Uncovering Secrets: The Third Novel in the Rosemont Series

by Barbara Hinske

  Simon Wilkens smiled. “Then we can sue the estate of Paul Martin to recover what’s rightfully yours. You might be celebrating next Christmas at your new home—Rosemont.”

  Chapter 38

  Loretta arrived at work thirty minutes late. Nicole had been feverish all night, and Loretta had no choice but to drop her off at the babysitter that morning. Thank goodness the woman would take her children when they were sick. She didn’t know what she would do otherwise.

  She considered letting Mr. Haynes know she was there, but thought better of it. If he were concentrating behind closed doors, he might not realize she had been late at all. No point in drawing attention to it.

  She logged onto her computer and had just begun inputting data when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse, and her heart sank when she saw that the babysitter was calling.

  “Loretta,” the woman said before she could even say hello. “Nicole’s burning up. Her fever is over one hundred five.”

  Loretta slid out of her desk chair and grabbed her purse from her drawer. “Can you give her Tylenol?”

  “Already have. It’s not working. I’ve put a cold compress on her head.”

  “I’m leaving right now.”

  “Drive safely. We’ll be waiting outside. The cold air will help.”

  Loretta opened Frank Haynes’ door without knocking. He looked up, and she ignored the anger flashing in his eyes.

  “Nicole’s got a very high fever, and I need to take her to the emergency room.”

  She was halfway to the front door when she heard, “Will you be back?” She didn’t turn around to answer him.

  ***

  Frank Haynes saved his calculations on his financial statements and heaved himself from his chair. He’d better take a look at Loretta’s desk after she’d left so abruptly. He’d need to make the bank deposit. He was up to his eyeballs in work and resented the fact that he was now completing the tasks he hired Loretta to do. He wouldn’t hire a temporary worker to ease the load—the less people poking around in his business affairs, the better.

  Loretta’s absenteeism was becoming a problem.

  He added up the deposit, banded the bills together, and searched for the bank bag. Loretta was an efficient and accurate bookkeeper. If her attendance weren’t so poor, she’d be a very competent employee. Those three kids of hers posed a problem, especially that sickly one.

  He sat back in her chair. He’d hired her because his sources confirmed that she had been Paul Martin’s mistress. Haynes sighed. He’d tried to pump Loretta for any dirt she had on Paul or Maggie Martin. So far, she hadn’t given him even one speck. And now, for all his trouble, he was stuck grossly overpaying a bookkeeper that didn’t show up for work most of the time. He pushed the chair back from her desk. He’d been a fool to let the situation continue. He knew what he had to do.

  ***

  Frank Haynes pulled into the lot at Mercy Hospital in the late afternoon. He had termination papers and a generous check for Loretta Nash. She’d texted him that her daughter had been admitted for tests and that she didn’t know when she would be able to return to work. Did she really think he could run his business that way?

  He stopped at the reception desk inside the tall automatic doors and was told that the children’s wing was on the third floor. He emerged from the elevator and almost ran into Loretta as she was escorting two children onto the elevator.

  “Mr. Haynes,” she said, brushing the hair out of her eyes. She looked terrible and, although he was no expert on women, he thought she had been crying. “I’d like you to meet my children. This is Sean and Marissa.”

  The boy stuck out his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, sir.” He shook the boy’s hand and turned to the girl as she said, “We’re so glad you hired Mommy. We like it here.”

  Haynes didn’t know what to say.

  “I was just taking them down to the cafeteria to eat. They’re hungry, and we may be here a while.”

  “Why don’t I take them to get something to eat?” he heard himself say.

  “Would you?” she asked. “I really don’t want to leave Nicole.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” he asked.

  She shook her head in warning, and he could see that she was fighting back tears. “Could you drop them at their babysitter? I’ll text you the address.” Loretta dropped to one knee and drew her children close. “Mommy’s got to stay with Nicole tonight. I want you to go with Mr. Haynes, eat a good dinner, do your homework, and go to bed on time.”

  “We want to stay with you,” they both cried. “We want to help,” Marissa protested.

  “You can’t help me by staying here. Being good for Mr. Haynes and doing what I ask is how you can help me.” She hugged them hard and kissed them, then stood and turned to Frank Haynes.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “We can talk about it later. I’ll come back after I’ve dropped these two off.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Haynes,” she said as the elevator arrived and Frank Haynes took charge of the two children.

  With the two strapped into the backseat of his Mercedes sedan, Haynes headed for one of his fast-food franchises. At least he knew what kids liked to eat. He wanted to get them fed and deposited at their babysitter’s so he could finish what he started.

  They were waiting for Sean to finish his shake when Marissa turned to him. “Mommy says that you’re mean a lot because you’re lonely.”

  Haynes stopped with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

  “She says that we should be very grateful to you because Nicole would die without issurence from Mommy’s job.”

  “Insurance,” Sean corrected.

  “If you’re saving Nicole, I don’t want you to be unhappy and lonely,” Marissa said, looking at him with large, solemn eyes. “So I made you a valentine for Mommy to give you on Valentine’s Day. But I want to give it to you now.” She reached into her backpack. “I made it after school, and it took me a whole week.” She straightened and held it out to him.

