Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  The lawyer chuckled. “It’s on me. Again, please have a seat.” He returned to his chair behind the desk and sat down. “I made time to see you because the story you told my receptionist deeply worried me. I took the opportunity to make a few phone calls. The Sheriff in Jackson County appears to be involved in some big case and hasn’t returned my call, but I checked several area hospitals and no one reports a recent birth to a mother named Betsy Weston.”

  The prim lady returned with a bottle of Coca-cola and a glass of ice, and handed them to Betsy.

  “Care to start over?”

  Betsy gulped down her mouthful of sugary drink, feeling cornered. If Sheriff Connelly did call this man back, her pa would locate her within hours. But, what choice did she have?

  “My real name’s Alice Cummings and I had my baby in a private home. There was a midwife by name of Sue Ellen there. She said she filled out several copies of the birth certificate and told me they’d be filed with the county.”

  “I see. Problem is, I checked the counties as well. Jackson County has no records of any live births within the last three weeks. Macon County has a report of one stillbirth, mother’s name not listed, and Transylvania County has two births, twins, to a thirty-year-old mother by the name of Dickson. I checked. Do you have a copy of the birth certificate? Or the full name of the midwife?”

  “No Sir, I was a bit preoccupied at the time, but I sorta have a copy of the papers she gave me. I, uh, I just don’t have it with me, and now I’m wondering if what she gave me is really a copy of a legal birth certificate. I’m thinking now my pa paid her off.” Had her pa bribed the midwife? Sue Ellen seemed so compassionate and nice.

  The attorney shook his head. “Before I take up valuable time, I need proof you even had a baby and aren’t sending me on some snipe hunt.”

  Betsy thought for a moment. “I-I’m not sure where I had the baby. All I know is she said she was my pa’s cousin and she lived in the mountains. I, uh, fell asleep on the rides to and from the house. When I went to the sheriff’s station, the Sheriff was there with Deputy Jake. They commented on my baby being stillborn and seeing the birth certificate that my pa showed ‘em, but I tell you, he weren’t stillborn. I brought him home. I nursed him. I’m still making milk. I can show your secretary that much.” Betsy slipped her purse to the floor, prepared to bare her breasts if necessary.

  The man scrutinized her and then pressed a button on his phone. A moment later the neat woman appeared.

  “Mrs. Johnson, I’m going to turn around for a minute. Would you please confirm whether or not this young woman is lactating?”

  The lawyer swiveled in his chair toward the large picture window behind him and peered out toward the mountains. Betsy opened her blouse, proved her claim, and redressed.

  “Yes, Sir, she is, uh, full, um, lactating.” The woman raised her eyebrows as her boss turned back toward them, his brow furrowed and his countenance contemplative.

  “See? That don’t just happen for the heck of it, or for a stillborn, for that matter,” Betsy stated. She had learned that from Mizz Sally.

  The attorney drew his hand across his jaw, and said, “I’ll contact the sheriff again, but if you don’t even know where you were at the time, well, that makes this hard.”

  Betsy grew agitated. “Sir, please don’t call Sheriff Connelly in Jackson County. He’ll just notify my pa, and that mean ol’ bast … I mean to say, he’ll come lookin’ for me and I might as well be dead.”

  Betsy thought and thought – where had she been? There had to be some clue that she just didn’t remember. That had to be the starting point of her search. She saw that now.

  The man sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him and stared at Betsy. After a couple of minutes of silence, he said, “I’m going to assume you’re telling me the truth, but I’m going to need something in the way of proof and this may require payment above and beyond what Sally gets in return for her retainer. I might have to hire an investigator. Can you afford that?”

  “Sir, I’ll do almost anything to get my son back.”

  “Anything?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I said almost anything. I’m not a working girl and don’t want to end up there. If you know of any jobs, I’m willing to take a look.”

  He again watched her intently. “Actually, I believe you. I’ll see what I can do. The fact that you’re a parent isn’t enough to get the court to grant you emancipation. You’ll need a source of income.”

  Betsy gave him a quizzical look, thinking “Emancipation? I’m nobody’s slave.”

