[Kate Lange 01.0] Damaged

by Pamela Callow

  He was still stunned by the discoveries the team had made about the TransTissue fraud. And shamed that Kate hadn’t trusted him enough to share her suspicions. He had failed her as a lover, friend. And as a cop.

  He stopped at the nurses’ station. Unlike the last time he was visiting the GH2, the ward clerk went out of her way to give him Kate’s room number. He strode down the hall, his pulse leaping at the thought of seeing her. Touching her. Hopefully holding her.

  Her door was half-open. He couldn’t hear any voices in the room. He knocked softly.

  “Come in,” she said, her voice drowsy.

  He walked in, his heart in his throat. She lay in the bed, a stack of newspapers next to her, untouched. A large bouquet of lilies and roses sat on her bedside table.

  When she saw him, her eyes widened. Her face was a mess, her cheekbone swollen and bruised, one eye black, a bandage wrapped around her head. A monitor was hooked up to her chest and an oxygen tube ran from her nose to a tank. The arm that had been broken lay by her side, the cast a stark white against her gray skin. Her fingers were swollen.

  His throat constricted.

  “Kate,” he said softly. “Sweetheart.” He took her uninjured hand in his own.

  Her skin was warm, soft. Alive. He rubbed his thumb gently over the back of her hand.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Terrible.” She smiled. His heart swelled in gratitude.

  “You look beautiful.”

  The smile grew more lopsided. “Liar.”

  “You are beautiful.” His voice was husky.

  The smile left her lips.

  “Kate…” There was so much he wanted to say. She had taken the curveballs life had thrown at her with grace. Unlike him.

  I don’t blame you for not telling me about your sister. You were right. I would have blamed you. I did blame you. Not anymore. He squeezed her fingers gently. The words that flowed so freely in his head jumbled in his throat. He managed, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” Her words were thick.

  “I miss you.”

  She looked at him, her eyes dulled with drugs but still searching. Searching. It struck him to the core. She had spent her life searching.

  He took a deep breath. “I love you.” He cradled her fingers in his.

  She stared at him for a moment. Tears welled in her eyes. She turned her face away.

  His throat tightened. “Kate, please, look at me.”

  She slowly turned her face toward him. A tear slid crookedly down her cheek. He wanted to wipe it away. But the look in her eyes froze him. A look of resignation. Sadness.

  “I know this isn’t the right time—” It sure as hell wasn’t with her being on opiates and him having no sleep for days on end, but suddenly he was desperate to let her know how he felt. He had to say it before she had a chance to say something he didn’t want to hear. “But we’ve never been good at timing, have we?” He smiled.

  Her eyes searched his. “That’s been the whole problem, Ethan. I don’t think anything’s changed.”

  But it has, his heart roared. It has. “When I saw you lying on the pavement…”

  “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret.” She squeezed his hand, her grip so weak it was almost nonexistent, but he felt it, as unflinching as the vise of pain closing around his heart.

  Yesterday he had thought she was dead. But she had survived. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes. It was a sign. He couldn’t let her get away again. He had learned from his mistakes—

  “Ethan,” she said haltingly. “I will always love you.” Another tear slid down her cheek. He wanted to put a finger on her lips to stop the words he sensed were coming, but he realized he was too late. Too damn late. “But I don’t think we were meant to be together.”

  She closed her eyes, as if the sight of him was too much to bear.

  His own tears burned his eyes. He would not make her pay for his mistakes anymore. He bent down and kissed her forehead. “I made a mistake I will always regret, Kate,” he said huskily. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  * * *

  After he left, she let the tears come. Slowly, trickling a tentative path over the swollen terrain of her face.

  What had she done?

  She finally had what she had hoped for. She had turned it away.

  There had been too many hurts, too many betrayals, on both sides for the careless happiness they had enjoyed to continue. When they did not have that to share, they had little else. They were too different. To become the same, one of them would have to compromise too much of their intrinsic self. It would result in more disaster for both of them.