  Haynes took the construction-paper heart, stiff with glue and heavy with sequins, doilies, and lace, and opened the card with shaky hands. How many years had it been since someone had given him a valentine card? Had anyone ever made one for him? He reached in his pocket for his glasses to read the inscription. In a curly, childish hand, it read:

  To Mr. Haynes Our Hero Thank You for Helping Nicole XXXXOOOOO Marissa Nash.

  “Those mean hugs and kisses,” she said, pointing.

  Haynes stared at the card. He was on his way to fire their mother and take away her “issurence.” He was going to wipe his conscience clean with a check to her that made absolutely no difference to his net worth. He looked over their heads into the dark night outside the long windows. How in the hell had he become this person?

  “Don’t you like it?” Marissa asked, peering at him.

  Haynes cleared his throat. “I like it very much, Marissa. Very much.”

  ***

  Frank Haynes stepped off the elevator on the third floor of Mercy Hospital later that night. The corridor lights had been dimmed and most of the patient rooms were dark, save for the fluorescent lights of monitors and the occasional television. He slipped quietly along the corridor until he came to the room marked “Nash, Nicole.”

  The door was ajar, and he knocked quietly in case Nicole was asleep. No one answered, but he could see Loretta’s purse on the floor in the corner, and he knew she was there. He cautiously pushed the door open and entered the room.

  Nicole was hooked up to an IV and a host of monitors, but appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Loretta, also asleep, was slouched in an uncomfortable-looking armchair, her head leaning against the wall. He stood and surveyed the scene before him. To think that he had been prepared, only a few short hours ago, to take away the poor woman’s job and the benefits that this child so obviously needed. He’d made a lot of mistakes in the last few years—getting involved with Delgado and his
cronies to make a few bucks off the town’s pension fund being the biggest one—but he wasn’t going to make this mistake.

  Haynes reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelope that he’d prepared earlier that day. He removed the termination notice and reinserted the check once intended to be a severance payment. He took a pen from his pocket and scribbled her name on the envelope. On one of his business cards, he wrote:

  Was going to give this bonus to you next payday, but thought you could use it now. F.H.

  He dropped the card into the envelope, sealed it, and stuck it into her open purse. Frank Haynes sighed and took one last look at mother and daughter. If he believed in God, now would be the time to pray. He turned and slipped silently from the room.

  ***

  Loretta shifted in her chair and turned her head to the door. Had someone just left the room, or was she imagining things? She rose stiffly and tiptoed to the doorway. She looked down the hall in time to see a tall man in a long overcoat step into the elevator. Although she hadn’t seen his face, she was certain it was Frank Haynes. Loretta shivered involuntarily and wrapped her arms around herself as she turned and retraced her steps to the chair in the corner of her daughter’s room.

  She checked her watch. The cafeteria would close in thirty minutes. If she wanted something for dinner other than vending machine snacks, she’d better get down there. Loretta picked up her purse and noticed the envelope protruding from the center pocket. She turned it over in her hands, noting her name written on one side in the familiar hand. So Frank Haynes was in this room. Loretta leaned back into her chair and opened the envelope with shaking hands. She pulled out the business card and read the brief message, then turned her attention to the check.

  Loretta gasped and held the check directly in the circle of illumination from the can light in the ceiling. She had read the amount correctly. She collapsed back into the chair, pressing the check to her chest. Ten thousand dollars would make all the difference in the world to her and her kids right now.

  She looked up, past the ceiling, and mouthed a silent prayer, blessing Frank Haynes.

  Chapter 39

  Loretta held a spoonful of scrambled egg to Nicole’s lips. “Come on, honey, you have to eat. Food helps you grow big and strong,” she said, coaxing her to take a bite.

  Nicole wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Tastes yucky,” she said.

  Loretta took a small bit of the egg. She had to agree, it was rubbery and far too salty. “Let me see if they’ve got anything else at the nurse’s station. Maybe some vanilla pudding?”

  Nicole nodded and lay back on her pillows.

  As she made her way to the nurse’s station, Loretta kept looking back at the door to her daughter’s room. She wanted to catch Nicole’s doctor on his morning rounds.

  She was just heading back to the room with cartons of pudding and fruit cocktail when Nicole’s doctor stepped off the elevator. “Ms. Nash,” he called. “I’m glad you’re here. Nicole’s my first stop this morning.”

  “How is she?”

  “Let me look at her this morning, and then we can talk. I have some of the test results back.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “We’ll get to all that,” he said as he walked into her room and greeted Nicole.

  “How are we today, Miss Nicole?” he asked. “Do you mind if I have a look at your hands and feet today?”

  Nicole squirmed when he touched her.

  “Am I tickling?”

  Nicole nodded.

  “Okay—I’ll do my best not to,” he said as he carefully examined her feet.

  He listened to her heart, then examined the area around her eyes.

  “Have you been eating?” he asked, looking at her untouched breakfast tray. “Are you hungry?”

  Nicole nodded. “Not that,” she said, pointing to her tray. “Ick.”

  The doctor smiled. “I’d have to agree with you.” He turned to Loretta. “I see your mom’s got the good stuff from the nurse’s station for you. Will you eat that for us?”

