Unexpected Father

by Delores Fossen

  She bobbed her head in an almost frantic nod. "Now I remember. I took the CD from my computer at the office and got into my car in the parking lot." Lilly froze. Her gaze froze, too, for several long moments before slowly coming back to his. "The CD wasn't with me when I had the accident?"

  "No." This conversation was quickly taking them into uncomfortable territory. Because of their history together and because it didn't fall under his department, the best thing he could do was to back away. He definitely shouldn't be the one to interrogate her. "Look, you have enough to deal with right now—"

  "And stalling won't help me deal with it any faster, okay? Tell me what's wrong, Jason."

  He couldn't. The timing sucked, and whether Lilly believed it or not, she wasn't strong enough, mentally or physically, to hear the truth.

  "You're still stalling," Lilly pointed out.

  Yes, he was.

  And he would continue to do so until he'd taken care of a few things. Such as security, for instance. At a minimum, he wanted a guard posted outside her room. Just as a precaution, especially since no one other than the medical staff and he knew that she was out of the coma. Then he needed to get the doctor's approval to allow the lead detective to tell Lilly what would essentially be yet another bombshell. One even bigger than the one he'd already delivered.

  Because nineteen months ago, Lilly's car accident hadn't really been an accident.

  In fact, Jason was about a hundred percent certain that someone had tried to murder her.

  * * *

  THE ROOM was too quiet.

  No voices. No doctors. And definitely no Jason. He'd left hours ago with a promise to return. Lilly repeated his words now, using the Terminator's thickly accented voice, and she added a hollow laugh.

  God, how Jason must hate her.

  First, there was her part in Greg's death. Or from Jason's perspective, not her part. She was entirely responsible. She accepted that. She was responsible. And no amount of penance, wishing or grieving would bring Greg back.

  Nothing would.

  Of course, Jason now had a new reason to despise her: Megan. He no doubt saw her as a threat to his custody. That was true, as well, a realization that didn't make Lilly feel like issuing even a hollow laugh. This would almost certainly turn into a long battle where there would be no winners, least of all her daughter.

  Lilly tried to force her eyes to stay open. Hard to do, though. If the clock was accurate on her bed stand, it was already past midnight, the end of what had been one of the most exhausting days of her life.

  She could blame the fatigue in part on the physical therapy that she'd demanded. A two-hour session. Grueling. Painful. Essentially she'd discovered during the session that her muscles felt like pudding and were just about as useful. It would take "lots of time and hard work," the physical therapist had said, for her to regain complete use of her limbs.

  Lilly didn't mind the hard work, but she wouldn't settle for the lots of time.

  She planned to be walking by the end of the week.

  It wasn't exactly an option, either. She needed to be mobile so she could see her daughter. She wanted to start building a life with the child she hadn't even known existed until six hours ago.

  A child she already desperately loved.

  She hugged the picture to her chest and tried to stave off the tears. She failed. They came anyway. Tears of joy and sadness. The joy was there because she had a precious little daughter. The sadness, because she'd already missed so much of her baby's life.

  She wouldn't miss anything else.

  Thanks to Jason, her baby had apparently been well cared for—by the last man on earth whom she thought would do her any favors. Of course, Megan was his flesh and blood, as well. Greg's daughter. Jason's niece. That was probably the real reason he'd stepped up to the fatherly plate. He'd loved his brother. Therefore, he'd love his brother's child.

  In spite of the fact that Megan was her child, too.

  There was true irony in that. Her sworn enemy had her daughter. Not just had her, either. Jason was her legal custodian. A father by law. And he was the only parent Megan had ever known. It wouldn't be easy for her to try to find her place in her baby's life.

  But she did have a place.

  And no matter how hard it was, she would find it.

  Her eyelids drifted down again, but she fought it. It was irrational, but the thought of sleep actually terrified her. Because she might not wake up. Because she might lapse into another coma and stay there. In a permanent vegetative state. Alive in name only.

  "That won't happen," Dr. Staten had promised her when he'd checked on her after the physical therapy session.

