The Deadly Series Boxed Set

by Jaycee Clark

  Gavin ran a hand over his face.

  “Let’s sit down anyway,” he said, sharper than he intended, but after what had just happened and right on the back of the night he’d had, he was too tired to care if he hurt her feelings. He firmly took hold of her elbow and led her to a chair.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name,” he said.

  Her russet brows pulled down over her eyes. “Reese. Taylor Reese.”

  Taylor, that was different. “Well, Ms. Reese, I’m sorry to tell you this.” He took a deep breath. He really hated this, even if he did wonder at her professional competency. “We lost Amy and the baby.”

  Her brown eyes never left his. In fact, she never moved a muscle. “What do you mean, you lost her?”

  “They didn’t make it through the operation.”

  For a single moment, she said nothing, didn’t move.

  “We did everything we could.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Complications arose and—”

  She raised a hand, palm out, and halted his words.

  “I’ve been around hospitals before, Dr. Kinncaid. I’ve seen kids die because parents shook them, hit them, beat them, starved them. Now tell me exactly what happened to Amy Gibbons. It’ll all come out in court anyway, and the district attorney’s office will need a copy of all her medical records and charts.” Her voice might be soft, but there was steel in it, sharpening her tone.

  Gavin sighed. “Once she arrived up here, I performed an ultrasound. There was a complication and apparently Amy had been and was still hemorrhaging,” he told her frankly. Some liked explanations and others didn’t. Ms. Reese was right. In this instance it was all going to come out in the end anyway.

  “And no one noticed this before?” Her own soft voice sharpened.

  The hospital would be lucky if they didn’t get a lawsuit out of this, or him a malpractice suit.

  “I would have to assume no. When I arrived in the ER, Miss Gibbons wasn’t dilated at all, though I suspected she was in labor, which is why I immediately moved her up here to maternity and for general observation. Why she was not moved up here before that, I do not know, but I will find out.” Someone was going to discover incompetence was a fault that cost lives. “However, once I had her up here and after an ultrasound, we discovered the blood was leaking into her uterus.” Gavin watched as her eyes narrowed.

  “What kind of hospital is this? I told that nurse downstairs hours and hours ago Amy needed an ultrasound.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, ignoring her outburst, and he continued. “After the sonogram, I immediately had her prepped for the OR.” He knew going into the operating room that the baby was lost; it flatlined before they’d reached the end of the hall. Since the baby wasn’t far enough along for delivery, there had been no way it could have survived, but he tried all the same. No need to tell Ms. Reese this though.

  He cleared his throat and continued. “We did everything we could.” Didn’t they? “I am sorry. Is there someone I need to notify? Normally, I wouldn’t even be telling you this, but would be telling her family. However, you told me earlier that her family was in police custody.”

  She looked away from him. He blinked and continued to stare at her, waiting for her answer. Gavin couldn’t help but notice her perfect classic profile. Creamy skin, high cheekbones, though flushed, a straight patrician nose, and a straight, almost stubborn jaw. Her face was devoid of makeup with a dusting of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. He noticed then her hair was more red than blonde. Finally, she looked back at him. Her eyes glistened with cold acceptance.

  “Yes, I suppose under normal circumstances one would tell a family these things.” Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell who needs to be told.” She shook her head.

  “You said you were her social worker?” Gavin had no idea why he asked, but he did.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Her father beat her because he didn’t like the fact she was pregnant.” Her brows, the same reddish color of her hair, rose. “What do you think happened to her?”

  “Was hers normally an abusive home?” he asked.

  Her frown said she thought that a stupid question. She shook her head again. “Did it look to you like hers wasn’t?”

  Color flamed high in her pale cheeks.

  Anger at what had happened to that girl, at the uselessness of it all, came crashing down in his tired brain, loosening his control. “Well, I can’t help but wonder, Ms. Reese, what the girl was doing in that home to begin with.”

  She drew back as if someone jerked her from behind, her plain white T-shirt pulling back across her chest and trim torso. “Are you questioning my professionalism?”

  Gavin rubbed a hand over his face and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for your loss.” This was where he had been taught to walk away. But her eyes held him. They were filled with pain, anger, and tears. And he’d always been a sucker for female tears. Damn it.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said. One lone tear trickled over lashes the color of her hair. Her forefinger, long and delicate, reached up and swiped it away. “I am too. And I have to wonder where the hell you were while that girl laid downstairs bleeding to death.”

  She was questioning him?

  “Excuse me?”

  Ms. Reese stood, looking down at him. “Look, you have your questions about me, fine. I have mine about you.” She sniffed. “We’ll call it even.”

  Gavin stood. “Now wait just a minute.”

  “What, don’t like it when the tables are turned?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Gavin closed his eyes and counted. It really didn’t help. “As you said, we both have questions. I am sorry for your loss, and I’m sure you’re doing your job.”

  She tried for a smile and he noticed her dimples winking at him. “I don’t know if I should waste my energy to even bother with that insult.” Her head shook ruefully. “I should let you go. After all, I’d hate to keep such an important doctor.” Her gaze scanned him from the top of his scrubs, where her eyebrows arched at his alien do-rag, to the tips of his shoes. “Of course, one does wonder.”

