Special Agent Nanny

by Linda O. Johnston

  When she stood up again, she found herself staring longingly at him. Too bad she couldn’t get a goodbye hug and kiss from him, too. Both amusement and desire glimmered in his blue, blue eyes. He looked as if he understood and shared her thoughts.

  How had she ever thought those eyes cold? Today, they were the color of a sun-warmed pool that tempted her to jump in.

  Maybe later…?

  Marge Ralston walked into the room. Kelley gave her a hearty, “Good morning,” and prepared to flee, in case the evidence of how wonderfully she had spent last night was legible in the smile on her face. “See you later, Jenny,” she called. “See you later, Shawn,” she said more softly. She felt his gaze envelop her as she headed for the door.

  Kelley lingered long enough to wrap an uncut chocolate-covered doughnut with peanuts in a napkin as she left.

  Which was fortunate, for as she entered the medical center’s nearly empty elevator lobby, she saw Juan.

  “I apologize for being late.” She handed him the doughnut she’d brought especially for him.

  “No problem.” He smiled, then used his large front teeth to take a big bite of the rich confection. “Excellent.” He chewed and swallowed. “I just bring them early because I have to get here early.” He wiggled the mop handle he balanced in his other hand. “The better to finish early, you see?”

  “Sure. So if it’s all right, Jenny and I will treat again next Friday.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Finishing his doughnut, Juan turned away and began mopping with long, experienced strokes along the linoleum floor.

  But Kelley had a thought. Juan had been in on the hospital gossip on that rare day when she’d been lauded for her diagnosis of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. He’d known also of the ebb to her reputation due to claims of ineptitude in the Silver Rapids cases. Maybe he’d know if more was being said, courtesy of exalted administrator Louis Paxler and his unearthing of the troublesome forged document.

  “Juan, have you heard any more rumors about me in the last day or so?”

  He turned, a puzzled expression in his wrinkle-bound brown eyes. “Rumors? I don’t think so.” His grin turned up the edges of his trim mustache. “Have you shown up one of the other doctors again?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. And then she sobered. “Someone warned me that a less complimentary rumor might be starting, so I was just wondering.”

  Juan shrugged one husky shoulder beneath his gray uniform shirt. “If I hear anything, I’ll tell you. But I only learn when I overhear the doctors and nurses talking. They don’t tell me what’s on their minds.”

  AS SOON AS SHAWN COULD reasonably take a break that morning, he headed for the sidewalk outside Gilpin Hospital. His cell phone worked best there, and people generally bustled by and were therefore unlikely to overhear what he said.

  A breeze as soft as summer wafted around him, and when he looked up and beyond the closest buildings, he imagined the clouds scudding toward the distant Rockies.

  He mulled in his mind how to extract answers from Colleen without revealing anything he intended to keep private. Like his night with Kelley.

  His very memorable night…

  The mild late-August morning suddenly grew as hot as if the afternoon sun had been pelting down all day. Shawn, impatient with himself, pushed in Colleen’s phone number.

  “It’s me,” he said with no preamble when she answered. “Has anyone gone through those files yet?”

  “Yeah, but we haven’t had them a full day.” Colleen wasn’t the defensive type. Instead, irritation scorched her tone.

  “In other words, you haven’t found anything helpful?” He watched as a teenage girl in a striped hospital volunteer pinafore pushed a wheelchair along the sidewalk, a wizened older gentleman slouched in it.

  “So far, it appears as if the Silver Rapids flu patients simply got sick. Then they were brought to the hospital, admitted, treated, and got well—except for the two older ones who didn’t survive.”

  “No common threads other than that they were in Silver Rapids at about the same time?”

  “A couple went out to eat, a few were at the town’s casino, that kind of thing. It may be significant, but we need to check further. I’ll let you know if anything helpful crops up.”

  “And that friend of Kelley’s—Wilson Carpenter? Nothing new on him?”

