by Linda Howard
He had expected her to be nervous this morning, maybe a little shy, a little embarrassed. Knowing he was short of time and opportunity, he had taken their intimacy to deeper levels, faster, than he had ever done with a woman before. There wasn't an inch of her body he hadn't touched or kissed in his effort to stake a claim on her that she wouldn't be able to easily dismiss. He had left her asleep in the bed and taken a shower, intending to waken her with kisses, hold her on his lap and pet her, tease her, bring a smile to those too-serious dark eyes—and then make love to her again. But she hadn't been asleep after all; instead, when he came out of the bathroom, she was gone.
She must have run all the way to the hotel; that was the only way she could have avoided him. By the time he got there, she had already checked out by phone, and he hadn't been able to cover all the exits. She had slipped past him again, and a valet in the transportation bay remembered getting her a cab to the airport.
He paged her at the airport, but she hadn't answered. By then, he was so angry she was lucky he hadn't been able to catch her. Instead, he called her home phone and left a blistering message; probably not a smart thing to do when he was trying to gentle her out of her skittishness, but her running had rattled him. The relative coolness of his office washed over his damp skin, wringing a sigh of relief from him. He shed his jacket and rolled his shoulders, unsticking his shirt from his back and raising chill bumps at the sensation. He ran an impatient hand over his hair and the back of his neck. God, he hated child murders. He would rather work a hundred other cases than investigate the death of a child. The helplessness and fragility of the little bodies got to him, hit him hard.
He had a five-year-old little boy in the morgue, dead from a fall down the stairs. An accident, his mother said. But the kid's legs had been covered with small, half-healed burns that she had tried to pass off as mosquito bites, and yellowish bruises had blotched his skin. Yellow bruises were old bruises, healing bruises. He had had an accident on his bicycle, his mother said.
The woman had been terrified. She had sat motionless at the kitchen table, as if she were afraid to move.
Once she did turn her head, when her husband said something, and Marc thought he had seen a dark mark on her neck, just under the edge of her collar.
He knew the signs: the blouse buttoned up to the throat, the long sleeves even in sweltering weather, slacks instead of shorts.
Marc no longer wasted time wondering why a woman would stay with an abusive man, or how a mother could be cowed into silence even when her child was killed. He'd been a cop long enough that nothing surprised him. He did know he had to be careful on this case, because the husband was a lawyer and would know if there was a t left uncrossed or an i undotted. He was also a criminal defense lawyer, which made Marc all the more determined to nail his ass.
The ME would likely discover other evidence of abuse, such as previous fractures. He would determine the marks on the child's legs were from cigarette burns, not mosquito bites, and his report would provide reasonable grounds for arrest. Marc only hoped he would be able to get a warrant before the son of a bitch panicked, knowing his wife would be able to testify against him, and killed her, too. Marc sat down to listen to his voice mail and leafed through the pile of papers that had accumulated on his desk during his absence. Most of it was routine stuff, notices, memos, reports he had requested. He had a lot of contacts in the city, a lot of snitches who would gladly roll over on their buddies rather than get on his bad side. Most of the stuff he heard was penny-ante, but sometimes all it took was a detail that fit into an overall picture he already had, and his case was made. He didn't expect Karen to call, because of the message he had left rather than despite it. It was probably for the best, at this point. When he was completely calm again, he would call her and try to get this courtship back on track.
Her message took him by surprise. He stopped and leaned back in his chair, listening grimly. She sounded subdued. "… I thought—never mind. I acted like an idiot, and I'm sorry." She thought… what? She thought too damn much, that was the problem. He could almost hear the worry going on behind the words. The woman didn't know how to relax and have fun, she had to shoulder the responsibility for everything—
"Shit," he growled, puffing out his cheeks. He should have guessed she would wake up kicking herself for what she would consider wildly irresponsible behavior. He'd been so careful not to spook her before he could get her into bed, she had no idea he was planning anything more than a one-night stand. Leaving her alone in bed while he showered had been a major tactical error, one he would remember. The sexual chemistry between them was so hot it took his breath, and it was even more bewitching because he had known immediately she wasn't very experienced. Not ignorant, not virgin, but not…
accustomed to making love. He suspected she controlled her sexuality as fiercely as she controlled her emotions. But last night, she had relaxed her control and turned into the sweetest, hottest woman he'd ever had in his bed. He hadn't known he could get a hard-on that often, but hell, he hadn't had any choice. She had been in dire need of loving, and he had risen to the occasion. He was experienced, and their lovemaking had been more intense than anything he'd known before. The night must have seemed like nothing less than debauchery to her.
He reached for the phone to call her, then stopped. His temper had cooled, but he was still angry, and
his own control was a little shaky after dealing with that little boy's murder. He needed to talk to her as soon as possible, so she wouldn't have time to buttress her resistance to him, but that need was balanced by caution. He wanted to yell at her, and yelling wasn't a good idea right now. She would withdraw even further and maybe refuse to talk to him again.