  He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. “Wonder what?”

  She only smiled, a thin, straight one, but still her dimples caught him off guard. “Thank you for informing me, Dr. Kinncaid. Social Services will be contacting you for details and whatnot. And I’m quite certain you can expect some questions from the Gibbonses’ lawyer and probably someone from the district attorney’s office.” She reached down to grab her purse and he noticed her hands shook. Gavin caught a whiff of flowers—honeysuckle.

  Whether or not she did her job, she did care. He could see that in her tears, angry or otherwise, the tremble of her hands.

  He sighed. “I’m sorry for insulting you. I’m certain you did everything you could. I hate to lose a patient, any patient, and especially young ones.”

  She straightened. “Then I suppose we have even more in common than questioning the other. I guess we’ll find out if we both did our jobs, won’t we?”

  Ms. Reese slug the brown leather strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Good afternoon, Dr. Kinncaid.” She walked to the elevators and jabbed the down button repeatedly.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Reese.” He started to say “have a nice day.”

  Yeah, that’d be good. What in the hell was with him? Gavin stood there with his hands on hips, watching the woman step into the elevator and the doors quietly swishing shut.

  Damn woman. So much for his apology. He frowned for a minute. What the hell was the matter with him? He was a doctor. It wasn’t exactly standard procedure to come out, inform someone of fatal news, then grill them about job proficiency. And she’d questioned his competency. Gavin wasn’t a braggart, but he knew he was one of the most successful doctors in his field for his age. He glared at the shut elevator doo
rs, wondering at what had just happened and his total lack of tact, lack of control.

  And if Gavin Kinncaid was anything, it was in control.

  It was only then that he realized she talked like Jesslyn, his sister-in-law. Ms. Taylor Reese smiled her vowels. Maybe she was from Texas. On that absurd thought came another, more pressing one.

  Social Services and lawyers. He shook his head as he turned and shoved open the door through which he’d entered the waiting room. Hell. He needed to call the chief of staff and let her know what was going on.

  Still cursing, he walked back up the hallway. The battered face of a young dark-haired girl haunted him.

  So much for his day off.

  • • •

  Journal Entry

  I know I said I thought this journaling stuff was stupid, but I’ve kinda gotten used to it. Dr. Petropolis was right. It helps to write things out sometimes, so I guess I’ll keep doing it.

  Today is hot here in D.C. I really like that Taylor and I moved here. I didn’t like Austin. I hate Austin.

  I’m at the neighbor’s house. Jeremy Webster and I are friends. He has two brothers. They’re really cool. And his mom and dad are neat too. I hope Jeremy and I get to be in the same class when school starts.

  Taylor got a call this morning to go to the hospital. We were supposed to go to the Smithsonian again. I love the Smithsonian, but a call came about one of the kids she tries to help.

  She said I could go with her, but I don’t like hospitals. They bring back all those bad things I wanna forget. They remind me of Austin, and of HER. Nina. Dr. Petropolis said I don’t have to call her mom if I don’t want to and I DON’T WANT TO. So I won’t. Dr. Petropolis is nice and she understands stuff, but I still don’t like talking about all that stuff she wants to know about. At least I like her better than Dr. Siel, my shrink in Austin. I’m not supposed to call them shrinks, but shrinks binks, it’s what they are.

  So, that’s why I begged Taylor if I could stay with Jeremy. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. And I’m glad I didn’t.

  Sometimes I know things, like that time I couldn’t find my bow to my violin and then I just knew. Like that. But today it was worse. Bad. And I don’t really like when I see things. I get all cold and I can’t hear things around me. It’s kinda like when I sit on the bottom of the pool when we go swimming and I can hear other kids yelling and splashing but it’s muffled.

  At least Jeremy was in the house or he might think I’m a freak and not want to be my friend anymore. I was up in his tree fort when I got all cold and stuff and I just knew. Just knew that the girl Taylor was trying to help wasn’t going to make it.

  She’s dead. I think a blue-eyed doctor with black hair told Taylor. I “saw” them arguing, but he’s nice, I think. Maybe not. Just cause someone looks nice doesn’t mean they are.

  Lots of times people are just mean, no matter what they look like. Some people just like to hurt others. I wish I knew why. O.K. gotta go. Mrs. Webster has snacks ready and is calling us.

  • • •

  Taylor thrummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she sat in late Saturday traffic.

  The knowledge that Amy was dead still hadn’t sunk in, she knew that. It was vague, in the background. It had to be, because if she dwelled on it, she knew there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it and the failure would consume her. The entire situation had all been so pointless, so preventable.

  Dr. Kinncaid’s words echoed in her and made her question herself. Had she done enough? Could she have done more? Was there any way she could have prevented this tragedy?

  No answers came. And stupid, proud anger still shimmered through her at that arrogant doctor. Were all med school grads given classes in self-assurance? Every last doctor she’d ever met were the most self-assured people, arrogant and usually rude.

