Heartbeat

by Joan Johnston

  “And you’re in love with his mother?” Harley probed.

  Jack felt his heartbeat quicken at the question but merely answered, “I wouldn’t want to face her ·if anything happened to her son.”

  “I’ll get the surveillance okayed, Jack. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  Jack had gone back to bed, aware of how right it felt to ease himself around Maggie’s slim body, to spoon her buttocks against his groin, and to wrap his arms around her and cup her breasts in his hands. He had fallen asleep holding her in his embrace.

  It was the third time they’d made love, before he’d left her that morning, that had caused Jack to wonder what was wrong with him. He’d never been the least bit sexually in-satiable, yet he couldn’t seem to get enough of Maggie. He loved kissing her, loved the sounds she made when he put his mouth on her, loved the way her whole body writhed toward him as he seated himself deep inside her.

  Jesus. He’d made noises himself he’d never heard come out of his mouth. What the hell was it about Maggie Wainwright that made him trumpet like a bull elephant when he carne inside her? It was downright embarrassing. But it had also been the most intoxicating, fulfilling night of sex he’d ever had.

  “I got somebody in the ICU don’t belong there,” Fuentes said abruptly. “She’s got a needle, and she’s headed for the kid in bed three.”

  Jack was out of the linen closet and running before Fuentes had stopped speaking. He shoved open the swinging ICU door and said, “Stop right there! Don’t make another move.”

  Isabel Rojas turned, jaw agape, needle poised in her hand, as Jack aimed his Colt .45 at her heart.

  “What’s in the needle, Isabel?” Jack demanded in a hard voice.

  “KCL”

  “What is that, exactly?”

  “Potassium chloride.”

  The ICU door suddenly banged open behind Jack, and Nurse Cole yelled, “Izzy, come quick!”

  Jack whirled and barely kept himself from squeezing the trigger.

  Nurse Cole saw the gun, gasped, and backed up until she’d flattened herself against the wall, staring at the gun in Jack’s hand.

  “What’s wrong, Frannie?” Isabel said in a calm voice.

  “Dr. Hollander needs you in the ER. STAT!” Nurse Cole said, without taking her eyes off Jack’s gun.

  “Miss Rojas isn’t going anywhere,” Jack said.

  “What’s going on, Izzy?” Nurse Cole asked, visibly shaking.

  “Damned if I know,” Isabel said, staring with disgust at the gun Jack had aimed at her. “What’s the emergency, Frannie?”

  “It’s the doctor’s little girl, Amy. She drowned!”

  Lisa languidly stretched her arms high over her head in the king-size bed, arching her entire body from her toes to her fingertips, stretching like a cat that is supremely comfortable in its surroundings. She let her gaze stray to the middle of the bed, where her husband lay sprawled, soundly sleeping. The feeling of total relaxation dissipated.

  The sensation of well-being was an illusion. Like her happy marriage. Like the fantastic sex of the night before. It could all disappear in a puff of smoke, like the pacing tiger in a magician’s trick at the circus.

  Lisa turned on her side and braced her cheek on her palm. This was when she liked Roman best, when his hair was mussed from sleep and beard stubbled his jaw and he smelled faintly of the musky scent of sex. And when his dark, piercing eyes were closed and not demanding answers she couldn’t give.

  She reached out to caress Roman’s shoulder but didn’t actually touch his flesh, because that would have awakened him. The long months of avoiding her appeared to be over. He had made love to her again last night.

  Liza frowned. She hadn’t been thinking much about it at the time-she had been overwhelmed by sensation-but Roman had made love to her, not with her. He had aroused her with his mouth and hands and brought her to orgasm again and again without ever putting himself inside her. Now that she thought about it, he had never even taken off his clothes until he had left her to go shower.

  But he had kept her from asking about Isabel Rojas. And another morning had dawned with her fearing the worst, yet loath to confront her husband. When Roman woke up, she was going to have to ask him the question she should have asked last night.

  Are you having an affair with Isabel Rojas?

  Eight little words. How hard could it be?

