Word spreads fast when something bad happens, especially when that something bad happens to someone very much in the public eye. I got my wish when the office called me in to help with the clinic after I had lunch with Nora.
I was visiting with one of my friends who works in the surgical ICU while I was on my break when she got the call.
Within five minutes of the former mayor being wheeled into the emergency room, the hospital was buzzing, and I was in the elevator on the way down, my phone to my ear trying to reach Gabe.
Come on, Gabe. Pick up.
Straight to voicemail.
Again. And again. And again.
The green marble floor of the emergency room is slippery from the rain but I run anyway. Gunshot wounds to the head usually mean death, and word is, Dunne is barely hanging on to life.
Where are you, Gabe?
Their relationship is not what I would consider warm and fuzzy. As far as I know, he hasn’t even spoken to his father since he turned eighteen and enlisted. Even after Dunne mysteriously resigned last year, Gabe didn’t mention him or even acknowledge it happened.
He seems perfectly happy to go on living his life as if his father never existed, but this could very well be the end, and he doesn’t need something to feel guilty about later. He has enough guilt as it is.
I slide to a stop outside one of the treatment rooms in the ER. It isn’t hard to guess which one contains the former mayor; the two uniformed cops and a man in a suit, who is probably a detective, standing outside the room are a dead giveaway.
Dr. Coleman, one of the trauma surgeons, steps from the room and turns to the officers. “He didn’t make it.”
The officers nod and mention something about evidence collection, but I’m not listening anymore.
Gabe’s father is dead.
Fuck. How do I tell him?
Before I can grab Dr. Coleman to try to get more information about what happened, he disappears down the hall toward the waiting room, leaving me standing dumbstruck in front of the door to the treatment room. One of the officers opens the door and sticks his head in. Muffled words are spoken between him and someone remaining in the room. When he’s done, he lets the door close and disappears down the hallway with his partner and the other man.
I step forward on shaky legs and push the door open. Two nurses and the respiratory therapist who are still in the room glance up at me but immediately return to their work, unconcerned with my presence.
I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies, but this, this is so fucking different.
Brian Dunne is laid out on the table. He looks so damn much like Gabe, I have to force myself to take a breath.
I try to separate myself from the fact this is Gabe’s father and examine it clinically.
The respiratory therapist removes the circuit from endotracheal tube, leaving the tube protruding from his mouth. She says something to one of the nurses who is recording the inventory on the code cart, then brushes past me and out the door with her equipment.
The IV bag still hangs from the stand but the tubing coils on the floor, having already been disconnected from his body.
They tried to save him with the defibrillator—the pads are still stuck to his bare chest and left flank, the cables running from them to nowhere, having already been pulled from the machine.
The second nurse slides Dunne’s hand into a bag and secures it, probably to preserve any gunshot residue evidence at the request of the police officer. She walks around the bed and does the same to the other hand. When she’s done, she glances up at me and tilts her head to the side. “Do you need something, sweetie?”
My eyes don’t meet hers. They’ve been drawn to the white sheet under his head where the blood stain is slowly expanding with the fluids still seeping from his body.
Jesus fucking Christ…
What the hell happened to him? How do you go from being mayor to killing yourself in a year? Something pretty major must have happened to precipitate a downward spiral like that.
Things were bad when Star died…really, really bad. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t inconsolable and unstable at times. Enough booze to kill a crew of sailors and enough Xanax to knock out a T-rex were consumed over those first few months. But I never once considered killing myself, even at my lowest point. I screamed, cried, and wished I was dead with her. I begged God to let me go back in time so I could go on the trip with them instead of blowing it off for a stupid guy, but deep down, I would never have harmed myself.
And once Savage returned to the States, he forced me from my hole of despair and made me remember I hadn’t lost everything.
For Dunne to take his own life, there must have been something huge going on behind the scenes.
“Honey, are you okay?” I finally tear my eyes away from Dunne and plaster a fake smile on my face.
“Fine. Sorry.”
I shove the door open and wander away from the treatment room toward the reception area. Maybe I can find out if anyone showed up for him. I know he never remarried—portraying the lonely widower played too well in his campaigns to change that. But he must have had someone. No one who looked like that, and held that much power, was celibate. There must have been somebody at the house, or an emergency notification person listed in his phone.
Turning the last corner toward reception, I debate trying to call Gabe again when a very familiar blond head flickers in my peripheral vision.
Oh, my God…
Gabe…sitting in one of the waiting area’s vinyl chairs with his face dropped into his hands.
The love I have for him spills from the break in my heart. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. It’s such a fucked up situation to begin with, but he’s obviously upset. How could he not be? No matter what their relationship was, he was still Gabe’s father.
With a deep breath, I prepare myself to deal with whatever fallout comes from this and approach him.
Please let me comfort you.
I slip my hand across his shoulder, and his head jerks up, his shadowed eyes looking but barely seeing me. “Skye?”
“I’m so sorry.” The words seem hollow and meaningless. They certainly were for me when people said them to me over, and over, and over again after Star’s death. “How did you know?”
He presses his lips into a tight, thin line and nods before rolling to his feet. “His housekeeper called me when she found him.” He shuffles from side to side and avoids making eye contact with me. “Let’s get out of here.”
I glance at my watch. “I’m off in an hour. You can wait for me, or I can come meet you at your place.”
