Page 23 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

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Andy waited on the toilet so long that her knee popped when she finally uncurled from her perch. Her hamstrings jangled like ukulele strings. She pulled open the stall door. She walked to the sink. She ignored the detective’s card with its shiny gold shield as she washed her face with cold water. The blood on her knuckle ran fresh. She wrapped a paper towel around her finger, then tentatively opened the bathroom door.

She checked the hallway. No Detective Palazzolo. Andy started to leave, but at the last minute, she grabbed the detective’s card off the counter. She would give it to her father. She would tell him what had happened. The cops were not supposed to question you when you had a lawyer. Anybody who watched Law & Order knew that.

There was a crowd in front of the elevator. Again, no Detective Palazzolo, but Andy used the stairs anyway. She walked carefully this time. Her knuckle had stopped bleeding. She threw the napkin into a trash can outside the stairwell. The air in the hospital’s main waiting room was tinged with chemicals and vomit. Andy hoped that the vomit smell wasn’t coming from her. She looked down at her shirt to check.

“My Lord,” someone muttered. “My good Lord.”

The TV.

A sudden understanding hit Andy like a punch to the face.

Every single person in the waiting room, at least twenty people, was watching the diner video play on CNN.

“Holy crap,” someone else said.

On the television, Laura’s hands were showing five fingers and a thumb for six bullets.

Helsinger was standing in front of her. Cowboy hat. Leather vest. Gun still out.

A banner rolled across the bottom of the TV warning people that they were about to see graphic content.

A woman asked, “What’s he doing?”

Helsinger was drawing his knife from the sheath on his hip.

“What the—”

“Oh, shit!”

The crowd went silent as they watched what came next.

There were gasps, a shocked scream, like they were inside a movie theater instead of a hospital waiting room.

Andy was as transfixed as everyone else. The more she watched it, the more she was able to see it happening outside of herself. Who was that woman on the television? What had Laura become while Andy was cowering against the broken window pane?

Someone joked, “Like some kinda ninja granny.”

“Grambo.”

There was uncomfortable laughter.

Andy couldn’t listen to it. She couldn’t be in this room, in this hospital, in this emotional turmoil where the tether that had always linked her back to her mother had been broken.

She turned around and slammed right into a man who was standing too close behind her.

“Sorry.” He tipped his Alabama baseball cap at her.

Andy wasn’t in the mood for chivalry. She stepped to the left as he stepped to the right. The opposite happened when she stepped to the right.

He laughed.

She glared at him.

“My apologies.” Alabama took off his hat and made a sweeping gesture, indicating that she could pass.

Andy walked so quickly that the sliding doors didn’t have time to fully open. She slapped her hand against the frame.