  It’s Monday morning. You both have to get dressed and go to work. Wouldn’t it be smarter to wait until tonight?

  But Monday mornings were no different than any other time for Roman. He always had rounds, or surgery scheduled, or meetings he couldn’t miss. And after all, how long could it take to say eight words? Or to receive a one-word answer?

  Yes. Or no.

  Lisa made a growling sound of frustration in her throat and watched Roman frown in his sleep as though he’d heard her. She would make sure Amy was taken care of first and confront her husband at breakfast, she decided. She couldn’t go on any longer like this. She had to know the truth. One way or the other.

  “Mommy,” a small voice whispered from beside the bed. “Are you awake?”

  Lisa eased out from under the covers, grabbing Roman’s thick maroon terry cloth robe from the foot of the bed and slipping it on over the pink silk negligee she had donned after he had pleasured her the previous night.

  She lifted Amy into her arms and carried her out of the room, closing the door with a quiet click behind her. Roman got too little sleep as it was. And this morning, she wasn’t at all anxious for it to be disturbed.

  She headed downstairs with Amy, keeping her voice low as she padded barefoot down the lushly carpeted stairs. “What would you like for breakfast this morning, sweetheart?”

  “Cocoa Krispies,” Amy said.

  “All right, I’ll—” Lisa opened the cupboard and realized they were out of Cocoa Krispies. Connie usually did the shopping, and with her gone, the chore had fallen through the cracks. “How about Fruity Pebbles?” Lisa asked.

  “Nooo,” Amy moaned. “I want Cocoa Krispies!”

  Lisa briefly debated putting on some clothes and heading out to the H.E.B. for the box of cereal, but a glance at her Seiko confirmed it was 6:05. They were already running a little late this morning, and she had a confrontation with Roman to fit into their tight schedule.

  “I don’t have Cocoa Krispies,” Lisa said firmly.

  Amy’s eyes filled with giant tears, as though she’d just been told that after fourteen years of practice she wasn’t going to make the Olympic gymnastic team. Lisa marveled at how her daughter managed the impressive waterworks. But she wasn’t strong enough to resist that sort of emotional blackmail.

  She rubbed a soothing finger over Amy’s pouting lower lip and said, “How about if I make something really special instead, like French toast?”

  Amy blinked once, and her whole visage changed from tragedy to ebullience. “French toast!” she cried, as though she’d just won the gold.

  Her daughter’s engaging grin was reward enough for the race Lisa knew she was in to prepare French toast from scratch. It wasn’t all that difficult, just time-consuming. She opened the refrigerator and reached for the eggs and milk.

  “I want Donald,” Amy said.

  Lisa turned and saw Amy’s nose and mouth were pressed against the sliding glass door that led to the pool area, creating a smudge in the center of the glass. The plastic duck floated in the center of the pool. “Donald’s happy where he is,” she replied.

  “I want Donald!” Amy insisted.

  “You can play with Donald another time,” Lisa replied impatiently. “I don’t have time right now to get him for you.” Another glance at her watch showed it was 6:11. “Go wake up, Daddy,” she said, her arms loaded with spices as she shepherded the little girl out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. “Ask him to help you get dressed. Tell him we’re having French toast for breakfast.”

  Lisa knew French toast was
not only Amy’s favorite breakfast, but Roman’s, too.

  Why do you care about pleasing him? The marriage is all but over.

  Lisa fought to ignore the raspy voice that haunted her, battered her, as she searched for the electric skillet, slamming cupboards right and left. Where had Connie put it the last time she’d used it? Lisa found it in the cupboard above the stove, set it on the counter, and jammed in the plug. This was insane. She didn’t have time to be making breakfast, even if Roman would love having it.

  Why cater to him? Any day now he’s going to leave you for another woman.

  It was the voice of her mother, warning her that no man could be trusted. Warning her of the danger of falling in love and giving her heart to a man. Warning her to plan well ahead to take care of herself, so she wouldn’t be left destitute—as her mother had been—when her husband walked out on her.

  “Lisa!” Roman called down the stairs.

