by Tina Beckett
Maddy closed her eyes, whispering, “I didn’t think he could find me either.”
“She’s okay. Someone would have called by now, otherwise. I’ll let you know as soon as I get there and see her with my own two eyes.”
“Thank you.”
She ended the call and glanced up to find Kaleb leaning against the wall, watching her. Was there suspicion in his eyes?
That was crazy. This was all Matthew’s doing.
Sarah, one of the nurses, came over and touched her arm. “Are you okay, Maddy?”
Okay? No, she was far from okay, although she nodded, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I’m so sorry for all of this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Wasn’t it? Knowing this man had put all of their lives in danger.
Matthew. Who was now dead. Why? Why? He’d left her alone for over a year. Not a phone call. Not a letter in all that time. And suddenly he was here. With a gun. To what? Kill her? Kill Chloe?
Renewed panic filled her system. “I have to go.”
“We’re on lockdown, Maddy,” Kaleb reminded her. “They’re not letting anyone in or out of the hospital.”
Someone arrived with a long black bag, and two men lifted her ex-husband and laid him inside, zipping it closed.
A sob rose in her throat.
Taking hold of her arm, Kaleb eased her away from Sarah and everyone else, guiding her back into her office. His big body seemed to fill the space. She took a quick step back.
Kaleb frowned. “It’s okay.”
Okay? Why did everyone keep using that word? Right now she wasn’t sure anything would be okay ever again. She’d thought she’d got over her fear. Thought maybe she could finally have a normal life. Had even thought that she and Kaleb might be able to...
No. She did not need to get involved with a man.
Especially not after what had just happened. Right now all she needed was to know that her daughter was safe.
“I have to go.” She repeated the words, knowing she probably sounded foolish. But she couldn’t help it.
“You told the officer your ex was acting alone. Are you sure of that? Could he be part of some organization?”
Organization? It took her a minute to realize what that meant.
“He’s not a terrorist. He’s just a boy from a hick town who...” Her voice caught. When she tried to force out the rest of the sentence, it caught again.
Then Kaleb’s arms came around her, pressing her head into his shoulder as a second sob hit her throat. Then a third. And a fourth. She couldn’t believe any of this was happening. A man she’d once loved was dead. A man she’d slept with. Laughed with. Had a baby with.
A man who’d turned cruel beyond belief as time had gone on.
She had to call her mom and tell her before she heard it from somewhere else.
But first she had to get ahold of herself. She curled her hands into the soft fabric of Kaleb’s shirt, the comforting scent of his body washing over her. His fingers cupped the back of her head, moving in small soothing brushes that did what her mind couldn’t seem to do: returned her to the here and now. Edging back slightly, she tilted her head to look up at him. “I was so scared.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to be.”
Wet spots on the crisp blue of his shirt, along with twin black smudges from her mascara, made her eyes prickle all over again. She brushed at the moisture with one hand. “Your shirt. I’ll pay to have it cleaned.”
“It’s nothing. It’ll wash right out.”
Random thoughts spiraled through her head.
How did he know it would wash out? Had he held crying women often?
Or had he made them cry? Like her ex.
No. She might not know Kaleb very well, but he was nothing like Matthew. She would have heard something from Sarah or the other nurses. Hospital grapevines let nothing go by unnoticed.
Why hadn’t she heard back from Roxy yet? It had been fifteen minutes at least.
Matthew had hated Chloe. He’d had a jealous streak, even before they’d got married. Back then it had seemed innocent enough. But it had only got worse with time. Until it had no longer been amusing or flattering...but dangerous. And it had finally extended to the child she’d carried. That had been the last straw. She’d divorced him, but trying to live in the same town with his threats and middle-of-the-night phone calls had finally got to be too much. She’d filed for—and been granted—a restraining order. And then when Chloe had turned three, Maddy had decided to leave Gamble Point and move, giving in to Roxy’s pleas to get away from him once and for all.
Only it didn’t look as if that had worked.
She realized she was still standing far too close to Kaleb. She stepped to the side. “I had no idea he was capable...I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of this.”
What if Matthew had started shooting up the place? Kaleb, as well as others, could have been injured. Or killed. She shuddered again.
Instead, Matthew had taken his own life.
He shook his head. “I’m glad I was here.” His throat moved for a second. “It could have been much worse.”
Exactly what she’d been thinking.
His phone chirped, and her heart leaped to her throat as she watched him press the button.
“Yes, she’s right here.” He handed her the phone. “It’s your sister.”
“Roxy?”
“It’s okay. Chloe’s with me. She’s safe. He didn’t come here.”
“Thank God. Have you talked to Mom?” She closed her eyes, fingers tight on the phone. “I was so afraid he might...”
“I called her as soon as I got Chloe. She’s in shock. But she’s not hurt. We’re headed to your place now.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
There was a pause, and then her sister’s voice came back through. “How about you? Are you okay?”
