But Camille didn’t understand it. She didn’t need Wyatt. Not as a physical release. She didn’t need him at all. Hadn’t she proven that by living on her own for years without him?
But she wanted him. Wanted him very badly. It wasn’t the same thing.
“I’m not judging you, Delia. I’m telling you his leaving wasn’t my fault.”
“His leaving ruined everything! Twice a week, sometimes three, he would come to me. I knew there were others. Hell, I knew my own damn assistant was probably next in line. But for those weeks and months he gave me something that I craved. It was like going hungry for so many years and suddenly having this feast of treats in front of you. I gorged on him and I loved it. And you took him away. He works thirty miles from here, but won’t return my calls. The only reason he showed up for the debriefing is because the board asked him to, not me. No, he won’t make time for those he left behind. He’s got new conquests. Another CEO. More nurses. We might as well be dead to him. I’m back to being hungry again.”
“So you keyed my car.”
“I was angry with you that day at the hospital. The way you casually threw out to me that Logan wanted to sleep with you,” Delia whispered. “So angry. First with him. When he told me he was leaving I…didn’t handle it well. We fought. I tried to make him understand how good he could have it at this hospital. I would have given him every perk, every advantage I could. But all he cared about was getting as far away from you as possible. I acted out of instinct. And then you said those things…I was so angry.”
Camille closed her eyes. “You need to leave.”
“Aren’t you listening?” Delia waved her arms and pointed to her chest. “I did it. I trashed his car and your car and broke the windows. That was all me. Those patients dying is unrelated. You need to call off the police.”
“How long did Logan stay with you yesterday after I left?” Camille wanted to know.
Delia dropped her face into her hands. “Not long enough. I wanted him so much, but he said he only wanted to be friends. As if I want a damned friend. I think he knew it was me. The car. I saw it in his face when he refused to give Wyatt names. He looked at me and he knew what I had done. I think he was disgusted with me. He left.”
“You must have been angry all over again,” Camille said carefully. This time she found her eyes dancing about the space, looking for a weapon. “And you had plenty of time to race to my house. Wyatt and I hadn’t been in a super hurry. Maybe you had enough time to break in through the back door?”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t break into your house.”
“You left the noose. To scare me. Or you really intended to hurt my cat. Hard to know, isn’t it?”
“You’re insane,” Delia muttered.
No, Camille decided. She was the only person in this room who was not insane. “Very symbolic…the noose. Considering how Logan liked to asphyxiate his lovers.”
Delia’s hands wrapped around her neck as if hiding the evidence of what Logan had done to her. “You don’t know what he’s like. You don’t know how he makes a person feel.”
“Cheap?”
The front door closed behind Wyatt. He stood in the foyer with his arms folded over his chest, his gaze on Delia. Camille didn’t want to admit to herself how relieved she was. It made her feel like the damsel Delia accused her of being.
“I imagine he makes a person feel very cheap and disposable.”
“Wyatt, you need to call off the sheriff.”
“Delia, you’re under the mistaken impression that I have any control over that. There are three dead bodies. The last one is being examined again by an independent medical examiner. One way or another, someone needs to find out what happened to those people.”
“Fine.” Delia nodded. She made an attempt to smooth her hair and tuck in her shirt. “Until the investigation is resolved, the suspension remains in place. Wyatt, I would recommend you turn over your clinic shifts to some other doctor. I can’t fire you without board approval, but—”
“Already done. I’m not leaving Camille’s side until whoever is behind this is caught.”
“A white knight. Like I said,” she spat. “The two of you stay the hell away from me.”
With that she brushed past Camille and Wyatt on her way out the door, slamming it with the full force of her anger.
“You have to love that. She comes here to tell us to stay away from her.”
Camille tried to smile but couldn’t. “She was the one who keyed my car and Logan’s, too.”
“What?”
“She admitted it. I think…I think she was obsessed with Logan. Whatever he did to those people he was with made them a little crazy.”
Wyatt walked over and rubbed Camille’s arms, restoring warmth. Only then did she realize how cold she was. It felt good. His touch.
“Come on, let’s face it. Delia always was wound a little tight. My concern is if she was willing to go so far as to vandalize some cars, what else could she have done?”
“No, I can’t believe she would have killed patients. If for no other reason than that hospital is everything to her. Damaging its reputation isn’t something she would do if it would reflect badly on her.”
“You have to consider that maybe she’s lost the ability to rationalize. What if she thought that by ruining you, your reputation, she could lure Logan back?”
Camille couldn’t accept that. She couldn’t believe that Delia would be so desperate for Logan’s attention that she would commit murder. Breaking a car window in anger wasn’t ending the life of an innocent person.
But isn’t that exactly what had been done?
For the first time the reality of what someone, likely someone she knew and worked with every day, had done came crashing down on Camille’s head. Murder. The word was foreign to her. Almost surreal. But three people were dead and she knew that she wasn’t responsible.
