Double Jeopardy (3 page)

“Oh, God!” The exclamation was part prayer, part dismay. Her sister’s face, always a mirror image of her own, was now grotesquely swollen and horribly misshapen. Blood oozed from her nostrils and the comers of her mouth. Her lips were almost invisible because of the swelling.

Gemma’s eye sockets were purple and blue, swollen shut. Her hair had been clipped close to her scalp on the right side of her head, where several strips of adhesive held the edges of a wound together. It, too, seeped blood. A tracheotomy tube protruded from her throat; various intravenous lines extended from her arms and her stomach; electrodes on wires were attached to other parts of her body, carrying indecipherable beeps to a host of machines.

Sera gulped back a sob. What appeared to be ordinary wire cutters were taped to the end of the bed and an ominous looking machine sat on the floor, shocking indications that things could go very wrong.

Most shocking of all, for Sera, was the utter stillness of her sister’s slender body beneath the crumpled white sheet.

“Em?” Sera cleared her throat, unaware of using the contraction she’d formulated when the two of them were babies and she was too little to pronounce her sister’s name correctly.

“Em, it’s me,” she whispered, wondering if sound could penetrate the stillness. Even if it did, where was Gemma?

Her sister was never this quiet, not even deep in sleep. Unlike Sera, Gemma was a restless sleeper, tossing, turning, muttering, thrashing her legs. At home they’d always shared a room, and Gemma had regularly fallen out of her twin bed, tumbling heavily to the floor and often not even waking up. Sera had never fallen out of bed, not even once. Now, far more terrifying than the damage to her sister’s face was this utter stillness.

“Em, are you in there?” Sera murmured the inane words and waited for some sign, but there was nothing. Gingerly she took her sister’s fingers in hers, absently noting the roughness of Gemma’s skin, the short, blunt-cut fingernails. They shared a total disregard for manicures; hands were tools, to be utilized to their fullest capacity. Sera’s own fingers were still stained with the blue paint she’d used earlier that day on the set. Two of her fingernails were broken off painfully close to the cuticle, and she saw that Gemma, too, had several jagged nails.

A nurse appeared on the opposite side of the bed and briskly checked the IV and the monitors.

“What—” Sera had to clear her throat before she could force the rest of the words out. “What are the wire cutters for?”

“In case she vomits and starts to choke. So that we can cut the wires holding her jaw shut.”

Lord. Sera shuddered. “And—and that thing?” She pointed to the device at the side of the bed.

“That’s a suction machine. Again, in case she vomits or aspirates.”

“Does—is that likely to happen?” Gemma could choke to death.

“It can, but we’re watching her really closely.”

“How come she’s still bleeding like that?”

“With this type of injury, there’s always a lot of bleeding. It’s not excessive. Don’t be too alarmed by it.”

Easy for a nurse to say, hard to accept when the person bleeding was your sister.

“What’s—what’s the white stuff in that bag?” Sera gestured at the IV bag with the tube leading into Gemma’s stomach.

“That’s Isocal, a high-nutrient liquid formulated especially for patients who can’t take nourishment by mouth.”

“I see. She’s sedated, right? That’s why she’s so quiet?”

“Yes, but there’s a good possibility she can hear you, so talk to her.”

For the next few moments Sera mouthed platitudes, assuring Gemma she was going to be fine, that she had the best plastic surgeon in the city, probably the entire country.

Sera didn’t know that for sure, but Dr. Halsey had seemed reliable and trustworthy. All Gemma needed to do, Sera went on, was rest and concentrate on getting well. By the time ten minutes were over, Sera felt like an undertrained competitor in a triathlon. Shaky and light-headed, she hurried out of Intensive Care, emotionally and physically drained.

One glimpse into the waiting room confirmed that even more of her relatives had arrived while she was away, and in typical Cardano style, they sounded as if they were talking at top volume, all at the same time.

Sera hurried past the door, around the corner and down the corridor toward the elevators. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She needed fresh air, fast.

She punched the Down button on the elevator once and then again before becoming aware of the tall man she’d brushed past a moment earlier. He was staring at her, his face ashen. He was wearing soiled work clothes and heavy boots. Sweat stained each armpit.

“You’ve got to be Gemma’s sister.” His voice was deep and soft and rather gruff. “God, for a minute I almost... You look exactly like her. I knew she had a twin sister, but I didn’t realize you looked so much alike.”

“Who are you?” Sera was too exhausted even to be polite.

“Jack Kilgallin. I—I work for your dad.” There was utter misery in his voice. “I’m the one who hit her, see. With the two-by-four. I was driving the forklift.”

Sera remembered her dad explaining how the accident had happened and stating emphatically that it was no one’s fault. This man obviously didn’t share that view.

The elevator arrived and Sera stepped in, and then, on impulse, she touched the Hold button. Jack Kilgallin was already walking away, and the dejection in his slumped shoulders touched her.

“Mr. Kilgallin?”

He turned, and Sera said, “I’m going outside for some fresh air. You want to join me?”

He hesitated and then nodded. “Yeah, I do.” He stepped into the elevator. “Thanks.”

They didn’t speak again until they were outside. Sera took a deep breath. Her chest ached, as if all the emotions she’d been controlling were trapped inside her heart.

‘‘The rain’s stopped.” The brilliant sunshine hurt her eyes, but her sunglasses were in the handbag she’d abandoned upstairs in the waiting room. She drew in another deep lungful of air, tinged with fumes from the heavy traffic on Burrard but welcome all the same.

