Deadly Devotion

by Sandra Orchard

  “No.” Molly bolted to her feet. “I don’t even know what castor beans are.”

  Dad chuckled. “For someone who doesn’t know what they are, she’s acting mighty offended.”

  Kate smoothed her blanket and continued speaking in the same tone she might use to chat about the weather. “Daisy doctored her tea with so much honey she never would have noticed the taste.”

  Molly’s fingertips danced over her lips as if to keep the truth from escaping. She walked around the bed and snatched up Kate’s cup.

  “Why are you taking my drink away?”

  Molly glanced at the half-open lid. “I thought you were done.”

  “But as you can see, I haven’t begun.”

  Tom planted his fingers on the table and squinted at the screen. “What’s Kate playing at? She’s never going to get a confession out of anyone this way. Besides, Daisy didn’t die from ricin.”

  Dad snorted. “How do you know? The coroner found the marigold toxin in Daisy’s bloodstream, but that doesn’t mean it killed her. You have to trust Kate. She knows what she’s doing.”

  “Trust her? The woman has a death wish. If I don’t stop her, she’s going to end up like my partner.” Tom jolted at the comparison.

  “You must love Edward very much,” Kate said softly.

  “Yes?” Molly fussed with her engagement ring. “I mean yes. I do. No one else has ever really cared about me.”

  Tom’s attention snapped back to the monitor.

  Kate mirrored Molly’s posture and movements—a strategy Tom often used himself to gain a suspect’s trust. “Edward told me that your parents threatened to disown you if you married him, but I’m surprised you didn’t turn against him after he accepted your parents’ bribe.”

  “Oh, that’s what they wanted. I knew he loved me, but he’s so weak. Dad knew it too. I think he set Jim up as Edward Smythe here in Port Aster, certain he wouldn’t be able to resist the con.”

  “Why did you follow him here if he’s so weak?”

  “I was mad. I wanted to teach him a lesson. He plays with people’s lives all the time. He can’t do that.” Molly straightened the water pitcher and glass on the night table. “I told Daisy that Edward was conning her, but she wouldn’t bring charges. If she’d just reported him, he would have smartened up.”

  “You’re saying Edward poisoned Daisy?”

  “No. Stop twisting my words. Why can’t you just let us be happy?”

  “I’m trying to understand. You said you wanted to teach Edward a lesson. What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.” Molly’s finger nervously skimmed the plastic lid of the teacup. “Like I said, I was sort of mad at him for leaving, that’s all.”

  “You told Daisy about Edward so he would have to face the consequences of his lying?”

  “Yes. That’s all I wanted.”

  “But he told me you moved into the tiny apartment and took the waitress job to prove that you loved him more than your father’s money.”

  “Yes. That’s right. That’s why I moved to Port Aster.”

  “Not to teach Edward a lesson?”

  “Yes. That too. Both. I wanted both. Once I saw him again, I couldn’t stay mad, especially after the way he clung to me following Daisy’s death. He needs me.”

  “Did you think Edward’s inheritance from Daisy would change your parents’ minds about him? I imagine you overheard Daisy in the tea shop talking about changing her will.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Molly stretched out her arm, revealing a jewel-studded watch.

  “Whoa!” Tom turned to his dad. “Just how rich are Molly’s parents?”

  Dad snorted. “Stinking rich.”

  “My watch is worth more than Daisy’s entire estate,” Molly said. “Why should I care if Edward gets her inheritance?”

  “But you left your family and its money behind to prove to Edward that he’s all you need.” Kate smoothed her bedsheets, letting the contradiction sink in.

  Tom grinned. Oh, she’s good.

  “Right?” Kate needled and looked Molly square in the eyes. “You’ve broken off all ties to your father? That’s what Edward believes. So why is your father contacting you?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Molly disappeared into the bathroom.

  Kate glanced at the camera and lifted an eyebrow, as if to ask Tom and Keith how they thought she was doing.

  The faint sound of the toilet flushing came through the microphone. A moment later, Molly reappeared minus the cup. She blew a wisp of hair from her eyes.