  Rude or not, those blue, blue eyes of his kept interrupting her thoughts. They reminded her of the shade of the Northern Atlantic. And the rest of him hadn’t been bad either, in a rugged, six-foot-four or -five kind of pro football player way. His sharp nose was ridged and his square jaw had bunched when she’d questioned his doing his job properly. She’d been surprised when she’d met him in the ER before the surgery. He’d thought she was Amy’s sister because he’d said she was too young to be the girl’s mother. When she’d told him she was the social worker, he thought she was too young for that too.

  Figures. Even insulted her then. Though it hadn’t sounded like an insult. For a man as large as he was, he all but swallowed up the space in a room, and it seemed he’d have a loud booming voice. Instead, his voice was soft, like distant thunder, faintly echoing.

  But enough about Mr. Doctor.

  Taylor held a hand to her cheek. She’d just left the meeting at the city jail with her boss, the prosecutor from the D.A.’s office, and the Gibbonses. Mr. Gibbons had taken exception to a remark Taylor had made, and before anyone could stop him, he’d decked her clean out of her chair. The man had hard fists, but then, were there soft ones? Maybe he had scrambled something in her brains after all.

  The prosecutor had all but danced with glee at the new charge against Mr. Gibbons. Glad she could be of assistance.

  Carefully, she moved her jaw out and in, back and forth. Pain pulsed behind her eye, making her wonder if it was about to pop out of its socket.

  Taylor held the baggie of crushed ice to her face as she waited on the light to turn green.

  She checked her watch—five o’clock. Great. Ryan was probably wondering where in the world she was. She’d dropped him off to play at the neighbors’ when the call came in about Amy earlier this morning. What a weekend.

  She pulled the visor down. The little lighted mirror reflected off her cheek.

  Good God, it was going to look really bad tomorrow. Her cheek was already bruising. Wonderful. This was just what she needed.

  On a sigh, she flipped the visor back up and moved along with the rest of the traffic as they crawled through the D.C. streets.

  She was ready to go home, where things were normal, and figure out where she and Ryan were going, or if they still had time to go somewhere for the weekend. She needed to make today up to him because today was supposed to be their day. Instead he’d been playing at the neighbors’, Mr. and Mrs. Webster, who had three boys. She’d been gone since almost noon, though she’d called and checked in with Mrs. Webster before the meeting in the police station. Ryan was fine. The boys had spent the afternoon up in the tree fort.

  Taylor shook her head. At least Ryan was making some friends.

  What to do to make up today to him?

  Maybe they would head up Montgomery County and see some of the sites. She’d heard the countryside was scattered with bed-and-breakfast stops. They could stay at one tonight and catch some of the tourist traps tomorrow. Having moved here under a month ago from Texas, both she and her son were still finding their way around, in more ways than one.

  Her cheek throbbed and she gently touched it. Some ibuprofen would be great right about now. Then again, it seemed she and Ryan had always had to find a new path in some hostile situation. Maybe one day things would go smoothly for them.

  Chapter 2

  That day was not today. Taylor took a deep breath and tried to see through the rain blanketing down from the night sky.

  Ryan, headphones stretched across his light brown hair, hummed some classical piece from the backseat of her older Mercedes, one of the few things she got out of the settlement with Charles Shepard.

  She slowed down again and flicked her lights as an oncoming car barreled towards her.

  Taylor hated to drive in weather like this. She wanted to pull over, but there wasn’t really a shoulder. She’d taken a wrong damn turn at some point.

  “Are we getting close? I don’t see any lights, Taylor,” Ryan commented from the backseat.

  She sighed. “No, neither do I. I need to turn around somewhere.” Though she had no idea where.

  “W
e could just spend the night at that last little town in a motel. It’s okay. We don’t have to stay in some historical bed-and-breakfast.”

  Taylor’s head hurt, the ibuprofen doing little to take the throb out of the left side of her face.

  Finally the rain lessened and she saw the road sign. She grabbed the map and tried to find it while slowly maneuvering the narrow winding road.

  Hell.

  She tossed the map aside. “I think I’ll just go a little further up this road, whatever this road is, and find a spot to turn around.”

  “Okay.” He started humming again. Ryan was always humming. He was gifted in music, thank goodness. She discovered his talent by accident, but he’d become more than proficient in playing the violin in an amazingly short amount of time. She often wondered if it was God’s way of bringing something wonderful and beautiful into his otherwise darkened life.

  Taylor listened to his humming, Beethoven. Figured. The boy loved Beethoven and Handel and she had no idea what else.

  The wet black pavement gleamed in her headlights. As she rounded a curve, the steering wheel jerked in her hand. The tires swooshed over the large puddle of water.

  Her heart slammed in her chest.

  She grabbed the wheel and realized they were heading across the yellow center line. Hydroplane.

  “Oh, God.”

  She jerked on the wheel and the car spun out of control.

  “Taylor!” Ryan yelled from the backseat.

  “Hang on!”

  The car rocked over the opposite nonexistent shoulder and nose-dived into the steep bar ditch on the opposite side of the road. It slammed to a bone-jarring halt against a tree. The air bag exploded from the steering wheel.

  For a moment, she sat absolutely still. Then she punched the already deflating air bag out of the way. Tired of fighting it, she reached down and leaned the seat back.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. Lightning flashed outside, thunder ripped the air apart. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.