The Pediatrician's Personal Protector

by Mallory Kane

  “They did, but I couldn’t really help them. I don’t think Dad did either. I was interviewed by a very fat detective—if you could call it an interview. I don’t think it lasted twenty minutes. I told him I’d been on the phone with Autumn when she was shot, but all he did was have me write out a statement. His comment was that they didn’t find her—” Christy stopped, and Reilly noticed that her fingers tightened around the mug. “—her phone,” she finished.

  Alarm bells rang in his head. Autumn’s phone.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Did you remember something?”

  “No,” she said, so quickly that he was sure she had. “Nothing. It’s just—hard to remember how unconcerned he was. I’ll bet he never even looked at my statement.”

  Reilly let his gaze slide over her body. The whitened tips of her fingers, her bent head and the stiffness in her shoulders indicated a high level of stress. Stress because she was lying? Or stress due to the events of the last two days? Maybe combined with the pain of reliving her sister’s murder?

  Naturally she was traumatized by her two near misses and her father’s heart attack, but he didn’t think that was all that was bothering her.

  He’d been around her enough to read her pretty well. He’d bet his condo that she was hiding something from him.

  He’d been a hostage negotiator long enough to know her personality type too. If he tried to bully her into telling him what was on her mind, she’d clam up. He had to co-opt her. He’d continue to do what he’d been doing, offering himself as a confidant, proving to her that she could trust him.

  “So you didn’t know any of her friends?”

  She shook her head. “Not after she got out of high school. I told the detective about her best friend in school—Laurie Kestler. But I can guarantee you that Laurie didn’t know any drug users.”

  “How? How are you sure? I mean—she was a friend of Autumn’s.”

  “They’d been friends since grade school. I’m not sure how much they saw each other after Autumn got deep into drugs. But I’ve known Laurie for years. Trust me, she’s not the type.”

  “Not the type? Is that your professional opinion? Because it’s not always that easy to tell, you know. Before you knew that Autumn was into drugs, wouldn’t you have said that she wasn’t the type?”

  Christy set the mug down and looked at him, her face reflecting doubt. A tiny wrinkle appeared between her brows. “I don’t know.”

  He stared at her. She’d lied to him about so many things, but now she was telling the truth. He had to admire her honesty, in this instance at least. Many families of drug users responded automatically to that question. Of course. I could never have believed that my daughter/son/sister/brother would turn to drugs.

  “And yet you’re sure Laurie wasn’t? Why?”

  Christy averted her gaze again. If he was reading her right, and he was pretty darn sure he was, she’d talked to Laurie. Recently. Maybe today.

  “When was the last time you talked to Laurie? Was she at Autumn’s funeral?”

  Christy looked up. “Yes, she came to the funeral. But I didn’t talk to her other than the usual stuff people say at funerals.”

  Pretty smooth. He gave his head a mental shake. He’d made the mistake of asking two questions at once, and Christy had parried him quite nicely. She hadn’t answered his first question. She’d gone straight to the second.

  He made a mental note to find Laurie. “Do you know how to get in touch with her? What did you say her last name is? Kestler?”

  Again, Christy didn’t answer him directly. “When Autumn was killed, Laurie was in school in Florida. I’m not sure where. She’s—she’s probably married by now.”

  “What about her parents?”

  Christy picked up her mug and stood. “Want some more coffee?”

  He shook his head.

  She rounded the kitchen island and poured herself another mug of coffee. The teaspoon chimed against the mug as she stirred in sugar. Her shoulders were stiff, her back ramrod straight.

  “Christy? Laurie’s parents?”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t know them. I’ll check the phone book.” She turned around. “What are you doing today?”

  “First I’m going by the sheriff’s office to check with Watts about that bullet we dug out of the wall. I’m hoping we can get a match. I’m betting that gun has been involved in a violent crime somewhere along the way.”

  Christy took a sip of coffee. “Can you take me to the hospital today? If not, I’ll be glad to rent another car.”