  However, Lilly hated to take the chance. Still, she couldn't stop her eyes from shutting. She couldn't stop the fatigue from taking over. And the quietness of the room and the night closed in around her.

  Clutching her daughter's picture, she drifted off to the one place she didn't want to go: sleep.

  She dreamed of walking, her hand gently holding her daughter's. Of hope. Of a future Lilly hadn't even known she'd wanted until she'd seen the photo of Megan. Her baby's smile. Her eyes.

  Then the dream changed.

  It became dark and Lilly felt pressure on her face and chest. Painful, punishing pressure that made her feel as if her ribs were ready to implode.

  She fought the dream, shaking her head from side to side. When that didn't work, she shoved at the pressure with her hands and forced herself to wake up.

  Her eyes flew open.

  The darkness stayed.

  So did the god-awful pressure.

  It was unbearable. She couldn't breath. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move.

  It took a moment to understand why. The darkness and the pressure weren't remnants of the dream. They were real. Very real. Because someone was shoving a pillow against her face. Suffocating her.

  Someone wanted her dead.

  Chapter Four

  The panic and the adrenaline knifed through Lilly, hot and raw. It was instant. Like a fierce jolt that consumed her. Fight or flight.

  Do whatever it takes to survive.

  Lilly managed to make a muffled, guttural sound. It wasn't quite a scream, but she prayed it was loud enough to alert someone. Anyone. And she began to flail her arms at her attacker. She fought. Mercy, did she ever fight. She wouldn't just let this SOB kill her. But her pudding-like muscles landed as helpless thuds on the much stronger hands that were smothering her.

  Who was trying to kill her?

  Better yet, how could she stop it from happening?

  Even over the pounding of her heartbeat and the rough sounds of the struggle, she heard the footsteps. Frantic. Fast. Someone was coming.

  Just like that, the pressure stopped. Lilly didn't waste any time. She immediately shoved the pillow aside and, starved for air, gulped in several hard breaths so she wouldn't lose consciousness.

  She quickly looked around to make sure her attacker wasn't still here. The room was pitch-black. Well, maybe. She couldn't tell if the darkness was real or some leftover effect from nearly suffocating.

  "I need help," she called out.

  The footsteps merged and blended with others, until Lilly was no longer able to distinguish which were coming and which were going.

  "Hell," someone said.

  Jason.

  He ran to her bed and looked down at her. He made a split-second check, probably to make sure she was still alive and well. The alive part was true, but it might be eternity before she could achieve the well part. She was shaking from head to toe and was on the verge of losing it.

  Jason already had his standard-issue police Glock drawn, and he whipped his aim around the room. Ready to fire at the intruder.

  But no one was there.

  On the far end of the room, the window was open and the gauzy white curtains fluttered in the night breeze. It would have been a tranquil scene if a would-be killer hadn't just used it as an escape route.

&nb
sp; Jason raced to the window, and while still maintaining his vigilant cop's stance, he checked outside. Cursed again. He used his cell phone to request assistance. His hard voice echoed through the room and her head.

  "Are you okay?" he asked, hurrying back to her.

  Lilly tried to take a quick inventory of her body. "I think so." But she had no idea if that was true.

  "We can't stay here," Jason informed her.

  He reached down and scooped her into his arms. Not a loving act. Far from it. Clutching her against his chest, he rushed her out of the room. Probably in case her attacker returned.

  A truly horrifying thought.

  She didn't want the person to get away, but Lilly wasn't ready for round two, either. She was, however, ready for an explanation, and she was fairly sure that Jason was the person to give it to her.

  "Earlier you were stalling about telling me something," Lilly said. Her teeth began to chatter and she suspected she might be going into shock. Great. As if she didn't have enough to deal with. Well, the shock would have to wait. She needed answers. "And I think that 'something' is important, that it has to do with what just happened."

  "Yeah." Jason took her up the hall and to the deserted nurses' station.

