Honor

by Janet Dailey

  Kenzie swallowed over the lump in her throat. “I plan to keep on doing just that.” She took a moment to compose herself. “Where is Mrs. Corelli?”

  Her husband shrugged. “Dunno. But she’s never far away.” He moved to Christine’s bedside and began to stroke her hair.

  Minerva Corelli came through the open door with a warmed, folded blanket over one arm and greeted both of them in a gentle voice. “Alf, there you are. The nurse at the desk said she saw you go by. Kenzie, how are you?”

  “Fine, thanks, Mrs. Corelli.”

  The older woman waved the formality away. “I think you’re old enough to call me Minerva, don’t you?”

  “I couldn’t,” Kenzie said, laughing. “Don’t make me.”

  “Good heavens, we’re more than family by now.” She looked at her sleeping daughter and the two happy people that stood beside the bed, setting the blanket down at the end. “Alf, did Christine—”

  “Yes. Again. She looked right at Kenzie.”

  “Oh, honey.”

  Kenzie went into her open arms for a mutual hug.

  “It’s a great day,” Mrs. Corelli whispered. “For all of us.”

  She let go of Kenzie and went to her daughter again, spreading the warmed blanket over the lower half of Christine’s bed, pulling it up as far as she could.

  “Kenzie, I almost forgot to thank you for the photo CDs. I had some printed. They’re over there on the wheeled table if you want to look at them.”

  “I’d love to.” She moved aside to give the Corellis room and lifted up the first photo, of Alf and Minerva, beaming at the person behind the camera. Kenzie happened to know it had been Christine.

  She was in the next one, laughing. Then there was one of her and Christine together. More friends. Pets. Happy times. A party she’d forgotten going to, with a lot of cheerful guests. Frank Branigan was among them.

  With care, Kenzie put the photos into a pile and turned around again. A nursing assistant had come in to take away a tray of half-eaten sandwiches that Kenzie knew had been provided for the Corellis. Tidying up, she picked up napkins and added a few fallen petals from a bouquet of deep red roses.

  Mrs. Corelli noticed, and thanked her. The young woman smiled shyly as she left with the tray.

  “Kenzie, I would swear Christine saw those when she opened her eyes.” She waved at the vase and its lavish silk bow. “She loves roses.”

  “Yes, she does. That color especially.”

  She went over to see who had sent them, looking for the card. It was inside an envelope stuck into a little plastic holder, almost hidden inside the arrangement.

  Nosiness got the better of her. She took out the envelope. It wasn’t sealed. She opened the card inside.

  With love. From Kenzie to Chrissie.

  An icy chill seized her heart.

  The Corellis were paying attention to their daughter. Christine’s father had turned her head on the pillow so that her mother could brush her hair. They spoke to each other in low murmurs. Her mind awhirl, Kenzie scarcely heard them.

  She slipped the card out of its envelope and studied the feminine handwriting. The florist had probably made it out.

  The vicious bastard who’d run Christine off the road was playing a bizarre game. He’d paid for the flowers and ordered them delivered. She still knew nothing about the man, other than that he had to be watching both of them, had to know she would be at the hospital. Kenzie’s whole body tensed with rage—and fear.

  “So nice of you to send them.”

  She looked up, startled, at Christine’s parents. “I should have told you right away.”

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Mrs. Corelli picked up instantly on the change in her. “Told us what? You’re shaking all of a sudden.”

  “Am I?”

  “We felt shaky too, right after she first looked at us.” Alf smiled understandingly. “It was almost too much to comprehend that Christine is on the mend. She may even be out of danger.”

  “No.” Kenzie’s voice was laced with fear. “Not yet. Please, I have to talk to you. Separately or together. But not in here.”

  Alf was alone with Kenzie in a room set aside as a quiet sanctuary, meant for families of patients. It was simply furnished, with abstract paintings in soothing colors and wide windows that looked out above the trees.

