Clay

by Jennifer Blake

  “Hi there! I guess you’re looking for your little girl, huh?”

  Janna spun around to face the nurse who stood in the open doorway. In a voice that sounded as if she’d been running for miles, she asked, “Where is she?”

  “Jeez, honey, take it easy. She’s okay, really. Clay just took her home.”

  The face of the plump, dark-haired nurse was creased with sympathetic distress. It made little impression on Janna, since she remembered very well that this particular nurse, Johnnie Hopewell, was a part of the Benedict clan. “You mean Dr. Hargrove released her?”

  “Yeah, about an hour ago. She was basically over the problem, and he thought she could recuperate at home just as well, considering she was in such good hands. Boy, was that kid ready to get out of here.”

  “And Clay took her…where, exactly?”

  “Home with him, like I told you. To Grand Point.”

  So much for putting trust of any kind in him. With her voice gathering strength, Janna said, “He can’t do that. Lainey is my daughter, mine. I gave no permission for her to be moved.”

  “But you came in with Clay.” Johnnie frowned in perplexity, as if she couldn’t see the problem.

  “That doesn’t mean anything!”

  “Means he’s got a strong interest in the welfare of your little girl. There’s no cause to be upset, hon, really there isn’t. Clay dotes on that kid, as anybody with half an eye can see. He wouldn’t hurt her for the world.”

  “You’re saying he can walk into this hospital and take any child he wants just because he likes them?” she demanded. “That’s outrageous! What about release forms, a legal signature? Payment, for God’s sake! Who the hell does he think he is?”

  “All arranged, every bit of it.” Johnnie’s smile curled one corner of her mouth. “He’s a Benedict, sweetheart. That’s the way they are.”

  She should have known. Tunica Parish was Benedict country. Here, they were kings. They could do anything they wanted and get away with it. Or thought they could.

  It was her greatest fear made real. Clay had taken Lainey. He had taken her away from her mother. Still, it was so hard to believe. She didn’t want, couldn’t bear, to believe it.

  “Are you sure Clay wasn’t going back to the camp?” Janna insisted.

  “Didn’t hear him say, really. I suppose he could have been, or might even have taken her to April and Luke’s house, since they were here. But I sure got the idea they were headed for Grand Point.”

  “Bastard,” she whispered.

  Clay had taken Lainey home with him, he really had. But if he expected to get away with it, Janna thought in grim resolve, he would soon discover his mistake.

  “Now wait a minute, hon,” Johnnie exclaimed as Janna brushed past her and stalked into the hall. “Don’t you go doing anything foolish.”

  Janna didn’t answer. She didn’t even look back.

  19

  Grand Point sat like an oasis at the end of a long journey. Its white walls reflected the broiling late-afternoon sunlight in places, but the great oaks that arched above it provided deep, motionless shade around its base and its tropical landscaping looked lush and fecund rather than prostate with the heat. Janna drove to the rear to park her car, then got out and mounted the tall back steps of the center section. The shadow of the deep and wide gallery that enveloped her at the top was a cooler prelude to the refrigerated atmosphere inside the door.

  She paused a second in the central parlor. The house was so still. No childish giggling or chatter disturbed it, no deep male voice. The only sounds were the slow ticktock of a pendulum clock on the mantel and the soft whir of a ceiling fan in some bedroom down the connecting hall. Yet Clay was here somewhere, or so she thought. His SUV sat on the driveway and the back door of the house had been left unlocked. Turn-Coupe residents might not be as careful about security as people in larger towns, according to Denise, but they weren’t foolhardy. Though they often left their houses open during daylight hours, they locked them at night or while they were away.

  In her simmering anger and concern for Lainey, Janna had walked in without knocking. Now she hesitated, unwilling to retreat but knowing full well that she had no right to go any further. Engrained manners could be a disadvantage at times. Though it felt ridiculous under the circumstances, she opened her lips to call out a greeting.

  A scratching noise accompanied by soft, gruntlike panting snared her attention. She shut her mouth and tipped her head to listen. It was growing louder, she thought, and seemed to be coming from the bedroom wing, yet the size of the rooms in the big old house made it impossible to be sure.

  She turned in that direction, frowning as she listened. What she was hearing sounded almost familiar. She couldn’t quite place it, however, not even after she’d moved into the kitchen and through it to the hall that led into the bedroom section. An odd dread slid down her spine. She stopped an instant at the entrance to the hall, then raised her chin and stepped inside.

  Keeping close to the right hand wall, she moved with stealthy footsteps toward the bedroom Clay had designated for her the night before. She hadn’t used it for long, of course, but it was at least not quite so off limits as the remainder of the house. In any case, the scratching seemed to be coming from the other side of that door.

  It stopped as she drew closer. She put out her hand, then brought it back and stood listening. Nothing. She caught the knob again, turning it with slow care, then pushed the door inward to open it.

  Ringo.