His eyes flit around the room nervously. “I can’t stay here. Come over when you’re done.” He turns and takes two steps before turning back to me. “Be careful.”
…don’t let Savage see you.
That’s what he didn’t say. I know he’s under a lot of stress right now, but the patriarchal tone is not appreciated nor is it needed.
The condo door clicks shut, and I down the last of my third drink and close my eyes even though my condo is dark. She’s going to want to talk—about him.
That’s the last thing I want to do. Discussing my father will only lead to more anger, and it’s already simmering just below the surface, ready to break free and wreak havoc.
I turn my head to follow the sound of her footsteps across the floor. Bright white light blinds me. “Turn it off.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Skye.”
She sighs and flips the lights off, then drops down next to me on the couch. The silence hangs between us—heavy with unspoken questions and answers I can’t give her.
“Are we going to talk about the fact that your father killed himself?”
Jesus.
“For fuck’s sake, Skye…” I rise from the couch and make my way to the bar to pour myself the fourth bourbon since I got home from the hospital. The bottle shakes in my trembling hand. Doc will be lecturing me about drowning my feelings when I see her next time, but fuck it—how often does your father off himself, after all. I turn back to her and lean against the bar.
Even in the dark, I can see her eyebrow quirk up. “Tell me, Gabe. I know this has to be hard for you, regardless of what your relationship with him was.”
“You have no fucking idea, Skye.”
She jumps from the couch and crowds me back against the bar. “Then tell me!”
I shouldn’t. What happened last year was never made public. That was the deal we made with my father and Abello. The fewer people who know about what went down and what Dani found, the safer we all are. If I tell her, I’m only going to put her in more danger than she already is just by being associated with Abello through her family.
But Skye is tenacious. She won’t let this go. There’s no way I can talk about my father without discussing everything that happened; it’s impossible. All my feelings about it and him are wrapped up together.
“Fuck, Skye…you better sit down.” Her eyes narrow, and she glances next to me at the bar. “Yeah, you’ll need one of those too.”
She pours herself a bourbon and grabs my hand, pulling me with her back to the couch. Her palm presses against my chest, and she shoves me down onto the cushion. “Now talk.”
It takes several fortifying breaths before I’m able to speak.
“So you know something went down last year, right? With Savage and Danika and me?” She nods and drops down next to me. The news reported the deaths of the three goons I killed and managed to get some video of Savage, Dani, and me at the scene, but I was never charged and the police swept my involvement under the rug at my father’s request. It was touted as just another mob hit. “Well, Dani was investigating Dom Abello—”
“Shit!” Her fingers dig into my arm. “Uncle Dom? Why? I mean, I know he’s not exactly squeaky clean, but he’s not a bad guy…”
I shake her hand from my arm and stand to pace. I can’t just sit still when I have this much pent-up anger and fucked up shit in my head. “He’s a no-good thug, Skye. Do you have any idea how many people he has had murdered or beaten to advance his own agendas? That’s the whole point. Dani discovered a connection between him and my father. Really, really shady shit.”
She frowns as if she doesn’t believe me and pulls her legs up under her. “Like what?”
“Like killing off his political adversaries to push his agendas through and ensure he wouldn’t have any real opposition.”
Her jaw drops. “You’re shitting me…”
Christ. Why did I think this would be easy? Nothing with Skye ever is.
“No, Skye, I’m not shitting you. Dani had a source and had been compiling information on a bunch of different stuff for over four years. Abello somehow found out and lured her to a meeting with her source. She managed to call Savage for help, and we thankfully got there in time.”
I watch her processing the information. Her head snaps up, and her eyes widen. “Holy shit, you killed those guys?”
A curt nod is the only response I can manage. I don’t want to talk about the details. I can’t. I already see them dropping to the ground, one after another, every time I think about that day.
“After, we made a deal with Abello. Dani would drop the story if he would stop any action against her or either of us, but especially her. He agreed very reluctantly. Part of the deal was also that he would make it clear to my father that he had to resign as mayor and stay out of politics forever. We knew any threat Abello made would be more effective than what we could do to him.”
She sets her drink on the coffee table and runs her hands through her hair, pulling it free from the tie at the back. “So, that’s why he resigned?” I nod. “And you haven’t spoken with him since?”
“He called me earlier this week and begged me to let him return to politics.”
His words ring in my ears. “I have to be able to live and have a career…I can’t believe you would treat your own father this way.”
A shudder rolls through me, and I down the rest of my drink.
“There was something…desperate in his voice.”
Skye flies up from the couch and stops my pacing with a hand to my chest. “Oh no you don’t. This is not your fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t have to. I know you, Gabe. It’s written all over your face. If what you told me is true about what he was involved in, then he brought any stress or whatever else drove him to this on himself. This had nothing to do with you.”
She’s right, of course.
I know I did what was right. He brought his own misery on himself. The only thing he ever thought about was what benefited him and how he could get what he wanted. He was willing to go to any means, even resorting to getting in bed with the damn mob to advance his agenda. He didn’t care who or what he destroyed on his rise to the top.
Skye is the only thing I want, but I know having her will destroy so much. I’m not going to destroy other people’s lives the way my father did, the way Abello still does.
I can’t live with that guilt. I have to let her go.