  She knew that. She believed that. And yet she couldn’t help but probe her heart one final time.

  The pain was there. Deep, silent, waiting for her to approach. But not reproachful. It was the pain of having something that had been lodged deep in her flesh finally removed.

  It was a healing pain.

  Her tears ran over her lips. She tasted their warmth, their saltiness. They were strangely comforting.

  Sleep pulled at her. She let it carry her away.

  Chapter 58

  Friday, May 25, 9:00 a.m.

  In addition to a body that had been left on display for visitation at the funeral home, two other bodies had been discovered by the C.I. team. The first was Craig Peters’ body. The second was Anna Keane’s. She’d been strangled to death with an embalming tube. Just like all of Craig Peters’ other victims.

  But John Lyons wasn’t in the building. He was found the previous Saturday morning, floating in the Halifax Harbour. He’d jumped off the bridge.

  One of Anna Keane’s employees identified Craig Peters as the man who “disarticulated” the bodies. His car, a silver Chrysler, was found and its plate run. The seat fibers matched the ones found on the victims. The Forensic Identification Unit began the laborious process of scouring the funeral home, the car, his apartment and Dr. Gill’s lab for evidence.

  “So the kill site was the embalming room,” Lamond said, a touch of amazement in his voice. “Friggin’ genius.”

  “Craig Peters was a smart man,” Ethan said. Very smart. He had been at the funeral, after all. They matched his photo with the coverage they’d shot at the funeral. “The embalming room was a perfect place to dismember the bodies. The room was sterile, so no trace evidence.”

  “And he even had a nice cold spot to store his trophies.”

  They hadn’t matched all the body parts yet, but Ethan had no doubt some of those bagged legs, eyes and spines belonged to their victims.

  No wonder they had came up empty.

  “It seems likely that Vangie Wright was ground zero for spreading CJD,” Ferguson announced, walking into the room. “Her sister confirmed that the Department of Health suspected she had the illness.”

  “Jesus,” Lamond muttered.

  “We are still trying to track down some of her brain tissue to do a biopsy. The GH2 thinks it might be able to find some.”

  “So she was the starting point of all this.” Ethan shook his head. “And the end point. How did she get it?”

  Ferguson glanced at the report. “Apparently she got it from human growth hormone when she was a kid.”

  Lamond gave a low whistle. “You think Dr. Mazerski caught it from her? Did he cruise?”

  Ethan slapped him on the shoulder. It felt good to get back to the usual banter. He slapped him again. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Lamond. Remember what Dr. Lachlan told us? It’s not sexually transmissible. Dr. Mazerski either got it spontaneously or cut himself with a scalpel while handling the brain tissue. He must have gotten infected through that.”

  Ferguson flipped the file and scanned another report. “Craig Peters’ brain biopsy came back positive, as well.”

  “I saw his invoice for BioMediSol,” Ethan said. “He conducted the dismemberment of Vangie Wright. He must have gotten CJD while h
andling her tissue.”

  “How many killers get to invoice a company for a murder?” Lamond shook his head admiringly. Craig Peters had charged his own company for “professional services rendered.”

  “Yeah. Kind of crazy,” Walker said. “Just like him.”

  “We did a check on him. He’d been a surgical resident, but he’d been kicked out of the program,” Brown said.

  “No shit.” Lamond rolled his eyes. “Guess that explains why he was so good at what he did. Why did he get kicked out?”

  “The program will not divulge details, but it was on the grounds of professional misconduct. That was two years ago. Then he came back to Halifax and worked for Dr. Gill. Shortly after that, he killed Vangie Wright. She was his first victim for BioMediSol. That must have been a trigger. The BioMediSol records indicate he’d begun disarticulating bodies a few months before. It might have unleashed his killing urges.” She glanced around the table, a flush of excitement on her cheeks. “And five or six years before that, his brother went missing. We’ve got Cold Case looking into it…”

  “Once a psychopath, always a psychopath,” Lamond said. “Some of the limbs were found under the bathtub in his apartment.”

