Poison

by Jordyn Redwood

  “Why?”

  “Lilly found marks on him. They looked fresh. An hourglass surrounded by these points.”

  A chill washed over Keelyn. She turned to see if the front door had opened. It remained closed. “Like a star?”

  Lee considered her question. “Could be. Why do you ask?”

  “Because Lucent wore a ring like that. An hourglass in front of an eight-pointed star.”

  Lee stood up. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  Keelyn looked up at him. “Honestly, I didn’t think it mattered what kind of weird jewelry he was wearing.”

  “I need to make some phone calls. I’m going to call El Paso and Teller County to get run sheets of everyone who was there that day. Check on their welfare. See if they’ve seen this young woman.”

  “You think there’s something to what Russell Atkins is saying?”

  “I don’t know. It seems thin. All I know is Ryan had a date last night he called ‘interesting.’ He’s sick the next day. Your sister might have been involved in these other cases.”

  Keelyn swallowed hard. “How would she have ever met Ryan?”

  He leaned forward. “Maybe she pursued him. She’s the common denominator at this point. She was there the day your father—”

  “Stepfather.”

  “Whatever—goes haywire. Two men have come upon some unfortunate circumstances. Now, the church where she was doing mission work has another two men, one dead, one missing. I’m saying we can’t overlook this aspect as a possible explanation.”

  “You’re willing to string my sister—”

  “Half sister—”

  “Up as a killer, yet you have no thoughts about this concerning Conner?”

  He exhaled sharply. He eased her up from her chair and wrapped his arms around her, careful not to startle Sophia. “I don’t want to fight. It’s probably nothing. I’m just stressed out, like you said.”

  Keelyn backed out of his arms and offered a gentle smile. “Okay. I know it’s been a long day. For both of us. I’d offer to make you dinner, but I need to get Sophia settled. Why don’t you head home and get some sleep? By the way, thank you for all the toys. That was very sweet of you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Keelyn motioned to the basket of toys on the table. “These. When did you have time to get them?”

  “Keelyn, I didn’t bring those for Sophia.”

  Her stomach and heart collided. She began to step back from the table. Lee reached for her.

  “What is it?” he asked, his hand firm on her arm to steady her shaking.

  “If you didn’t bring them, then someone else has been in here. Someone broke in and left them. Was the door unlocked when you got here?”

  Lee rushed forward, grabbed her jacket from the chair where it had been tossed, and loosely wrapped it around her and Sophia. He hurried her to the door.

  She pushed back against his chest. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to search your house.”

  “Lee, it’s freezing outside.”

  “It won’t take me long. Go to the neighbor’s house. I’ll find you.”

  Out on the front step, the wind howled as it blew around the house. She put the coat on backward to shield Sophia from the cold and glanced right and left. Both homes were dark. The child slept heavily and barely stirred so she settled against the door to wait.

  What is happening? Who is leaving all these strange gifts for Sophia?

  Common sense would suggest it was Raven, concerned for her care, possibly using them as a way to reach out to Keelyn. Did she not know she could just show herself and stop these silly games? Something prevented her from doing just that. What could it be?

  The door gave way behind Keelyn. Unable to get her footing, she began to fall into the doorway until Lee’s sure hands caught her from behind and helped her stand.

  “All clear.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Is she still sleeping?”

  He eased the coat off her arms. Sophia let out a contented sigh.

  “I’ll put her to bed.”

  “Good. I can make those phone calls. Bring down a couple of blankets. I’m staying here tonight.”

  Keelyn took the stairs one heavy step at a time. The volunteer at the shelter had given Sophia dinner, a snack, and dressed her in her polar bear footie pajamas. After tucking her in, Keelyn kissed her forehead. With two blankets in her arms, she returned to the living room. Lee had the fireplace on and some tea on the table.

  “Let’s get you warmed up.”

  Keelyn sat beside him. Lee pulled her into his side and wrapped his steely muscles around her shoulders. With the blanket unfurled, he covered her legs and handed her the hot mug. She held it under her nose, the scent of cinnamon and vanilla with sweet cream quieted her mind.

  These were the moments with Lee she relished. Feeling cared for and safe. As she settled beside him, his muscles relaxed and he played his fingers through her hair, easing out the windblown tangles. A hint of his cologne, like a low fire in pine trees, brought back memories of past camping trips huddled in a tent in the woods as they would watch the stars move slowly above the open flap.

  She wanted this every day and twirled the promise around her fourth finger.

  “I’m glad you’ll be here.”

  He pulled her closer. “Me too. I did find something.”

  “What was it?”

  “A note in the bottom of the basket.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it said?”

  He pressed his lips onto the top of her head. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

  Darkness clouded her mood. And Sophia?

  He eased back. “It said, ‘Someone you perceive as a friend is really your enemy.’”

  The blackness squeezed tighter. “Maybe they read Shakespeare like you do.”

  “Veiled threats should not be taken lightly.”

  As she sipped, Keelyn’s tea scorched her tongue like she imagined the hemlock burned Juliet’s throat when she drank in the despair of her lover she thought dead.

  Lee flipped on the TV and began to channel surf.

