The Poker King Returns novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Visiting Hours

Sunday morning, the doctor at Renown Regional told me my father had a blocked artery and a stubborn heart.

"We placed a stent at four a.m.," she said. "He's stable. He's also not allowed to be upset for a week."

I laughed, because I couldn't help it.

"Doctor, have you met my father?"

"Not before last night," she said, kindly. "But I think I've met his creditors. Two men came by at dawn."

"Two?"

"A man in a very good suit and a younger man who waited by the elevator. They asked which room he was in."

I walked down the hall so fast that my shoes squeaked.

Cade was in the family waiting room with a paper cup of coffee he hadn't drunk.

He had not slept either.

He stood when he saw me, and I walked straight into his arms and held on for a long time.

"He's alive," I said into his shirt.

"I know."

"Don't let go yet."

"I'm not."

He didn't.

Then a voice said, "How touching."

I turned.

Desmond Kray stood in the doorway in a charcoal suit with a bouquet of white lilies.

He looked like a man at a funeral he had paid for.

"I came to see how your father is," he said. "Heart trouble is so tiring at his age."

"Get out," I said.

"I brought flowers."

"Get out."

A pair of nurses at the station had stopped talking.

Kray walked into the waiting room anyway and set the lilies on a table.

"I'd like you to hear something, Miss Guffey. Privately, if your waiter will step out."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Poker King Returns from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.