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it?”
    Nick moaned as Slater got up, and the pastor reached out and grabbed the back of Slater’s collar before he could react to Dan’s fighting words. “Stop it, both of you!” he shouted. “We’re coworkers here, and Dan, you should know better. I’m disappointed in you!”
    Dan didn’t like being treated like a child, so he just turned and headed out of the room. Behind him, he could hear Slater cursing his back.

Chapter Twelve
    A unt Aggie would never have left Celia alone, but when Jill assured her that she’d canceled all of her appointments for the day and needed to spend the afternoon with Celia anyway getting all the information she could on the first trial, Aggie decided, with Celia’s blessings, to go to the hospital in Slidell.
    She was glad she’d gotten a few hours’ sleep, at least. Now maybe she wouldn’t try beating up any more cops. She grimaced at the thought of how she’d slammed her purse into Sid Ford’s head. If she hadn’t been an old lady who’d been up all night, he probably would have thrown her in the slammer. Being old did have its perks, she supposed.
    She pulled into the parking lot of the Slidell Memorial Hospital, carefully avoiding the “senior citizen” spaces marked near the wheelchair spaces close to the door. There was no reason she couldn’t walk like everybody else, she told herself. The day she surrendered to her age was the day they would bury her.
    She checked with the information desk to see where Stan was and found out he was on the sixth floor. The elevator took her there, and she got off and saw the crowd of off-duty police officers, a few firemen, the preacher, and a few people she didn’t know, spilling out of the waiting room. No wonder Stan didn’t want to wake up, she thought. A crowd like that would keep anybody in a coma.
    Bypassing them, she headed straight for his room. After all, she was his wife’s aunt, so if anyone was allowed in his room, she was. She reached his door and hesitated, wondering if she had the right room. There was an armed guard standing outside it, and she wondered who had hired him. With an air of authority, she walked right past him and pushed the door open.
    He reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “May I help you?”
    â€œI want to see Stan,” she said, indignant. “I’m his tante.”
    â€œYou’ll have to wait,” he said. “I’ll check with his parents.”
    His parents, she thought as he stepped inside the room. The ones who threw her Celia out. She had a bone to pick with them while she was here.
    She waited for his parents to invite her in, but instead, the guard came back out. “Mrs. Shepherd said to tell you to wait in the waiting room with the others.”
    â€œWhat you mean, ‘with the others’?” Aggie protested. “I ain’t one of them others. I’m flesh and blood, practically.” Realizing she was getting nowhere with the guard, she pushed past him, anyway. When he tried to grab her arm again, she felt for her purse and considered using it. Jerking away, she pushed into the room.
    Bart and Hannah sat side by side on the vinyl sofa next to the bed, and she consoled herself with the fact that Hannah, who was at least twenty years her junior, looked worse than she. She stood up as Aggie entered, and Aggie started to tell her to sit down and rest before she keeled right over of natural causes.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd,” the guard said behind her as he took Aggie’s arm again. “I didn’t think she would be so pushy. Looks can be deceiving.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” Hannah said, prompting him to let go of her in the nick of time.
    The guard disappeared back out the door, and ignoring both Hannah and Bart, Aggie went to Stan’s bedside. He still looked as white as death, and had a breathing tube under his