  Keelyn gripped his knee as a news piece with Rebecca and her husband flashed on the screen. “Go back. Channel 7.”

  Rebecca was standing next to her husband. She was almost a full head shorter than he. During the interview, the husband kept admonishing the press and police for considering that his wife could be a suspect in the disappearance of their two children. His support was clear and unwavering. Rebecca looked only at the camera or down. Never up at her husband. Never nodded her head in agreement to his statements that she wasn’t involved.

  “If I had to place my bets, I think she’s done something to those children.”

  Keelyn nodded. “Yes, she’s definitely hiding something.”

  Chapter 22

  THE SNOW HAD STOPPED, and the dim lights of the parking structure gave patchy comfort as Nathan jogged across the lot into the hospital’s foyer. Word of the fallen officer had spread through the framework of the police department. He was peripherally aware of Ryan’s circumstances and, because of his relationship with the attending physician, the chief had asked Nathan to go to the hospital to check things out. Possibly he could even offer some assistance to the parents.

  Question Lilly for inside info.

  After making the rounds with the other officers who milled around the waiting area, he entered the ICU and neared Ryan’s room. Lilly stood at the bedside in discussion with another physician.

  Lilly motioned him in. Mrs. Zurcher was confined to a wheelchair. Her hair thin, muscles wasted, her color sallow. As a teaching note for his work with the public, he remembered Lilly saying that a yellow tinge to the skin often meant liver failure and he should be aware of this among those who possibly imbibed special spirits on a regular basis—though Mrs. Zurcher didn’t strike him as having a problem with the bottle and there were l
ikely dozens of issues that could cause jaundice. Did that explain the rash of bruises that spotted her skin? Her weakness? Could she slide right out of her chair?

  Mr. Zurcher seemed marginally better. At least he could stand, though he leaned heavily on his cane. Nathan placed a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry about Ryan.” He eyed Lilly. “Do we know anything yet?”

  The old man dropped his head lower. “Don’t understand much of what’s going on.”

  Lilly stepped nearer to the couple. “Is it all right if I discuss Ryan’s case in front of Detective Long?”

  “If you think it can help.”

  “Maybe. There’s something that might interest him.”

  Nathan eyed her conspiratorially. They walked to the head of the bed. Ryan had a tube plugged into every orifice and Nathan cringed at the thought of what was unseen. A tube in his mouth connected to a ventilator. One snaked into his nose that sucked thick, green bile from his stomach. Chest leads monitored his heart. A lit probe on one finger measured his oxygen level.

  Lilly had been a good teacher about these things.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Nathan asked.

  “Did you talk with Lee at all?”

  Nathan unbuttoned his coat, eased it off, and tossed it to a nearby chair. “Lee’s probably not in the mood to talk with me.”

  “Aren’t you working together?”

  “He’s off the case.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Let’s get this young man’s situation figured out. You heard about the accidental discharge?”

  “On the news, but the details are fuzzy.”

  “The chief is very interested in finding out a cause that’s not negligence. What’s wrong with him?”

  Lilly glanced at the Zurchers, who seemed entranced by Wheel of Fortune. She lowered her voice. “No one really knows.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It’s not a clear picture medically. He presented with intense pain, sweating, and a fast heart rate. Nothing really showed up on any of his labs. His scans were clean. Surgery was so baffled, even in light of the negative scans, they took him to the OR to look inside his belly.”

  “I thought CT could find anything.”

  “Not always. Sometimes certain organs are harder to see than others. His appendix wasn’t visualized, and his abdomen was painful and rigid. Surgery thought, in light of those results and his excruciating pain, that it at least warranted a look.”

  “But nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I want to show you this. I’m going to turn him on his side.”

  Lilly pulled the sheet off his body. He was dressed in a thin, pale blue gown. After she placed a hand on his shoulder and hip, she eased him up onto his right side. “I need you to slide his gown up.”

  “Lilly—”

  “Come on. There’s a good reason. I’m holding him and watching all these tubes.”

  Nathan eyed the hall. No one seemed turned his way. All he needed was endless razzing about him undressing another man. He lifted his nose as he eased the fabric up.

  An hourglass shape had been carved into his skin. Small red dots orbited the marks.

  “It looks infected.”

  Lilly eased Ryan down and draped the sheet back in place. “Maybe.”

  “Could it be why he’s sick?”

  “His symptoms don’t fit the clinical picture of blood-borne sepsis very well. Cultures won’t be back for a couple of days.”

  Nathan shrugged it off. “It’s not unusual for these guys to do some type of unique branding. Maybe it’s a SWAT thing. They’re essentially paramilitary. Did you ask Lee about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “Nathan, you’re usually very intuitive about these things.”

  He ruffled his hands through his brown hair. She was right. He was far from thinking clearly. Exhaustion had put his neurons to sleep.

  “Help me with this one.”

  “The autopsy you went to?” The lilt in her voice a friendly tug to his memory.

  “Yes.”

  “You mentioned an odd rash the ME found.”

  “She didn’t know what it was.”

  “Remember how many dots there were?”

  “I didn’t want to appear to be lingering.”

