Special Agent Nanny

by Linda O. Johnston

  She turned back to Darrick. “Whoever shot him must have planted the pager.” She looked at Shawn. “This could be part of the plot against me.”

  Shawn involuntarily met the detective’s eye. Darrick didn’t know anything about Kelley’s recent problems, so he clearly thought she was paranoid.

  And quite probably the shooter.

  “We’ll figure it out, Kelley.” But she apparently thought he was humoring her, for she glared at him.

  “Yeah, we will,” she said. She looked at Darrick. “Is there any word on how Mr. Paxler is?”

  “Not yet.” He glanced down at the notebook in his hand. “I’ll need to talk to you further, Dr. Stanton.” He glanced at Shawn. “And I don’t know who you are.”

  Shawn flashed his ICU credentials. “I’m involved in an investigation at the hospital,” he said. “Of course I’ll be glad to cooperate.”

  “Of course you will,” Darrick said.

  Shawn didn’t like the detective’s smug grin but left it alone—for now. And watched as Darrick took Kelley aside to interview her.

  He really didn’t want to believe she’d done it. He didn’t believe it.

  But looking at the situation objectively, he could see where someone like Darrick could believe it.

  She had plenty of reasons to be mad at Paxler. At best, he had threatened her career. Helped make her look like an inept doctor. Tried to pin the blame for the Etta Borand lawsuit on her plus the patient deaths in the Silver Rapids flu epidemic.

  At worst, he was involved with the plot to spread the Silver Rapids flu himself, had possibly tampered with blood tests and set the fire, and had tried to implicate Kelley.

  Paxler knew Shawn was here to find the arsonist, and that Kelley was a prime suspect. But he didn’t know that Shawn was looking into a connection to the Silver Rapids flu epidemic, for it had farther-reaching importance—a relationship to the kidnapping of the Langworthy baby.

  What if Paxler did know more about the epidemic?

  What if he didn’t, and the original reason Shawn had come was true—Kelley had done it all?

  She already said she felt guilty about Paxler’s attempted suicide.

  What if she had good reason?

  “Damn it, Kelley,” he muttered. He wouldn’t believe it without proof.

  And while she was being interviewed by the police, Shawn would look for evidence to clear her.

  KELLEY FELT EXHAUSTED as she dragged her way back toward KidClub through the nearly deserted halls of Gilpin Hospital.

  She’d had her receptionist cancel all her appointments that afternoon. The day had passed so quickly, especially during her interrogation by Lt. Darrick, that it felt as if she had somehow accelerated hours into seconds. At least it was over. Once she had picked up Jenny, they would leave for home.

  Maybe for good.

  She’d had so many confrontations that day that she wished she’d lost track of them the same way she had lost time. She hated confrontations. Yet she remembered each in painful detail.

  Her verbal duel with Louis might have led to his suicide attempt.

  If it was a suicide attempt.

  How had her pager gotten there? Best she could remember, she had left it in her office, so anyone with access there could have picked it up.

  Even Shawn.

  She sighed as she turned the corner into the admin wing.

  She couldn’t believe that of Shawn, even though he didn’t trust her. He appeared to believe she could have shot Louis.

  That hurt worst of all.

  Despite what he thought—feelings apparently shared by Lt. Darrick—she hadn’t hurt Louis. For one thing, she didn’t own a gun.

  Louis did, though, and Darrick said he kept it in his office. Kelley hadn’t known about it. As if Darrick would believe that any more than the rest of her story.

  Around the corner in the KidClub corridor, she saw Juan Cortes at the far end of the hall. He came toward her, leaving his cart behind.

  She sighed. Wasn’t it Wednesday? She really didn’t care who brought morning treats on Friday this week. She would just hand the janitor a few dollars and ask him to do it.

  But fruit and sweet rolls were not what was on his mind. He faced her, his dark eyes troubled. “Did Mr. Paxler really try to kill himself?” His tone was hushed, though nobody else was around to hear.