Maddy glanced at Kaleb. “I’m shaken up, but I’m not hurt.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Me either.” In fact, it was hard to wrap her mind around what she’d seen today.
“Don’t worry about Chloe. I won’t let her out of my sight. See you when you get to the house, okay? Love you.”
“Love you too.”
She handed the phone back to Kaleb just as the police motioned for them to join them. It seemed as if questions were thrown at her for hours, but it couldn’t have been that long. At some point, Kaleb swabbed the cut on her cheek and pressed an adhesive bandage over it. Eventually, the lockdown was called off, glass was swept up, the floor was mopped clean, and patients were allowed back into the unit.
Through it all, a steady stream of staff members came over to hug her or offer kind words, including the hospital administrator, who was making the rounds and letting everyone know that a counselor would be made available to anyone who felt they needed it.
The same officer who’d let her make her phone call came over to say goodbye. “We’ll call you if we have more questions. And we’ll need you to come down in the next day or two and sign a statement.”
“I understand.”
The man paused, then looked her in the eye. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The words were meant to be kind, but with them came a sense of relief. Because although she was sorry that Matthew had killed himself, she wasn’t sorry that the threat of what he might do was gone. He would never be able to reach out and hurt his daughter. She was glad that he’d aimed his fury at her and no one else.
Still, she thanked the officer and asked him to call her when they were ready for her to sign that statement. Then he strode toward the elevator.
Tomorrow there would still be talk, and maybe for a few weeks after that,
but the horror of today would hopefully fade. Maybe once the glass in her office door was replaced.
But would her guilt? None of this would have happened if she had followed her head rather than her heart all those years ago. Her hands clenched at her sides.
“Don’t.” Kaleb’s voice came to her, reminding her he was still there. Still beside her.
She looked at him. “Don’t what?”
“Blame yourself for this. I can see the wheels turning.” He touched one of her hands.
She sucked down a deep breath, forcing her fingers to relax. “He was my ex-husband.”
“Did you tell him to come here and do what he did?”
“No, but—”
“No buts. This was all on him.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Seriously, are you okay?”
She shook her head. “No. But I will be. I have to be.”
“Do you want me to drive you home?”
“No. I have my car.”
His glance brushed over her face. “You’re sure?”
“I am. Thank you again.” She hesitated. “If you hadn’t locked that door when you had...”
She could be dead. Matthew hadn’t come to the hospital just to talk to her. Not with a gun. If Kaleb hadn’t secured the door, he could have charged right into the room and shot her. And then what would have happened to Chloe?
“It worked out.” He followed her into her office and glanced at the items that had fallen onto the floor when he’d sailed across her desk to get to her. “I’m sorry about your phone and laptop.” The screen had detached from the keyboard and was lying next to the wall. He picked up the pieces and put them on the desk, along with her ruined cell phone.
“It’s nothing.” And really it wasn’t, compared to everything that could have happened.
Then she picked up the framed picture of Chloe. Just a little while ago she’d been trying to hide it from Kaleb for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to her. Even when she was on the phone with Roxy, she hadn’t mentioned Chloe’s name. Why? Was she trying to protect her daughter? Or herself in the face of a handsome man?
Kaleb nodded at the frame, a frown between his brows. “Your sister?”
Sister? Oh, Patricia.
It would be so easy to say yes, that it was a picture of her late sister as a child. But she wouldn’t. Because none of it mattered anymore.
“No. It’s not my sister. It’s Chloe.” There was a long pause. “My daughter.”
CHAPTER THREE
MADDY HAD A DAUGHTER?
Four days later, on his way to see a patient, Kaleb was still dumbfounded. He’d wondered what kinds of other things she had hidden beneath that cool exterior. Well, now he knew. She had a child.
It should make it even easier to keep his distance, but it didn’t. It made it harder. Especially when the news media kept replaying the story over and over. The hospital had hired additional security guards and were installing more cameras at the entrances.
He had an ex who had done some pretty terrible things, but he certainly couldn’t picture Janice coming to the hospital in hopes of killing him.
And Maddy had been terrified for her child. He remembered her trying to get to her phone when he’d pinned her under the desk. How she’d been desperate to make a call. She’d been frantic that she might have lost her daughter that day.
Kaleb knew the exact moment he’d lost his daughter. It hadn’t been to a crazed gunman, but it had been to a killer nonetheless. No, he’d lost his sweet little girl to an aggressive cancer, the disease yanking the life from her body almost before he’d got to know her.
Only Kaleb had no pictures of her scattered around his apartment. They were all hidden deep in a closet. He couldn’t bear to look at them. And maybe that was the reason Janice hadn’t been able to look at him. But she’d sure been able to look at someone else.
Forget about it. Dwelling on things he couldn’t change did no one any good.
He strode into the hotel and stopped at the desk. “Which room?”
“One thirty. Marian Jennings. She thinks she’s having a reaction to some pain meds she received after surgery.”
