“And take a nice long soak in the tub?”
Midge forced a smile that didn’t quite make her eyes. “Sounds heavenly.” A leaden response.
She tucked the hospital gown over her intimate area and let him photograph. As he did so, one question kept nagging Kurt. He hated asking it but had no choice.
“I’ll make sure the nurse does a rape kit.”
“I told you he didn’t rape me. Why would I lie about something like that when it would affect us? Kurt”—she wrapped her fingers over his arm—“I’d never lie to you about anything. I’d never withhold anything from you.”
He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“My hero? My knight in shining armor? You did save the warrior queen, you know.” Another tear spilled down her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb. “Always. Forever.”
Midge gripped his wrist. “He raped Susan. I saw scratch marks down her neck, too. She seems to be in shock, not communicating. I thought someone should speak for her. She may have been blackmailing men, but she didn’t deserve any of this.”
Neither did you.
He kissed her forehead. “I’ll let the doctor and nurse in now and get your stuff from Zach.”
She touched his arm before he could leave. “I presume I’ll also have to make a statement of some kind?”
Kurt lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Your statement can wait until tomorrow.” He couldn’t handle hearing a detailed account of what had happened tonight. Reliving Midge’s horror and his own guilt at having let her put herself in danger was too much.
After giving her another gentle kiss on the cheek, Kurt slipped from the small room. Medical personnel swarmed the ER. Jess paced near the check-in counter. Military police hovered around the curtained examining areas, obviously guarding Parsons and Susan. Vic had been taken down to Desert Regional in Palm Springs.
Jess motioned him to the adjacent waiting area. Zach charged into their space. Jess ignored his presence and leveled a no-nonsense stare at Kurt.
“You realize you could be facing disciplinary action for what you did tonight. You could’ve killed him.”
“I know,” Kurt replied. “I got carried away. I don’t care. Midge is my woman. No one lays a hand on my woman.” A burst of adrenaline shot through his body. He’d attack Parsons all over again, given the chance.
Jess merely shook his head. “Is she all right?”
“Barely. And the others?”
“He’s banged up pretty bad, but it doesn’t look like you broke any bones. Your fists have got to be hurting after all that.” Jess pointed to Kurt’s hands.
Kurt stared at them. His knuckles were scuffed, turning a dark reddish-purple. They hurt. He hadn’t noticed until now. His sole focus had been Midge.
“Susan?” he asked.
“Still in major shock. Hasn’t said a word. Just stares ahead.”
“Is it an act? She is in a lot of trouble right now.”
“If it’s an act, she can’t hold it forever. Everest is at the crime scene helping us log in all the evidence. Now that these two are in the MPs’ capable hands, we need to get back there ourselves. I’m going to have Anders question Parsons.”
“I have to stay with Midge.”
“You have to do your job, Kurt. If you two are going to be together, Midge must understand that sometimes—often—your job comes first. She needs to grasp the dangers involved. If she can’t accept it, the relationship will never work.”
How could Midge understand when he was having such a hard time of it?
Zach cupped Kurt’s shoulder. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but I’ve got her. I’ll take her to our house. Claudia is beside herself with worry.”
“The cats—”
“They’re already at my place,” he said. “I took them over when I picked up Midge’s clothes. Go do your job.”
It seemed he had little choice. Kurt knew they were right and hated it. “I need to tell Midge I’m leaving.”
“Don’t be long,” Jess said and walked out.
Kurt returned to the examination room to give Midge the news. He felt like a hypocrite. He’d told her that she came before the job. Now he was deserting her for that job.
“Okay. I’ll see you when you’re done,” she softly replied when he’d finished.
Her voice was calm. No tears. No hysterics. No pleading. No accusations of desertion. Kurt’s heart swelled with love. He was almost through the door when she called him back.
He returned to her side and brushed one errant wave of hair away from her pale face, trying not to cringe at the bruises there. “Yes, honey?”