  “What?” she called back up from the kitchen, whipping the eggs and milk together in a glass bowl. There was some reason her mother had told her she wasn’t supposed to use aluminum, but Lisa couldn’t remember what it was.

  “Come get Amy while I take a shower!” Roman shouted.

  “I’m making breakfast Roman. You dress her and then send her down to me before you take your shower,” Lisa shouted back at him as she dumped in vanilla and sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg. The nutmeg was what made her French toast so special.

  “I don’t have time for that!” he protested. “I’ve got surgery scheduled at seven.”

  Lisa glanced at her watch. 6:23. “It’ll only take you three minutes to dress her, Roman. I’m busy, too.” She dumped a tablespoon of butter into the skillet and heard it sizzle. That meant the pan was too hot, but she needed the French toast to cook in a hurry. “I’ve got a pretrial negotiation all the way across town at seven-thirty,” she shouted back to Roman. She grabbed a loaf of bread and tore it open, dipped four successive slices in the milk-and-egg mixture with her fingers, and laid them in the skillet to cook.

  Roman appeared in the kitchen doorway bare-chested and barefoot, a towel wrapped around his waist, with Amy thrown over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The sight of him made her insides clench with desire.

  The romantic bubble quickly burst as he set Amy down—still in her pajamas—and snapped, “Why don’t you quit that damned job! We don’t need the money. I can take care of you.”

  “My job is as important to me as yours is to you!” Lisa retorted, anger flaring at his offer, kindled by her fear of abandonment. “Why don’t you quit?”

  Roman punched his glasses high up on his nose with a forefinger. “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “It’s no more ridiculous than me quitting my job! I’ll need my job if you ever leave me.”

  “Leave you? Who said anything about anybody leaving?”

  Lisa crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “I’ve seen it coming, Roman.”

  Roman snorted. “Then you can see a damned sight better than I can!”

  “You never say you love me,” she accused.

  He stood stymied for an instant.

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  Lisa stared down at Amy, who stood knee-high between the two of them, eyes pooled with tears, chin trembling. “Oh, my God, Amy.” She lifted Amy into her arms and pulled her close. “I know you do, sweetheart.”

  Lisa stared at Roman accusingly.

  “We shouldn’t be having this argument in front of Amy,” he said through clenched jaws.

  “Then take her upstairs and dress her,” Lisa said, holding her out to Roman, aware she was as much in the wrong as he was, but unable to let go of her anger. “You could have finished dressing her in the time you’ve spent complaining to me.”

  Roman took Amy, set her down, and said, “Go play in your room, Amy. Mommy and Daddy have to talk.”

  “Are you fighting?” Amy said, clinging to his leg.

  “We’re working out some problems,” Ro-man said, picking her up and hugging her quickly. He set her on her feet again and said, “Go upstairs now and play in your room.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You can get that bacon biscuit you like on the way to day care,” Roman said placatingly.

  “I want French toast,” Amy whined.

  “No French toast today,” Roman said, his patience obviously waning. “Go upstairs, Amy, before I. . . . ” His threats were meaningless, and Amy obviously knew it, because she stayed right where she was. He was clearly at the end of his rope and looked to Lisa for help.

  Roman indulged Amy often enough that she was a little spoiled, Lisa conceded. She was almost as bad as he was, but someone had to be firm. Between them, it was Lisa who usually ended up denying their daughter what she wanted. “Go upstairs, Amy,” she said. “Daddy will come and get you soon.”

  “I can’t take her, Lisa. I can’t be late,” Ro-man protested angrily. “I’m never late!”

  “Then you will be this time!” she retorted.

  Amy had paused in the doorway, and Lisa snarled, “Get upstairs!”

  Amy scrambled up the stairs, howling at the top of her lungs.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” Roman said.

  “Me? You’re the one who couldn’t be bothered to dress your daughter.”

  “You’re going to have to take care of Amy this morning,” Roman insisted. “I’ve got to meet Isabel—”

  “Didn’t you get enough sex last night? If you need another fuck this morning, it’s your own damned fault. I was willing, Roman. You never asked!”