One of the things that places like the Seattle Consortium were good at was keeping their guests’ private lives private. That included helping sequester them after surgeries and procedures. Patients were now going to fancy hotels that had spa-like atmospheres to recover. With room service and someone at their beck and call twenty-four hours a day, it was the perfect setup. Especially with concierge medicine to help ease the way.
Kaleb went up in the elevator, doing his best to forget what had happened at the hospital, but it wasn’t easy. Maddy’s face kept coming to mind, the terror he’d seen in it. Then there was the crazed look of her ex-husband as he’d stared at them through that window. The man had wanted to kill her. It had been there in his eyes. If Kaleb hadn’t been there, would Maddy still be alive?
Something else he needed to stop dwelling on.
Kaleb found the room and knocked on the door.
“Yes?”
“Dr. McBride here to see Marian Jennings.”
A man opened the door. Tall and thin with a nervous twitch beneath one eye, he ushered Kaleb into the room. “It’s my wife. She’s breaking out in hives. We think it might be from one of her medications.”
Propped up in a huge bed, the petite woman had a bandage wrapped over her head and under her chin. Both of her eyes were black and swollen.
Plastic surgery. He’d seen it many times here. Some of them were done at West Seattle and some at other hospitals, but it didn’t matter. He moved toward her, shifting his bag from one hand to the other in order to shake hers. “I’m Kaleb McBride, Ms. Jennings. Nice to meet you.”
The woman nodded. “I’m sorry to call you but...” She held out one of her arms, and, sure enough, a rash had spread across the surface. “My husband was worried.”
“Is this everywhere?”
“Yes, it’s also on my stomach and my legs.”
Kaleb frowned. “Any trouble swallowing?”
“No. None.”
He took down the name of her surgeon and checked the medication the woman was on. The amoxicillin caught his attention. A common antibiotic, it could sometimes cause a rash. “Have you ever had an allergic reaction to any kind of penicillin?”
“Not that I know of.”
Taking her arm, he examined the spots. “Any itchiness at all? Tingling anywhere?”
“No.”
He nodded. “I don’t think it’s anything serious. Sometimes antibiotics, especially amoxicillin, can cause a harmless rash.”
Her husband came over and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “So it’s nothing to worry about?”
“Not at this point. We normally see itching or tingling in a true allergic reaction. I’ll contact Dr. Porter’s office just in case and let him know what’s going on. I’ll have him call you if he wants to make a change in your medication. If you see anything else, though, please don’t hesitate to call me or the hospital.”
The hotel’s location made it convenient to do just that. It was another of the reasons they’d chosen to have the fund-raiser at the hotel. Where he’d come across Maddy in the middle of her asthma attack.
Who would have guessed that days later she’d be the target of a crazed ex-husband?
Shake it off, Kaleb.
He made the call to Dr. Porter’s office while he was in the room with his patient and marked down his own findings on his tablet, including the room number for billing purposes. Then he excused himself after handing them his business card and reminding them to call him if they had any other problems.
He checked with the front desk to make sure there were no other calls right now and headed back across the street
to the hospital. A police car out front made his muscles tense for a second, but the officer inside the vehicle didn’t seem worried. It was another of the precautions the city had taken—upping the police presence in the area.
As he made his way inside, a little girl with a doll clutched under her arm rushed past him, followed by a slender woman with long blond hair. “Chloe, slow down. You need to wait for me.”
Chloe?
He looked a little harder, and, sure enough, the girl had red hair and pink cheeks as she turned and grinned at the woman following her. High heels made it hard for the blonde to keep up with the child, but it didn’t look as if the girl was being deliberately naughty. She was just on a mission.
“Please hurry, Aunt Roxy. I want to show her to Mommy.”
Kaleb lengthened his stride, pulling alongside the pair. “I’m sorry, but are you looking for Dr. Grimes? Madeleine Grimes?”
The woman caught up with the little girl and pulled her to a halt, using an arm around her shoulders to keep her close. She then turned and looked at Kaleb. Maybe looked wasn’t the right word. Glared was more like it. “And who are you?”
She was worried. Not angry. And Kaleb could certainly understand why after what had happened. “I work here. I’m Kaleb McBride.”
She looked closer. “You’re the man who helped Maddy, during...” She glanced down at her charge and then took two steps forward until she and Chloe were directly in front of him. “She told me what you did. I owe you. Big-time. It’s like you were meant to be there.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Oh. I do.” She looked at him with new eyes. “Would you mind taking me to Maddy’s office? This hospital is so huge, I always end up getting lost, and we’re supposed to have lunch together.” She gave him a meaningful look. “She’s been worried. Ever since. And she feels guilty, even though she tries to hide it.”
Kaleb didn’t like the idea of Maddy living in fear and guilt. But he knew from experience that trauma could last long after the event was over. Maybe she should talk to the counselor the hospital had hired.
“I’ll be happy to.”
The little girl, who’d been silent up to this point, evidently decided he wasn’t a threat. “Hi. I’m Chloe.” She held up a naked doll that was half her size. “And this is Patsy.”