by Nancy Bush
“Really.” He could tell he was pissing her off, which was fine with him. “What happened to him?”
She seemed like she wasn’t going to answer, then said, “A slow deterioration of mental faculties.”
“That’s pretty general.”
“Yes.”
“You called the station,” Lang reminded her, getting to the point.
“I called Will Tanninger.”
“Who called me.” Lang was growing tired of their thrust and parry. “Look, neither of us has a ton of time to dance around, so let’s get on with it. Tell me why you don’t think someone tried to cut out Jane Doe—Cat’s—baby.”
They both glanced toward the blond patient in the chair. “Let’s go to my office,” Claire suggested, though Lang had a feeling it was the last thing she wanted.
She led the way and Lang trooped along behind her, retracing his steps to the upper level and bypassing the medical office’s main reception area, down a short hallway, through a door she bent to unlock. He had a great view of her backside, the black pants that hugged her hips, the slim ankles peeking out below.
She opened the door, stepped inside, gestured for him to enter.
His heart started pounding as an imagined scenario passed in front of his eyes, one he hadn’t expected to be so close to the surface: Melody…Heyward…the knife…a scream…
Claire Norris’s voice, penetrating from far away. “You understand this is my new office.”
“Yes.” His voice sounded normal. He came back slowly, could feel blood return to his head and quell the sudden rushing.
She was looking at him hard, frowning. “Maybe I should have made that clear.”
“It’s not a problem.” He crossed the floor and accepted a chair that sat in front of her desk, glad for the support. She moved behind the desk, smoothed the seat of her pants, and sat down. They were facing each other like doctor and patient.
She looked serious. Her skin was silken smooth and he focused on an errant tress of dark hair that curved into her chin. It was all he could do not to reach forward and brush it back.
He said, “You signed Heyward Marsdon’s release when he should have been locked up.”
She swallowed but her gaze didn’t waver. “I can’t discuss him with you.”
“He killed my sister.”
“Yes.”
“And he damn near killed you.”
“I can talk to you about Jane Doe. The rest is privileged.”
Lang gritted his teeth. She was right. More than right. He’d believed he could handle this investigation without letting the past make him step outside the bounds of propriety and law. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. “Privilege,” he stated flatly. “That’s what the whole damn thing is about. The privileged get what they want. They buy it.”
“Would you like to speak to the midwife who last examined Jane Doe’s wounds?”
“They bought you.”
“I can’t talk to you about Heyward Marsdon,” she stated flatly. He could see bright spots of color in her cheeks. He was getting to her.
“Yeah, you can. You just won’t.”
“Heyward Marsdon the Third is a patient at this hospital.”
“An inmate,” Lang said.
“A patient,” she repeated. “That’s all I can tell you about him. If you came here to learn about his status instead of aiding the criminal investigation into Jane Doe, you’ve wasted a trip.”
“I think you, of all people, would be interested in seeing Heyward locked up somewhere safer than that place.” He inclined his head toward the other building. “Is it really safe over there? Prison safe?” Her lips parted in spite of herself. He’d hit a nerve. “It’s not, is it? You’re afraid he’ll get out and come after you. I don’t blame you. The man’s a ticking bomb, waiting to go off. Slice someone else’s throat.”
“You need to talk to the Marsdons,” she said suddenly. “Do it soon.” She stood up abruptly.
“What’s that mean?”
“They disagree with your feeling about imprisonment for Heyward.”
Lang gazed at her. “Not exactly a news bulletin.”
She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind, some overriding sense of duty or conscience keeping her from talking. He saw her eyes stray to the small clock on her desk.
“Am I keeping you from something?” he asked.
“No.”
But she was lying. He could sense it. And suddenly he thought he knew what it was. “You’re going to see him, aren’t you? You’re still his doctor.”
“No.” She was firm.
“Something’s up with him.”
As if on cue her phone buzzed. She didn’t move as a male voice said over the intercom, “Dr. Norris?”
Lang’s instincts went on high alert. She didn’t want him to know what she was doing, but it had to do with Heyward Marsdon. He knew it. “They’re calling for you,” he said softly.
She got up and went to the door, holding it open. “I hope you and Detective Tanninger find out more about our Jane Doe.”
“Dr. Norris?” the voice said with a touch of impatience. “We’re waiting for you before we go through the gates.”
Lang read the answer to that on Claire Norris’s face. “They’re here now. The Marsdons. You’re all going over to the lockdown section to see Heyward the Third.”
Chapter 9
Sodium vapor lights illuminated the shiny, rain-slicked parking lot of Laurelton General as Rita pulled the Chevy into a spot at the far end of the lot, a dark spot, behind a thin, swaying maple whose leaves were being flayed from its limbs by the raging wind.
The storm from the coast had made its way inland and was dumping rain in wet sheets, driven by the wind. Rita was still in her uniform, teal scrubs, and boring shoes. She pulled on her raincoat and threw the hood over her hair, then turned on the map light and glanced at herself in the rearview.
She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to play this. She wanted Tasha’s room number but didn’t want to alert anyone to her plan.