  Lilly rolled her eyes at him. “There were eight dots. That’s what you told me.”

  “Okay, so they both have eight dots of unknown origin. What am I supposed to put together?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why you’re the detective. But don’t you think it’s odd that two officers who were involved with the John Samuals hostage situation have fallen under peculiar circumstances and on their bodies is a collection of eight puncture-type wounds? One is dead from an unknown illness, and the other is sick and we don’t know why.”

  Nathan felt the fatigue of the day drain his last bit of energy. “I don’t remember him being there. Did Lee tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  Lilly motioned to the nearly comatose couple. Mr. Zurcher had taken a seat and fallen asleep against his wife. Her wheelchair gave her enough height to rest her head on top of his. A weird vision of a totem pole popped into Nathan’s mind.

  “Ryan’s parents are very proud of his accomplishments. They talked about the highlights of his career thus far. About how Ryan was one of the men who entered the Samuals home to save those children.”

  “So now I have a murdered psychiatrist, one dead officer—reason unknown. I have an ill officer—reason unknown. This young man has a body marking possibly similar to the dead officer. And I have a missing woman. All were involved in that one hostage event.”

  “Don’t forget the hallucination that materialized and visited Keelyn.”

  “Yeah, there’s that, too.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Nathan slid his toe over the linoleum. “I’m going to have to go back. I don’t want to go back.”

  “Maybe through this, you’ll forgive yourself for what happened.”

  “How can I when people are still dying?”

  Chapter 23

  Saturday

  KEELYN SAT WITH SOPHIA at the base of her bay window, tracing patterns in the condensation fogging the small sectioned panes. Then Sophia found great joy in furiously wiping through the design with her index finger. Her belly laugh pulled back the shadowed gloom, and Keelyn found it hard to resist a smile as she nuzzled her face in her niece’s neck and took in the lingering sweet scent of her lavender body wash.

  “Heart?” She placed her pudgy hands on Keelyn’s cheeks and pushed her mouth into pucker position.

  Keelyn spoke through the fish-lips. “You want me to draw a heart?”

  This sent Sophia into a spasmed frenzy and she threw her head back as squeals of laughter overtook her. Keelyn gave her exposed tummy a raspberry, and Sophia rolled away from her. Righting herself, she plopped back onto Keelyn’s lap.

  “Help?”

  Keelyn placed her hand over her niece’s, extended her index finger over the small child’s, and drew a heart. Small drips formed at the edges of the picture, and despite Sophia’s exuberance, the sentiment echoed what she felt in her own heart.

  Sadness.

  She’d hoped Lee would stop by today, but he claimed he needed to go to Ryan’s apartment to pick up some things for the family. Did that need to take all day? There was something he wasn’t sharing, something big he was keeping from her. Then again, maybe it was her fault their pasts were such a blank canvas. Why dredge up such unhappiness? Lee had basically said the same thing, so their troubled pasts generally were left untouched in conversation. It had been enough to know they loved one another and wanted to build a solid, happy, fruitful life together.

  Now, what had been buried, kept quiet, seemed to trail them, until the secrets
were beginning to suffocate what they had built, weakening their foundation.

  She snuggled Sophia. “Want to watch a movie?”

  She wiggled off her lap. “Blocks?”

  Keelyn patted her bottom in the direction of the small play area. “OK, sweet girl. You play over there, and I’m going to watch TV.”

  She waited for Sophia to get settled as she loaded one of the DVDs sent to her from the Boulder police. She sat still, the remote poised in her hand but the television still off.

  These moments of complete silence were now rare.

  In about one hour, Mrs. Linwood would be by to watch Sophia so Keelyn could continue her search for the enigma otherwise known as Lucent. Until then, she was going to immerse herself in Rebecca Hanson’s home movies to prepare for the interview.

  She could feel the difficulties in her life beginning to overwhelm her.

  Caring for a child, Raven missing, Lucent’s unknown whereabouts, and the string of odd events kept her up at night. Add the murdered psychiatrist, the sickened officer, Lee getting booted off the case that could have been the answer to Raven’s whereabouts . . . it was all beginning to be too much.

  The anticipation of helping with a highly visual case and what it could do for her company had set her heart into an elevated rhythm for days. She needed this. The income would not only pay her bills, but might be required to support a child for the long term. She couldn’t quiet her mind at night, and all of that, combined with little sleep, caused her to doubt the wisdom of the cup of coffee she grabbed from the table.

  She closed her eyes to settle her stomach.

  One step at a time. Lord, give me wisdom. This is what I can do for now. Help me focus and see the things I need to see to help these children be found alive.

  Keelyn waded through the known facts of the case. The day Rebecca had gone missing, her husband stated that when he came home from work around four o’clock in the afternoon, she and the children weren’t home. School let out at three o’clock, and she normally would walk halfway to meet them.

  Why halfway?

  Keelyn thought back to the husband’s police interview she had also viewed. In response to that question, his hands were settled in his lap. His feet firm on the floor, facing the detective, not the door. He was still and calm. He’d stated that Sadie and Bryce expressed a desire to exert some independence and walk themselves to school. Rebecca agreed to meet them in the middle as a compromise of sorts.