  "Yeah?" she repeated, amazed and frustrated that he'd dodged her question once again. "The time for stalling is over, don't you think?"

  Jason deposited her onto a burgundy leather sofa in the small lounge just behind the nurses' station. The cool, slick leather didn't help with the chills that had already started.

  With his own breath coming out in rough, frantic gusts, he glanced down at her. Just a glance. Before he turned his attention back to the doorway. Standing guard. Protecting her. Or rather, trying to.

  "W-well?" Lilly prompted, curling up into as much of a fetal position as her stiff muscles would allow. "Don't you have something to tell me? Wait—let me rephrase that. You have something to tell me, so do it."

  He nodded, eventually. "Your car accident probably wasn't an accident."

  She watched the words form on his lips. Tried to absorb them. Couldn't. It was next to impossible to absorb that someone wanted her dead, especially since she couldn't recall anything about what had happened to her nineteen months ago.

  "And what about tonight?" Lilly asked, afraid to hear the answer. "What happened?"

  "This obviously wasn't an accident, either." Jason's jaw muscles stirred as if they'd declared war on each other. "Whoever tried to kill you nineteen months ago—I think he's back."

  * * *

  WHEN HE SAW the lanky, blond-haired detective making his way up the hall toward him, Jason ended the call with his lieutenant and stepped out of the doorway to Lilly's new room. He wanted to give his fellow S.A.P.D. peace officer his undivided attention. Unfortunately, it would be next to impossible to do that because of what the lieutenant had just requested.

  Or rather, what the lieutenant had ordered him to do.

  Talk about the ultimate distraction. That order kept repeating itself through Jason's head, and he doubted it'd go away any time soon. Especially since he had no clue as to how he could carry it out.

  "Please tell me you have answers," he said to Detective Mack O'Reilly. Jason kept his voice low so he wouldn't wake Lilly. To get her to fall asleep, it'd taken nearly a half hour of questions and assurances from him that she was safe. Jason didn't want to go through that again until he could make good on those assurances.

  If that were even possible.

  O'Reilly shrugged. "I have answers, but I don't think you'll like them. There's only one surveillance camera in or around this entire place. It's in the parking lot and static, fixed in only one direction."

  Jason tried not to curse. "Let me guess—the wrong direction?"

  "You got it. It was aimed at the center of the parking lot. Someone came up from the side and, while staying out of the line of sight, smashed the lens with a rock. All we got for a visual was a shadow. The crime-scene guys are dusting both the camera and the rock for prints, but it looks clean. Whoever it was probably had on gloves."

  Definitely not good. Jason had hoped for a sloppy crime scene, even though deep down he'd known it wouldn't be. Whoever was behind this was brazen. Yes. Determined—that, too. Maybe even downright desperate.

  But not sloppy.

  Jason had personally gone over every inch of Lilly's room and hadn't found even trace evidence.

  "How about the rookie guarding Ms. Nelson's room?" Jason asked. "Did you find him?"

  O'Reilly nodded. "He was in the utility closet at the end of the hall. Duct tape on his mouth, hands and feet. He has a goose-egg-size lump on his head, and someone had used a stun gun on him, but he can't remember being knocked out."

  Probably because the guard had fallen asleep.

  This time, Jason didn't even try to contain his profanity, but it was aimed just as much at himself as it was at the guard. When Jason had checked on him about a half hour prior to Lilly's attack, the guy had looked a little drowsy. Jason had asked if he'd wanted to be relieved, but he'd said no, that the double espresso he was sipping would keep him awake all night.

  Yeah, right.

  Jason wanted to kick himself. Hard. How could he have let this happen?

  He'd been positive that nineteen months ago someone had tried to kill Lilly. That's why he'd had a guard assigned to the convalescent hospital in the first place. What he should have anticipated, however, was that one guard wouldn't be enough. After all, the person responsible for this latest attempt on Lilly's life had no doubt been the one who'd forced her off the road and left her for dead.

