Just a Little Bit Dangerous

by Linda Castillo

  “When I was in prison, I had access to an entire library. I was going through archived newspapers and ran across an article from the Rocky Mountain News. Two years ago, there was a story done on Jonathan Reed when he became chief of surgery at Mercy General. There was a photograph of him with another surgeon from Paris. They’d gone to medical school together. This other surgeon, Dr. Jean LaRue, had a four-year-old daughter who needed a liver transplant. She’d been on the recipient list for over a year, but it wasn’t looking good. He didn’t think she was going to get the new liver in time.

  “By accident, I ran across another article from a Paris newspaper when I did a search on LaRue. It seems some miracle happened and Dr. LaRue’s daughter got her new liver in time to save her life.”

  “How does that involve Reed?”

  “The first homeless patient at Mercy died the same day Dr. LaRue’s daughter received her liver.”

  “Connecting Reed to that patient and then to the liver transplant is a stretch, Abby. I mean, in this day and age, how could something like that work?”

  “Reed has a private clinic not far from Aspen.”

  “Aboveboard?”

  “Yes, but I think he does a lot more than treat bronchitis and set broken legs.” When Jake continued to stare at her, she elaborated. “I think he has a list of recipients. Wealthy friends, more than likely…. When a possible donor checks into the hospital—a patient whose sudden death won’t raise too many questions—Reed plugs the information into a computer. If he gets a match, he injects the patient and takes what he needs.”

  “But doesn’t the patient have to be kept alive?”

  “Just long enough for serology testing and testing for certain diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV. That usually only takes about six hours. Once the testing is done, the organs can be removed from the body. The organs are then profused in a cold-storage medium high in electrolytes and nutrients. Kidneys are flushed. Then the organs are put on ice, to be jetted to wherever a recipient is already in an operating room and under anesthesia.

  “A heart and lungs can only be out of the body for five or six hours, so the serology is done while the donor is alive. Kidneys and pancreas can last up to forty-eight hours. Livers up to eighteen hours.” She looked at Jake. “Aspen is only an hour away by jet.”

  “So the timeframe is feasible.”

  She nodded.

  “Criminy.” Jake heaved a huge sigh. “It’s feasible, but it’s still a stretch.”

  “Reed is in a position to pull it off. He’s an important man at the hospital. He’s a trusted, respected surgeon. He’s well connected. Wealthy. My God, if one of his friends were to come to him in need of an organ transplant—or even the friend of a friend or a child…Reed could have a long list of possible recipients. He could do the surgeries himself. An anesthesiologist and nursing team wouldn’t be hard for him to find if he paid them enough.”

  She paused to take a breath. “Jake, he murdered those people. Then he kept them on life support until he could harvest the organ he needed. He put the organs on ice and flew them to his clinic in Aspen.”

  “How could he cover up something like that?”

  “Mercy General is a small, privately held hospital. Maybe he had someone on staff helping him. As terrible as it sounds, Reed knew no one was going to ask questions about a homeless person dying. He knew his actions would never come into question. When that homeless person died on my watch, he wasn’t expecting the man to have family who cared. He wasn’t expecting them to ask for an autopsy. When they did, he needed a scapegoat. I was convenient.”

  “Damn, Abby, that’s a wild theory.”

  “You’re a cop, Jake. Tell me you believe in coincidence.”

  “I don’t.”

  She stared at him, her breath clogging her throat. “You could look into Reed’s financial records. I’m betting my life he’s come upon some huge sums of money in the last couple of years.”

  “All we have is a theory, Abby. I can’t act on something that’s based solely on circumstantial evidence and—”

  “And what? The word of a convict?”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “You don’t have to. I see it on your face.” Wrapping the sleeping bag more tightly around her, she tried to rise.

  Jake stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. “Don’t walk away from me.”

  “I can’t stand it when you look at me like that.”

  “I’m trying to take this in and make sense of it.”

  Sighing, she sank back down to the floor, but the air between them snapped with tension. Jake scrubbed his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “You told me you believe someone is trying to kill you. Did Reed try to get to you inside the prison?”

  “I think he hired someone to kill me. One of the other inmates came at me with a knife in the shower room.” The memory of her narrow escape made her shiver. “She nearly got me, Jake. If I hadn’t already been in good physical condition, she would have killed me.”

  “Why does Reed want you dead now? I mean, you’ve already been convicted.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Jake, but I’ve got a big mouth. I was making noise. People weren’t listening, but all it would have taken was one hot-shot lawyer and Reed knew I could foil his little empire.”

  “Reed didn’t want to take a chance that someone might listen to you.”

  “Would you?”

  “You think he hired someone to track you up here?” he asked.

  “That’s his style.” Abby laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Reed never does his own dirty work. He gets other people to do it for him. He’s got money. A lot of it. I’ll bet he hired a hit man.”

  Jake contemplated her for a moment. “Exactly what evidence convicted you?”