Midge curled her fingers in his shirt, pulled him to her and kissed him gently. “Be safe. And remember, I love you.”
And I’m supposed to go back to work now? “I love you, too. I’ll come over to Zach and Claudia’s as soon as I’m done.”
“That’s the least of my concerns.”
Kurt didn’t ask what her biggest concern was. He knew it was getting this all behind them. She might not have been raped, but the physical assault would leave emotional scars for a long time to come—for both of them. After they exchanged another kiss, he left.
Zach gave him a bear hug before he got two steps into the waiting room. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.”
Kurt managed a nod and left, dogged by his guilty conscience.
* * * *
Midge tugged her hospital gown closed once the nurse finished dabbing antiseptic on the last of her wounds. The bag with her clothing waited by her feet. Other than the tetanus shot and prescriptions, she could have tended her own injuries. But she was evidence and evidence had to be catalogued. Doing so made her feel like a piece of meat, no matter how gentle Kurt had tried to be. All things considered, she would hate to have endured what Susan had.
“How’s Petty Officer Bolotnik?” she asked.
The nurse tossed the cotton swab into the trash. “Still in shock. She hasn’t said a word, just stares into space. They’re talking about transferring her down to Balboa to the psychiatric ward. We’re keeping her overnight and making a decision in the morning.”
That’s one way to get out of being court-martialed.
Midge couldn’t believe she’d thought that, but she wouldn’t take it back. Susan had tried to frame her. She didn’t trust her. They had her on the blackmailing, but what about the ketamine? Jeremy had clearly thought she was a connection. Why else continue the association?
“May I see her?”
For the first time since she’d started treating Midge, the nurse looked her in the eye. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. We have her in a private room. You can get dressed. I’ll have a corpsman bring your prescriptions then we’ll send you home.”
Midge waited to dress until the woman left. Leggings and a sweatshirt had never felt sweeter and she blessed Zach for his help, even while she dreaded that it was confession time with him and Claudia.
She’d struggled when Kurt had told her he had to go to work. One part of her wanted the opportunity to fall apart in privacy. The other part wanted to cling to him and never let him go. It was the torment in his eyes that let her release him without a murmur of dissent. He couldn’t worry about her. He had to know it was all right. He wouldn’t go unless he knew she truly didn’t mind.
Who wouldn’t love a guy like that?
After slipping her feet into socks and sneakers, Midge grabbed her bag and shuffled from the room. Her feet were cut from her mad race down the road. It hurt to walk. Hell, her whole body hurt. None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for Susan.
She made her way to where Susan was, ready to give her a piece of her mind. The sight of her sitting there, eyes wide and unblinking, hair tangled and stringy, changed her mind. Midge left the door open and walked to her side.
“Susan?” She flinched when Midge touched her shoulder. “It’
s okay. You’re safe.” She smoothed back a lock of Susan’s hair. “Why would you do such a thing? Surely you knew you’d get caught someday. You had to know you’d run into a man who’d want to get even. Then, to try to frame me? Why?”
Any answer remained locked in Susan’s presumably troubled mind. Midge didn’t believe it for a second. Standing here wasn’t going to get her anywhere either. She was hurting, exhausted and still had to face the Taylor inquisition.
Fighting tears, she left the room and signed for her prescriptions. Zach did a crisp about-face when she entered the ER lobby. He was next to her in two strides, slipping his arm around her shoulders.
“Ready to go?”
“More than ready.”
She leaned into the kiss he pressed to her forehead, longing to wash the feel and scent of Parsons from her body. But the nurse had told her that the antiseptic needed to stay on for a good twelve hours or the risk of infection would be high. The thought of an infection from the germs in Parsons’ mouth made her skin crawl. She’d follow orders.
* * * *
Everest spared them a glance when Kurt and Jess returned to Susan’s house. He was surrounded by piles of DVDs and binders filled with documentation.
“Glad you two made it back. There must be at least a hundred tapes here. Look at all her notes and ledgers. It’s going to take forever to sort them all out.”