  “It’s also been less than a day since you last asked me that. You know we’ve excellent resources for tracking missing persons, but this guy seems to have vanished. And since he’s apparently been in touch with the doctors’ office next door, he’s got to be alive. So—well, we’ll keep on it, too.”

  “Thanks, Colleen.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “You know, I think I like our chief arson suspect. I’m glad I got a chance to meet her.”

  “Sure.” Shawn wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “You think she’s innocent?”

  “I’ve told you that’s my current thought. Except for someone trying to run her down with a stolen ambulance, I’ve seen no indication of direct threats, and no suggestion of blackmail or other coercion. Without something along that line, she’s got no motive, since the Silver Rapids files didn’t burn. And so far, you haven’t found anything in them she’d want to hide.”

  “Right. Sounds too pat, doesn’t it?”

  “What are you driving at?” His ire scraped into his voice.

  “Nothing.” Colleen’s tone was so sweet it nearly gave him a toothache. “And did you act as her bodyguard last night?” She didn’t sound as if she meant a hired protector.

  “Yeah. She and her daughter survived the night. Talk to you soon, Colleen.”

  He shoved his cell phone door closed on her laugh.

  BY THE TIME KELLEY went to pick up Jenny that night, she dared to hope Louis Paxler had decided to keep this latest bit of evidence against her to himself. Thank heavens.

  Maybe she had convinced him it was false. Or maybe he didn’t want to reveal it for the hospital’s sake. No matter. What counted was that no one, not even Randall or Cheryl, confronted her about more proof of her supposed ineptitude.

  She visited KidClub twice—mostly to check on Jenny, she told herself, since her daughter had had such a difficult afternoon the day before.

  The fact that she saw Shawn didn’t hurt, either.

  Everything seemed fine.

  That night, he stopped in again to make sure they were all right. And stayed.

  The next day was Saturday, on a weekend in which Kelley had Jenny. They all spent it together.

  And Shawn stayed the night.

  When they awakened together, long before daylight, Kelley dared to ask him what he had meant once, when he’d alluded to growing up with no family, no roots. She’d wondered about it a lot, when she wasn’t preoccupied with other things—like making love with him.

  “I’m not one for pillow talk,” he grumbled, pulling her tight against his naked body.

  “Tell me.” Her desire was stoked yet again by his nearness, his obvious arousal, but she wanted to know.

  “It’s no big deal,” he said, then proceeded to tell her a story that was, to the contrary, a very big deal.

  It explained who he was. Why he had become a firefighter, then an arson investigator. And why anyone who set fires was, to him, the lowest form of monster.

  “We lived in an apartment building when I was seven,” he said, his voice as neutral as if he talked about a trip to the supermarket. But his eyes—oh, all the pain of the world was in his eyes.

  “Seems the owner was losing money—too many loans, rents too low, that kind of thing. But he had lots of insurance. He chose a time midafternoon, when most parents were working and kids were in school when he started the ‘accidental’ fire, then ran around knocking on apartment doors screaming for anyone there to get out. I was at school, but my folks had been up all night with my younger brother, who’d had a bad earache, and didn’t hear the bastard….”

  They’d di
ed.

  Shawn had no other relatives, and so he was brought up by a foster care system that, if not cruel, was at least indifferent. “I dared once to get a crush on one of my ‘sisters,’ but she set me straight fast.” He spoke so matter-of-factly against Kelley that she wanted to cry. “I was nobody, to her and to the rest, just a kid with no real family.”

  “But—”

  He continued without letting Kelley express her sorrow for the poor, rejected little boy he’d been. “Except for one of the ‘dads’ they set me up with for a few months. A real cool dude. Taught me how to draw caricatures. After that, I got my revenge on all the jerks in school who made fun of me for not having parents, all the teachers who gave me lower grades when I couldn’t bring in folks to discuss my ‘lack of achievement’ with them. I’d just make them look on paper just as they did in my mind—a bunch of horses’ behinds.” He laughed, even as tears rushed into Kelley’s eyes.