  “Molly, I care about you.” The anguish on Kate’s face betrayed how torn she felt. “I understand how much you long to be loved. But are you sure Edward loves you for you? He’s a con artist. Convincing women he loves them is what he does for a living.”

  A strange little smirk flitted across Molly’s lips a second before Edward stepped into view of the camera.

  He slapped a bottle of water onto the bedside table. “How dare you suggest I only love Molly for her money!”

  Kate shrugged. “Isn’t that what you do? Charm wealthy women out of their wealth?”

  “I befriend them. I don’t coerce them into sharing their wealth or adding me to their wills. And I certainly never killed anyone. Never.”

  In the adjoining room, Tom paced to the window and back. “We’re getting nowhere. If she thinks Daisy died from ricin, we should be going after Darryl, not these two.”

  “Molly was in and out of the Kish apartment all the time,” Dad said. “She could have easily helped herself to a few castor beans. Or given them to Edward.”

  “So you befriended Molly’s aunt because she was already dying?” Kate grilled Edward. “Except you didn’t know that she had no money of her own, right?”

  Edward reached for Molly’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Molly shied away from his grasp.

  “Whoa.” Tom pointed to the screen. “What was that in her hand? Did you see that? She shoved something into her jacket pocket.”

  Dad squinted at the image. “The cup, maybe.”

  “No, it looked like something long. Like a . . . syringe!” Tom raced for the door.

  “Molly, what are you doing?” Edward’s panicked shout shredded what little was left of Tom’s self-control.

  He skidded into the room just as Molly plunged the needle toward Kate’s IV.

  Kate ripped the tube from her arm as Edward dove for Molly’s wrist.

  She sidestepped and Edward careened into the wall. Whirling around to face Tom, Molly jabbed the still-full hypodermic toward him.

  Patting the air with his hands, Tom slowly moved toward her. “Put down the needle. You don’t want to do this.” Behind him, he heard his dad tell someone to call the police.

  “Stay back!” Molly shouted and stabbed at the air. “Or I swear I’ll use it.”

  Hands still raised, Tom froze. “Stay calm. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. What’s in the needle?”

  She smirked. “Ladder-to-heaven.”

  From the doorway, a nurse gasped. Kate backed herself against the headrest, her eyes fixed on the needle.

  On the far side of the bed, Edward clambered to his feet. “Molly, what are you doing?”

  “Protecting our future.”

  “Future? What kind of future will we have if you’re in jail?”

  “She’ll ruin everything.” Molly turned to face him fully. “She knows.”

  Edward’s gaze flicked to Tom and back to the needle in his deranged fiancée’s hand. The needle she now held dangerously close to Edward’s chest. “Knows what, Molly?”

  Tom signaled to Kate to get out, but she didn’t see him.

  Molly cupped Edward’s cheek with her free hand. “Don’t you know how much I love you? I’d do anything so we could be together.”

  Tom slipped closer to the bed and tugged at Kate’s foot.

  “I can’t let her take you away from me.” Molly lifted her han
d and whirled toward Kate.

  26

  Images of her childhood, her first kiss, her friends, her family—her life—trounced across Kate’s vision in silent cinematic Technicolor, ending with Tom’s face telegraphing an urgent message. A message her fuzzy brain couldn’t decipher.

  Then suddenly the sound reel kicked in.

  “Move!” Tom yelled.

  Kate dove off the side of the hospital bed and scrambled to her hands and knees. The IV pole toppled after her.

  Keith scooped an arm around her waist and scuttled her toward the door.

  Tom lunged for the syringe lodged in the mattress.

  Edward grabbed Molly by the forearms and shook her mercilessly. “You? You killed Daisy?”

  She struggled against his hold, her fiery gaze burning into Tom as he secured the evidence that would convict her.

  Tom slapped a handcuff onto one of Molly’s wrists, then pried her arms free from Edward’s grip. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Daisy Leacock and the attempted murder of Kate Adams.”

  Edward looked like he might be sick. “Why, Molly? You said you didn’t care if I had money.”