  The urgency of her request had compelled both Corellis to leave Christine’s room at the same time, but Mrs. Corelli had returned there, though not before giving Kenzie a hug.

  She didn’t think she deserved it.

  Alf turned to talk to Kenzie. “I want you to understand something important.”

  Inwardly she braced herself.

  “From the moment we knew how badly Christine had been hurt, Minerva and I never talked about how the accident might have happened or who was responsible,” Alf said. “That was for the future. We knew that Christine needed us and that was all that mattered.”

  “I still should have told you something,” she said stubbornly.

  “You made a decision that you believed was right. We can’t fault you for that. Not after all you’ve done for Christine and us.”

  “Do you think it was right?”

  Alf heaved a sigh and clasped his hands loosely in front of him. “You were terrified. And if you assumed my wife and I were too overwhelmed to deal with something like that—well, you weren’t wrong.”

  “I believed Christine was safe here with you two and all the nurses and doctors.”

  “She was. Nothing happened.”

  Kenzie fell silent. That was true.

  “We assumed you’d met with the police and that there’d be an investigation into the crash sooner or later. Someone did call yesterday, by the way.”

  “Who?”

  “A lieutenant. I think his name was Mike Warren. My wife was going to call him back.”

  “Let me talk to him first,” Christine begged. “I wish I hadn’t touched the card. It is something they can trace. I didn’t get a screen grab of the man I saw in the laptop or even a good look at his face.”

  But what he’d said about the Corellis’ daughter was seared in her mind.

  Is that bitch Christine still on life support? Too bad.

  The serene family room had seemed to echo with the words when she’d repeated them. Mr. and Mrs. Corelli had said nothing at first.

  “He needs to know everything, from start to finish,” Alf emphasized. “Write it down if you have to. Make sure it’s all there. The vase and bouquet could be just as important.” He rose to go back to his wife and daughter. “We didn’t touch the flowers.”

  But she had. The nursing assistant had too. Still, the florist’s envelope and the little card inside it connected to someone.

  Mike Warren’s business card was at the bottom of her purse. She dialed his direct number, hoping he wasn’t out of the station. He picked up after several rings.

  “Ridgewood PD. Lieutenant Mike Warren.”

  His tone was nonchalant. Just another day for him.

  “H-hello,” she began nervously. “This is Kenzie—Christine Corelli’s friend. I need to talk to you.”

  He seemed to go on instant alert. “Do you want to come in? Where are you?”

  “At Guilford Hospital. I think you need to come here. And bring an evidence kit.”

  She told him why, from beginning to end.

  Linc arrived shortly after and stayed with Kenzie in the sanctuary.

  “Best to stay out of the way,” he said to her. “The room’s getting crowded.”

  The staff members who had to be informed of the officers’ visit to the ward didn’t know exactly why the lieutenant and patrolman were there. No one seemed to think much of it. Cops were a familiar sight around hospitals.

  But maybe not one wearing rubber gloves to carry a vase of roses with a plastic bag over it.

  Through the glass doors, Linc saw him pass and head for the elevators. Lieutenant Warren walked by next, but he stopped w
hen he saw them and came in.

  “Hey. Just wanted to say thanks,” he said to Kenzie. His manner was utterly unemotional. “We’ll see what we can get from the florist’s card and that envelope.”

  “My fingerprints,” she said dully.

  “Yes. And others. I’m going to talk to the owner today. I know the shop. I buy flowers for the wife there sometimes.”

  Kenzie nodded.

  “What’s going on with the car?” Linc wanted to know.

  “It’s still in the impound lot. We don’t have the paint analysis back yet.”

  “Anything else?”

  Mike Warren took out a small notebook with a pencil slot on the side. “Actually, yes. Kenzie, someone from SKC returned my call—Melvin Brody was the name. He left a message with the deputy on the night desk. It didn’t get routed to me until this morning. Something about a company laptop missing from the office. It had been assigned to Christine. Know anything about that?”