“How did they die, Wyatt?”
“That’s what the medical examiner has to find out. But how hard could it have been? Three people, completely vulnerable after surgery. Nurses, techs, any hospital staff really, could have come and gone. Even in the ICU there’s still enough traffic for a staff member to have gone unnoticed. A pillow to the face. A fifty cc syringe of air into the IV. A drug they haven’t detected or more anesthesia which might not show up on the toxicology as being unusual because the medical examiner is expecting to find it after surgery. I don’t know.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.” Nothing her grandfather had taught her had prepared her for this. There was no rule for defending herself against a murderer.
Wyatt advanced on her, his face close to hers. She could feel his intensity and in some ways it frightened her almost as much as Delia’s ranting.
“Well, you need to start believing it. It is happening. Your eyes, your ears need to be open at all times. You need to be watching everything and everyone coming near you. Because I’m fairly certain that the next person this killer wants dead is you.”
Chapter 12
“You cleaned the refrigerator, too.”
They were standing in the kitchen together, Camille looking on while Wyatt rediscovered his home. After Delia’s dramatic exit, he’d needed something to distract Camille. Commenting on her exceptional housekeeping skills was the first thing that leaped to his mind.
“It doesn’t make sense to put the food you’re going to be eating in an unclean environment.”
Okay. Then he wouldn’t tell her that he hadn’t really cleaned the fridge other than a casual wipe-down since he bought the thing. He lifted the plastic lid on the side of the door. “Even the butter dish holder. Wow.”
He should have worn sunglasses to protect him from the glare off all the white surfaces Camille had revealed. The countertops sparkled, the porcelain sink gleamed and he was sure that if he’d wanted to, he could have eaten off his kitchen floor.
She’d had a busy morning.
And as her re
ward she must have had a grape soda. He saw the open can on one of the shelves and smiled. It seemed silly but he liked that she’d felt comfortable enough to help herself. He also liked that she’d allowed herself to give in to the temptation of her sweet tooth.
Yes, Wyatt was definitely a fan of Camille giving in to any temptations she had.
“I basically cleaned everywhere except…your bedroom.”
“Right. You wouldn’t want to go in there.” That wasn’t as good a sign as the grape soda.
“I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”
Or she was still afraid of that aspect of their relationship and the last place she wanted to be was anywhere near his bed. He hoped he was wrong and she was telling him the truth, but he doubted it. As intense and pleasurable as that night between them had been, he felt as though he was starting all over again in terms of breaking down her walls.
“I hope you don’t mind about the place,” she said, obviously self-conscious. “You did give me the supplies.”
“I don’t. I’ve been concerned about the environment my food has been resting in for weeks now.”
She sighed. “You’re teasing me.”
He was. He figured after the encounter with Delia and him sharing his belief someone wanted her dead, a little teasing was in order. He chucked her under her chin with his knuckle. “I am. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“You’re telling me what you think, although I don’t think you’re right. Whoever was in my house last night only wanted to scare me.”
Or kill her cat. Which didn’t need to be said.
“Do you think it was Delia?” Camille asked.
He could see she didn’t want the answer to be yes. Her expression was all about bracing for pain. She didn’t want to believe that the woman for whom she had worked for so many years would have gone that far for…spite, revenge? For that matter neither did Wyatt. As he’d said to Camille, he always thought Delia was wound a little tight, but killing a cat? Murdering patients in her hospital? It was too far-fetched.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to tell the sheriff about who was responsible for the vandalism to Camille’s and Logan’s cars. If that put Delia on top of the suspect list, then so be it.
“I don’t know. She would have had to haul ass out of that hospital to beat us to your place. Then make a noose out of some rope…I don’t know.”
Camille rubbed her arms. “In a way it might be worse if it wasn’t her. Because that means there is someone else out there who hates me that much. I don’t know if I can stand this, Wyatt.”
He didn’t know if he could, either. Before these spiraling events he would have considered himself a contemporary, intelligent, reasonable man. Yes, he pulled out chairs for women and opened doors because he thought it courteous, but that was as far as his old-fashioned instincts went. He thought women could be strong in many different ways. He knew plenty of them who were as capable of protecting themselves as men.
The last thing he imagined he would feel was territorial and furious about the thought of someone coming close to his woman. Hurting his woman.
But he did. Like he stepped out of the cave yesterday.
The hours he’d been apart from her while he worked his shift in the clinic had been the most stressful of his life. Some primitive instinct in him had screamed that he needed to go back from the time he left her. He needed to watch over her and protect her.
Not only had he found someone to cover his shift, he’d let several of his fellow doctors know he wasn’t coming back until this was all over. Camille needed him. It made him feel as though he wanted to pound his chest and grunt a bit.
If that made him look at her as if she was his to protect, he couldn’t stop it. He was, however, wise enough to keep those primitive grunts to himself. Camille probably wouldn’t appreciate being thought of as his.