  “I don’t.” She twisted and squirmed in the handcuffs. “This isn’t what it looks like. You don’t know my father.”

  Tom shoved her out the door. “Let’s go.”

  Kate clutched a blanket over her hospital gown and, avoiding Molly’s smug gaze, met Tom’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Everyone from patients in hospital gowns to nurses in uniforms to visitors in street clothes crowded the hallway.

  “Step aside, please,” Tom shouted over the hullabaloo.

  The crowd parted and Hank and a slew of uniformed officers raced up the hall toward them.

  Tom handed Molly over to the chief. “Here’s your murderer.”

  Molly wore her waitress uniform, and Hank skeptically looked her up and down. “The coffee girl?”

  Molly lifted her chin. “The daughter of Jeremiah Gilmore.” She paused long enough for the realization to sink in that she was the heiress to a diamond empire.

  Tom’s jaw dropped in sync with Hank’s and the collective gasp of the gathered crowd.

  Molly sniffed in that snooty way the very rich seem to master soon after birth. “There’s not a judge in the country who’ll believe I killed an old woman for money.”

  A chill shivered down Kate’s spine. A chill that had nothing to do with her bare feet on the cold marble floor. With the money Molly had behind her, she’d make bail by morning. Then what might she do?

  A head bobbed at the fringe of the crowd, a Jimmy Stewart–like mug Kate recognized from the features page of the Port Aster Press. He snapped a couple of photos of Molly with his cell phone and then pushed past the people lining the hall and shoved a digital voice recorder into Tom’s face. “Sir, can you tell us how you solved the murder?”

  “No comment.” Tom clamped his jaw shut and marched Edward out of the hospital room and handed him over to Hank. “You’ll want to question him too.” Tom shot a sideways glance at the reporter and lowered his voice. “I’ll fill you in at the station. My dad’s getting the rest of the evidence.”

  Keith emerged from the adjacent room with the laptop and syringe.

  The reporter jockeyed past Tom and Edward to get to Keith. “Sir, can you tell us what proof you have that Miss Gilmore committed mur—?”

  An alarm sounded at the nurses’ station. The crowd in the hall pressed their backs to the wall as nurses and doctors rushed past pushing portable machines. In the confusion, three officers hustled Molly, Edward, and Keith out of the building, away from the reporter’s clutches. A fourth officer cordoned off Kate’s room with crime scene tape.

  As Kate looked at the yellow plastic tape crisscrossing the door—the same way Daisy’s house had been cordoned off—the reality of how close she’d come to losing her life sunk in hard and fast. Her entire body shivered uncontrollably.

  The spectators soon dispersed. But not the reporter. He hovered, a vulture scouting for its next prey.

  “We’ll need Miss Adams to come in too,” the chief said to Tom. “As soon as the hospital okays her release.”

  That was all it took for Mr. Reporter to zero in on her. He snapped her photo with his cell phone and then swooped in front of her, voice recorder in hand.

  Great. Just great. Not only had she become the number one enemy of the wealthiest family in the country, but thanks to Mr. Reporter and the inevitable media circus he’d stir up, the most unbecoming photo of her was about to be plastered across the evening news of every major city in North America.

  Tom, her hero for the third time today, motioned to hospital security who quickly intercepted the vulture—definitely a vulture—and asked him to leave the premises.

  She should have told them to confiscate his cell phone too.

  A nurse brought Kate the clothes she’d arrived in and directed her to an empty room across the hall.

  Concern blazed in Tom’s eyes. A concern she’d have to decide how to respond to—sooner or later. Preferably later.

  Kate pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I’ll just get changed.” She slipped into the hospital room and closed the door. The movement of her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she passed by made her jump. Scolding herself, she scrutinized her reflection.

  No wonder Tom had looked so worried. Even her lips were white. She looked like the blood had been sucked from her body and replaced with milk of magnesia.

  She tugged on the string of her hospital gown, but the thing wouldn’t untie. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t make her fingers work.

  A tap sounded at the door. “Kate? You all right?”

