“What’s the matter?” Lisa asked.
“I think Jack’s the love-’em-and-leave-’em type.”
Lisa laughed, and Maggie joined her.
“How could you make me laugh at a time like this?” Lisa said, grabbing her ribs. “When Amy may be—” Her voice broke, and her eyes filled with tears.
Maggie put an arm around Lisa’s waist and kept on walking. “Come on. Take one step at a time. That’s the way you get through the tough times. Think you can do it?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“You can give up,” Maggie said. “You can stop living. You can hide in a bottle, or the closet, or your job. I’ve tried them all, and believe me, none of them works worth a damn.”
Lisa laughed again, then sobered. “All right, Maggie. I’ll take one step at a time. Any other suggestions?”
“Pray.”
Maggie walked Lisa all the way to the nurse’s desk at the ICU. No one seemed to be on duty. Lisa glanced through the porthole window into the ICU. “I guess Mrs. Wainwright had to leave.”
“She was here?” Maggie asked.
Lisa crossed and picked up the copy of Peter Rabbit on the ICU nurses’ reception counter and said, “She promised to read to Amy while I went to get something to eat. I guess she forgot her book.”
Maggie took the expensively bound copy of Beatrix Potter’s Tales of Peter Rabbit from Lisa and felt a chill run down her spine. How had Victoria gotten this book from Shady Oaks? The nurses there had strict instructions not to allow her on the premises.
Maybe it’s a duplicate copy.
Maggie opened the book to the flyleaf and read, “To my grandson, Brian. May the angels keep you always.”
Something clicked in Maggie’s head, like a light switch going on, and she winced in the blinding glare.
“Oh, my God.”
The ICU nurse came out of a door down the hall and headed for the desk. “Can I help you?” she said.
Maggie grabbed her by the arm and said, “How is Amy Hollander doing?”
“Vital signs haven’t changed,” the nurse said.
“When was the last time you checked?” Maggie demanded.
“Two minutes ago, okay?”
Maggie released the nurse and straightened out her uniform where she had wrinkled the sleeve. “Sorry. I was afraid something might have happened to her. Guess I overreacted a little.”
“We get a lot of that around here.”
“Is it all right for me to sit with my daughter?” Lisa asked.
“Sure,” the nurse said, ushering them beyond the swinging ICU doors.
As Maggie watched Lisa settle in the uncomfortable plastic chair beside her daughter, she realized there was something she had to tell Jack. Something she had thought a lot about since he had come into her life, asking questions and digging up the past. Something that had prompted her to make some phone calls to the hospital in Minnesota where Woody and Stanley had died. Something Jack needed to know. A matter of life and death.
But there was someone else she needed to speak with first.
Chapter 18
Maggie discovered Uncle Porter was out of town on Monday afternoon, so she made an appointment to see him bright and early Tuesday. When Maggie checked with his secretary Tuesday morning, he had rescheduled the meeting for late Tuesday afternoon. Maggie had no choice but to wait.
She checked on Amy’s condition several times during the day by phone from her office, but it remained unchanged. She was trusting Jack to watch over Amy and make sure nothing happened to her. Maggie didn’t call Jack because she wanted to speak with Uncle Porter before she disclosed her suspicions to him. But she noticed Jack hadn’t called her, either.
Maggie told herself it was foolish to wait by the phone, hoping to hear from him. So she carried on as though Jack Kittrick’s face was not constantly appearing before her, roguishly smiling, eyes filled with teasing laughter.
She realized she had truly made herself crazy, when she battled her secretary late in the afternoon to answer the phone, hoping it was Jack. She was chagrined when her secretary won and said, “Mr. Porter says he can’t see you until tomorrow.”
In a day filled with waiting for things that didn’t happen, that was the final frustrating straw.
Maggie marched around to the managing partner’s office, ignored the protests of Uncle Porter’s secretary, and moments later was standing in front of Porter Cobb.
“You’ve been putting me off,” she said.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I’m afraid this can’t wait, Porter.” For the first time, the familial address she had always accorded him was missing.
“What is it you’ve come to discuss?”
“Victoria. And what happened in Minneapolis.” Maggie was watching for a guilty reaction, but she didn’t get one. Porter was one cool customer.
When he reached for a cigar from a box on the desk, Maggie put her forefinger on the humidor. “No cigar. They aren’t good for you. And they stink.”
Porter harrumphed, but conceded the issue without further protest. Maggie knew he wasn’t done posturing when he leaned back and put his booted heels on the antique desk alongside the rowel marks from Sheriff Tommy Cobb’s spurs and the seven notches etched in the oak for the seven outlaws brought in by Texas Ranger “Big John” Cobb.
“I’m not intimidated by that desk, Porter,” Maggie said firmly.
“What about the man sitting behind it?” he asked.
Maggie settled herself on the corner of the desk bearing the personally carved initials of Colonel William Travis, who had died at the Alamo. “I want to be sure I can hear you, and you can see me.”
“This sounds important.”
“It’s a matter of life and death.”
