, they did not seem to care one way or the other. Finally, Cal’s gaze came back to Mr. Mariano. “So, will you do it?”
“Yes.” Mr. Mariano seemed to feel better once he had made his decision. He began bustling around his autopsy suite. “The fastest way for me to do this is to just take a blood sample from Ms. Collins right here. If we try and wait it out for the lab upstairs to take the blood and send it down, it will take probably a week to ten days longer.”
“How fast can you get results?” Cal pressed.
Somehow, Jesse felt as though she should be doing the talking or something of the like. Yet whenever she tried to say something or react or involve herself in any way, her mouth locked up and she felt as though she were going to throw up. She was nervous. She was so nervous sitting here, and she couldn’t imagine how much worse it was going to get if they had to wait weeks upon weeks for the test.
Mr. Mariano seemed to guess her thoughts. His kindly gaze rested on Jesse, and then he looked over at the stack of paperwork on his lab table. “In theory, I have about ten other DNA cases ahead of yours. But I suppose we could put a rush on it and have results back in ten days.”
“Ten days,” Jesse burst out. She laced her fingers together and placed them atop her head. “Believe me, I don’t think that you’re taking too long. I know it isn’t like TV. I know it takes time. I’m just trying to imagine waiting ten days for something like this.”
The medical examiner gave her a kindly, almost fatherly smile. “I realize that’s the case, young lady. It’s always torture, waiting for these things. But we want to do it right. And that means shipping it out to the University lab. I just don’t have the tools here in my suite to be doing that sort of thing. I will put it at the head of the line though. That should help considerably.”
Jesse was fully aware that she really could not ask for more. “Thank you.”
“So, when will the death certificates be available for pickup?” Laredo wanted to know. He had shoved his fingers through his short black hair so many times that it was currently sticking up at all angles.
“This afternoon,” Mariano said kindly.
Jesse wondered if Laredo realized how disheveled he really looked. It was obvious that the death of his father was hitting him much harder than he was willing to admit. The man looked as though he had not slept. In fact, they all looked that way. Even Cisco was rumpled, and the young lawyer never looked rumpled.
Laredo looked around at his brothers. “So, are we through here, then?”
“What’s the sudden rush?” Cal cocked his head and stared his brother down. “You act like you have a funeral to attend, and as I recall, we haven’t actually gone over there to make arrangements yet.”
“Mom already took care of that,” Laredo muttered.
“What?” Met was the one to react. He swung around and glared at Laredo. “What do you mean Mom took care of that? Who let her anywhere near the funeral home?”
Laredo groaned and, once again, nearly ripped out his hair by the roots. “She called the guy last night and went over after I dropped her off at home.”
Met made a face. “Shit. I can only imagine what this is going to be like.”
“It will be the social event of the season,” Jesse assured them. She couldn’t believe they didn’t see what was going on here. “Your mother will make herself look like the beautiful grieving widow. It will be just fine. You’ll see. She’ll come out looking like a victim, and she’ll be happy with that because that’s what she wants.”
Mr. Mariano gestured to Jesse. “Ms. Collins, I need to get a few vials of blood, if you don’t mind.”
“Right.” Jesse heaved a sigh and tried to remind herself that this was not a big deal.
She sat down in a chair and presented her left arm for Mr. Mariano’s enormous needle. At least it looked enormous. At least she didn’t have to think too much about the needle itself. She was too busy listening to the brothers argue and snipe at each other about their mother’s behavior after the death of their father.
“She doesn’t care that your dad is dead,” Jesse called out to them. “Seriously! Do you guys really believe any differently?”
There was dead silence. And in a morgue, that was saying something. Right beside Jesse, she heard Mr. Mariano’s quiet little chortle as he tightened a tourniquet around her arm to prepare her vein for the blood draw.
Laredo pointed at Jesse. “You’ve got a personal thing going with Mom right now. You know that. You shouldn’t let it color your perception of everything.”
“Really?” Jesse gave Laredo a sickly-sweet smile. “Talk to Cal. He was there when your father passed away. Your mother kept poking at him even when Cal was shouting at her and at him to calm down. She knew she was driving his heart rate into the danger zone. He wasn’t supposed to get excited. She did nothing but prod and poke until Joe flipped out. That’s what she thought of him at the end.”
Jesse wondered if she was being too harsh with the brothers, but then she saw that Cal had hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. He braced his feet apart and rocked back and forth on his heels as he nodded to himself. “She’s right!” Cal told his brothers. “I stood there and I watched it. Mom knew exactly what she was doing. It was frightening. She did it on purpose.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Laredo insisted. “What are we going to do? Try to have her investigated for murder?”
“Why would we bother?” Met retorted. He puffed up his cheeks and looked at Cisco. “Would it do any good? You’re the lawyer. You can’t really prove something like that, and why would we want her punished anyway? The man was an unfaithful, overbearing husband who treated her like crap for years.”
Mariano was humming to himself as he drew blood from Jesse’s arm. She gave him a thoughtful look. “You probably hear a lot of these totally awkward conversations, don’t you?”
“I do.” He smiled up at her. “I believe you’re the first one who has ever really observed that though.”
“Do they ever tell you to leave?” she wondered. “I bet they would.”
“Occasionally,” he allowed. Then he pursed his lips and capped the vial before carefully removing the needle from her arm and applying a small bandage. “But for the most part, they rarely realize that what they’re saying could be extremely inflammatory if I decided to be an ass and tattle to the police.”
She gazed at him. His kindly face and eyes reminded Jesse of Mr. Farrell. It was the sort of face that a grandfather possessed. “But you don’t. Do you? Or rarely, I bet.”
“Rarely,” he allowed. “People grieve in so many different ways. And so much of it is anger. I don’t think we realize how angry we really are with someone until they die. Then, all of a sudden, we begin to realize that we can never get satisfaction from that person on the wrongs that they have committed. It’s a very awful feeling.”
Jesse thought very seriously about what he was saying. People did not realize that they were going to lack closure for the rest of their lives. What if they were actually trying to prevent closure? What if someone like Avery Hernandez wanted to hide the truth? What if she wanted to make sure that the only version of the truth left to tell was her version? What would that do? What would it say or what kind of trouble would it cause?
“People are strange,” Jesse whispered to Mr. Mariano. “I think that’s the only thing that’s true for everyone on this planet.”
“You’re a very wise young woman for your years.” He patted her arm. “And I think you’d better get these young men out of here before they attack each other.”
Jesse sighed as she realized that the Hernandez brothers had all closed into a tight knot where they were currently exchanging snide, irritating comments and lobbing accusations at each other that were decades old. It was time to go. It was time to put this whole thing behind them for good.