  This time, when they made love, it was soft and sweet. It didn’t make up for all Shawn had experienced, Kelley knew. But she wanted him to know that she cared.

  DAYS MELDED TOGETHER. The weekend was soon over. So was another week at the hospital, in which nothing new blotched Kelley’s reputation.

  Apparently, nothing either helpful or hurtful had turned up in the files she’d lent to ICU, either, for when she asked, Shawn seemed perturbed that they’d still found nothing to point to the arsonist. He didn’t say what else they were looking for, and she didn’t ask.

  If they found evidence of what she suspected, would they even tell her? But until she had something other than a gut feel, and an allusion from the still-missing Wilson Carpenter, she wouldn’t stretch her neck out that far.

  The next week at Gilpin Hospital was relatively calm. No new rumors. Not even any new outbursts from Jenny.

  No rampant ambulances.

  That also meant there was no need for Shawn to spend every night protecting Jenny and her. But she was definitely glad he was there. In her bed.

  The next weekend was Labor Day. Randall had Jenny for two of the three days. Kelley spent them with Shawn, telling herself it was only sex. But what incredible sex it was!

  During that time, Shawn hardly ever issued any orders. She almost wished he would, as that would give her an excuse to get away from him.

  For she was falling in love with him. And that could not be good.

  But on the Tuesday after Labor Day, Kelley realized she should not have let down her guard. Become complacent.

  About anything.

  LOUIS PAXLER’S smile appeared to Kelley as if he had eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

  He sat behind his vast mahogany desk. Kelley, at his direction, occupied one of the leather office chairs.

  The other was occupied by Etta Borand, dressed in a gaudy yellow pantsuit. The gray-haired virago’s expression was smug. She did not look at Kelley.

  Louis had beeped Kelley only a few minutes earlier. Her digital pager had given his extension, and she had responded. Louis’s receptionist Hilda had told her she was wanted for a meeting right away. Now Kelley knew she should have refused. Said she had an emergency. Anything.

  “Mrs. Borand is here as a courtesy, Kelley,” Louis said. “She brought me these.” He lifted a small but menacing-looking pile of papers from his desk and waved them. They looked like legal documents. The complaint against the hospital no doubt.

  And against her. For malpractice.

  “I see.” Kelley was unsure how to react. Inside, dread, thick, icy and debilitating, turned her stomach. Maybe it was time to get her own lawyer. Or at least notify her malpractice insurance carrier.

  “They have already been filed with the court, and will be officially served later today.” Etta’s light tone suggested she was discussing a delicious recipe rather than something that could seal Kelley’s fate. She rose, and the motion caused the gold bangles at her ears to sway. “Our lawyer didn’t think it a good idea for me to come here, but I decided to give you a final chance to settle this matter amicably.”

  She smiled first at Louis, then at Kelley.

  “No? Well, I suspect you have things to discuss.” She flounced from the office.

  Kelley watched as the door shut, delaying as long as possible turning back toward Louis.

  “This is going to be damned expensive, Dr. Stanton,” he exploded behind her. “I ought to make you pay every penny.”

  Forcing serenity she didn’t feel onto her face, she looked at him. His pallor contrasted starkly with his dark brown hair. Maybe this would cause him finally to go gray. Or maybe it would simply prove he dyed his hair. Not that it mattered to Kelley.

  Could the hospital legally do that? She didn’t know. She tried inserting bravado into her voice. “The hospital is insured, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not the point. With claims like this, rates go up. Plus we’ll lose valuable time with people having to testify in court. There’s administration. Dealing with our board of directors.” He rose, and though he wasn’t very tall, she felt him loom over her like a prophet of doom. “I haven’t acted as fast as I should about the file material I found, Kelley. But it accounts for the flu patients’ altered blood tests. And now with this lawsuit, you need to know that I’m considering suspending you from practicing at Gilpin Hospital.”

  “Altered? But—” Kelley bit down hard on her lower lip. The pain kept the moisture that shot to her eyes from falling. And kept her from questioning him further, fruitlessly.