“Listen, we need to get your car from the hospital. No point in leaving it there and giving Delia a shot at destroying another luxury vehicle.”
Wyatt waved her forward and, after a last check of the sliding glass door that led to his rear deck, and securing the lock on the front door, he felt Aphrodite was reasonably safe from intruders. As an extra precaution he’d asked his neighbor, a retired cop, to keep his eye on the place. Any hint of disturbance and he would sound the alarm. It was the best Wyatt could do.
Still, he could see Camille looking over her shoulder several times as she headed to the car, wondering if it was okay to leave.
She looked odd to him and it took him a moment to understand why. She was wearing jeans, a casual shirt and sneakers. Clothes to clean in. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but instead of the slick ones she would wear at work, now tendrils escaped around her face. She looked younger than he could ever remember seeing her and he thought about what it must have taken for her to earn the respect of patients who believed she was capable of cutting into their chests.
Now someone had destroyed that. Or was trying to. He wanted to throttle the person. He wanted to hurt Delia in some fundamental way for attacking Camille. What amazed him was that Delia wasn’t the only person who felt that way. Because he couldn’t…he wouldn’t believe she'd kill patients out of some form of twisted revenge.
It was bad for business. And Delia was all about business.
Which meant there was a killer walking around Physicians’ Memorial and everyone in that hospital was a suspect—they were likely the colleagues of a murderer. He needed to believe that. He couldn’t trust anyone or let down his guard with anyone. It would be the only way to protect Camille.
She was standing by the passenger door in the reserved lot in front of his house. He watched her study the Jeep before she climbed into it. “You cleaned it. I noticed last night but I didn’t say anything.”
“It needed it,” he said, keeping his voice casual. But of course he’d done it for her. It was a simple thing to make her feel more comfortable. He wondered how she would react if she knew that for the past few months so many of his actions were designed to bring her closer.
He knew how she’d react. She’d run in the opposite direction.
Tread lightly. It was his new mantra. She was in his house. A few feet away from where he slept. He would make her feel safe and protected and when she was ready, he would close the gap on that space and bring her back to his bed.
Wyatt wondered if this type of manipulation made him slightly evil. But then he didn’t care. All’s fair in love and war.
“Ready?” he asked as he started the car and pulled out of his development.
“No. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I don’t think I would be sad if I never saw that hospital again.”
“You’re reeling from everything that’s happened. When this is over—”
“It will end, right? I mean, I don’t watch much television but I’ve seen enough crime shows to know that they always catch the bad guy. There is a dramatic scene at the end and then the bad guy, the person behind everything, is sent to jail. You have to tell me that’s going to happen.”
He couldn’t. And she knew it. They lived in a small town in New Jersey. The last official murder in town was seven years ago, a domestic dispute that got out of hand. Now they were talking about unknown causes of death, suspicious characters and a host of suspects.
The only two common elements seemed to be Logan Dade and Camille Larson.
“We should talk to Logan,” Wyatt announced. He pulled the Jeep over next to a sidewalk and put it into Park.
“Why?”
“Well, if I’m right and someone is killing those patients as a way to target you, then we agree the reason seems to be the role you played in Logan’s departure. We know Delia was sleeping with him.”
“And Marie.”
“Delia keyed your car and Logan’s. Maybe Marie took his departure a little harder than that.”
“You think Marie could have…”
“I’m speculating,” Wyatt said. He
didn’t want to think a nurse might be capable of murder and he didn’t want to color his judgment of her with crazy ideas. However, a nurse would know any number of ways to kill a patient without leaving a mark and would be the last person to arouse suspicion in a hospital. Wyatt tried not to think about that.
“Ultimately, it’s up to the police to build a case. But someone came after you last night. If I’m right, maybe the same person also tried to run you off the road. That speaks to a violent temper. If we could talk to Logan alone, without Delia and a room full of doctors, he might be more willing to name names. We would know who to be cautious of at the very least. It’s a good idea.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Both of us. I’m not a detective. I solve medical puzzles not criminal ones, but arming ourselves with knowledge can’t be a bad idea.”
“Okay. But it’s Sunday. I doubt he’ll be at the hospital. Do you know where he lives?”
“Yeah, he hosted a poker night once for a bunch of the doctors.”
“I don’t remember anything like that.”
Wyatt laughed. “That’s because it was for men only. Logan made a big to-do of smoking cigars and hiring this girl dressed as a maid to serve us drinks. Said it was important for men to spend time with men. That women weakened us. I thought it was pathetic. It was my first and last poker night.”
With that, he waited for traffic to clear then made a U-turn. He took a quick glance in the rearview mirror to make sure a patrolman hadn’t seen his illegal move, but spotted only a black car behind a few car lengths back.
“Maybe after being with Delia he did feel that way. She was so intense about him…well, I could see how it could be draining.”
The Doctor's Deadly Affair Page 12
