“Who left the spiders?” Lee asked.
She shook her head. Her eyes remained closed. “Now you’re insinuating Raven tried to kill Sophia?”
“What I know is Conner, Ryan, and Sophia have all suffered the effects of this venom. What I know is Raven’s DNA was on the syringe with a mixture of Ryan’s blood and the venom inside.”
Finally, she looked at him. “And where do you presume a nineteen-year-old obtained pure spider venom?”
“From Gavin. He has a whole cache. Does research. I’m telling you, Keelyn. This is the evidence.”
Keelyn pulled the covers up to her neck and tightened them like she wanted to strangle herself. Almost as surrender, her shoulders relaxed. “That’s the problem with you, Lee. You never think with your heart. Everything is not so cut-and-dried.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Keelyn shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. After all, you’ve been blinded by what your brother may have done. Even if Raven is involved in the things you say—at least no one has died at her hand.”
Lee opened his mouth. Was it wise to point out Raven’s actions had ultimately killed Ryan? He pressed his lips closed.
Keelyn continued. “That’s not true with your brother.”
The torrent of emotion within Lee collided like hot and cold air and the resulting thunder and lightning.
In his frustration, he lashed out at her. “You may want to rethink that theory.”
She edged back into her bank of pillows. “What are you talking about?”
“Conner is claiming it was Raven who lured Freeman to the diner. That she’s the one who killed everyone. His role was just to make sure you took Sophia.”
“You told me Conner could have stolen that gun from you. Have they checked his prints against the weapon found at the murder scene?”
His answering silence fostered her conclusion. “You’re going to believe that when it’s his prints on the weapon? You’re a police officer! Think logically about what you’re saying.”
He could see the pain in her eyes at his suggestion. Everything within him wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, to take her and Sophia away from this place . . . to hide them where no one could hurt them.
The light Keelyn brought to his life was like sunlight to a plant. He knew he couldn’t live without it. Yet his anger at her accusation darkened that lifeline. Could they overcome this wedge their troubled siblings had pounded between them?
He stood, leaned down, and placed his cheek against hers. “I love you, and we are going to get this figured out.” He cupped her head closer. “Just, please, don’t trust Raven right now.”
Tears fell from her eyes and his heart slumped. She pushed him back and pulled his engagement ring off her finger.
“Keelyn, no.”
She held it up to him, between her thumb and forefinger, the light cast off from the diamond a mocking blow to the reality of the moment. “I always told you I wouldn’t live with a lie.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
She dropped her hand onto her lap. “Lee, don’t patronize me. Something unspoken is just as dangerous as an overt lie. You are hiding something from me. Something that has to do with your brother. About your relationship. Whatever that is, it’s at the center of this whole mess.” She grabbed his hand.
He clenched it into a fist. “I’m not taking your ring back. We’re going to work through this.”
Tears fled from her eyes down her cheeks. “When you tell me the truth, I’ll consider taking it back.” She pried at his fingers. “Until then, know that I love you, but I can’t be with you. I’ll not live with another man who can lie to my face and turn around and destroy my life.”
“That was your father—not me. I love you—”
“That’s the last thing he said, too. Take the ring!”
Chapter 36
THE QUIET HUM OF THE tires against the road and Nathan’s calm presence did little to ease Lee’s distress over Keelyn. He stared at the barren fields as the sun hovered over withered weeds poking like skinny skeletons through melting snow. Keelyn’s ring burned through the breast pocket of his shirt directly over his heart. He drummed his fingers against his face as he contemplated what his next move should be. How was he going to get her back?
“We have to find Raven,” Lee said, keeping his eyes focused on the horizon.
“I know.”
“I think she’s going to come after Keelyn.”
“I guess we better find her before that happens.” A short silence. “Did something happen between the two of you?”
He felt the familiar cloak hovering, his desire to hide what had really happened. To protect himself against Nathan’s insight.
“She broke off our engagement.”