He cocked a brow. “That sounds a bit beyond my legal expertise.”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Maggie said. “I’ve seen you argue before the Texas Supreme Court. And in this case, you’re the per-son with all the answers.”
“Very well. Get on with it, girl.”
Maggie ignored the diminutive address. Or rather, let it slide. It was impossible to ignore the way Porter Cobb was looking down his nose at her. She recognized the gesture because she had seen Victoria do it. She realized suddenly that they had both probably learned it from one of their parents.
She countered his condescending glance with an equally withering one of her own.
“Very well done, my dear,” Porter said with a chuckle. “You’re learning, I see.”
“I picked up everything I know about trial tactics from you,” she said.
“Who’s on trial, if I may ask?”
“You are.”
Maggie saw the slightest lift in the heels of Porter’s ostrich cowboy boots before he relaxed back into the swivel chair.
“Very well,” he said. “Ask your questions, counselor.”
Maggie opened her mouth, and her throat suddenly closed. She wanted to know the truth, but she was also afraid to know it. She managed to say three words.
“Victoria killed Woody.”
It hadn’t been phrased as a question, yet only the flicker of an eye gave away Porter’s discomfort and dismay. Anyone who didn’t know him as well as Maggie did would never have seen it. She swallowed over the thickness in her throat and said, “Well?”
“That is a deep, dark subject, my dear.”
“Don’t you think you’ve buried the truth long enough?”
Porter’s sigh eddied in the room before it settled in the silence between them. “How did you figure it out?”
“The clues were always there.”
“I could never have proved she killed Woody. Or Richard, either.”
Maggie gasped. “She killed her own husband?”
The expression of pain on Porter’s face was answer enough for Maggie. She had come here with questions and suppositions. She hadn’t realized Porter would provide such honest—and monstrous—answers.
“I didn’t think any purpose would be served by telling anyone the truth,” he said. “Or as much of it as I could figure out from hints Victoria gave me. I’ve kept a close watch on her to make sure it never happened again.”
“But it has happened again,” Maggie said. “More than once.”
Porter’s boots came off the desk and landed with two distinctive thumps on the Persian carpet. “The hell you say.”
Maggie stood, laid both palms on the infamous desk, and stared Porter in the eye. “Six children are dead. And I believe Victoria killed them.”
“Children?”
“Every one under ten years old,” Maggie said, her voice strident with anger. “Some of them babies. Six children dead. And if Victoria isn’t stopped, it will be seven, or eight, or God knows how many!”
Porter was on his feet, taking back the position of authority. Maggie straightened up, matching him move for move, her legs spread wide, her fisted hands on her hips.
He shook his head. “Damn it, girl. I suppose it’s that Texas Ranger making accusations against her.”
“They’re not just accusations. The Texas Rangers have proof from autopsies done on victims who were murdered by an overdose of potassium chloride.”
“There’s no proof Victoria committed the murders,” Porter blustered, “or she would have been arrested by now.”
“Kittrick said there were only three people with a common bond to all the victims—Roman Hollander, his nurse, and me. We know there was one more, don’t we? Victoria inevitably found a reason to visit me—to persecute me—on the anniversary of Woody’s death every year. She came to Dallas, and she came to Houston. And she’s been working as a volunteer in pediatrics at San Antonio General for as long as I’ve been counsel there.”
“I swear I never had an inkling of what you’re accusing her of doing.”
“You believed she had killed twice. You were careful to keep Brian safe. Yet you never suspected she would kill again?” Maggie asked incredulously.
An eyelash flickered again, and Maggie saw the truth.
He knew! He knew—or had at least suspected—all along.
“How could you stand by and do nothing to stop her?” Maggie said bitterly.
“She’s my sister.”
“Nine years ago I blessed your soul every night before I went to sleep for coming to rescue me from the depths of despair. But you never did it for me, did you? You did it for her. To give her someone to hate besides herself.”
“She couldn’t bear being near Brian the way he was. That’s why I came to find you.”
“Because you knew she would kill him,” Maggie spat. “Like she killed all those other kids!”
“There’s no proof!” Porter said, pounding the desk with his fist. “Kittrick can’t do a thing to her without proof!”
“You could,” Maggie said.
“What?”
“You could have Victoria committed. You could get her the care she needs.”
He sank into the swivel chair, his fingers rubbing at his temples. “Victoria would never stand for it.”
“You have the power to arrange it. Before she kills again.”
Sweat beaded the old man’s forehead and gathered above his upper lip. Almost the instant the signs of nervousness appeared, he withdrew a pristine handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his age-mottled skin dry. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I can’t help you.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“You don’t seem to understand—”
“No. You don’t understand. If you won’t take care of the problem, I will.”
“What is it you intend to do?”
“Tell Jack Kittrick everything I know, for a start.”
“What good will that do? It doesn’t give you the proof you need. And believe me, if Kittrick tries to arrest Victoria without sufficient—”
“She’s a murderer. She should be put away where she can’t hurt anyone else.”
“She’s the only family I have left.”