  The raccoon scuttled out of the way, then sat back on his haunches and looked up at her with bright, inquisitive eyes. Janna let out her pent-up breath in a short, hard rush of relief. As if taking that as a signal, the furry little beast dropped to all fours again and waddled past her in a break for freedom. Beyond the door, he turned in the direction of the kitchen. Janna watched him go, wondering where he had come from since Arty had had him when she’d talked to the old trapper earlier. Then she dismissed Ringo from her mind as she turned toward the bed.

  Lainey lay in the middle of it, turned on her side with her hair spread over the pillow. One hand was tucked under her cheek as she slept, while the other clutched her rag doll. She nestled into the curve of Clay’s body, as she had slept so often at the camp, looking small and fragile against his long length. He was asleep as well, with his chin resting on Lainey’s silky blond hair and one strong, brown arm thrown protectively over her.

  At least Janna thought he was asleep. That was until he opened his eyes and stared straight into hers. And seeing the accusation that burned there, she felt her dying anger return with double the force.

  Face grim, she lifted a brow and tipped her head toward the doorway in an invitation to speak outside the room. Without waiting to see if he meant to comply, she turned and stalked out. She didn’t stop again until she was back in the central living room. The instant Clay stepped through the door from the kitchen, she attacked.

  “What do you mean by taking my daughter from the hospital?”

  “Lainey wanted to leave,” he began.

  “Of course she did! She hates hospitals. But does that mean you can do anything you like with her? Dear God, the unbelievable Benedict arrogance of it! Who do you think you are to make decisions about my child?”

  His eyes darkened. Slowly he put his hands on his hipbones. “Where were you that you couldn’t take her home? You left for Lord knows where, maybe someplace to beg or borrow the money to pay a quack not fit to trim Lainey’s toenails, much less anything more critical. I did what I thought was best.”

  “What you thought? You barely know her, or me, and you’re making life-and-death decisions for us? Why should you think anything? What right do you have to touch Lainey, much less take her away from me?”

  “I wasn’t taking her way from you.”

  “What do you call it then? She’s here instead of at the camp where she—”

  “Maybe this is where she belongs.”

  “The
hell you say! She belongs with her mother. I’m the only person who can take care of her, who understands what she needs when she cries, who can do all the things that make her happy and comfortable.”

  “You need help.”

  “And you’re going to help me right out of custody, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t. I’m not.”

  “Where the hell were you when I really needed help?” she asked without bothering to listen to what he had to say. “Where were the Benedicts when Lainey nearly died three separate times, when I couldn’t pay the rent for the medical bills, when I was so tired that dying myself sounded like the only way I’d ever be able to rest?”

  “I didn’t know, none of us knew.” He stepped closer, put out his hand to touch her arm,

  Janna backed away from him. “You didn’t want to know, damn you! But that’s all right, because I got by just fine without you. I had Lainey by myself and I took care of her by myself. I raised her and I loved her without anyone, especially anyone by the name of Benedict, and I can go on doing it.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Janna,” he said in tight impatience. “You aren’t thinking straight.”

  “And you are? You scheme and plot with your cousin behind my back to see to it that the transplant Lainey needs is no longer available, and you actually think that’s better?”

  His head came up. “How did you find that out?”

  “Never mind how! You did it, and that’s enough for me.”

  “The surgery was too dangerous. There was no way she could go through it.”

  “I know that,” she cried, flinging up her hands. “Why do you think I went there today except to tell Dr. Gower that it was off?”

  “You did what?”

  “You heard me. Yes, and what did I find? You and Sheriff Benedict had seen to it that the center was shut down. You’d made the transplant impossible.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, his gaze as black and hard as volcanic glass. “You meant to cancel the transplant, yet you’re steamed because I stopped it? I don’t see the difference.”

  “The difference is that you decided in your stupid Benedict male conceit that you were right and I was wrong. Taking kidneys was legally and morally depraved, and that was what mattered. You put my daughter at risk for a principle, not because you cared whether she lived or died.”

  “I did it to protect her!”

  “You did it because—because you had to be right!” she shouted, her voice shaking with the rage that choked her and made hot tears spring into her eyes.

  “Now wait a damned minute,” he said with rough anger in his voice. “Lainey is my niece. I may not have known her as long as you but I still love her. Do you really think it was an easy decision, closing down Gower’s center? I had to weigh her chances with every bit as much care as you did. I may have made a mistake. If I did, if she dies, I don’t know how I’ll live with it. But what I did was not because I didn’t feel anything for her or want like hell to see her live a reasonably normal and healthy life.”

  Janna stared at him with aching eyes. Could she have misjudged the situation? The possibility opened up vistas that she didn’t dare consider. She was still trying to dredge up the courage to ask what he meant when a quiet shuffle came from near the door into the kitchen. She turned her head in that direction, half expecting to see Ringo.

  “What a shame to interrupt such a cathartic shouting match,” Dr. Gower said as he stepped into room. “Especially when it made such a timely distraction. But I’m afraid I’m in something of a hurry.”

  Janna’s heart congealed in her chest. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Eyes wide, she could only stare as the doctor half-pushed, half-led Lainey into the room, using the child like a shield as he held her with one arm crooked around her neck. But her gaze was riveted to the scalpel that he held to her daughter’s small white throat.