He forced himself to continue reading the notices from other police forces, flipping through the computer printouts. He paused when he saw the Mississippi state police had reported a body found just across the state line from Louisiana. The victim, a white male age fifty-seven, name of Rick Medina, had been shot twice with a .22; his money and credit cards had been stolen.
People were shot with .22s all the time; it was the most common of handguns. It was instinct alone that made him pull the report out of the stack. Maybe it was nothing, but this victim was approximately the same age as Karen's father, and Mississippi wasn't that far away.
He had his hands full with the little boy's case right now; he didn't have time to chase down such a tenuous, and probably nonexistent, connection. Still, he couldn't ignore it. He found Shannon standing by the cold drink machine, flirting with one of the clerks. "Hey, Antonio." Shannon straightened, his dark eyes alert. "See you later," he said to the woman, touching her arm as he left her. "What's up?" he asked, ranging himself beside Marc and tilting his head to read the sheet. Marc handed it to him. "I've got to stay with the Gable case—"
"Oh, yeah, the little boy. His sonofabitch father killed the kid, didn't he?"
"Yeah, but I've got to do everything by the book, or he'll walk. Do you have time to do some checking for me?"
"Sure." Shannon read the report. "You got something on this Rick Medina?"
"No, it's just a hunch. See if you can find any connection between Dexter Whitlaw and Rick Medina. They're about the same age; maybe they were in the military together. If they knew each other, it's coincidental as hell that they would both be killed with a .22 at about the same time."
"It's a long shot," Shannon said.
"Sure is," Marc agreed. "Just check to see if Medina was in the military, maybe served somewhere the same time Whitlaw did. Who knows what will turn up?"
Chapter 12
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The patient in 11-A had survived an auto accident and extensive surgery to repair the damage, losing a kidney and his spleen in the process. His surgeon had deemed him well enough to be transferred out of SICU to the regular surgical floor, the patient being alert and stable, eating light but solid foods, his remaining kidney producing urine at a normal rate. His temperature
was climbing, however, and he had declined to eat his evening meal.
The surgeon on duty had managed to hide himself where no one could find him, and he wasn't answering his page. Karen put in a call to Mr. Gibbons's surgeon and kept a close watch on the patient. If he had picked up a post-op infection, the sooner they caught it, the better. Concern over Mr. Gibbons kept her from brooding. It felt good to be back on the floor, in the familiar world of tile floors, medicinal smells, and beeping monitors. Her name tag was pinned to her short-sleeved tunic, the pockets of which were jammed with various bits of paraphernalia that might or might not come in handy. Her stethoscope was slung around her neck, and her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as she walked. Familiar. Good. Despite her expectations, she had managed to grab several hours' sleep before coming to work. She didn't know whether to be glad of the sleep or sorry Marc hadn't called and disturbed her. Evidently, he had decided just to drop the matter, which, when she thought about it, was the most sensible thing to do. They had slept together, she had made a fool of herself, but it was over. He was in Louisiana. She was back home in Ohio, where she belonged. Maybe one day she would be in a reminiscent mood and tell Piper about the hot night she had spent with a New Orleans detective. Piper would be vastly relieved; in her opinion, Karen's love life was a contradiction in terms, because where there was life, there had to be activity.
Mr. Gibbons's surgeon finally called right before Karen went on break. As expected, he was grumpy. In the general opinion of nurses, all surgeons were assholes, but Dr. Pierini was a logical asshole. "Mr. Gibbons's temp is a hundred point eight," she said. "At midnight, it was ninety-nine point seven."
"Shit." He yawned. "Okay. I want a culture so we can see what's going on here. Tell the lab I want the results when I do morning rounds." He rattled off more instructions, then said, "Where the hell is Dailey?"
"Dr. Dailey isn't answering his page."
"Well, find him, god damn it, instead of calling me."
He slammed the phone down, but Karen shrugged as she hung up. She had gotten what she wanted, and whenever she woke someone up at three o'clock in the morning, she was inclined to cut him a little slack. She would be more than happy to find Dr. Dailey, if it were possible. No nurse on the surgical floor had ever performed that miracle, however.
She would be even happier if someone shoved a wire up Dr. Dailey's patootie, so she could hit a buzzer whenever she needed him and light up his life. He could then be found by following the yelps. The nurses' break room was habitually strewn with newspapers and magazines, and the refrigerator harbored new life forms that no one wanted to investigate too closely. Four folding chairs sat around a small round table, and a lumpy sofa, covered in noxious orange vinyl, completed the furniture. A nineteen-inch television hung on the wall, but the video portion had been lost for several months, and the nurses had a lot of fun trying to figure out what was happening by listening to the dialogue and special effects.
Karen took a diet soda from the refrigerator and plopped down on Big Val, short for Valencia, as the orange sofa was not so affectionately known. Sighing with relief, she arched her feet and stretched her tired Achilles tendons and wished she had a basin of cold water in which to soak them. She would have liked to pull off her shoes but knew better; the feet would swell immediately, then she would have trouble getting her shoes back on, and they would be too tight for the rest of the shift. Several days' worth of newspapers were scattered on the floor. Leaning over, Karen grabbed up
several sections to see if anything exciting had happened while she had been gone. She doubted it, but maybe "Dilbert" hadn't been clipped out of the comic page. The cartoons had a way of winding up on bulletin boards in the hospital, with hospital employees' names penciled in. Administration didn't think it was funny.