  “Yes.” Her voice squeaked. She cleared her throat. “I’ll just be another minute.”

  She yanked her pants on underneath her gown and then tried to shimmy the gown over her head, but the opening was too small. She twisted it around so she could see the knot in the mirror.

  “Kate?” Tom called again, his tone more anxious than before.

  “Almost done.” She pried at the knot for another minute and steeled herself against the urge to believe his concern went deeper than that of a cop’s for a victim.

  For crying out loud, she was still working on forgiving him for arresting her. What was she doing letting a little chivalrous behavior get her all muddleheaded?

  She gave the string one hard yank, ripping it from the gown, and quickly finished dressing. Her confidence had long ago leached away, but when she opened the door, she managed to lift her chin and say in a voice that warbled only a fraction. “I need to grab my purse and then—”

  She made the mistake of meeting Tom’s gaze. The worry radiating from his red-streaked eyes unraveled what little grasp she had left on her emotions.

  “It’s okay.” He gathered her into his arms. “You’re okay. You did good.”

  The gentleness of his touch and tenderness in his voice unleashed the emotions she’d tried so hard to dam.

  Beneath her cheek, his shirt grew damp. His heart ker-thumped a little too loud and a little too fast.

  After a long while, he pulled back and cradled her face in his hands. “If you ever pull another stunt like that, I’ll slap the handcuffs on you and haul you into jail so fast your head will spin.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “On what charge?”

  “Trying to kill me!”

  Tom’s cell phone rang, breaking the sudden silence in the hospital hallway.

  “Son, you better get down here.”

  “On my way.” Tom hurried Kate out of the hospital and to his car, trying to ignore the way her scent clung to his shirt. When she’d let him gather her into his arms, emotions overwhelmed him—anger and horror at how close her crazy plan had come to costing her life, and relief that she was safe.

  Her surrender to his touch gave him hope that they might find a way back to the friendship they’d started, but he knew better
than to take advantage of her vulnerable state. He just wished he hadn’t resorted to humor to end their embrace. He didn’t know what to make of her stunned silence afterward.

  He’d take up the crazy plan part with her later. Tom shifted the car into gear and headed for the station. Glancing at Kate, he noticed her smile. “What’s up?”

  “The sky seems brighter somehow. Don’t you think?” she said, her gaze on the passing scenery. “Look at those tulips. Have you ever seen such vibrant colors?”

  He chuckled. He’d experienced the exact same hyperawareness the first time he’d looked death square in the eyes and lived to tell about it. Unfortunately, he needed to cut in on her reverie and get some answers before he faced Molly’s high-priced lawyers.

  “Do you know what Molly had in that syringe?”

  “Ladder-to-heaven is another name for lily of the valley.”

  “Is it as lethal as it sounds?”

  “Its bulbs are very toxic when ingested. Experts claim that even water holding the cut flowers becomes toxic. Maybe that’s what she loaded in the needle, but I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “She didn’t try that hard to conceal what she was doing, which tells me that she expected the poison to act instantly.”

  At her detached tone, as if they weren’t talking about her life, he ached to pull her back into his arms. Instead, he tried to match it. “She must’ve been counting on Edward not turning her in.”

  “That too,” Kate said softly.

  “The lab will tell us what’s in the needle. The fact she brought it with her proves premeditation.”

  “My guess is potassium. If she’d managed to push it into my IV, it would’ve stopped my heart instantly.”

  Tom’s heart lurched at the thought. “How would she have known that, let alone gotten ahold of some? More likely she was counting on her lily of the valley water being more potent than it is, especially if injected directly into the bloodstream.”

  “Maybe, but she was a pharmacology student before she quit to nurse her dying aunt.”

  “Is that what made you suspect her?”

  Kate shifted her gaze to the road ahead. “At Sumpner’s Falls, Edward told me that Molly’s dad bribed Edward to disappear, and that Molly defied her parents to fight for their love. But I’d overheard her talking to her dad on her cell phone the day after her engagement. She’d said something like, ‘Everything is going perfectly.’ If she were at odds with her parents, she wouldn’t talk to them that way.”