  Nicole nodded as Loretta opened the pudding, inserted the spoon, and handed it to her daughter.

  “You work on that while your mother and I go outside to talk, okay? Can you finish it for us?”

  Nicole nodded happily, digging into the pudding.

  The doctor swept his arm toward the door and followed Loretta into the corridor. “Let’s go into this quiet room off of the reception area,” he said.

  Loretta swallowed the lump in her throat and followed him into the small room. When they were seated, Loretta said, “You’re making me very nervous with all this.” She gestured to the room. “Something must be seriously wrong with her.”

  The doctor nodded. “Nicole has a very rare kidney disease that we sometimes see in children. It’s called nephrosis. That’s why her hands and feet are swelling and she’s puffy around the eyes.”

  Loretta froze and turned terrified eyes to the doctor.

  “The disease is idiopathic, which means that we don’t know what’s caused it. It’s more common in boys, but girls can get it, too. Her kidneys are letting a protein known as albumin leak into her urine, and the albumin level in her blood is low. Her blood cholesterol is also high. It generally strikes children between the ages of two and six.”

  “So what do we do about it?” Loretta asked, forcing herself to calm down and listen to what the doctor was saying.

  “We’ll treat her with a course of steroids called prednisone. Are you familiar with it?”

  Loretta shook her head.

  “It’s a powerful and effective drug, but it can have very serious side effects. You should see improvements right away, and we’ll monitor her with blood and urine tests, and then start a gradual decrease of the drug. You’ll need to follow our dosage instructions exactly. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, of course I can. Will this fix her condition? Will it ever come back?”

  “It might. We just don’t know.”

  “If this drug doesn’t work, or if it keeps coming back—then what?”

  “There are other drug therapies we can try. And eventually dialysis.”

  Loretta gasped. “Would she need to be on dialysis for the rest of her life?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s very rare that a child needs dialysis. The prednisone should work beautifully. We just have to wait and see.”

  “And if drugs and dialysis don’t work? Then what?” Loretta realized that her voice was becoming shrill, but she couldn’t contain herself. “She can’t live a long life on regular dialysis.”

  “I know this is extremely distressing, but we’re nowhere near that point.” He waited for her breathing to return to normal. “If dialysis stops working for a patient, they are a candidate for a kidney transplant.”

  Loretta’s hands flew to her face. “A transplant? Aren’t those touch and go? Isn’t it really hard to get on the list?” she asked and her voice cracked.

  “We’ve been successfully doing kidney transplants for many years. There can be complications, but we know how to manage them. And unlike other transplants, the donor doesn’t have to be dead. A healthy person can live a normal life with only one kidney. A relative might be a very good match.” He leaned toward her and rested his hands over hers. “We’re a very long way from considering a transplant. I don’t want you to worry about that.”

  Loretta forced herself to nod. “What about my other kids? Is it contagious?”

  “Absolutely not. Don’t worry about your other children getting this.” He allowed her to absorb this bit of good news. “I reviewed her lab results this morning, and I think she can go home. Give her the prednisone as directed. The nurse will go over all of it with you. Send her back to school tomorrow. Return to your normal routine as much as you can.”

  “Then what?”

  “You’ll need to bring her in for tests in about eight weeks. Or if she gets worse, of course. Ms. Nash,” he said, looking her squarely in t
he eye. “I’m not going to tell you this isn’t serious, but we’re going to treat her and I expect her to be fine.”

  Chapter 40

  Maggie returned to her desk after her second meeting with the head of the Transit Department. That man can bore the paint off a barn, she thought as she slipped into her chair and pulled her lunch out of her desk drawer. She’d taken him to task for being so slow in implementing the changes approved by the committee. Tonya is probably right—it’s time to replace him. She opened the foil packet containing celery and carrot sticks and began to nibble. She hated firing people. Even if she eased him gently into a cushy retirement, it would still be hard. She was scowling when she reached over to answer her phone.

  “Mayor Martin? Gordon Mortimer here. I hope I’m not getting you at a bad time.”

  “Not at all. And, please, call me Maggie. How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. I’ll get to the point. I’ve done considerable research on your silver collection—consulted my colleagues in London. I trust you got most of it secured in safes?”

  “It’s either in my attic or a bank safe deposit box.”

  “I was low on my estimate of the lot excluding the Martin-Guillaume Biennais. I told you I thought it was worth at least five hundred thousand. I think we’re realistically looking at six hundred to six fifty. The value of silver in such excellent condition has soared in recent years. But the Martin-Guillaume Biennais is the real pièce de résistance. There are several active collectors of his work on the scene right now, with very little available for them to buy. Two of his silver sauceboats recently went at auction for over one hundred thousand dollars. You’ve got nine matching pieces in your tea set. And it’s in pristine condition. My contacts in London think it would bring at least eight hundred thousand dollars at auction.”

  Maggie choked on a piece of carrot. “Are you serious?” she sputtered.

  “Indeed I am. I’ll finish my appraisal report this afternoon and email it to you and the insurer. I wanted to give you the good news myself and make sure you had everything safely tucked away.”