  “Yeah, but throw in the CJD, and we got a psychotic psychopath,” Ethan said.

  “Do you think Dr. Gill got infected with CJD, too? He used Vangie Wright’s arms for his research,” Lamond said. He and Ethan had found the records for that, too. BioMediSol kept meticulous paperwork, like the Nazis, detailing their crimes in the name of science.

  Ethan and Ferguson exchanged looks. “You get to tell the bastard about Vangie Wright,” Ethan said. For a change, it seemed like justice—or at least retribution—had been served in some small way. Dr. Gill would have to live with the fear that he had been infected. It could take decades for the symptoms to manifest themselves, like it did for Vangie Wright. Or like the other victims who caught it from Vangie Wright, he could show symptoms tomorrow. Either way, every time he bumped into something or forgot something, his scientist’s mind would no doubt play it over, examining it endlessly to determine if it was the first symptom of CJD.

  “Better get the fucker to trial before he’s declared mentally unfit,” Ethan added.

  “How’s the neurosurgeon doing?” Ferguson asked, looking at Ethan.

  He shook his head. “He’s on his deathbed.”

  “What a waste of talent,” Ferguson murmured. “And how about the patient who received the transplant?”

  “They can’t confirm it without an actual postmortem biopsy, so the patient’s scared shitless. Dr. Lachlan thinks there may be more people out there.”

  All these people killed or infected because of corporate greed. And the government had done little or nothing to control it, putting the onus on tissue processors to report irregularities. He hoped this was the wake-up call. Otherwise the government deserved to have the lawyers going for blood.

  Chapter 59

  Ten days later

  Liz knocked on the door. “Kate…” She smiled hesitantly.

  Kate glanced up from her mail, suppressing a smile. Liz’s newly discovered warmth toward her was startling, but to be expected, she supposed. It was one of the benefits of being the country’s latest national darling.

  “Mr. Barrett wants to see you.”

  “Oh. Thanks, Liz.”

  “And welcome back.” Her assistant upped the warmth in her smile and shut the door softly behind her. That would take some getting used to. She felt a touch of nostalgia for the old, frosty Liz.

  So, Randall wanted to see her. Hardly surprising. It was her first morning back at work. She was glad he’d summoned her. It was a chance to let him see that she was starting over with a clean slate. And that included him. No more disturbing looks. She was going to cement the professional divide between them once and for all.

  And remind him of why she’d been hired in the first place. She flipped open her compact. She was going into his office guns blazing. She didn’t want him to take pity on her; she wanted what was her due.

  She dabbed some powder over her bruises, balancing the compact in the palm of her casted arm—she’d already tried holding the powder puff in that arm and had been rewarded with a knock in the head. It had taken a little practice. Everything took a little practice with a cast. Getting a shower, drying her hair, making a meal, getting her clothes on. She made a face at herself. She looked a sight. She didn’t need her mirror to tell her that; her picture was plastered on the front page of every paper in the country.

  She knew the press would start leaving her alone when the next big story broke. It’d only been a week since she came out of the hospital. A week of Bruised and Battered: Lawyer Takes Justice Into Her Own Hands, Killer Eludes Law But Can’t Escape Lawyer and so on. A week of constant phone calls, interviews and a horde of reporters waiting to speak to her every time there was a “latest development.”

  And there had been many of those. The whole body-parts-for-sale scheme had fallen apart, bringing down a host of other players. TransTissue had been temporarily shut down while the police combed its facilities to find the stolen body parts of murder victims and clients who never consented to donate their bodies. TransTissue was now on the line for failing to screen its tissue properly. Legitimate tissue banks were frantically scrambling to restore their image, until Kate issued a public statement announcing she had signed a tissue donor card. That had taken a lot of soul searching. But she realized that there was a greater good. She couldn’t let BioMediSol get away with perverting it. All the lawyers at LMB had followed suit.