Maggie turned and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Porter called after her.
“To find Jack Kittrick,” Maggie said.
“Please, don’t do that, Margaret.”
Maggie turned and stopped like a wind-up toy that quits in midmotion when she saw the huge gun in Porter’s hand. She could hear the slow, steady thud of her heart and wondered why it wasn’t moving any faster. Where was her “fight-or-flight” instinct when she needed it? “Are you planning to use that gun on me?”
“This isn’t just a gun. It’s an 1851 Navy Colt revolver.” He examined it and said, “Quite a relic, actually. Belonged to some ancestor or another—! forget which one.”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t believe you’d shoot—even if that gun was loaded, which I doubt. You’re not Victoria. You aren’t crazy. And you’re not a killer.”
“Are you suggesting Victoria is crazy?”
“Do you really believe she’s not?”
“I could send her out of the country,” he said.
“She wouldn’t go, and you know it. Texas is the only home Victoria knows. She’s like a predator with her territory marked. She’d never give it up. Put the gun down and help me find her before she kills again.”
“It isn’t loaded,” Porter said with a heavy sigh as he opened a side desk drawer and slid the gun back inside.
“I knew that,” Maggie said. Sure she had. That’s why her heart-which had finally kicked into high gear-was galloping in her chest. Whoa, Nellie. Take it easy. We’ve got a long way to go yet today.
From her office she called the number Jack had given her for his beeper and waited impatiently for him to call her back. When the phone rang, she grabbed it.
“Hi, there, sweetheart.”
Maggie was taken aback by the greeting. She hadn’t been called sweetheart for a long time, especially not in such a husky voice. And by someone who had apparently waited for her to call first. Damn him.
She made herself focus on business, when what she really wanted to do was tell Jack she loved him and wanted to spend her life with him. “I have things to tell you. When can we get together, and where?”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She took a deep breath and said, “I have another suspect for you, Jack.”
“Victoria Wainwright?”
“How did you know?” Maggie asked.
“All the murders have occurred the same week of the year everyone died in Minneapolis. If you weren’t the killer, it had to be her. I’ve been waiting for Victoria to make a move in the ICU.”
“You’re waiting for her to kill again?” she asked, frowning.
“I don’t intend to let her go through with it.”
“Isn’t there some way to keep her away from the children altogether?”
“Not without tipping my hand, Maggie. Trust me, I have the situation covered.”
“I’m coming over to help,” she said.
“Someone will be taking over for me at six. Meet me at the doorway to the second floor stairwell at six-oh-five,” he said.
“Why there?”
“Just do it, Maggie.” He hesitated and added, “Please.”
“All right, Jack.” Maggie hung up and headed on foot the few blocks down Travis Street to the hospital. She had barely shoved open the second-floor stairwell door when someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her through the door. She yelped with surprise and resisted for an instant before she heard Jack say, “I’ve missed you. Come here and let me hold you.”
Then she was in his arms, being hugged tight and liking it a great deal more than she knew she should . . . at least, until she and Jack had done some more talking.
Ask him why he didn’t call, a voice said.
Maggie ignored it and said, “Did you have someplace in mind where we can talk privately?”
Jack dragged her down the hall to a room with a hospital bed where the ER physician on call cou
ld come to sleep when things weren’t busy.
“Are you allowed to be in here?” Maggie asked.
“It’s been appropriated for police use,” Jack said, ushering her inside. He closed the door, leaned back against it, and pulled her between his splayed legs.
“Jack,” she murmured as he kissed her throat beneath her ear. “What if a doctor shows up?”
“He’ll have to wait his turn.”
Maggie chuckled. “You Texas Rangers are incorrigible.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “I hope that means I’m going to get lucky.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding children?”
“I’m on my dinner break. We have a half hour.”
“Shouldn’t we do some talking?”
“We can talk later,” Jack said. “First things first.”
He eased his tongue deep into her mouth, and she returned the favor. Jack’s need built quickly, and Maggie’s matched it. She felt a new freedom to enjoy life, liberated by the knowledge she wasn’t responsible for Woody’s death or her father-in-law’s demise. The years of self-denial and self-flagellation were finally over, ended by the knowledge of Victoria’s part in the tragedy.
“Maggie, I want to be inside you,” Jack said urgently as his hand slipped inside her blouse and cupped her breast.
“No more than I want you inside me,” Maggie replied.
Jack made an appreciative sound in his throat. “I like the way you think, counselor.”
They never made it to the metal-railed hospital bed. Jack turned her so her back was to the door, stripped down her pantyhose, hiked up her skirt, and put himself inside her. It didn’t take more than a couple of thrusts before her body convulsed and he climaxed, each of them muffling their cries against the other’s shoulder.
“Damn, damn damn,” he muttered, when he lifted his head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t use any protection.”
Maggie stared at Jack. He’d been careful to use a condom each time they’d made love before, because she’d told him she wasn’t on any kind of birth control. She’d been glad of his thoughtfulness, because the last thing she wanted was an unplanned pregnancy.
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