  Reilly opened his mouth, but one look at her face and he decided she was baiting him. He didn’t feel like biting. “Sure. No problem. How soon can you be ready?”

  “Half hour.”

  “Good. You didn’t answer my question. Autumn’s friend Laurie. Did you say her last name was Kestler?”

  “Oh, sorry. Yes. K-E-S-T-L-E-R. But—” She paused. “But it seems to me like they were retiring and moving away—maybe to Florida. That’s where Laurie went to school.”

  “Where in Florida?”

  Christy shrugged without looking at him. “I have no idea. I’m going to take my coffee back to the bedroom and get dressed.”

  Reilly nodded, tamping down his irritation. Once she’d closed the door to the guest suite, he doubled his fist and slammed it down on the table.

  “Damn it, Christy,” he muttered. “What are you doing? Why do you keep lying to me?”

  AFTER REILLY TOOK CHRISTY to the hospital, he headed over to see if Buford Watts was on duty. Since it was Saturday morning, he doubted that Watts had heard anything back from the lab about the bullet they’d dug out of the wall at the Oak Grove Inn. But he wanted to check.

  He found Buford painfully typing up his report using two fingers. “Deputy Watts. Working the weekend?”

  Buford sent him a dirty look. “Wouldn’t have to if people didn’t get shot at on Friday night. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What’d you get on that bullet?”

  “I figured you’d be around this morning wanting to know that. Nothing here. I’ve got someone checking the NOPD database just in case.”

  “Good. I was going to ask if you’d do that.”

  Buford stood and picked up his coffee cup. He gestured with it toward the coffeepot that sat on a table next to a water cooler. Reilly shook his head but followed Buford, who poured himself a cup of the strong, vile-smelling stuff.

  “What is it with you and that serial killer’s daughter?”

  Reilly grabbed a paper cup and filled it with water and downed it. “She needs to know what happened to her sister. Needs to understand how her sister’s death affected her father.”

  Buford snorted. “It turned him into a serial killer, that’s how it affected him.”

  Reilly nodded reluctantly. “That’s what you and I see. But what Christy sees is that her sister is dead and her father might as well be. You know he had a heart attack, right? She feels like she’s lost her whole family. She needs answers and I intend to find them for her.”

  “So you fancy yourself some kind of Don Quixote?”

  Reilly raised an eyebrow at the detective. “Don Quixote?”

  “Yeah, what? You didn’t know I could read?”

  “I figured you could read. But I didn’t picture you as a romantic.”

  Buford eyed him narrowly. “I’m pretty sure I’m not the romantic here.”

  “Give me a call as soon as you hear something about that bullet, will you?”

  “Deputy Watts,” a rookie deputy called out, waving a sheet of paper. “This fax just came in for you.”

  Buford took a gulp of coffee. “Well, bring it over here, kid.”

  The young man brought him the sheet of paper and Reilly moved closer to read over Buford’s shoulder.

  “It’s about the bullet,” Reilly said, unable to contain his excitement.

  “Yeah,” Buford drawled, taking his time reading the fax. “Looks like the b
ullet we took out of the wall of your girlfriend’s room matches the bullets recovered from the body of a mugging victim, Autumn Moser—” Buford’s voice stopped. He raised his gaze to Reilly’s.

  “What?” Reilly grabbed the sheet of paper. Had Watts said what Reilly thought he had?

  “Hey!” Buford yelled. “Gimme that!”

  “Autumn Moser! That’s Christy’s sister. This means whoever shot at Christy last night used the same gun that was used to kill her sister. I’ll be damned! Whoever he was, he kept the gun.” Reilly’s chest was burning with excitement. Was it really going to be this easy?

  Now, if they could just get a lead on who had been outside the Oak Grove Inn last night, shooting at Christy, maybe they’d have Autumn Moser’s killer. “You’ve got to love stupid criminals.”

  “Delancey, give me that fax,” Buford said. “I’m warning you.”