Instead what he felt was faint relief at having spoken the truth to Nathan about his situation. A tiny bit of weight fell off his shoulders. Was living in truth easier than hiding in deception?
“I’m sorry,” Nathan said.
“I have to get her back.”
“You will.”
“I need to figure out what Gavin’s stake is in all this. Why did he want to plant the idea of a nefarious character in Raven’s mind? Just to see if he could do it?”
“Gavin doesn’t strike me as a psychopath. You’ve been around men who are. It’s the vacant look in their eyes that’s always the dead giveaway. No feeling there. No compassion. Just a dead, soulless killing machine.”
“And you don’t think that describes Gavin?” Lee asked.
“No, I get the feeling of something different from him. Almost the opposite. Something extreme is bottled up inside. It’s this all-consuming fire. Like he’s feeling too much and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”
Lee pivoted, turned to the front. “When did you know you loved Lilly?”
Nathan chuckled. “It was probably the first time I saw her. She’d planted her fist in my chest and told me to leave her patient alone.”
Lee watched the yellow divider stripe flash by. “It was slower with Keelyn.”
“Nothing’s wrong with that. She’s younger—wounded.”
“Was there ever a time when you doubted . . . you know . . . that you and Lilly would make it?”
Nathan sighed. “It was complicated with Lilly. I knew I loved her long before she reciprocated. There was another man involved who had feelings for her. I was the detective on her case, so there was an obvious conflict of interest.”
Lee drummed his fingers against his knees. “Those are normal complications of being in relationships. I mean, did you think there was a time when you wouldn’t be together?”
He could see Nathan’s smirk. Normal relationship bumps for cops were extraordinary for others. It was the circumstances of the job that added a unique aspect to the regular progression.
Things came up most couples never had to deal with.
“I think the thing that finally convinced Lilly of my love for her was I never wavered in my belief in what she said, even though it meant the possibility of losing my job. Now there was a point when I didn’t think I could prove her case, and that’s when she left for Las Vegas to do her own research.”
“I think Keelyn thinks I’m not protecting her . . . that I’m trying to hurt her.”
“You are hurting her though, right?”
“By wanting to keep some things private?”
“Lee, honestly, you’ve been kidding yourself for a while now, and I think you’re beginning to realize that. They say honesty is the best policy for a reason. That Bible I’ve seen you with mentions that, you know.”
Lee saw Nathan smile slightly. He knew Nathan was trying to soften the words, but his heart still crushed under the weight of his past actions and the ripple effects of those choices in his life.
Nathan checked the driver’s mirror before changing lanes. “Also, the issue with Keelyn is that she feels guilty about not being there for Raven. There is a d
ebt she feels needs to be paid back. If Raven is involved in causing these illnesses and possibly murdering these individuals, it may be something Keelyn is going to have to see for herself. Your job will be to catch her when she falls.”
“You don’t think she’d do anything that would put her life at risk?”
“You know her better than I do. What’s your gut say?”
“That I better keep close tabs on her even though she doesn’t want me around anymore.”
Nathan’s phone rang. He checked the face. “It’s Vanhise.” He slapped the phone to his ear. Lee watched as his nonchalant face contorted into concern. “What can we do about it?”
Dark clouds formed over the Rockies. Heaviness settled into the air. Nathan disconnected the call.
“Well, we may have more of an explanation for the friction between Lucy and Gavin.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s had several complaints filed against him with the Colorado Board of Healing Arts and one was from Dr. Freeman.”
“What did the other complaints entail?”
“Some were improper sexual advances during therapy.”
“So Lucy did follow through.” Lee’s head pounded. “We need to look back over Dr. Freeman’s notes. See if she knew of these other complaints. It would be another possible motive for him to take out his partner. She was going to kick him out of the practice.”
Chapter 37
KEELYN SAT IN HER HOSPITAL bed with Sophia cradled in her arms, trying to interest her in a coloring book. Normally, Sophia loved to sit and doodle, but Keelyn’s coaxing did little to bring a smile to her face.
