Special Agent Nanny

by Linda O. Johnston

  There was just one little flaw to that reasoning…but she hadn’t revealed it to anyone.

  For one thing, it would have sounded defensive.

  For another, she would be revealing something that she actually had done wrong.

  Without saying another word, Kelley hurried down the hall toward her first patient’s room.

  And ignored the murmuring behind her.

  THAT EVENING, AS HE prepared to leave KidClub for the day, Shawn was damned disappointed.

  Of course he would be. He’d been trying to think of a way to talk to his chief suspect, Dr. Kelley Stanton, alone, and she hadn’t been the one to pick up her daughter.

  He should have been pleased that he’d gotten the opportunity to meet her ex-husband.

  The condescending ass. Randall Stanton hadn’t been alone, either. Nurse Cheryl Marten had been with him.

  “I’m going to leave now, Shawn.” Marge Ralston’s vivacious voice interrupted his thoughts.

  He turned. “Are all the kids gone?”

  She nodded, and her dark curls bounced round her pretty, animated face. “Yes, we’re the last ones here.” She looked cute, cleaned up without the usual kid-proof smock over her knit top. She hesitated, then said, “I’m going to grab a bite to eat on the way home. Care to join me?”

  “Another time.” He flashed her a friendly smile. She was a chatty woman, and he figured he had already gotten from her all she knew about the flu epidemic and the fire in the records room.

  Which amounted to zilch.

  “Okay.” She looked disappointed. But though she would probably be good company, he knew better than to date someone when on assignment.

  Unless she was part of the assignment. Like Kelley…

  “You’ll lock up when you leave?” she asked.

  He nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

  He wasn’t ready to leave the hospital yet. He needed more information, and not just reports generated by people officially on the investigation, no matter how competently they had handled it so far. He needed to get a feel for what had happened.

  It was what he was good at.

  Yet it had been awhile. He would have to prepare himself for what he would find. What he wouldn’t find. And the way his own damned gut always twisted into knots at arson fire sites.

  Once he was sure Marge was gone, he headed down the empty hall.

  SINCE THE FIRE, Kelley hadn’t trusted Randall to pick up Jenny when he said he would, though she called to remind him.

  As a result, she found herself on her way to KidClub late that evening. Later than anyone should be there.

  As late as it had been the night of the fire, when Jenny had been there alone….

  “No,” she whispered aloud. Her daughter wouldn’t be there. Though Randall had manufactured an excuse for not having retrieved Jenny himself that night, surely not even he would be stupid enough to forget about her now. Or to send his beloved, lying assistant Cheryl to fetch his daughter.

  In any event, Kelley would make certain no one was around.

  That no one had left Jenny.

  When Kelley reached the closed door of the childcare center, she tried it. It was locked. She stood still and listened, just in case. She heard nothing from inside. No whimpers from outside. No menacing crackles or crashes.

  Except… There was a noise from the direction of the former records center.

  Even after six weeks, the area was still cordoned off with yellow tape demanding that no one enter. Kelley had heard that, though experts on fire and water damage repair had made recommendations, reconstruction would not begin until the fire department and the insurance company gave the go-ahead. The walls, or what remained of them, were covered by plywood sheets. One sheet was now a door, kept locked at all times.

  But Kelley had heard a sound from that area.

  Could the arsonist have returned to the scene of the crime?

  Not likely, but someone was there.

  Carefully, she crept down the hall.

  And stopped. Inhaled sharply. The door was ajar. Slowly, quietly, Kelley ducked under the yellow tape. Without opening the door further, she looked inside.

  A man with a flashlight stood in the middle of the damaged but otherwise empty room. He didn’t move. In a moment, when her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Kelley could make out who it was.

  Shawn Jameson.

  What was he doing here? The psych student hadn’t even worked at Gilpin at the time of the fire. He couldn’t be the arsonist. Could he?

  She watched for a long moment. His shoulders were hunched, as if he was in pain. He remained very still.

  She wanted to approach him.

  He aimed his flashlight at the blackened floor. Knelt and touched it. Inhaled deeply, as if absorbing the now-faint odor of burned building materials and paper.

  Though she felt immobilized, Kelley must have made a sound, for he abruptly stood and stared right at her.

  She took the offensive and pulled the door open farther. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” he countered. At first, she thought she glimpsed raw fury in his eyes. But it must have been a trick in the dimness, for his gaze was flat.

  “I heard something and thought I’d better check it out,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I heard about this fire in the news a few weeks back. I was curious, so I figured I’d take a peek.”

  His words were light, but Kelley sensed something behind them. Frustration? Anger? Pain?

  Definitely lies.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to get that cup of coffee now, would you?” he asked.

  To her surprise, she wanted to say yes. And yet—she felt a pang of unease. “Maybe tomorrow,” she replied noncommittally. When it would be daylight. Plenty of people around.

  And she would have had time to prepare herself for a conversation with this very disconcerting man. There were some questions she definitely wanted him to answer.

  “Tomorrow,” he confirmed. “See you then, Kelley. It’s okay to call you Kelley, isn’t it?”