  “If she had an SKC laptop, I didn’t see it,” Kenzie said, adding indignantly, “and she wouldn’t take one from work without authorization.”

  “No one said she did.” The lieutenant flipped to the page he’d been looking for and tapped it with the pencil. “Tell me again. Exactly when were you in her apartment? I want to be sure I wrote down the right time.”

  Linc noted the other man’s casual tone. Mike Warren knew what he’d written. He was making sure the details of Kenzie’s story were consistent. Big cases got built on little things that jumped out at you.

  “Monday afternoon,” Kenzie replied. “I only went there because Mrs. Corelli wanted me to pick up insurance paperwork for Christine.”

  “Right—and she said she also asked you to find Christine’s personal laptop, a white one, and bring it to the hospital. Where is that now?”

  “With me,” Linc said. Eventually he was going to have to explain a little bit about where he worked and say even less about what he did, then whip out the problem-killer government ID.

  The lieutenant cast a brief but curious glance up at him. “Both of you handled it?”

  “Yes,” Linc replied. Mike Warren would be interested to learn that he’d worn gloves. And why Linc had them in his toolkit in the first place.

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I can get a look at it later.”

  Subtle. Neither Linc nor Kenzie chose to take the hint.

  “There’s a possibility the man you saw was actually in Christine’s apartment and got to the laptop before either of you did. We need to dust it for prints—cover, keys, everything. Sometimes we can pick up a DNA bonanza just from the crap that gets into the crevices.”

  He seemed to assume they would just hand over Christine’s laptop. Linc looked at Kenzie.

  “Let me ask her parents if it’s okay. And I can look for the SKC laptop at her apartment,” she volunteered.

  “All right,” the lieutenant said. “If you want to drop it off at the station, I’ll see that it gets to that Brody guy.”

  “We can take care of that,” Linc volunteered.

  “Great. Thanks. By the way, I don’t think I gave you my card,” the lieutenant said to him. “Give a call whenever.”

  “Sure.” Linc’s tone of voice was neutral.

  “You going with her?” Warren asked Linc. “I mean, to the apartment.”

  “Hell yes,” Kenzie said.

  “That’s a good idea,” the lieutenant said. “If you’re leaving now, I’ll walk out with you two.”

  “Kenzie?” Linc asked.

  She gave a slight nod. “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Linc escorted her to his car after the lieutenant left in an unmarked SUV. She stayed closer to him than she usually did. He liked the feeling of having her near. Too bad it took a second shock to make her do it. He wished to God the stalker would show up and get what was coming to him. So far, the bugged shell of Christine’s laptop in the back footwell—the Not Serviceable By User insides carefully removed by Linc and hidden next to his toolkit—hadn’t attracted the stalker. Obviously he preferred the weaker sex for his degenerate games.

  Too bad mind control didn’t work from a distance. If Linc had a way to make the psycho flame out and self-destruct, it would save a lot of trouble.

  He opened the passenger door for Kenzie and shut it when she slid in. He got in on his side and put the address she gave him into his GPS. The moving road appeared on the screen. He shut off the annoying voice.

  They drove across town, silent at first. She stared ahead, lost in thought.

  “Anything else happen today?” he finally asked.

  “What?” Kenzie turned to look at him. “Oh—yes. I was going to tell you. I finally met Randy Holt. We had breakfast.”

  “What’s he like?”

  Kenzie smiled wryly. “She. Randy is short for Miranda. She’s great. Good-hearted. And tough.”

  “Medics have to be. What did she want?”

  “I—I don’t want to talk about Frank and all that right now,” Kenzie answered. “Maybe later.”

  “Not a problem.” He thought better of telling her about the arrival of the flag-draped coffin at Dover that he’d seen on TV. The Branigans would probably contact her and let her know about the funeral or memorial service.

  Linc turned down the street that led to their destination. “That guy Baum sold me some of the outtakes from the accident video.”

  “Sold it? Is it his?”