  “Mama,” Lainey whispered. Then she looked at Clay. “Daddy?”

  Janna didn’t dare move, barely breathed. She lifted her gaze to Gower’s as she asked, “How did you get in here?”

  “This house has dozens of doors and windows, not all of them latched,” he replied in finicky precision. “So convenient—especially those on the far end of the house. Then you and Benedict were too engrossed in your quarrel to realize that I was around.” He smiled with a tight movement of his thin lips. “As for the rest, I followed you from the center, my dear. It was pitifully easy. You were so upset that you never looked back. Why you even waited for me to catch up—Don’t!”

  The last was for Clay who had eased forward as if he meant to jump Gower. Clay wrenched to such an abrupt halt that a tendon made a popping sound in his leg.

  “I didn’t wait for you,” Janna declared in an instinctive effort to distract Gower again. “I was just…”

  “Upset by the turn of events, I do understand. I was a little spooked myself, to tell you the truth. As for Anita, well, she actually tried to give herself up when she saw the police were waiting for us.”

  “Tried?” That question came from Clay.

  “I couldn’t allow it, could I? I mean, she would have made far too dangerous a witness against me since she knew everything. Besides, she had the disk with all the records and refused to give it to me. Her jealousy had become tedious as well.”

  “She’d become a liability,” Clay suggested.

  “Just like dear Janna, here. Well, and you, too, since she brought you into our little arrangement.”

  Janna stared at him in dread as she asked, “You’re saying that you killed her?”

  “No time to take her kidneys, of course, though I’m sure she had a fine, healthy pair. Pity.”

  Nurse Fenton was dead. It seemed impossible when she had been so full of life when Janna saw her last. She gave a slow shake of her head.

  “Don’t look so horrified,” the doctor said. “She barely felt a thing.” He smiled as he shifted the position of his scalpel to the hollow beneath Lainey’s left ear, the starting point for a classic slash from behind the victim. “A scalpel is a beautiful and merciful weapon for someone who knows how to use it.”

  Lainey’s eyes were huge in her small, puffy face. She hadn’t made another sound, though unshed tears rimmed her lashes. She understood what was going on, understood it too well, Janna thought. Torn by fear and frustration, she sent a burning look from her daughter to the man who held her as she exclaimed, “You’re insane!”

  “Really? It’s insane to try to prevent people from testifying about my humanitarian efforts in the field of kidney disease? I’d say that was exceptionally sane. It would only be crazy if I didn’t care.”

  Clay was poised and ready for any break that came, Janna thought; she could sense the tension in his stillness. All she could think to do was stall until something gave him a chance. “You have nowhere to hide after what you’ve done. I’d have thought you’d be better off far away from here.”

  “I considered it. Then I thought of your lover here, and how much I’d dislike leaving without settling with him. I’m aware that I have him to thank for today’s raid.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Clay said in hard irony. “My pleasure, believe me.”

  The doctor turned on him with mottled color riding his sharp cheekbones. “You destroyed my practice, a life’s work in transplant research and experimentation, and you’re proud of it?”

  “I closed a human chop shop that used desperate people as guinea pigs and disadvantaged kids as a convenient source for body parts. Yeah, I’m proud.”

  “What ignorance. You made the lives of the young men whose organs were harvested worthless, not I. My research gave them a reason for having been born in that dreary project where few people cared about their existence and three-quarters of them would die from drink and drugs and stupidly vicious gang wars. I tried to help them. I spent years curing them of head lice and worms and sexually transmitted diseases and a thousand other illnesses, and what happened? They went t
o prison or died anyway. Why should their lives not benefit someone since they were so determined to throw them away? Why should they not serve my noble purpose instead of costing taxpayers the price of a cell or a funeral?”

  “You don’t know what the two you killed might have done with their lives,” Clay replied with cold contempt in his face. “They were alive until you came along, and in life there’s hope.”

  “I thought that way, once. For a long time I only took the organs of those who died on my operating table. But there were so many, and their constant dying was such a waste. Such a waste.” Dr. Gower looked away, and for a second his face was a mask of grief. Then it hardened again. “Lay people always get so emotional over these things. They don’t understand that life is cheap, that thousands upon thousands of people die every day, or that literally hundreds of millions have lived and expired over the millennia with no more trace left behind than—than will be left when that ridiculous creature goes.” He nodded toward Ringo who had waddled into the room and was sniffing at Clay’s ankles.

  “So cheap that you tossed them into the lake like empty beer bottles,” Clay said

  “As good a place as any to dispose of them, I thought, especially from a fishing boat. Bass fishermen are boring to watch…people give so little attention to what they do.”

  “The lives of these young men were worthless, so you say,” Janna observed in flat disparagement, “but I’m sure you feel differently about your own.”

  “My life has value because of the knowledge that I’ll leave behind and the patients whose lives my methods and expertise have saved. For every project rat who didn’t care whether he lived or died there was a patient who was so desperate to live that they would take any risk, do anything.”

  “Pay any amount?” Janna suggested.

  “You’re thinking of the extra sum I asked from you. What of it? Financing is necessary for any great endeavor.”