  She nodded automatically, then wished she hadn’t. Being on a first name basis with Shawn eliminated a barrier between them. One she suspected she would miss.

  He brushed past and left her standing there, alone in the burned out, empty room, lit only from the hallway behind her.

  Tomorrow? She didn’t really need those answers. She could always make up an excuse to put off their meeting. Put it off forever.

  Yet she wondered, as she hustled out the door, if she would.

  NIGHTTIME.

  The arsonist stood alone, outside the administrative wing of Gilpin Hospital, and looked up at the stars.

  It was better to look at them far from here, without the bright city lights of Denver interfering. There were a lot of fascinating things in the sky that couldn’t be seen here.

  But Denver was still home.

  And on this side of the building, at this hour, there were few office lights to disturb the darkness.

  The arsonist liked the night, even here. When ambulance sirens weren’t shrieking to herald yet another serious case requiring emergency attention, the area around Gilpin Hospital was quiet, with only traffic sounds interrupting the stillness.

  This was a time when things could be done in darkness.

  Without being seen.

  Like setting fires, when necessary.

  Fires like the very successful one that had destroyed the Gilpin Hospital records center.

  That task had been a pleasure as well as a duty. The arsonist had enjoyed watching the room burn, all the while anticipating the money to come for that job.

  But several weeks later, the job wasn’t over yet. Too many loose ends.

  Like Dr. Kelley Stanton.

  There were things she knew. Things she didn’t realize she knew…yet.

  But she had to be neutralized, in case she recognized them.

  If discrediting her was effective, s
o much the better. It was certainly the least messy way.

  If not…well, there were many kinds of accidents that could occur around a hospital.

  The arsonist would keep an eye on her. Listen to her, and to what was being said about her.

  Report it, when asked.

  And, when ordered, the arsonist would act quickly. Efficiently.

  Effectively.

  Again.

  Chapter Four

  Shawn had a major need to kick someone’s butt. Preferably his own.

  Of course he’d had to visit the scene of the Gilpin fire, and as quickly as possible. He’d done the right thing, waited until it was late and everyone had left—or so he’d thought.

  But he’d still nearly blown his cover.

  Shawn Jameson, childcare worker, had no business being in that burned-out room. And of all the damned bad luck, his number one suspect, the lovely Dr. Kelley Stanton, had been the one to catch him there.

  Since he hadn’t planned his examination of the site, hadn’t been in there long, he hadn’t even gotten much useful information, just initial impressions and the room’s layout.

  Not something he wanted to admit to Colleen that night.

  One way or another, though, he would talk to his lady boss. Like last night, she’d probably call if she didn’t hear from him soon enough.

  He pulled his blue SUV out of the hospital parking lot, spinning his wheels like a demon driver. Out of cussedness, he drove around the block. Past the hospital’s admin wing.

  Past the place where he’d nearly blown his damned assignment.

  He spotted someone standing on the sidewalk below the area where the fire had been, but he couldn’t make out, in the dimness, whether the person was male or female. Whoever it was hurried away, as if wanting not to be seen.

  Damned imaginative fool, Shawn chastised himself. More likely, the person was just being smart, getting out of the way of the loco driver. He took a deep breath, pushed the button to open the window beside him, and slowed down.

  Denver was far from a sleepy city. There were popular restaurants in the downtown area, people strolling sidewalks along the Sixteenth Street Mall, enjoying this cosmopolitan western town.

  Shawn had enjoyed it, too, when he’d first gotten here and joined the Denver Fire Department as a firefighter. Later, he’d moved into the Fire Investigation Bureau.

  “That’s what you do, smart guy,” he told himself aloud as he turned a busy, well-lit corner. “You investigate fires.”

  But for the first few minutes in the Gilpin Hospital records room, he’d felt like a scared kid again. He’d stood there. Remembering.

  He wasn’t sure whether Kelley had seen him then, all his damnable emotions on display. He prayed now that he’d been alone at that moment. He’d needed to be alone.

  But she’d at least seen him start to scrutinize the residue of that scorched room, and that wasn’t much better. It wasn’t something children’s caregivers did. And the impression he made on Kelley was all-important.

  On impulse, he pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of a minimall. He pulled out the cell phone stashed in the glove compartment and called Colleen.

  “I made some progress today,” he told her, watching a kid walk by eating a hot dog from the nearby convenience store.

  It was the truth. Just not all of it.

  “I started my examination of the arson site. I continued my inquiries. And I got our number one suspect to agree to talk to me tomorrow.” That was something he looked forward to. A lot.

  “Good job,” Colleen said. “I’ll be interested in your next report.”

  Me, too, Shawn thought. He was determined it would be a lot better than this one.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Kelley visited Jenny after Randall left her at KidClub. Fortunately, Jenny, though teary-eyed, didn’t create a scene when she left.

  Unfortunately, Shawn Jameson bulldozed her into setting a time and place for their impending meeting.

  If she hadn’t had her mind on that discomfiting situation, she might not have felt so blindsided by what happened later that morning. But when she walked into the room of the third patient on her rounds, she was taken aback to see Dr. Madelyne Younger beside her patient’s bed. The other bed in the room was empty, so there was no mistaking who Madelyne was there to see.

