To Love a Shadow, To Be the Sun novel Chapter 87

The man's tone was brusque as he blocked Elara's path. "Ma'am, you've been following us for a while now. Mind telling us who you are?"

Elara offered a pleasant smile. "Just a concerned citizen."

The two men gave her a once-over, suspicion plain in their eyes.

"This is a testing facility," one finally said. "If you're not here on business, you'll need to leave. Otherwise, I'll have to call security."

"Oh, call security?" Elara's voice took on a knowing edge. "What, do you have something to hide?"

…

At the hospital.

Once the samples had been safely sent off, Brian left without another word, and Gareth hurried off to attend to other matters. That left only Nanette and her daughter Lina in the hospital room.

Nanette, restless and anxious, pushed herself up and caught Lina by the arm. "Was Brian telling the truth? Are those medications really bad for me?"

Lina, deep in thought as she stood by the window, jumped at her mother's touch and pulled away, irritation flickering across her face. "People could come in at any moment. Get back in bed—now."

"Lina, I only pretended to be sick for your sake," Nanette pleaded, her voice trembling. "I scrubbed my face with bleach for you, for heaven's sake! You can't just ignore your mother's health."

Lina's tone softened a little. "Don't worry. Dr. Chamberlain prescribed you only the safest medicine. Get some rest, or if someone sees you up and about, and your uncle hears about it…"

Nanette reluctantly lay back down, but the past days at the hospital had left her increasingly uneasy.

"Lina, Gareth spends less and less time here lately. I know men—loyalty is never forever. If I don't do something to keep him tied to me, he'll find someone else. And now with this illness, you think he'd even touch me? I'm afraid he's losing interest."

Lina shot her a look of icy indifference. "Well, whose bright idea was it to pick this illness for yourself? Should've just gone with leukemia from the start."

Nanette sat up, agitated. "Things were happening so fast! They were about to ship you off, and you begged me to pretend to be seriously ill so you could stay. I panicked, remembered an old friend with this disease, and blurted it out. Now you're blaming me?"

Before Lina could reply, her phone rang. She swiped to answer.

"Miss Vincent, someone's been tailing us the whole way. There's no way to swap out the samples."

A dangerous glint flashed in Lina's eyes. "If Plan A fails, switch to Plan B. Do I have to spell it out for you? The samples are already on the testing bench, being watched on camera. How do you expect to pull a switch now?"

She hung up, seething. But when she turned back to Nanette, her expression was cool and composed.

"Don't worry, Mom. Once I've slept with my ‘brother,' I'll make sure your ‘illness' miraculously improves. Uncle Gareth will be hooked on you again in no time."

Back at the hospital.

Lina's phone rang again.

"The swap failed. The sample's already in the lab."

Lina's fury boiled over. "I paid you all that money, and you're more useless than a dog! At least a dog would wag its tail—what exactly am I paying you for?"

She jabbed the red "end call" button, her face dark with rage.

"Elara, you really want to die, don't you?" she muttered through clenched teeth.

Nanette sat up, panic in her eyes. "Even the janitor you arranged couldn't swap the sample? What do we do now? If my husband finds out we've been lying, he'll divorce me for sure!"

Lina shot her mother a look of disgust. "It hasn't come to that yet. Stop panicking and stay in bed. That's all you need to worry about. I'm going out."

…

Elara slid into the car, and Summer finally let out the breath she'd been holding. "If you'd been another minute, I was going to call for backup."