“There’s a little garden this way, where it’s quiet. Some of us eat our lunch there.” Jack led her around a comer, along a narrow path between old stone walls. The path opened suddenly on an enclosed courtyard. Here the air smelled of freshly cut grass, and a stand of purple irises bordered a fountain and an old wooden bench.

“It is quiet.” Sera sank onto the bench and tipped her head back, closing her eyes and letting the sun warm her skin. She realized she was cold, bone-deep cold, and she shivered and rubbed her arms.

She felt him sit down beside her, and she opened her eyes and looked at him. His elbows were propped on his knees, chin in his hands. He sighed deeply, and for a long while they sat in silence.

“The doctor thinks she’s going to be okay, you know,” Sera said after a time. “He seems pretty confident that he can repair her face so that she’ll look the same as she always did.”

“Yeah, I talked to him a while ago. He seems like a nice guy.” He drew in a breath. “You—you seen her yet?”

Sera nodded, and she couldn’t restrain the shudder that ran through her. “A few minutes ago.”

“How—how does she look?”

Sera swallowed hard. The mute appeal in his expression made her want to tell him it was better than it really was, but she opted for the truth. “Pretty awful. Hooked up to machines. Really still and out of it, but I guess they want her that way for a while.”

“She’d hate that.” His voice was thick, as if tears were close. “Gemma’s like mercury, always moving.”

It was an apt description, and Sera shot him a curious glance. “You know my sister? I mean, apart from work?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I took her out a couple of times.”

Sera looked at him again, assessing, taking in the gray liberally sprinkled through his thick, unruly black hair, his tall but muscular build, his huge, work scarred hands. He appeared forty, forty-five even, an attractive man, solid, reliable. He definitely wasn’t Gemma’s type, Sera thought. Her sister went for lean, hungry young men with fast cars and plenty of attitude.

He guessed exactly what Sera was thinking. “She dumped me fast. Too old, not adventurous enough.” The faintest trace of a wry smile came and went, revealing even white teeth. He was truly handsome when he smiled. “I wasn’t going to take no for an answer, though. I intended to go on asking until she wore down.”

“You care for her.” Sera felt even sorrier for him than she had before. He seemed a nice man, similar to dozens of other nice men who’d had their hearts broken by Gemma. She was good at it.

“Yeah, I care.” His jaw clenched, and he fought back the tears that glistened in his gray eyes. “I fell for her the first day she came to work with us. I’d do nearly anything for her.” Raw emotion made the words ragged. “Anything but hurt her. Or watch while she hurts herself.” He swallowed back tears. "I sure as hell never dreamed I’d do something like this to her.”

Sera tried to think of words to comfort him, but she came up empty. The events of the day had left her with little to offer anyone else. “She never told me much about you,” he was saying.

Sera nodded. It wasn’t surprising that Gemma hadn’t talked about her. Their relationship was complex and disturbing, and for a long time they hadn’t been that close.

The truth was that for the past few years, Sera had done her best to distance herself from Gemma. Physically, they were identical. Temperamentally, they weren’t. Her sister created turmoil, chaos, problems that Sera, more often than not, was expected to solve. Sera wanted peace in her life, and apparently the only way to have that was to sever the invisible cord that linked her to her sister.

“She said you didn’t live here in Vancouver anymore.”

“I don’t, usually. Until two months ago, I was living in Los Angeles. I just moved back here temporarily because of a job.”

And even here she’d been successful in distancing herself from her sister, Sera thought miserably. So very successful she hadn’t even known when Gemma was in pain today, terribly injured, close to death.

It seemed to Sera that she’d managed, once and for all, to separate from the other half of herself. But instead of triumph, all she felt was despair.

CHAPTER THREE

Guilt washed over Sera like stagnant, muddy water.

From the time they were babies, she’d always known when Gemma was hurt or scared, and Gemma had been the same. It was an unexplainable sixth sense that many twins had, even twins who’d been separated at birth.

When one of them had a major life crisis, the other knew on some level or even shared a similar situation. But today, there’d been nothing, no subtle change in emotion, no physical indication that might have warned her Gemma was hurting. To think of her sister alone in such agony was unbearable. Unreasonable as it was, Sera felt she should have been able to somehow share it, make it half as painful.

“I should get back, find out if there’s any change.” She felt utterly weary, and she could see that same exhaustion in Kilgallin’s eyes, in the way he moved as he, too, got to his feet.

“Look, Mr. Kilgallin, it’s crazy to hang around here. Why don’t you go on home and get some rest.” Sera put a hand on his arm. “There’s absolutely nothing any of us can do, and it’ll be a while before she’s allowed visitors except for family.”

“Call me Jack, okay? And maybe I will go home. I’m sure not much use around here.”

“None of us is. Give me your number, and I promise I’ll call you and let you know if there’s any change. Or better yet, you can call me.” Sera rummaged in her pocket and found her pen and pad.

Dr. Halsey’s office number shared space with measurements from that morning’s work on the set, which now seemed an eternity ago.

She ripped off a fresh sheet, scribbled her number and handed it to him. “You can reach me anytime. This is for my cell phone.”

“Thanks.” He reached for her pen, tore a minute scrap from the paper and scribbled his own number. “I’ll be home in half an hour. I’ll be in all evening. There’s a machine if I go out for anything. If I can do anything for you or your family, anything at all, you’ll let me know?”

Sera assured him she would.

Back in the hospital waiting room, she found that many of her relatives had now gone home, and it was a relief. Kind as everyone was, to deal with people just now was a strain.