  “Ah, the eternal, infernal Gilpin gossip machine strikes again,” Kelley murmured.

  He looked confused. “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. Officially, no one knows whether Mr. Paxler shot himself or someone else did, Juan. But it appears to be a suicide attempt, and it’s still uncertain whether he’s going to make it.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible.” He sounded genuinely upset, as if he cared what happened to the hospital administrator. Kelley suspected that the status-conscious Louis had probably never spoken to Juan, except maybe to tell him what messes to clean up. But Juan was a kind and caring man. Why else would he have been so determined to bring treats to the children?

  “Yes, it’s awful,” she acknowledged. “We all need to pray for him.” She began to edge around, but Juan touched her arm.

  “Dr. Stanton, there’s something I need to show you.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked down at the floor, as if embarrassed. “I heard the rumors that you set the fire.”

  She closed her eyes for just a moment, wanting to break something. “Of course.” It wasn’t enough that everyone from patients to colleagues knew she was accused of incompetence. The maintenance staff knew it, too, and that she was suspected of arson.

  “The thing is… Well, I was cleaning in the old records room before. We were told the fire department and insurance company gave permission to get it restored, so I was sent there to work. And…Dr. Stanton, I found something I think you should see.”

  Kelley stared at him. “Did you find evidence the arson investigators missed?” The way things had been going, it would probably be something else planted to implicate her. Still, she’d need to know so she could deal with it.

  “I’m not sure, but I wanted to show you before I told them.”

  “That’s kind, Juan, but I’m not sure it’ll help me.” She wasn’t sure anything would help her now. Especially if Louis died without explaining how he had been shot.

  “Please, come look.” He seemed to be growing distraught. A frantic look had come into his eyes. “I need to show you.”

  “All right.” She followed him down the hall. When they reached Juan’s cart, he wheeled it before him.

  The yellow police tape was gone, and the former plywood door had been replaced by a real one.

  They went inside, Juan still pushing his cart. He stopped and closed the door behind them.

  The room looked much as it had before, when she had been here with Shawn. In fact, Kelley couldn’t see that any cleaning had been done on the blackened floor and walls.

  “What did you find?” Kelley asked, unsure where he could have located anything in this room the arson investigators had emptied weeks ago.

  Only then did her eyes light on the mop fastened onto the cart.

  The straight mop handle, with the fuzzy cleaning head on the bottom.

  Straight. Fuzzy.

  Jenny and her pictures of the fire!

  Kelley tried hard not to let the revelation show on her face, but it was too late.

  “Here’s what I want to show you,” Juan said, aiming a large black gun at her heart.

  SHAWN STOOD OUTSIDE in the parking lot talking to Colleen on the phone. It was probably the fourth time just that day. “You find anything yet?” he demanded.

  “Nothing since the last time you called five minutes ago.” His lady boss was obviously royally peeved.

  “It’s been a couple of hours, C, and I can’t accept that Kelley shot Paxler. I still don’t even buy that she set the fire. She accused Paxler, and then he wound up shot.”

  “Possibly self-inflicted.�
�

  “Possibly not. There are lots of entrances to his office. Look, C, give me something more to tie Paxler to the flu.”

  “We’re looking, Jameson. Meantime, do your job. Even if you can’t talk to Paxler, aim your investigation in his direction. Of course…”

  “Of course what?”

  “Of course, don’t be surprised if following his trail leads you right back to your lady doctor.”

  He swallowed the nasty language that shot up his gullet. “I thought you liked my lady doctor, as you call her.”

  “That’s the hell of it, Jameson.” Colleen’s voice had grown quiet. “I did. Her and her daughter. Anyway, keep at it, and good luck.”

  Shawn resisted the urge to grind his cell phone into the sidewalk. He headed back inside.

  He wanted to talk to Kelley.

  He needed to talk to Kelley, for his own peace of mind.

  And because…because, no matter how bad things looked, he didn’t believe in her guilt.

  She had been interrogated all afternoon by that too-dedicated detective, Lt. Darrick. All the while, Shawn had needed to talk to her. To be with her, to plumb her for answers.