  “Remember when I mentioned that my prints were on the syringe in the biohazard disposal unit?” When he nodded, she continued, “That was bogus, because no medical professional injects a patient without gloves these days. Still, the syringe had traces of Valium in it. One of the other nurses saw me give an injection. But as I already told you I swear it was the tetanus injection. I swear I wouldn’t make a mistake like that. I’m too careful. But no one could find the tetanus syringe. No one went to bat for me.” Not even Jonathan Reed—the man she’d been sleeping with at the time.

  “They left you swinging in the wind.”

  She nodded. “With a noose around my neck.”

  “Do you have any proof of any of this?”

  “I’ve been in prison for the past year, Jake. It’s not like they let me out on weekends to investigate the crime.” Her voice shook with vehemence. “But I know Reed did it. Damn it, I know it.”

  “Why you?”

  “Why me what?”

  “Why did Reed choose you?”

  Abby stared at him, her steadfastness faltering. “Because I was vulnerable.”

  “Why were you vulnerable?”

  Leave it to Jake to ask the tough questions. That’s what he did best. The man was a deputy, after all.

  When she didn’t readily answer, his cop’s mask fell into place. “Abby?”

  A sense of hopelessness gripped her. She didn’t want him to know why she’d been vulnerable. She knew that knowledge would obliterate what little credibility she had.

  “As soon as I realized the investigation had focused on me, I went to Reed,” she said, skirting the question. “I was scared and had nowhere else to turn. I asked him to support me and tell the police I wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. Reed promised to do what he could.” Abby closed her eyes. “Instead, he went to the police and told them I’d confessed to him.”

  “What?” Jake asked incredulously.

  “Reed told them I was a disturbed young woman who needed help. That I was obsessed with death. That some drugs were missing from the drug locker. He told them I’d stolen drugs. My bail was revoked shortly after that.”

  “It was your word against hi
s.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes narrowed, probing hers uncomfortably. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She looked away, feeling trapped. “I’ve told you everything that matters.”

  “Abby, why were you vulnerable?”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Damn it, if you want my help, you’re going to have to trust me.”

  The simple request brought tears to her eyes. She longed to trust him, but knew she could never put that much of herself on the line ever again. She’d trusted Reed, and he’d cut her heart out. The betrayal had killed something inside her forever.

  After several tense minutes, she turned her gaze back to him. “Reed knew about my past. He…used it against me.”

  “What past?”

  Shame pierced her, coldly familiar and scalpel-sharp. “When I was seventeen I…had a breakdown. An emotional breakdown. I’d…confided in Reed about it. And he…used it against me. That’s why I was vulnerable, Jake. That’s why he chose me.”

  * * *

  Breakdown.

  The word echoed like a scream inside Jake’s head. Of all the things she could have said, that one surprised him the most. He recalled the corrections officials’s warning that she was emotionally unstable. He’d put it out of his mind because he hadn’t seen any evidence of instability. He considered himself a pretty good judge of a person’s frame of mind, and Abby Nichols was as sane as the day was long.

  Something wasn’t right about this case. Something that was cunning and cruel that chafed his sense of justice like a steel rasp.

  Yet at the same time an uncomfortable doubt rose up inside him. He remembered another woman he’d tried to help. A woman he’d trusted and loved. He would have laid down his life for Elaine and her sweet little boy. Instead, he’d let her twist their relationship into something ugly, then stood by dumbly when she cut him off at the knees.

  Jake knew better than to get involved in Abby’s plight. He’d been sharing close quarters with her and wasn’t thinking clearly. He hated to admit it, but she’d gotten to him. At some point in the past twenty-four hours he’d lost his emotional distance. He couldn’t think of a worse fate for a man who prided himself on walking the straight and narrow.

  The kiss had changed everything, he realized. He’d stepped over a line, broken a staunch personal rule. He needed distance. Needed to get the hell out of this cabin and down the mountain before he made another mistake. A mistake that wouldn’t be quite as harmless as a kiss.

  But every time he looked at her, he wanted her. Wanted her in a way that was as strong as the need to take his next breath. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the heat of her against him, the softness of her body, the sweet wetness of her mouth. And the need clawed at him, like a trapped animal desperate to get out….

  Jake gave himself a hard mental shake. Sweat glistened on his brow, and he loosened the top button of his flannel shirt. Across from him, Abby stared into the fire. Even in profile, she was breathtaking. He knew better than to ask the next question; he knew it would only bring him one step closer to knowing her. He didn’t want to know her. He didn’t want to get inside her head or, God forbid, let her get inside his. But Jake had never been one to back away from danger.

  “Abby.” His voice grated like steel against steel. “Look at me.”

  He saw that danger clearly when her gaze met his. Tentative. Wary. So lovely he couldn’t look away. The torment in her eyes was raw and hard as hell to look at. No one could fake that kind of emotion, and he knew that whatever happened here today was honest and real with no holds barred.

  “How was something like that admissible in court?” he asked.

  “Let’s just say the prosecutor was a lot sharper than my public defender.”

  He thought about that for a moment, then said, “Tell me about your breakdown.”

  “Jake—”

  “You’ve already told me this much. I need to know everything. Come on. Talk to me.”

  Her eyes skated away from his to stare into the fire. “It happened after my father died. I was almost eighteen years old. My father and I were very close. He was…a really good man.” A sad smile touched her lips. “He was on his way home from work one day and a drunk driver hit his car head-on.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jake said in a thick voice.