Kurt started his search from the opposite end of the box springs. Each DVD was dated with the Social Security number of what he presumed was her victim listed on it in neat black print.
Everest glanced up from a pile of papers. “I don’t know how she managed to get this level of detail about her sexual partners.” He gestured to the documents in his hand. Each one was a meticulous spreadsheet describing various men and included information from their private military files.
“Not hard,” Kurt answered. “Susan worked at the Naval Hospital and had access to everyone’s medical records.”
Jess nodded and picked up the storyline. “Bolotnik would target servicemembers at the Lost Oasis, enticing them into having sex. Whether she used alcohol or drugs to cloud their good sense, we’ll never know. She may have even used the ketamine in her schemes. Of course, horny too often trumps common sense.” He shook her head. “She’d have sex with them, record the encounter then get detailed information on them through their military hospital records—marriage status, command, whatever she needed to put the squeeze on them and their wallets. Have you found any tie to ketamine yet?”
Everest shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve searched the house and can’t find anything.” He looked up at Kurt. “How’s Midge?”
“Badly shaken but holding up.”
“She’s a strong woman,” Everest said. “Brave.”
“Yeah. She is.”
They settled down to work. The volume of evidence was staggering. There was no telling what they’d find when her computer was searched. Four hours later, back at NCIS with fast-food bags scattered over Kurt’s desk, they were finally able to evaluate everything. There were hours upon hours of video to go through, yet none of them had the energy to get started. It sounded like a great job for Anders.
As if sensing Kurt’s thoughts, Anders poked his head in the office. “I just finished interrogating Parsons. With a lawyer present, Parsons admitted to everything—the liaison with Susan Bolotnik, the break-in and killing Bernadette McFee. He’d followed Davidson and Ellis to her place that first night when they were both wearing those disguises. He believed she was his blackmailer and subsequently saw your true identities when peeping through the front window. He broke in when the two of you left that night, hoping to find the evidence against him. McFee caught him. He chased her down, killed her then got the hell out of there. She interrupted him before he could get to the second floor.”
That meant someone else had been searching for something up there. Kurt bit into his breakfast sandwich to keep from voicing his opinion. As much as he disliked his coworker, Anders’ perspective was objective, something Kurt had lost the second he and Midge hooked up.
“Evidence backs him up,” Anders continued. “We got hits on the fingerprints. Parsons’ were all over the first floor, as were others we expected. His were also a match to the bloody print at her landlady’s, but his prints weren’t upstairs. Those prints belong to those we expected—Ellis, Davidson, Forton, McFee and Bolotnik. However, Petty Officer Bolotnik’s prints were also on the storage boxes outside.”
Jess finished off the remains of a cup of hot coffee then leaned back and rubbed his reddened eyes. “The women were acquainted. Midge indicated they were on that floor a couple of nights before. We’ll have to ask her about the storage box.”
“Let’s pretend Bolotnik didn’t have access to the storage and broke into those,” Kurt said around a mouthful of food. “Forton thought she was a tie to the drugs. What if Susan knew he’d hid the ketamine? She saw me and Midge at the hospital and would have easily learned we would be there a while. That would have given her ample time to search the house. This woman is methodical and an opportunist. She knew Forton had been taken down. She might have suspected he’d hidden the drugs—”
“Or been told by whomever beat the information out of him.” Everest popped a hash brown nugget into his mouth.
Jess stood and stretched his back. “She was trying to blackmail Forton for something. It makes sense it would have been the ketamine. He had to be buying from someone, maybe even her. Now that he’s dead, she’s going to want the drugs to sell.”
“Or to retrieve them for someone else. She’s not the top dog or this case would have closed months ago.” Kurt thought a moment. “Her prints are upstairs. It sounds like we have two people in Midge’s house, searching for two different things. And we know why. What we don’t know is the when.”
Nods went around the room.