  “I’ll let you know what I decide,” Paxler said, dismissing her.

  KELLEY THOUGHT of running to KidClub to cry on Shawn’s shoulder. She needed to see him. But first, she needed to get hold of her emotions. She wouldn’t want to scare Jenny.

  And the idea of leaning on any man for something that was her problem… “No way,” she whispered as she walked quickly toward the medical wing and her office.

  When she got there, her shared receptionist wasn’t in sight. Good. She didn’t want to explain her overwrought state, particularly not to someone who might be linked to the Gilpin Hospital rumor circuit. She hurried into her office.

  And stopped.

  She nearly smiled. Shawn was there, behind her desk. When she needed him.

  She crossed the room quickly. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “That woman Etta Borand was in Louis’s office, and then Louis mentioned—” She halted as fast as if he had slapped her.

  In a way, he had.

  Shawn’s eyes were that icy blue she recalled from when she had first met him. His wide jaw was set, his lips straight and hard.

  She swallowed to get hold of her emotions. “What’s wrong?”

  “I found these in your desk.” He waved some papers.

  She straightened, glaring at him, her indignation overpowering all other emotions. “Number one, I don’t know what ‘these’ are. Number two, who do you think you are to go into my desk without my permission? Did you break the lock?”

  “No, I didn’t break anything. Opening the unopenable is just something I do, when necessary. And these were in a different drawer anyway.”

  “You—”

  “I got back the original Silver Rapids flu files from my office today,” he interrupted coldly, “and thought I’d put them where they would be safe, in your desk. I didn’t know you hadn’t given me everything.”

  “But I did. I…” No use protesting. He obviously wouldn’t believe her. “All right, then. Tell me what you found there.”

  “I haven’t had time to analyze them yet, but there are some loose pages that indicate the flu was actually a combination of virus and Q fever. That you may in fact have intentionally given patients the wrong treatment to hide the disease and its origin.”

  Kelley blinked, then sat down in the nearest stiff desk chair. “I don’t know how you came up with that, except… I had a theory, Shawn, about what the illness was and how it could have affected so many people. I didn’t tell anyone because it was so bi
zarre, so impossible. And the blood tests I ordered didn’t confirm it. That’s what I wanted to talk to my friend Dr. Wilson Carpenter about, since his call made it seem possible that he was thinking the same thing. That’s why I took the files. And then Louis just said—”

  “And what is this bizarre theory of yours?” Ice-coated blades shot from the voice of the man whose tone, before, had caressed her.

  “I wondered whether the Silver Rapids epidemic had a human origin. Whether its pathogen was manufactured, perhaps in an act of bioterrorism. If I’d had any proof, of course, I’d have gone to the authorities. But everyone around here thinks I’m incompetent anyway, so I wanted evidence before I made a fool of myself.”

  “You wondered? You wanted proof? These papers indicate you were part of it. I even bought your ‘poor little me’ story before when you claimed someone stuck counterfeit papers into a file Paxler found. But this, in your own locked drawer—” He extracted a paper from the sheaf in his fist. “This one even gives you direction on when and how to start the fire. You are the arsonist, Kelley, and that I can’t forgive. Did you decide on your own to keep the files, in case you needed insurance against your coconspirators? You sure sanitized what you gave to me, but there’s some good stuff here. I can’t tell yet who else is involved. But I’ll find out.”

  And with that, papers in hand, Shawn stomped from the room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kelley stood for a moment, in shock.

  Those papers indicated she had set the fire? Under someone’s direction? She should have demanded a look at them. But what good would it have done? She’d no doubt they contained what Shawn said they did.

  Shuddering, she lowered herself into the nearest chair. Her own tiny office suddenly seemed like hostile territory.

  What was happening to her?

  The Silver Rapids epidemic must really have been manufactured. Shawn and his ICU people thought so, too.

  Damn it, why hadn’t he told her?

  You didn’t tell him your suspicions, either, retorted a nasty thought in the recesses of her mind. She ignored it. That was different. She had been protecting herself.