  To hold her.

  When he got back inside, to Paxler’s office, he felt like pounding a fist into the wall.

  Her interrogation was over, which was good.

  But she was nowhere around.

  And that was bad.

  KELLEY SAT ON THE FLOOR where Juan told her to, her legs stretched in front of her. She held in her hands papers that could have been from the Silver Rapids patients’ files.

  Could have been, but weren’t.

  “I don’t understand,” she told Juan. “Did you forge these?”

  “Could be.” His voice was hard now, no trace of accent…no trace of humanity. Strange how his ethnicity was now unclear. All she knew was that he had black hair.

  But, as with Louis Paxler’s hair color, that could be as false as his janitor persona.

  “What do these say?” She had to keep him talking. For when he stopped, he would kill her. She was sure of it.

  What she didn’t understand was why.

  “They contain your very pitiful, very apologetic notes as to why your treatment of those patients was substandard.”

  She cringed at the horrible laughter in his voice. She wished he would go back to his earlier tonelessness.

  “You are so terribly sorry that those patients died,” he continued, shaking his head slowly. He still pointed the gun at her, even as he extracted a bottle from the bottom of the garbage can on his cart. “Now things are closing in on you. You tried accusing Louis Paxler, and when he made it clear he would ruin you, you shot him with his own gun and made it appear to be a suicide. But he survived. He may even be able to talk. Too bad you dropped your pager as you shot Louis, though it was handy that you left it in your office for me. Anyhow, it’s over. You have to end it all.” His deep, loud sigh was a horrible mockery. “So sad. Paxler will die anyway. And I will be so upset by all the terrible things that happened here that no one will be surprised when I leave soon, never to be heard from again.”

  “I…I still don’t understand.” It was difficult to talk, she was shaking so badly. She didn’t want to die. Jenny. What would her daughter do without her? Randall as her guardian, with that horrible witch Cheryl as her possible stepmother. No!

  And Shawn. She would never have the opportunity now to convince him she was innocent of everything—except loving him.

  For she did love him, despite the fact that, even if she lived, they’d have no future together. He was a controlling man. He hadn’t trusted her.

  “Please.” She carefully rose to her feet. Her voice trembled but she strengthened it by sheer will. “If I’m going to ‘kill myself,’ I’d like to know why.”

  The gun stayed trained on her, though he let her stand as he moved awkwardly to soak a rag with liquid from the bottle. A sedative? A poison? No matter. If he used it on her, she’d be at his mercy.

  Could she somehow deflect his attention?

  “Why?” he repeated. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me,” she insisted.

  He shrugged. “Why not? At first, my employer simply needed a patsy so that no one looked too closely at the Silver Rapids flu victims. You were an easy target. So was your esteemed Mr. Paxler—even more than you.”

  “How?” Kelley asked, confused.

  He didn’t answer but continued, “Thank your highly regarded ex-husband for making you the perfect one to blame. He already enjoyed publicizing that you were a less than capable doctor.”

  “He’s wrong!”

  “The innuendoes were enough. You were ‘it’ in our game. Easy, with your kid in childcare, to make you the arsonist, too. You had reason to be in the area. And someone as bad a doctor as you sure wouldn’t want anyone to find the files that kept track of your mistakes.”

  “And why were they really destroyed?”

  “Come off it, bitch,” he said, approaching her menacingly. “You know I didn’t destroy them, thanks to you. We only just learned about it a few days ago because of some inquiries being made in Silver Rapids.” He was so close now that she imagined she could feel the cold hardness of the weapon leveled at her chest. “I heard they were hidden in your desk drawer all this time. I planted some other damning papers there, but it was too little, too late. You made me look bad to my employers. Which is one reason this is going to be a pleasure.”

  He moved so fast she didn’t anticipate it. He shoved the rag toward her face, at the same time grabbing her hair with the hand that held the gun. The sweet odor of ether gagged her. He was going to render her unconscious. All the easier for him to set it up as if she had committed suicide.