But Rita Feather Hawkings was good at deception. She could make this work for her, just like she always did.
Head ducked, she fought her way to the front doors, slapped by a flash of rain that dampened her bangs, sticking them to her forehead. Her sensible shoes slogged through puddles. She saw herself bedraggled and forlorn. Poor Rita. Just off work and intent on seeing a sick relative.
But how to find out about the blond coma girl? They didn’t know Tasha’s name, and Rita wasn’t going to give it to them.
She walked through the front doors, shaking rain from her jacket on the entry carpet. Carefully, she pulled back her hood, fluffing at her bangs. What relative was she seeing? Who?
Rita couldn’t risk asking questions, so she marched through like she owned the place, heading toward the elevators. She didn’t know Laurelton General all that well; she’d been there exactly once, applying for a job that she didn’t get. She hadn’t wanted it anyway, but Ocean Park had been on a hiring freeze when she’d first tried there and Rita’s mother had insisted that her daughter get a damn job.
“Make a career,” Delores snapped. “Don’t wait for it to happen to you. Don’t fall into the trap my sister did!”
Delores was always so, so sure that Rita would become a whore. She had no idea what made Rita tick. None at all!
On the fifth floor, two up from the main level, she ran directly into a nurse. They actually smacked into each other as Rita tried to get out of the elevator and the nurse, who was in a decided hurry, was getting in.
“Excuse me,” the nurse said. She was black, short and sturdy. Her name tag read Leesha.
Rita would have liked to read her the riot act. At Ocean Park, no one was allowed to racewalk like this nurse was. Instead, she said in a bewildered way, “I’m sorry. I’m kind of lost.”
“Check with the front desk. Or the bathroom’s that-away.” She pointed down the hall. “I’ve got an emergency.�
�� She slammed her palm against an elevator button.
Rita took a chance and guessed, “The coma girl?”
“No. She’s not here anymore.”
Rita was both elated and discouraged at the same time. Tasha had been there. She was on the right track. “Well, maybe you can help me. She looked kinda familiar.”
“You know who she is?” The nurse eyed Rita up and down in a way that made her uncomfortable.
“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe. I thought if I could get a closer look…”
“You’re not on staff here.”
“No. I’m a nurse at Good Sam,” she lied. “I was just in the area and thought I’d stop by.”
“Talk to the front desk,” the woman said, holding the doors as they started to close. “They’re taking everybody’s calls and routing them to the police.”
“Everybody’s?”
“Everybody who saw her on the news.”
She lifted her finger from the button that held the doors open, so Rita said hurriedly, “She’s been released?”
“Moved.”
Moved? Rita stood rooted to the spot as the elevator descended. After a few moments, she pushed the call button again, waiting for the car. The second elevator opened and she stepped inside, thinking hard. She hadn’t seen the news, but clearly people were calling in, thinking they knew Tasha. Maybe they did, she thought with a jolt. Maybe Rita wasn’t the only one who knew who she was. That bitch Carlita had told Jake she thought Tasha was from the cult.
And what about Tasha’s crazy family? Those women? They were bound to raise a hue and cry sometime, weren’t they?
Either way, it was only a matter of time until the truth came out.
Moved…
Rita strode toward the front desk and then it came to her. A bolt of insight. Coma girl was no longer in a coma. She was physically stable and awake, at least partially. Carlita had seen Tasha’s profile on the news and hadn’t said her eyes were closed. So Tasha was awake, maybe faking amnesia? Some kind of head trauma?
And she’d been transferred to another facility, one more suited to her condition.
If only she’d seen that newscast! She might have been able to tell where she was, although she could almost bet…
She walked up to the front desk. “You’re taking calls from people who think they recognize the Jane Doe that was sent to Halo Valley?”
“We’re referring them to the sheriff’s department,” the woman responded. “Have you got some information?”
To Rita’s horror the short black nurse caught sight of her and headed her way. Rita said, “I thought you had an emergency.”
She nodded. “Car accident. Surgical team had to take over.”
“I’m thinking about going to Halo Valley and seeing if I can recognize Jane Doe,” Rita lied.
The nurse shot a look at the woman at the front desk, as if she thought she’d given the information to Rita. Rita didn’t disillusion her.
“Check with Dr. Claire Norris when you’re there,” was all she said, her attention diverted by the breach of protocol.
Rita thanked her and headed for the front doors before any further questions could be asked. She’d gotten what she came for.
If Claire could have started the day over again, she would’ve. She wanted to shriek and cry and laugh hysterically. All of them: Freeson and Avanti and the Marsdons and Melody Stone’s damn brother—all of them made her want to spiral into a wild primal scream.
She wanted to run from her office, run from the building. Instead she stood in stiff disapproval as Stone ambled out of her office, and she thrust her key in the door to lock it. “I don’t know why you’re here,” she told him. When he opened his mouth, she beat him to the answer. “I know I called the sheriff’s department. I know I said Cat might not have been attacked for her baby. But I didn’t really expect someone to rush right down and interview me. There’s nothing more to say. It’s a theory. She’s in a catatonic state, and the only information we can get is through what we observe. I wanted Detective Tanninger to know that, just in case it mattered.
