Evidently, the doctor can’t stand being left out. “The bullet cut a furrow along the outside of her foot. There will be a scar, but she should regain full use of the foot.”

For some reason Rose doesn’t want to talk to the doctor, doesn’t want to hear the doctor talk. “Do you have a concussion?” she asks Mel.

“Nope. Harder head than you,” Mel says smugly.

“I doubt that,” Nancy murmurs.

Rose looks at Harley’s ex, her co-grandmother. Nancy appears as cool and collected as always. “You saved me,” Rose says. “After that email I thought…” Saying that she thought Nancy would let her be murdered by a crazy woman wielding a garden gnome seems harsh, so Rose leaves the sentence unfinished.

Nancy sniffs delicately. “I assumed you were grieving for Harley, and under stress, so I forgave you.”

“You got a nasty email from me,” Rose says.

“Nasty is your word, not mine,” Nancy replies, “but I won’t disagree with it.”

“I got a nasty email from you,” Rose says. For a few seconds, they digest this. Then Nancy nods. They realize who sent them. The woman cutting Rose from the herd for slaughter, the one who had keys to both their houses, the woman who exchanged Rose’s drugs and put the prescription bottle through the dishwasher.

“Aunt Stella is the queen of nasty emails,” Mel says.

“Stella’s been arrested,” Elizabeth, Royal’s grandma, says. “She will be held at County until the arraignment. She is cooperating.”

“Ratting out everybody she can possibly think of,” Royal says. His grandmother lays a repressive hand on his shoulder.

“Alma Greene has been detained; charges are pending,” Elizabeth says.

“Stella got to know Alma when her father made a new will after he remarried,” Flynn says. Rose remembers that. He left everything to his new wife. Stella went ballistic. When he died in an automobile accident a couple of years later, Stella’s fury was reignited. “It looks like, after Dad died, Stella and Alma Greene got together and hatched this plot.”

Rose is afraid to ask any of the questions she needs to know the answers to. Mel helps her out. “Gigi, you’re going to be charged with some things, but Royal’s grandma thinks it won’t be too bad.”

“Longwood doesn’t want this kind of publicity,” Royal explains. “You know, patients poisoned, murdered, people breaking in, snatching old guys.” Elizabeth’s fingers tighten slightly on his shoulder and he stops, but the grin doesn’t leave his face. “No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Rose assures him.