  “Good morning,” Kelley said, but her eyes asked her friend and colleague if anything was wrong.

  “Hi, Dr. Stanton,” Madelyne said cheerfully. “Just came in to see how Tom’s doing today.”

  The patient, Tom Layton, had been admitted for emergency treatment of an aneurysm a week earlier. His surgeon had been Randall.

  Occasionally, despite all the care taken at the hospital, surgical patients like Tom developed infections. That was one of Kelley’s specialties—caring for the infrequent postsurgical infection cases. She had put Tom on a regimen of antibiotics that seemed to be working.

  “And how are you doing?” Kelley smiled at him.

  Tom Layton was a middle-aged man who had indulged too much in his passion for eating and had apparently believed that joining a gym satisfied his need to exercise, whether or not he ever went there. His small brown eyes were morose, but Kelley thought that might be the way he always looked. “Better, but—” He looked toward Madelyne as if for assistance.

  Kelley’s heart sank. She knew what was going on. “You’ve requested a second opinion from Dr. Younger,” she said. “An excellent idea.”

  It had happened more often than usual in the past weeks…since the fire. She had no idea how the rumors circulating the hospital made their way to patients’ ears, but she could guess.

  Yet why would Randall stoop that low? It could bite him in his own wallet. If her reputation disintegrated because of allegations that she had not treated patients properly, her medical practice would disintegrate, too. Then Randall would have to pay more in child support to make sure their daughter was properly provided for.

  “Tom’s family has asked me to take over his care.” Madelyne’s voice was uncharacteristically modulated, and the distress in her eyes told Kelley that she felt embarrassed.

  But the reality was that Kelley had been replaced. Again.

  “Well, then,” she said too cheerfully, making a note on the chart on her clipboard. “I wish you all the best, Mr. Layton. And if there are any questions I can answer for Dr. Younger or you, I’ll be glad to.” She turned and left the room.

  Of course Louis Paxler would be right there, by the nearest nurse’s station. “Dr. Stanton, may I see you for a minute?” he called.

  “Sure,” she replied. “After I powder my nose.” As if she ever refreshed her makeup while on rounds. Today, she wished she carried an under-eye concealer with her, to hide the redness. But that would not dispel the threatening tears.

  She hadn’t felt so upset the first couple of times this had happened. But now…

  It took her a few minutes to calm herself. When she finally left the rest room, Paxler was gone. “He said to call later and set up an appointment,” a duty nurse told Kelley. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She could guess what the administrator wanted to talk about.

  She could conveniently forget to call. Or get too busy. Or— She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was almost eleven. Darn! That was when she had agreed to meet Shawn for coffee.

  She’d figured, when she gave in to his insistence, that she could deal with coffee one time. Make it quick.

  Maybe even learn what he had really been doing in the burned-out records room last night.

  But now she felt too upset to talk to anyone.

  Particularly Shawn. Not that it mattered, but she didn’t want to appear disheveled and weepy to him.

  With a sigh, she headed toward the cafeteria.

  Not to have coffee with Shawn, but to tell him she was too busy.

  SHAWN DIDN’T BUY IT. Or maybe it was simply that he was so damned disappointed.


  Hell, it didn’t matter if she didn’t want his company. He had a job to do. He kept his voice neutral. “Another time, then.”

  They stood just inside the doorway to the cafeteria, where he had been waiting. She had arrived a minute late, her usual clipboard under one arm—only to tell him she hadn’t time for coffee with him.

  “Sure.” She seemed relieved when he acted so understanding. “Another time.”

  To hear her over the roar of voices in the crowded eating area, he had moved close to her. Close enough that he could inhale her clean female fragrance.

  Stop getting distracted, Jameson, he commanded himself.

  He focused instead on the way she looked. Beautiful, as usual, of course. But there was something else, as well.

  “Is anything wrong, Kelley?”

  Her expressive brown eyes held a stricken look, as if someone had dealt her a blow. One the lovely doctor seemed determined to be brave about, but she was clearly having a tough time.

  He wanted to know what was bothering her.

  “Sorry if I seem preoccupied,” she replied with a small shrug of one slender shoulder, “but I’m concerned about a case.” Her smile looked forced. “Doctors worry about patients, like you worry about the kids in your care.” Her soft auburn brows rose as if she expected him to confirm his professional concerns.

  “You’ve got that right.” Actually, he did worry about the kids—and whether what he did would cause them to kill each other. Or him. So far, so good. No one in his charge had suffered an injury worse than a scraped knee.

  Kelley stood stiffly beside him in her tailored white lab jacket. A dark skirt peeked out at the bottom. Who’d have thought that a starchy hospital uniform would hint at ripe curves beneath it? Her low heels made the top of her head reach nearly to his mouth. He could have leaned forward and kissed the top of her auburn tresses, if he’d wanted to. But what he wanted was to keep his mind on business, not on how much this lady doctor turned him on.

  This lady doctor who might have set a fire to cover her butt—or someone else’s.

  “This afternoon, then,” he said too gruffly, then added, to pump incentive into her agreement, “We need to discuss Jenny.”