  Getting past one guard in the middle of the night obviously hadn't been much of a challenge. Murdering Lilly wouldn't have been a challenge, either, if Jason hadn't returned to the hospital to talk to Lilly's doctor about additional security measures for the facility.

  Ironic.

  While he'd been discussing the need for extra security, someone had been breaching it. And Lilly had nearly paid for that breach with her life.

  "So far, no witnesses," O'Reilly continued. "But we're canvassing the neighborhood. Something might turn up."

  Not likely. It was late. Midweek. The small downtown hospital was surrounded by specialty shops that mainly did business from ten to six o'clock. That meant there probably weren't a lot of potential witnesses milling around to see someone escaping through a window.

  "I gave one of the detectives the names of two suspects, Wayne Sandling and Raymond Klein," Jason explained. "Both are former attorneys. About two years ago, Lilly uncovered some information that caused them to be disbarred."

  What she'd uncovered, though, wasn't an offense that would have earned them jail time. While Sandling and Klein had been working as advisors to the city council, the two had somehow managed to get a construction company a lucrative contract to renovate historic city-owned buildings. The problem? The owners of the construction company were Sandling and Klein's friends. A definite conflict of interest. That suspicious contract wasn't enough for an arrest and, coupled with other similar unethical activity, it was barely enough to get them disbarred and fired as city council advisors.

  But Jason knew there was more.

  His brother, Greg, had even suspected it. After dealing with Sandling and Klein on a city contract deal, Greg too had noticed inconsistencies with bid dates and altered estimates that had ultimately cost him a contract to do auditing work for the city. Greg had been more than ready to request an investigation into the two attorneys' dealings. It hadn't happened, of course.

  Because Greg had died in the car accident.

  "Sandling and Klein have already been contacted," O'Reilly assured him. "Neither seemed pleased about that."

  "I'll bet not. I want them questioned—hard."

  "Absolutely."

  Not that it would do much good. Questioning them hadn't been effective nineteen months ago. Jason had no doubts about Sandling's and Klein's guilt as far as unscrupulous business pra
ctices, but what was missing was solid proof that their unscrupulousness had gone much deeper than what the police had already found. There was no remaining evidence since the files that Lilly had copied from her computer had disappeared the night she'd been run off the road.

  Jason knew that wasn't a coincidence.

  Detective O'Reilly craned his neck to peer over Jason's shoulder. "By the way, how's Ms. Nelson?"

  "Other than a few bruises, she wasn't hurt physically."

  He couldn't say the same for her mental health, though. Here she was, only hours out of a coma. Hours where she'd learned she had a daughter that she hadn't even known she'd conceived. That in itself was enough trauma to face, but Lilly now had to deal with the aftermath of an attempted murder and a full-scale police investigation.

  Jason looked back at Lilly, as well, and saw that she was in the exact place he'd left her. Well, sort of. She was still in the hospital bed. Still asleep. But it wasn't a peaceful sleep by any means. Her arm muscles jerked and trembled as if she were still in a fight for her life.

  Which wasn't too far from the truth.

  Someone wanted her dead, and wanted it badly enough to have tried not once but twice. Jason had been a cop for nearly eleven years and had learned a lot about criminal behavior.

  This guy wasn't going to give up.

  But then, neither was Jason.

  It'd been a mistake not to beef up security, a bigger mistake to let down his guard, and he wouldn't do that again.

  "Who knew Ms. Nelson was out of the coma?" O'Reilly asked.

  It was a question Jason had already asked the hospital staff, and he'd gotten answers that hadn't pleased him. "Too many people. One of the nurses called a few friends to tell them the news. Another nurse called Lilly's former secretary—again, to share the good news. The doctors spoke to colleagues. Even Lilly's insurance company was contacted."

  Jason couldn't consider himself blameless, either. He'd told Megan's nanny, Erica, though he didn't think Erica would pass on the information to anyone. And of course, there'd been paperwork processed at headquarters to assign the cop to security detail outside Lilly's room. In others words, at least several dozen people had learned that Lilly was no longer in a coma, and obviously one of those several dozen was someone who wanted her dead.