  “Can I get a copy of it?”

  Buford shot him a warning look. “When it’s logged into evidence and made a part of the record of the shooting last night, I’ll get you a copy.”

  Reilly opened his mouth.

  “And not one second before,” Buford snapped. “You know the procedures.”

  “Yeah, I do. But Buford—that’ll be Monday. You could just run me a copy, since it’s the weekend. This could be the break I’ve been looking for. If I can find that gun, I’ll have Autumn Moser’s killer.”

  “This isn’t your case, Delancey. I’ll get you the information as soon as I get it.”

  “And anything else you find out about that bullet, as soon as possible.” Reilly thought about Detective Samhurst’s report from Autumn Moser’s case file. “Wait a minute. There’s a partial fingerprint on one of the shell casings they found near Autumn Moser’s body. I’ve got the file. I’ll fax a copy to you as soon as I get home.”

  As Reilly headed out, he heard Buford’s voice behind him. “Watch out for those windmills, Quixote.”

  CHRISTY SAT IN A straight-backed chair in her father’s cubicle in the cardiac care unit. He was asleep. The nurse had explained that he was being given morphine to keep him sedated because of the lidocaine, which they were giving him to maintain his heart rate. Lidocaine caused hallucinations in some patients, and the attending physician wanted Mr. Moser to be as quiet as possible so as not to overtax his heart. He was already on oxygen.

  Any further stress, the nurse had said, and they’d have to put him on a ventilator.

  Christy knew from her own medical training that the prognosis for her dad wasn’t good.

  The cardiologist had discussed with her the amount of damage the myocardial infarction had done to his heart muscle. She knew, unless a miracle occurred, that it was only a matter of time before she’d have to make the decision whether or not to put him on a ventilator to breathe for him. She agreed with the cardiologist that the chances of him surviving the amount of damage to his heart were extremely slim.

  The nurse stuck her head around the curtain. “Dr. Moser, I’m afraid morning visiting hours are over. I could let you stay about five more minutes, but—”

  “No, that’s fine. I know you have rounds. I’ll get out of your way.” She stood and kissed her dad on the forehead then stepped out of the room.

  “I have an appointment,” she told the nurse. “I won’t make it back here in time for the noon visitation, I know. If I can’t get back before the afternoon visitation is over, can I check with you about seeing him for a few minutes once I do make it back?”

  “I go off duty at four. But I’ll let the evening nurse know,” the nurse said, smiling at her. “Meanwhile, we’ll take good care of him.”

  Christy walked down the hall past the CCU waiting room and on to the elevators. She glanced at her watch. Reilly had asked her if she’d be okay until he got back at around four-thirty. She’d said that was fine. She’d be there for three visitation times: ten o’clock, noon and four o’clock.

  At the time, she’d been sincere. But while she was waiting for the slow hands of the clock to move around to ten o’clock, she’d dialed the number listed for Glo on Autumn’s SIM card. A man had answered.

  “Can I speak to Glo?” she’d asked.

  After a pause, the man had asked, “Who is this?”

  “A friend,” she’d mumbled.

  “Yeah? Well, if you were a friend, you’d know Glo ain’t here. Why don’t you try her deadbeat brother, Jazzy?”

  Christy had hung up, then paged through the list of contacts until she’d come to the number listed for Jazzy. She’d pressed the call button.

  A rusty voice had answered. Christy hadn’t been able to tell if it was a man or a woman. She’d pitched her own voice low and gravelly. “Glo?”

  “Yeah?”

  Surprised that she’d actually reached the girl, she’d cleared her throat. “Glo,” she’d said in a more normal voice. “My name’s Christy. I’m Autumn Moser’s sister.”

  “Wha—? Who?”

  “Glo. I need to talk to you. You were Autumn’s friend, right?”

  “Autumn? She’s dead.” The words had been halting and a bit slurred.