  “No. He’s a two-bit reporter. It belongs to the TV station. I couldn’t get it any other way. Not that quickly, I mean.”

  “Is that what he does on the side?”

  “Sometimes, I guess.”

  Kenzie scowled with disapproval. “I’m not going to ask how much it cost you.”

  “Kenzie, it’s not like I could get a court order and make the TV station give it to me. I’m not Mike Warren. We need a visual on the stalker any way we can get it, and I didn’t feel like waiting.”

  “I can relate to that,” she said ruefully.

  “Same kind of thing happens with the good old military chain of command. Put in a request or make a complaint, and nothing happens.”

  “Randy said the same thing.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Later. Like I said.”

  “Okay. When you’re ready I’d like you to look at some still frames from the video.” He glanced at her set profile. “Not the accident itself. Just the people who drove by, gawking.”

  “Wouldn’t Mike Warren want to see that too?”

  “Maybe,” Linc replied evenly. “I’m not done with it yet. You okay with that?”

  “It’s up to you.” She was silent for a little while. “He’s all right. Doing his job, I guess. By the way, I picked up some brochures about SKC when I was there. Not to be rude, but he could probably answer some of his own questions if he read them.”

  Linc smiled to himself. “Maybe so.”

  “It’s a monster conglomerate,” she said absently. “Lots of subsidiaries. I didn’t get a chance to read the material myself.” She looked into her purse. “And I forgot to give him the brochures.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She heaved a ragged sigh and clutched the purse, rolling the soft leather band that closed it nervously between her fingers. “What a day. I’m glad it’s almost over.”

  “Do you feel better now that the Corellis know?”

  “I wish I did. Maybe I will.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “That’s what they said.” She sat up straighter. “I almost forgot to tell you. Christine opened her eyes today. Just for a few seconds, when I walked in—but I knew she recognized me.” Her voice was threaded with joy.

  Linc could guess why she’d forgotten. The innocent bouquet of roses. It amounted to a second message from the stalker. He’d hit closer this time. Linc didn’t like it at all.

  “You didn’t forget, Kenzie. You just needed the right time to remember, that’s all
. That’s great news.”

  Her mood brightened and she seemed a lot happier, talking to him about what Alf had said about it being the second time that day and how Christine was on the mend.

  Linc turned the steering wheel to move the car into a parking space half a block away. He followed her into the building, scoping out the area. Nothing to see. His instincts told him their man was far away at the moment. Biding his time.

  The same closed-in smell permeated Christine’s apartment, slightly stronger this time. Kenzie hesitated on the threshold, letting Linc go in ahead of her.

  He strode through the rooms, banging doors and making noise. “No one here,” he called to her.

  “Unless they’re deaf.”

  Linc came out of the bedroom and stood in the middle of the living room. “Nice and neat. Except for that thing.”

  He went to the hutch, looking down at the tumbled papers and files Kenzie had left behind twice. “Is this where the laptop was?”

  “Yup. In the bottom cabinet, charging.”

  Linc squatted on his haunches and used a stray piece of paper to move the doors. She’d left them both open. The second time, when she’d grabbed the laptop and cord, even more paper had tumbled out.

  “Then maybe the other one is in here too.”

  Kenzie walked over and bent down to look. Linc tsked and waved the protective paper at her. “My prints are all over everything in this place,” she told him. “There’s no point in my being careful.”

  “Okay.” He smiled easily. “Then start going through this stuff. There might be something worth keeping.”

  “Don’t you want to find the SKC laptop first?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  She sat down cross-legged and leafed through miscellaneous papers and files. “What a mess. She has her college essays in here. The Dichotomy of Quotidian Experience. What does that mean?”

  Linc got up and began to look elsewhere. “Exactly nothing.” He let his gaze roam over shelves and tables and furniture, doing a purely visual sweep. He was trying to get a deeper sense of the place, guessing who might have come and gone, not really looking for the laptop. Kenzie could find it if it was here.