  Not if she could help it.

  “The police will smell the ether,” she gasped, turning her head despite the pain as her hair was yanked hard. Better that than unconsciousness. “They’ll find traces in my blood.”

  “So what?” His voice was so close, so ugly in her ear. “It’ll be better if it looks like you did it yourself, so it’s worth trying to set up. But whether they look that close or not, you’ll still be dead.”

  This would be her only opportunity. Bracing herself on the floor, Kelley let herself go slack. Then, as his grip eased, she raised one leg and kicked it back with all her might, aiming the heel of her pump toward Juan’s groin. As she moved, she screamed.

  The sound of gunfire resounded not from a distance this time, but from very close.

  At the same time, a pain as excruciating as fire shot through Kelley’s head.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Kelley!” Shawn had shoved her aside as he’d leaped into the room. He’d had to get her out of his line of fire.

  She’d hit her head on the wall and gone down.

  Shawn prayed he hadn’t hurt her badly. But right now, he had to finish neutralizing Cortes or they’d both be toast.

  The janitor lay doubled over on the floor. He clutched his groin with his left hand. Blood seeped from his right arm, which he held against his chest. Despite the excellent kick Kelley had landed on the s.o.b., he’d kept his gun, a lethal-looking 9 mm, pointed at her.

  He still held it. Unsteadily, but Shawn couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t raise it and fire.

  “Drop it, Cortes.” He aimed his pistol right between the guy’s eyes. He had retrieved it from the car while talking on his cell phone with Colleen.

  Kelley moaned behind him. Damn! He wanted to run to her. Cradle her in his arms. Make sure she was all right.

  But that had to wait.

  “Go ahead and shoot,” Cortes said. “I’m as good as dead anyway.”

  “Not until I get answers,” Shawn growled.

  He heard a noise behind him but didn’t move. “Police!” shouted a voice that had become familiar only that day.

  “What kept you, Darrick?” Shawn glanced behind him to make sure the cop had drawn his weapon and had the ro
om under control. Only then did he put the safety back on and hand his weapon to Darrick. “It’s licensed to me,” he said. “I used it to keep this piece of feces from shooting Kelley.”

  Without waiting for further reaction, he hurried to Kelley and did as he’d ached to before—took her in his arms. Her eyes were focused, her pupils the same size. No concussion, but she rubbed the back of her head with her hand.

  “Are you all right?” he asked gently, conscious of the sounds of the police taking charge of Cortes behind him.

  “More or less.” She threw her arms around him and pressed her face against his chest. He wanted nothing more than to keep her there, under his protection, forever. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Kelley, I—”

  She didn’t let him finish. “I know you didn’t believe me, maybe you still don’t, but I didn’t have anything to do with the fire or the epidemic. I—”

  “Sssh,” he said, softly nuzzling her fragrant auburn hair. “I know. In fact, I think I knew it all along.”

  She smiled wryly up at him. “Of course you did.” Yet despite her obvious skepticism, she didn’t pull away when he bent his head and kissed her delectable, willing lips.

  DESPITE THE ACHING throb at the back of Kelley’s head where she had hit the wall, she reveled in Shawn’s kiss. Treasured it.

  For she knew it was undoubtedly the last.

  Shawn had saved her life. Again.

  Now his assignment was over. He would leave soon.

  And she would feel as if she’d had cardiac surgery and been put back together without a complete, beating heart.

  At least she had been exonerated from the charges of arson and complicity in whatever had caused the Silver Rapids epidemic. Maybe.

  For with so many false accusations leveled against her, evidence planted to implicate her, who knew what Juan Cortes would say now?

  Shawn helped her to her feet, kept his arm around her. She didn’t want to lean against him, but it felt so good. “Are you up to answering more questions for the police?” he asked.

  She nodded, wincing at the pain. But she wanted to get it over with.

  Shawn stayed by her side this time as she described her encounter with Cortes. She answered questions from a different detective, for Darrick was busy with Juan.