  “I know. Where are you? I need to ask you something. And—” Christy had paused, wondering if what she was about to do was illegal. She was a physician, and it sounded like Glo was an addict. There were laws about writing prescriptions for known addicts. But did those laws extend to providing them with the money to buy drugs themselves?

  Even if she was skirting the law, it was the best chance she’d gotten yet to find out who Autumn had been with on the day she died. She’d decided it was worth any possible risk.

  “Glo, Autumn wanted you to have something. Can I bring it to you?”

  “Me? What?” The voice had perked up slightly at Christy’s words.

  “Well, it’s—it’s money, actually.”

  Christy’s ruse had worked. Glo’s tone had changed immediately, once she heard the word money. She had given Christy an address in a rough section of Mandeville.

  Exiting the elevator on the first floor of the hospital, Christy walked quickly out to the curb and flagged a taxi. When she told the driver where she wanted to go, he stared at her.

  “Salvation Road? No way. I don’t go down there.”

  She held up a hundred-dollar bill. “There’s another one for you if you’ll take me there and wait for me.”

  The driver took the hundred, then met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Lady, you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Christy didn’t answer him, she just waved a second bill.

  The driver flipped the meter. “Extra C-note or no, I ain’t sticking around if there’s any trouble.”

  Christy swallowed hard, but nodded. All she could do was hope there wouldn’t be a reason for him to leave.

  It took over twenty minutes to get to Salvation Road. He stopped at a row of shotgun houses that were badly in need of repair. A few were nothing but roofless shells. The street looked as if it had been devastated by a hurricane last week rather than five years before.

  Christy got out of the taxi. “Please don’t leave me,” she said to the driver. “Honk or something if you can’t wait any longer and I’ll come out. I promise. This shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes anyway.”

  The driver nodded once. She didn’t believe for a second that he’d honk to warn her before he got the hell out of there. She had to hurry.

  Chapter Ten

  She knocked on the cracked and peeling door. After about fifteen seconds, when no one appeared, she knocked again.

  The woman who answered the door was definitely impaired by something. When she opened the door a crack to peer out, Christy saw how pale and thin she was. Her hair was unwashed and stringy, and the T-shirt she wore had stains on it that Christy didn’t even want to speculate about. Dear God, had Autumn lived like this?

  “Are you Glo?” she asked.

  “Who wants to know?” the woman rasped.

  “I’m Christy Moser.”
>
  Glo wiped her red nose with the back of her hand as she squinted against the bright afternoon sunlight. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “I was attacked.” She waved a hand. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Yeah,” the girl muttered. “You got something for me?”

  Christy took a deep breath and said more firmly, “Yes, as soon as you answer a few questions.”

  Glo frowned and glanced behind her, then nodded. “I thought it was a gift, from Autumn.”

  Christy shrugged. “I made that up.”

  Glo grimaced. “Well, you better not stand out there.”

  Christy glanced back at the taxi. The driver was scowling, but at least he was still there.

  This is probably a big mistake, she thought as she stepped inside. The dark, cramped living room was strewn with foam containers, discarded clothes and beer cans. Ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts. The air stunk of all of that and more—much of it rank and distressingly identifiable.

  Glo stood with her back against the closed front door. “What do you want to know?” she asked hoarsely.

  “You knew my sister, Autumn.”

  “Yeah.”

  Christy sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I need to know who she was seeing. Who she was with the day she died.”

  Glo shook her head. “I ain’t got no idea,” she muttered, crossing her thin arms across her chest.

  “Glo, please. You were in school with her. You must know something.”

  “What’s going on?” Glo asked. “Autumn’s been dead for a long time.”

  Christy nodded miserably. “Five years. I didn’t take care of her when she was alive. But I want to find out who killed her.”

  The girl ducked her head. “I heard it was a mugging.”

  Christy lay her hand on the girl’s thin arm. “You know it wasn’t. Come on, Glo. Give me something.”

  Glo looked beyond her. Christy forced herself not to turn and follow the girl’s gaze. There was someone else in the house. Someone Glo was afraid of.