  “He suffered multiple trauma. A terrible head injury. He was in a coma for six days. The neurosurgeon ran an EEG, and it showed there was no brain activity.” Pain tightened her features, but she didn’t cry. “The doctor said he wasn’t going to survive. He took us into a little room at the hospital and explained the situation and told us we should discuss removing him from life support.”

  Cursing under his breath, Jake cut his eyes to hers. “Aw, man…”

  She didn’t even acknowledge him. And he knew the memory had taken her back to that little room and one of the most horrendous dilemmas a person could face.

  “I couldn’t believe they could suggest such a thing,” she said. “I mean, I was too heartbroken to understand that he was already gone. That he couldn’t come back to us. And there were other considerations. The insurance company for one. They would only pay so much and we didn’t have a lot of money.”

  “Medical bills.”

  She nodded. “The doctor also told us there was a six-year-old boy in Dayton, Ohio, who needed a liver or he was going to die. He told us about a high school student in Seattle who needed a heart or she’d never see her first day of college.” Her hands clenched the sleeping bag at her throat. “Mom made the decision the next day.”

  Jake had heard enough to know where she was going with this. He didn’t want to hear it, but couldn’t stop her. Not when he knew how badly she needed to tell him this. How badly she needed get it out in the open so she could purge herself of the pain she’d held inside her for so many years.

  “That afternoon, they turned off the respirator,” she said. “Mom and Grams and I were in the room with him. One minute he was lying there breathing as if he were asleep. Then he was just very…still. He was…gone.”

  Jake had seen death before. He hated it. The loss. The unfairness. The inevitable pain it caused the survivors. That was why he’d become an EMT. Why he’d chosen law enforcement as his career. Why he volunteered for Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue.

  She raised her gaze to his, anguish fresh in her eyes. “I remember telling him goodbye. I remember walking out of the room, thinking it was over. I remember wanting to cry, but realizing I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak. I remember people talking to me, trying to comfort me. But the grief was dark and terrible and just…crushed me. I guess I shut down. I went inside myself.” She took a shuddery breath. “I stopped talking to everyone around me. After a few days, Mom got worried and took me to the doctor. He recommended a psychiatrist. The shrink admitted me to a psychiatric hospital a few days later.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, I’m okay now.”

  “How long were you in the hospital?”

  “About two months.”

  “You recovered fully.”

  She shot him a grateful look, but it was fraught with pain. The kind of deep, dark pain most people never had to feel. The people who did, never, ever talked about it. “The only good thing that came out of it was that I decided to go into nursing afterward.”

  “I’m sure your dad would have been proud.”

  She looked away quickly, clearly uncomfortable. “Thank you for saying that.”

  He wasn’t sure what to do or to say next. He wanted to comfort her, but knew better than to touch her. There was something about this strong, hurting woman that made him want to protect her, made him want to take away her pain.

  Jake knew he wasn’t the man for the job

  “Reed knew about the breakdown.” She pulled the sleeping bag more tightly around her and shivered. “The prosecutor in the case got the judge to allow my records as evidence at th
e trial. The prosecutor put Reed on the stand. Reed testified that I was ‘preoccupied with death’ because of what happened to my father. He attested to this so-called preoccupation with death. He claimed that’s why I killed that patient.”

  The thought of dirty legal maneuverings chafed Jake’s sense of justice. The thought of the pain those maneuverings had caused this woman outraged his sense of honor. “I’m sorry.”

  “The jury agreed. I was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.”

  The need to touch her was as powerful as any he’d known. He could picture himself going to her, pulling her to him and holding her until the tremors stopped and the words that were crowded in his throat came pouring out and chased the sadness from her eyes.

  He rose abruptly. His heart hammered in his chest. He felt Abby’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. He knew he should say something more, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to see her pain or vulnerability. He didn’t like the way it affected him and wasn’t sure how much more he could take before he did something stupid. Like go to her and kiss her until the pain on her face was gone and she put her arms around him as she had out in the snow today.

  Lifting his rifle from the table, he walked over to the window and looked outside. He tried to concentrate on the high ridge to the north, looking for the sniper, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d told him.

  He continued to stare out the window, acutely aware that she was sitting near the fire, silent and hurting, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Beyond the glass, the wind shuffled a bank of dark clouds on the horizon. Snow more than likely, damn it. They needed to get down the mountain. With the weather threatening and a sniper on the loose, he knew it wasn’t safe for them to stay here any longer. But Jake also knew they couldn’t leave until Abby’s clothes were dry and she’d recovered her strength enough to travel. Getting down the mountain on horseback in hip-deep snow was going to be tough. Jake had enough experience to know you didn’t take any chances with something as serious as hypothermia in the high country.

  He looked over at Abby, found her staring into the fire, the sleeping bag wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She was turned away from him, her profile delicate against the backdrop of flames. He couldn’t see her eyes, but the long sweep of her lashes lay soft against her cheek. Her blond-streaked hair had dried into wild little corkscrews that fell over her shoulders in a thick mass. The firelight shot silver sparks through the blond. It looked soft. Touchable.