  Hollis University lost its endowed one-million-dollar chair for neuromuscular research after sources reported that Dr. Gill had been in breach of ethical standards before, but the university had turned a blind eye to his methods—hoping to share the glory of a Nobel Prize.

  Dr. Gill himself was in bad shape. He’d had a nervous breakdown, was on antidepressants and had been released on bail for charges of offering an indignity to human remains. He faced a prison term of five years, but Kate guessed that his own mental hell would last until the end of his life.

  She walked slowly out of her office and down the hallway. Voices greeted her on both sides—support staff from the cubicles, lawyers from their offices. There was genuine warmth in the greetings. She was one of them. They were glad she was back. She was cynical about their sudden friendship, but decided she might as well enjoy it. Who knew, maybe she’d grow to like them.

  She took the elevator instead of the stairs to Randall’s office. She was still a little wobbly in heels. She’d had a concussion from the tire iron. The wound in her thigh throbbed under the stitches. Her body had never been so battered in her life.

  But she couldn’t lie around at home. Although Alaska was devoted company, there were limits to the amount of conversation you could have with a dog. Enid and Muriel had visited every day, bringing casseroles and cookies, until she was sure she’d be twenty pounds heavier before she could run again. Finn had been gold, taking Alaska for long walks and feeding him, even while she was in hospital. She’d been well taken care of.

  It had helped to take her mind off Ethan. Even though she knew she’d done the right thing, telling him they were over had been unplanned and agonizing. She’d been excited when he’d come to her hospital room, not sure of what she felt. But when he told her he loved her she realized that there was no going back. There never was. They had thrown something precious away. She was as much to blame as Ethan. She knew now she couldn’t pretend her past hadn’t existed. If she ever found another person to love, they’d have to know the truth. And love her, anyway.

  She paused in front of Randall’s door. Her nerves jangled. She didn’t want to talk about John Lyons, about what happened in the parkade. She’d already given her statement to the police—not to Ethan, that would have been too painful—and it’d been hard to relive what had happened. The sudden, bone-chilling knowledge that someone wanted to hurt you.
>
  Kill you.

  And you couldn’t run fast enough. The knowledge that a steel bar was going to crash down on your head. Exploding pain. Blackness. And that strange vision she’d had before she passed out in the funeral home parking lot. She’d been convinced she’d seen John. Of course, she’d also been convinced her sister had been talking to her while she was fighting for her life. It must have been from the drugs Anna Keane had shot her up with.

  Her head throbbed. There was one thing she hadn’t spoken about to anyone. Except her doctor. And that was the fact that when she stabbed Craig Peters, she was sure she got his blood on her. And she’d had an open wound on her thigh…

  The fear had welled up inside her. What if she’d contracted CJD?

  Come on. Remember what the doctor said?

  How could she forget. She was lying in her hospital bed. Her surgeon had come to visit.

  “I need to discuss something with you,” he’d said, his expression grave. “Craig Peters had CJD.”

  After explaining to Kate what it was—and in her groggy state that took some time—the surgeon said, “I’m telling you this because you need to know there is a possibility you were exposed to Craig Peters’ blood.”

  “Oh, God,” Kate said. After fighting for her life, she now had this to deal with? She closed her eyes.

  “Kate, it’s not as bad as you think. The type of CJD that Craig Peters had has never been transmitted by blood as far as we know. And even if it was, the chances of having actually contracted it are extremely low.”

  “But his blood was on me. I felt it spatter me.” Kate forced the words out. Remembering the violence, the primal urge to survive, the absolute terror, was something she did not want to do.

  “Even so. Let me give you an example. HIV is a blood transmissible disease, and yet it’s a one in one thousand chance of getting HIV from a needle stick injury. So you don’t automatically get the disease if you are exposed to infected blood. And in the case of classic CJD, as far as we know, no one has ever gotten it through blood exposure. So you can see the odds are in your favor.” He patted her hand.