Something was wrong with her.
Keelyn stroked Sophia’s cheek, and her niece’s dark brown eyes lingered on hers like those of a wounded animal. Under Keelyn’s fingers, she could feel her temperature rising, a faint pink flush set into her cheeks. Keelyn cupped her small hand to her face when she reached up.
“What wrong, little one? Aren’t you feeling well?”
It was then she noticed the faint purple spots blooming under her skin. She pressed her thumb against them, and they didn’t blanch into her skin. Small bruises? Not a rash? Keelyn pushed the call light for her nurse. Sophia whimpered at the movement.
The indicator light on her phone blinked.
A text.
How is Sophia? Is she sick? Raven.
A sharp pain stabbed at Keelyn’s gut. She smoothed her hand over the glass face.
Why do you ask? Keelyn typed.
Message sent.
She tapped her nail against the phone—waited everlasting seconds.
Fever? Weird Rash?
Keelyn’s mouth dried. Sophia limp and hot in her arms. Her thumbs flew over the small keys nearly as fast as her heart sped in her chest.
What’s wrong with her?
Sophia began to cry and pulled at Keelyn’s hair.
I did more than just leave spiders in her pajamas.
Keelyn’s body froze. What had Raven done?
Meet me at the ER entrance in one hour. It’s the only way to save Sophia.
The pulmonologist following Keelyn’s case stepped into the room with another nurse. Her hair was Wynona Judd red, and she had a devious twinkle in her eye.
Keelyn waved the nurse over. “Can you check my niece? I think she might have a fever—and there’s this strange rash.”
When the nurse scooped Sophia up, the child’s foot caught and yanked at the chest tube. Keelyn’s breath ceased at the pain as she clasped her side with her hand.
“So sorry about that,” the nurse said. “Let me just check her temperature real quick, and I’ll be right back.”
Keelyn watched her leave.
“How are you feeling this afternoon?” the doctor asked. “Other than that little tug there.”
Keelyn exhaled slowly. “Better.”
“Any chest pain? Trouble breathing?”
“No, things are good. Any chance I can get this thing out today?”
“Well, you’re definitely moving in the right direction. The lung, surprisingly, was fully inflated on your morning chest film. That’s good. However, we can’t just take the chest tube out right away. We’re going to place it to water seal. If the X-ray is still good tomorrow, we can probably remove it, but then would need to watch you another day or so to make sure your lung doesn’t collapse again.”
“That’s the soonest?”
“I’m afraid so. You had a significant injury. Not something to play around with.”
“But the lung is back as it should be?”
“Yes.”
“So, it wouldn’t hurt to take the tube out now?”
He patted her knee like a wayward child. “We’re not going to risk it, Keelyn. Three days, okay? Not too much to ask, is it?”
He left. The door clicked in his wake.
Wynona returned.
Sophia was not with her.
“Where’s my niece?”
The nurse placed a blood pressure cuff on Keelyn’s arm. “You were right. Sophia does have a fever of 104. Not something to play around with. The rash is concerning. I took her back to the peds unit. Her nurse is going to touch base with the pediatrician.”
The pressure of the cuff around her arm matched the pressure squeezing her heart.
“What does a rash like that mean?”
“Well, sometimes it can mean there’s a bacteria growing in the blood.”
The cuff released. “That’s dangerous, right?”
Velcro ripped as the nurse removed the cuff. “It can be.”
Keelyn’s mouth dried. Could she bear to ask it? It would confirm Raven had done something dreadful.
To her own daughter.
“Could she die?”
Keelyn’s breath paused as she keyed on the nurse’s body language. There was a fleeting pass of widened eyes. A longer-than-normal eye closure. A deep breath to lengthen the moment as the woman thought of reassuring words. Tells for hiding serious news from another person. The woman wrung her hands. A sign of concern. She smoothed her hand at her neck. A pacifying gesture.