“But nowhere in there did I ask for you. Whether you and I like it or not, we have an unpleasant history. Something neither of us wanted, something neither of us can help. And it involves a patient here at the hospital. Someone who was once my patient. I cannot have anything to do with you and Heyward Marsdon the Third. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to explain myself to you and have you accuse me and the hospital of negligence. And I don’t want to have you here under the guise of a different investigation just so you can vent your spleen about the Marsdon family.”
Lang had opened and shut his mouth several times. Now he waited, his blue eyes staring hard as Claire wound down. “Where are you meeting them?” he asked.
She swept out ahead of him, heading for the hospital. She was blind with fury and exasperation. She heard his footsteps behind her, a kind of squishing of water from his boots. “Don’t follow me,” she threw over her shoulder.
“Why isn’t Heyward your patient any longer?”
“One guess, Detective.”
“You haven’t seen him since…”
She stopped, her heart pounding, and turned, gathering her professional skills around her once more. “Since the incident?”
He flinched slightly. “Yeah.”
“No, I haven’t. I don’t go to Side B often. There’s a procedure.”
“A procedure?”
“The staff is different on that side. It’s more restrictive. There’s a guard outside each of the two entry points on this level. If I want to go there, I ask for an appointment and the staff lets me know if and when I can come over.”
“Side B.” He turned in its general direction, but they were still in the hallway and all that was visible were the walls surrounding them. One of the aides walked by them, giving them a curious look as she disappeared around a corner.
Claire wondered what he would do when he learned Heyward was being transferred to Side A. “I have to go. I can’t help you anymore, Mr. Stone.”
“Who can?”
“Dr. Freeson. Dr. Avanti. Any of the doctors on Side B, possibly. Depends on what you want.”
“Have you talked to anyone about what happened?” he asked curiously.
His question took her aback. “You mean, have I talked to a professional?”
“A shrink seeing a shrink. Yeah.”
“If you think I haven’t been examined from top to bottom and inside out, then you don’t know the thoroughness of this hospital. I assure you, I’m fit to work.”
“You seem…tightly wound. I wouldn’t want you for my shrink.”
“Assuming you have one,” she said, stung. “Which seems like an impossibility, given your reckless way of achieving your goals.”
“I think I make you nervous.”
“Yes. You do.”
Claire forced herself to hold his gaze. She was no wimp, but he was right. He made her nervous. Very nervous. He was one of those guys who sucked up space without even being aware of it. And he was on the warpath about his sister’s death. He still was. No matter how he wanted to wrap it up.
“You found your way in, I’m assuming you can find your way out.” She hoped he heard her dismissal.
“But don’t follow you.”
“Don’t follow me,” she agreed and headed down the hall to the gallery stairs, both relieved and a bit wary when she didn’t hear him behind her.
Jesus H. Christ. Lang watched her go, aware that his nerves were standing at attention. He wasn’t even sure what that all meant. She definitely sent him vibes that reached a sexual core, but she also was trying pretty damn hard to verbally shut him down, which only managed to piss him off.
She was meeting the Marsdons. It wasn’t his business. Melody was dead and gone, and whatever happened to Heyward III was someone else’s problem.
Bullshit.
A few hours ago he’d almost believed he was getting better, that this w
as becoming a bruise, not a death blow, to his soul. Now he felt the rush of frustration, anger, and a need for revenge like lava sluicing through his veins.
He let her get out of sight, around the corner, heading toward the gallery. They would probably gather in that same meeting room; he could visualize Granddaddy Marsdon’s shock of white hair and pale, blue eyes. Marsdon Junior would be bored, his gaze purposely vague and sliding away after a brief touching on others. Lang didn’t know which of them was the bigger bastard. Could be a tie.
He gave himself a moment, deciding what to do. This wasn’t his barbecue. He wasn’t invited. But he was here and he had questions, a right to be heard, a need to face off.
To give himself time, he walked the other way, toward the north and the gate to Side B. His long strides ate up the carpet, and after a last turn and a switch from carpet to industrial vinyl flooring in a beige color, he came to locked double doors with a button and call box. He depressed the button, which opened a two-way transmission, and said, “Detective Langdon Stone.”
A male voice replied, “Could you wait a moment?” Then after ten seconds, “Your name is not on the list.”
There was a small window in one of the double doors. Lang could see a guard’s station situated on the north end of the ten-by-ten space with a thick window. Maybe bulletproof. Another set of double doors identical to the ones in front of him opened on the other side of the station. The guard himself, a six foot–plus black man with shoulders that said he could’ve been a professional lineman, was looking through the glass of the guard’s station to the small square of glass Lang was peering back through. They stared at each other.
“I’m not on the list,” Lang said. “How do I get on?”
“You need a Halo Valley doctor’s written permission.”
“Okay.”
“And a medical escort.”
Lang nodded at the guard and turned away. The two-way transmission clicked off, regulated by the guard inside, apparently.