  He must have seen the question in her mind. “Emancipation is a legal term. The age of majority in this state is twenty-one, which means you can’t enter into contracts or do anything as an adult until you reach that age. However, the court can declare you an adult if you meet certain requirements. If you’re declared an emancipated minor, then your father would face much more serious charges of kidnapping, maybe more, provided we can prove the case.”

  Betsy nodded in understanding. “If’n I have to go to court, can I change my name, too?”

  “I don’t see why not. Give me two days to look into this more. I’ll let you know what I’ve discovered and what it might cost you.”

  Betsy finished her Coca-cola and arose, not wanting to take up more of the man’s time. “Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate your help, and that of Mizz Sally.”

  Mr. Mathews nodded. “About Sally, don’t get the impression we approve of what she does, but take heart you’re in good hands. Most of the gals working for her, she rescued from some rather nasty pimps. She’s worked with every girl she’s taken in, educated them, and let them leave whenever they want. She’ll never force you into the business.”

  Thirteen

  (Present Day)

  **********

  Myra initially noticed pressure on her upper arm, like the first time husband number one grabbed her to throw her against a wall. He’d been all charm, until he took to drinking. Then he sobered up, realized he was impotent and infertile, and blamed it all on her. After her second beating, she recognized the disturbing pattern and beat a quick retreat to safety. After several trial reconciliations, the divorce proceedings took almost a year. Myra didn’t want to open her eyes, fearful of finding him standing over her.

  Her mouth reminded her of an ancient piece of papyrus she once had the privilege to handle and examine while researching an earlier book – as dry as the Egyptian sands surrounding the tomb that had held it for thousands of years. She remembered the empty wine bottle in her room and decided to call room service for another magnum – until she noticed the sounds around her. Blip! Blip! Blip! A soft whirring noise seemed poised just to the right of her head. A television softly violated the air with its talk show banter. The squeaky wheel of some kind of cart competed with the other clatter.

  The smells were not those of her room at the Pink Palace either. She sensed no clue of her own perfume or the floral scent used by the hotel. Instead, there was … what? Disinfectants? The subtle hint of blood. Blood? She knew its distinctive aroma, but why was there blood in her room? And whose blood was it?

  Myra prepared to open her eyes to slits, waiting for the light to assault her as it had that morning before her breakfast meeting with Samuel. Her meeting! She now recalled meeting Samuel, starting to eat, and feeling ill. What happened after that?

  In a flash, all the sounds and smells coalesced in her mind to answer that question. She was in a hospital. Which one? UCLA Medical Center would have been the closest.

  She opened her eyes and gazed past her feet to see a partial wall and a curtained, large glass window. A doorway with a double glass sliding door filled the center of the wall and she saw a busy, wood-trimmed nurses’ station beyond it. She began to turn her head to the right and felt a wave of imbalance. She allowed the sensation to subside and continued until she could see the source of the noise near her, an intravenous pump holding a plastic line filled
with blood. She looked up and then down, from the bag of blood down the ribbon of tubing to where the crimson fluid entered into her forearm.

  “Good morning.”

  The soft alto voice startled Myra. Morning? she thought. How long have I been here?

  “I’m Christina, your nurse today. How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?”

  The young woman of Hispanic heritage had long black hair that glistened like oil, tied back into a long ponytail. Her neon scrubs had a whimsical Disney theme, yet they did little to brighten Myra’s improving recollection of events and the growing depression that resulted from those memories.

  Myra tried to talk but her arid tongue could do little but chafe her hard palate. She attempted to point to her mouth. Her arms failed her.

  “I’ll get you some ice chips.” The nurse left and returned moments later with a Styrofoam cup of crushed ice and a plastic spoon. She held a spoon of ice to Myra’s lips and Myra sucked up the chips faster than she could pour a glass of zinfandel.

  “More please,” whispered Myra.

  A few minutes later, her grateful mouth became articulate.

  “Where am I?”

  “This is the medical intensive care unit at Ronald Reagan Medical Center. UCLA. You came here from the O.R. early, early this morning. They almost lost you on the table.”