Her nurse pulled a tooth over her lower lip. “Don’t you worry. It could be a lot of other things, too.”
Keelyn swallowed hard. “How do they take these things out, anyway?”
The woman’s tone dropped lower as if her knowledge of Sophia’s true condition weighed her down. “You think it would be complicated, but it’s not too bad. We’ll give you some medication before so the pain won’t be quite as severe.”
“I mean the actual process.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t want to trouble you with such details today.” Her wink an implication that the step-by-step details would be too horrid for her. “Let’s go over it more when the time comes. I think the more people think about things, the more they begin to worry over it.”
The nurse motioned Keelyn forward and untied the back of her gown, her fingers lightly pressed at the edges of her bandage. “Dressing looks good.”
As soon as the nurse left, Keelyn grabbed her phone. Tears welled up in her eyes. Would she see Sophia again? Alive?
Keelyn knew she couldn’t leave the hospital dragging a big, square plastic box and an IV pump. Somehow, she’d have to disconnect these things and hope Nurse Busybody left her alone with enough time to do it in.
Forty-five minutes remained.
The YouTube video of a doctor taking out a chest tube caused bile to burn the back of her throat. Nervous sweat escaped her pores. She fanned herself with a stack of papers to get the feelings to subside. Through the soft breeze she wielded, her eyes landed on her PCA pump. She began to push at the button relentlessly to open the floodgate of morphine back into her system. The familiar warmth washed over her and began to calm her nerves.
She dumped the contents of her purse onto the bed. Shiny metal signaled her nail clippers. She could use those to clip the sutures. The video mentioned a special dressing. Vaseline gauze. A close-up of the item resem
bled gauze caked with something yellow and sticky.
Maybe she could make something like it.
She leaned from the side of her bed and grabbed the large yellow basin that held personal grooming items. There it was in white and blue.
A tube of Vaseline. Keelyn held the hose at her side, stood, and swayed. The medication made her dizzy. After the fuzziness cleared, she rifled through the cabinets looking for gauze. Behind a stack of towels, she found a box of four-by-fours. The next cabinet over, she found wide, cloth tape. She tossed the items back onto the bed and crawled back under the covers and pressed the pain button again.
Last dose.
Thirty minutes left.
She began to shake.
There was a fine line between treating pain and still being able to walk out and leave the facility. Keelyn leaned back into the pillows and took slow, steady breaths. Her mind tried to convince her of the utter insanity of what she planned. Her heart spoke otherwise.
She had to do this—to save Sophia’s life.
It’ll be fine. He said the lung was okay. It’s just like ripping a weed from the ground.
That’s how the video made it look.
Five minutes passed. Twenty-five minutes left.
She pulled three large sections of tape and stuck the ends on her bed rail. After the packages of large square gauze were opened, she smothered them with the full tube of petroleum jelly and worked it into the fibers with her fingers. Supposedly, this oily jelly would keep air from entering back into her chest. Another few packages of dry gauze and her stack was complete.
She pulled up the side of her gown and began to undo the dressing. She paled at the look of the clear plastic hose wedged into her side. Blue string circled around the tube and into her skin near the insertion site. The nail clippers shook in her fingers as she clipped the string. Her heartbeat quickened as she pulled the sutures from her skin.
That was the easy part.
With her right hand, she took the pile of gauze and held it tightly over the site. With her left hand, she grabbed the large plastic tube, and took several deep breaths to settle her nerves.
And yanked—hard.
The pain was more than she expected and she screamed through closed lips, fell against her pillows and panted through the pain like a woman giving birth. She held the stack of gauze tight against the open hole to prevent air from sneaking its way back in. Eventually, the pain quieted to a dull ache and she was able to secure the tape over the dressing. From her purse, she grabbed four pills of ibuprofen and swallowed them with the warm water from her bedside cup.
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