  Roman’s face bleached as white as the powdered sugar Lisa had pulled from the cupboard to dust on the French toast when it was done. “What is that supposed to mean? If you’re insinuating—”

  “Are you having an affair with Isabel?”

  Once the words were out, Lisa wished them back. There was no going back now, no pretending nothing was wrong.

  The shock, the hurt, the disbelief on Ro-man’s face should have told her everything she needed to know. But she heard her mother’s voice saying, “He lied to me for years. He swore there was no one else. Until one day I came home and found he’d taken everything and left.”

  “What have I ever done to make you doubt my love?” Roman said.

  Lisa swallowed over the lump of pain in her throat. “You’re never home anymore, Roman. We never talk. And you never say the words, Roman. You never say the words.”

  “I do . . .” He stared at her, his eyes liquid, his mouth working, but no sound coming out.

  “I’ve got to get dressed,” Lisa said, “or I’m going to be late.” She brushed past Roman, afraid he might try to stop her, and raced up the stairs.

  “Lisa, we have to talk,” he said, following after her, taking the stairs two at a time. He caught up to her in the bedroom, grabbed her arm, and hauled her around to face him. “I’m at the hospital so much because my patients need me.”

  He was angry now, but so was she. “I need you, too!”

  “You have me. All of me. Don’t you know that?” Roman cried.

  “I don’t know anything!” she said. “Except that the woman you spend all your days with looks at you with eyes that eat you alive. You’ve been acting so strangely. I don’t even know if you want a wife anymore.”

  “I do, Lisa. I . . . I . . .”

  She watched him struggle to say the words. Struggle and fail. “Am I so unlovable, Roman?” she grated past the knot in her throat.

  He was silent too long.

  The sudden shrill of the smoke alarm sent them both clambering back downstairs. Clouds of choking smoke rose from the blackened and charred remains of the French toast. Lisa covered her mouth and nose as she pulled the plug on the electric skillet, while Roman crossed to open the sliding glass doors to let in some fresh air.

  “When did you open this?” he said as he pushed it wide. And then, “No. No!”

  Roman’s agonized cry made Lisa’s blood
run cold. She turned in time to see him slam open the sliding glass door and race outside.

  “Roman? What’s wrong?” She crossed to the open doorway and stepped through to see what had panicked him.

  Amy was floating facedown in the pool.

  Chapter 16

  “Shoot me or put it away, Kittrick,” Isabel said. “The doctor needs me in the ER, and that’s where I’m going.”

  Isabel handed the potassium-filled needle to Nurse Cole and gestured to the blond-headed girl in bed three. “This is for Patty. The doctor said we’d do additional surgery if she wasn’t any better this morning, and her potassium level is low. Under the circumstances, Hollander probably won’t do the surgery. See who’s backing him up.”

  Jack realized he was seeing exactly why Ro-man Hollander valued Isabel Rojas so much. He had never seen anyone, male or female, react so calmly and capably in a crisis.

  “Hold up there a minute,” he said, when Nurse Cole started to follow Isabel’s orders. What Isabel had said sounded perfectly rational, and Jack doubted whether a murderer would have handed over the murder weapon to a substitute and instructed her to go on with the dirty deed . But he had no way of knowing for sure. Maybe that was exactly how Hollander and Rojas were killing kids without getting caught.

  “Put the needle down, Nurse Cole,” he ordered.

  Facing a Colt .45, Frannie Cole did exactly as she was told. The needle landed on the table beside bed three.

  “Wait right here and don’t move a finger—unless one of the kids needs you,” Jack said. “A detective will be here in about thirty seconds to brief you on what’s going on. Meanwhile, don’t say anything to anyone about any of this, do you understand?”

  Nurse Cole nodded vigorously.

  Jack slipped the Colt .45 into the front of his jeans, where it was hidden by his Levi’s jacket, and gestured Isabel out the door. “Shall we go, Ms. Rojas?”

  She marched out ahead of him briskly enough that he figured she probably did wind sprints to stay in shape. Jack was grateful the elevator arrived the first time she punched it, because he had a feeling that otherwise she’d have taken the stairs.