  “Lost me? So, who found me? I should thank him,” she whispered and noted the blank look on the woman’s face. “Please, I hate euphemisms, and lord knows I’ve used them all. You’re saying I almost died in surgery, right?” The nurse nodded. “Care to offer any details?” Her voice gave signs of strengthening.

  “I can’t, but I’ll let your doctor know you’re awake and he can fill in the details and answer your questions.” She turned to leave the room and a young man, who looked little older than Richie Cunningham on “Happy Days,” appeared in the doorway wearing institutional green scrubs under a knee-length white coat. “Oh, here he is now. This is Doctor Franklin.” She nodded and smiled at the young doctor as she left the room.

  “Good morning, Ms. Mitchell. I’m Michael Franklin, the critical care doctor today. I’m glad to see you awake. I’m a big fan of your books.”

  “Thank you,” said Myra, her voice now evolved from faint rasp to croaky. “Christina tells me you’re Doctor Answer Man. Would you kindly tell me what happened?”

  The doctor kicked a wheeled stool in the direction of the bed and positioned it close to Myra’s head before sitting down. Leaning toward her, he asked, “Can you tell me what you remember?”

  Myra struggled to recall the chain of events. “I was having brunch with my agent and became ill.”

  He smiled. “Good, good. Do you know what day it is?”

  Myra already tired of the drill. Her mind was sound. “Since I don’t know how long I was unconscious, I can’t say for sure, but my meeting was Saturday morning, after the premiere of ‘Sisterhood of Terror.’”

  “Excellent. Excellent.”

  “Doctor, my mind is fine, but you might want to see someone about your echolalia.”

  He laughed. “I might, I might.” He gave her a grin. “Okay, you want answers. Here’s the synopsis. EMS transported you to the Emergency Department yesterday, late morning. Your blood pressure was very low, so the paramedics gave you a liter of fluids in route, and by the time you arrived here, your pressure had improved but you still hadn’t woken up. While the ED staff evaluated you, your pressure dropped again, and they pushed a second liter of fluids and added a medicine called dopamine to restore it. They told me you were in and out of consciousness at that point, so I’m not surprised you don’t remember any of it. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed the change in your skin color.”

  Myra shrank into the mattress. She had noticed, and denied it. Clearly, jaundice had infused its pumpkin color into her skin. She nodded meekly.

  “You’ve got serious liver disease. Determining exactly what kind will require more tests. Anyway, the ED assessment suggested an upper gastrointestinal bleed and your blood count was critically low. You know what hemoglobin is, right? And how we use the value clinically?”

  Myra nodded.

  “Figured you did, ‘cause your books have gotten it right. Well, normal is roughly twelve to sixteen. We give people blood when it drops below eight. Your level was under five. I’m surprised you could function at all, but the fact that you could function, suggests your anemia came about through a very gradual change that allowed your body time to adjust. You passed out at the hotel because of the drop in your blood pressure and you might have had an episode of bleeding right before. They put a tube into your stomach in the ED and there was evidence of old blood, but no active bleeding. You were on your way here to the ICU last night when you started to bleed actively and they had to rush you to the OR. You have bad esophageal varices. That’s like varicose veins in the lower esophagus. One or more of those veins broke open and with your low count to start with, you almost died. The surgeon succeeded in banding, or clamping, the veins and you’ve been receiving blood all night. That bag there …” He pointed to the unit of red blood cells hanging next to her. “… is your seventh unit. You’ll get at least one more and if you remain stable, we’ll move you to a regular bed later today.”

  Myra had no snappy comeback, nor an astute apothegm. This time she knew enough to remain serious and soak in all that he told her. She knew a little about liver disease and varices. She would have bled to death had she been alone at home. She sighed inwardly. She preferred seeing daisies from above, but the alternative would solve the dilemma of her next book and her potential breach of contract. The thought of continuing life sober distressed her. Too many skeletons in need of washing away. She wanted a drink now. Desperately.

  “Your agent, Samuel, told me you’re a heavy drinker. That makes cirrhosis the most likely candidate for your troubles. That also means you need to stop drinking. Totally. No excuses.”

  Samuel, Myra thought. The things she put him through over the years. Now this.