She leafed through the papers, scanning headlines and photo captions. One photograph grabbed her attention because something about the burned shell of a house looked familiar. "A fire yesterday morning destroyed the residence of Nathan and Lindsey Hoerske—" Why, that was her house! Shocked, she stared at the blackened ruins in the photograph. It had been her house, rather. She had lived in that house for fifteen years. Oh, the poor Hoerskes, just married and so happy to have their own house. They had lost everything they owned, from the look of it. The newspaper said the fire started in the kitchen. Almost as rattled as if she had lost an old friend, Karen laid the newspaper aside. House fires were never just about lost property, they were about memories and dreams. The fabrics of lives were woven together within the protective walls that provided sanctuary from the rest of the world. She had liked Nathan and Lindsey; though she had made up her mind to sell the house anyway, she was glad they were the ones who bought it. They had seemed so much in love, but settled, as if they had found their groove in life and nothing could jar them out of it. Karen had imagined them having a couple of kids, the rooms cluttered with toys and resounding with the happy, high-pitched shrieks of children at play. Now they would have to start over, find another place to think of as home.
Piper breezed onto the floor at six-thirty. She put her hands on her ample hips when she saw Karen.
"Why didn't you call me?" she demanded, scowling.
"I didn't have time." Impulsively, Karen put down the chart she was notating and hugged Piper in apology. "The airline could only get me on a flight that was leaving in an hour. I just grabbed my clothes, called Judy, and ran."
"Well, I guess I'll excuse you," Piper grumbled, returning the hug. "I'm sorry, honey. It had to be rough, even though I know you weren't close to your father. What happened?"
"He was murdered. Shot."
Piper gasped, shocked, and the two other nurses at the station turned around with arrested expressions on their faces. Karen swallowed the lump in her throat. "It was a street shooting. There weren't any witnesses."
Piper blew out a breath. "Jeez, that's tough. Maybe you should have taken off another couple of days."
"No, working is easier." It always had been. If she could keep herself occupied, she could handle anything.
"Why don't you come stay with me for a few days—"
Karen rolled her eyes, then laughed. "You work days; I work nights. What would be the point?"
"Yeah, guess you're right." Piper pondered the situation. She was big-boned with a mop of short black curls and the most friendly face in creation. Just looking at her could make a patient feel better, not because she was a great beauty but because her good humor literally shone out of her. Her love life, unlike Karen's, was more active than Mauna Loa volcano. "Until you transfer back to days, you're on your own."
"Gee, thanks." Karen chuckled at the blithe callousness and hummed a familiar tune.
"I'll be there for youuuu," the two nurses behind her sang in unison. Piper picked up a stapler and brandished it at them.
"You can be attached to those chairs for another shift, you know." Judy Camliffe walked up, her stride brisk. "Hi, guys. Karen, you all right?" Only a few days before, such concern, even from Piper, would have made Karen uncomfortable. Now, however, there didn't seem to be much point in trying to wall herself off; her defenses already had been breached. Despite all her caution and efforts, Marc had slipped through them like a hot knife through butter. And despite all the years she had spent building a wall of anger against her father, she had learned that she wouldn't have been so angry if she hadn't loved him.
She smiled at her friends. "I don't know if I'm all right, exactly, but working is better than not working." She paused. "Thanks for asking."
Judy nodded her dark head, then turned to the pile of charts. "Okay, what's cooking?" Karen filled her in on Mr. Gibbons's worrisome fever, which was now up to a hundred one point three. Lab hadn't called with results of the blood tests, and Dr. Pierini was due to start his rounds in half an hour.
"I'll goose them a little," Judy said, reaching for the phone. "Oh, I found out what was wrong with Ashley."
"Diarrhea, you said."
"Yeah, but what caused it." She turned her attention to the phone. "Oh, hi, this is Judy on the surgical floor. Do you have anything yet on the Gibbons culture? Sure." On hold, she turned her attention back to them. "She thought it was food poisoning the first time it happened, and she raised hell in the cafeteria, but no one else had been sick, so they ignored her. This time, she narrowed it down. Jelly beans."
" Jelly beans?" Piper looked aghast. She loved popcorn Jelly Bellies.
"She's on a diet, so she bought some sugar-free jelly beans for a snack when she went to a movie. Four hours later, the runs started." Judy snuggled the phone more comfortably between her neck and shoulder.
"She went shopping yesterday, bought some more jelly beans, the same thing happened. This time, the jelly beans were all she had eaten. She said she bloated with gas and the cramps were awful."
"On the other hand," Piper said practically, "she probably did lose weight." They all laughed. "Yeah," Judy said, "but she said it wasn't worth it." She turned her attention back to the phone. "Look, is there anything you can do to rush this along? The patient's temp is climbing. This may be staph. Okay. Thanks. I'll call back." She hung up and said to Karen, "They promised to have the results in another fifteen minutes."