“I’m getting too old for these all-nighters.” Jess stifled a yawn.
Kurt crumpled his empty Styrofoam cup in one hand and tossed it to the trash can. “Bolotnik could have easily searched Forton’s BEQ room for the ketamine then moved on to Midge’s house when she saw us at the hospital.”
“Now we have to figure out a way to trip her up. If she’s faking, that is.” Jess clapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Let’s see what Parsons has to say for himself. Anders, you start going through those DVDs and see what you can find.”
“Bolotnik doesn’t know me,” Everest said. “I can go in and question her.”
Kurt snorted. “She’s not going to talk to you.”
“She doesn’t have to talk. She only has to listen. I’m going to need your girlfriend’s help, though.”
Anger bubbled up inside Kurt. He wanted to smash his battered fist on the desk and tell Everest to go to hell. In the end, it was Midge’s decision and he wouldn’t take that choice from her.
“What do you need her to do?”
* * * *
Midge surfaced from a hard sleep. Every muscle in her body protested. Exhaustion coupled with the drugs had made her oblivious to the world. She occupied a twin bed in what would one day be Adam’s room. At present, he slept in his parents’ bedroom, so they could better care for the newborn. There was no telling how long she’d slept or what time it was. She tried to stretch the stiffness from her body and found her movements blocked by two solid, warm objects. It made her smile that Hades and Miss Kitty were curled against her. Though she longed to snuggle deeper under the covers, nature demanded otherwise.
She opened her eyes and fumbled for her glasses on the small table beside the bed. That was when she saw Kurt sleeping in the blue rocking chair. A glance at the clock showed it was eight in the morning. All was silent.
Midge managed to extricate herself from the bed without disturbing her companions and hurried to the bathroom. At least her feet didn’t hurt as badly. The scent of coffee drifted her way, making her dry mouth water. After taking care of her needs, she wandered toward the kitchen and s
aw Claudia sitting in Zach’s recliner, nursing her baby. Longing, pure and deep, settled in Midge’s heart.
“Good morning.” Claudia smiled up at her. “Coffee’s fresh. I’m sure you could use a cup.”
“Thank you.” Midge helped herself, then returned to the living room and tucked into the corner of the couch to enjoy her first cup.
“I see Kurt finally got here,” Claudia said.
“He’s sleeping in the rocker.” But then, Claudia would have seen that. “Do you know what time he got here?”
“We were asleep and he was quiet. How are you feeling this morning?”
“Stinky. Sore. Frustrated that with all my training I still couldn’t bring down that beast of a man. Angry that I was betrayed and used and that she’s still playing games trying to get out of it.” Midge knew Susan well. Despite the trauma, she would normally have come up fighting.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Kurt mumbled from behind.
Before she could turn around, he was beside her on the couch, reaching for her coffee. Midge let him have a drink then took one of her own.
“We’ve got a plan and need your help,” he told her.
“I’m in.”
He chuckled. “You haven’t even heard what it is.”
“Don’t care. I want her taken down. I want her held accountable for all of her crimes. It must not be too dangerous or you would have already put your foot down and refused my services.”
A glimmer of mischief lit his eyes. “Baby, I’d never refuse your services.”
Claudia cleared her throat. “Audience, people. If you’re going to get frisky, take it to another room and keep the noise down.”
Midge laughed lightly. “What’s the plan?”
Kurt helped himself to her coffee again. “You’ll go to the hospital with a bouquet of flowers for Susan. You’ll be given a bug to hide so her actions can be monitored. Anders will be near the facility listening. Try to engage her in conversation, even if she’s unresponsive. At some point, Everest will arrive to question her in his capacity as DEA. He’ll feed her information, ask you some questions. You play along. It’ll require some improvisation. Once he’s gone, you’re going to tell her where you would have hidden the ketamine. Then we’ll see what she does with that information once you leave. Jess and I will be waiting at your house to see who takes the bait.”
Beneath the Layers Page 22