  “Is Samuel still here? He had a flight back to New York yesterday.”

  “I believe so. I have a number and a request to call him when you woke up. Any family we need to contact? He didn’t mention anyone.”

  Myra shook her head. Those people, family -- if you could call them that -- comprised a majority of the memories she had delegated to the dregs of the wine cask.

  The doctor stood and faced Myra. “Well, I’ll go give Samuel a call. I’ll be in the unit for awhile. So, if you have any questions, your nurse can get me.”

  “I have a question now.”

  The doctor stood silently, waiting.

  “What’s next? I mean, you said I’d go to a regular bed if I’m stable, but what’s after that?”

  The doctor nodded. ‘I’ve consulted a hepatologist, a liver specialist, Doctor Wade Kennison. He’ll be by to see you later today and will outline what needs to be done next. In a nutshell, a liver biopsy will be done to determine the type of liver disease, some other tests perhaps, and then he’ll discuss your options.” He paused. “Anything else?” At Myra’s silence, he said, “Okay then,” and turned to leave. At the door, he turned back.

  “Oh, one more thing. You’ll probably start having withdrawal symptoms, if you aren’t noticing them already. The detox process isn’t pleasant, but I have medications ordered to help. Just ask your nurse.”

  He left the room and Myra wondered if his mere mention of detox triggered her skin starting to crawl. For the first time, she noticed a drenching sweat of such magnitude as to produce Flash Flood alerts from the U.S. Weather Service. Nausea escorted the jitters. Anxiety raced headache to the top of her symptom list. When she managed to raise her hand, the tremor threatened to destabilize the San Andreas Fault line. She needed that drink. She examined the IV line, wondering how to remove it so she could escape to her suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel and to the convenience of room service. Or better yet, how to get the alcohol directly into
that bag of blood cells.

  Myra recalled pushing one of her third book’s characters into delirium tremens, that life-threatening extreme of alcohol withdrawal. The DTs. Illusory pink elephants dancing up the walls and along the ceiling. His had followed a week of binge drinking. Her imbibing outdid his on a logarithmic scale. What was she in store for? Striped and polka-dotted elephants?

  She opened her eyes to find Samuel sitting in a chair next to her bed. No, there were two Samuels and one was green. She shook her head and closed her eyes, willing the green agent to disappear at the mental count of three.

  “Well, well, well, back to the land of the living, I see.”

  “Wh-where’d you come from?”

  “Hey! I’ve been here for an hour while you keep drifting in and out. So, you gonna stay with me and be sociable for awhile? Or, maybe I should go home, set up a conference call when you’re ready.”

  Myra blinked several times to make sure Samuel’s Martian twin had gone home. “Conference call?”

  “Yeah. You, me, and the Betty Ford Clinic.”

  Myra shook her head, but stopped because she actually heard it rattling. “No way. Me and Betty, um, Betty and I didn’t get along so well last time. Remember?”

  “Like I could forget. And I’d really like to forget that incident. Okay, look, here’s the deal. You gotta stop the booze. If the words alcohol or ethanol show up anywhere on the label, you avoid it – like you’re avoiding writing this next book. Capiche?”

  Myra said nothing.

  “I mean it, Myra. You fall off the wagon and I’m history. You can find a new agent and pull his chains.”

  Myra stared at Samuel. He’d never threatened to leave before, no matter how bad she’d been. “Samuel, you really do care,” she replied.

  He leaned forward and took her hand in his. “Myra, don’t ask me why, but I do. As foolish as it might be, and as painful as it has been at times, I care about you and hate to see you working so hard to fulfill some death wish. I don’t know what haunts you ‘cause you’ve told me squat about life before ‘Rebecca’s Bargain.’ Lady, I don’t even know where you were born, where you grew up, or where you went to school. Have you ever been married? Do you even like boys? Maybe you play for the other team. With that book, you suddenly materialized on planet Earth and still, fifteen years later, you’ve never shared anything private with me.” He squeezed her hand. “Yet I still care. Enough that I don’t want to be the first one called when someone discovers your lifeless body surrounded by a dozen empty wine bottles.”