by Jane Godman
Panic was like an iron fist tightening its grip on his gut. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t have found Abigail only to lose her this way. When he thought back to all those doubts he’d had about her and how hurt she must have been... He clenched a fist on his thigh. That was in the past. They’d moved on. Even so, what if she died without knowing how much he cared?
Although he was alone in the darkness of his thoughts for less than half an hour, it felt like forever. When Riley and Charlize finally dashed into the room, he felt the first burn of tears at the back of his eyelids and blinked hard. He needed to be strong for Maya. And Abigail...
“Oh, my goodness.” Charlize fell to her knees beside Griffin, wrapping her arms around him. “How are you holding up?”
He drew in a shaky breath. “I’d be a lot better if I knew what was going on.”
“You mean no one has told you anything?” Riley looked around at the empty room.
Griffin got to his feet, leaving Charlize and Maya playing together. “I figure they need to be with Abigail, not out here talking to me.”
“Even so, you must be out of your mind with worry. Why don’t we stay here with Maya while you see if you can find someone who can tell you what’s happening?”
When Griffin tried to thank him, his voice refused to work and the only sound that emerged was a grunt. He saw the understanding in his brother’s eyes as Riley placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the door. When he left the room, he noticed a sign directing him to the reception desk. Before he began to follow it, a female doctor approached him.
“Are you here with Dr. Matthews?”
There it was again. That tightness in his throat that made it hard to talk. “Yes.”
Suddenly, he wanted to walk away and not hear what this woman had to say. Right now, everything was okay. She could change that with a few words.
“Please follow me.” She led him along a corridor and into a small office. “May I ask what your relationship is to Dr. Matthews?”
It was a tricky question and one to which he didn’t know the answer. Since this was not the time or place for soul-searching, he decided to be as honest as he needed to be. “We live together.”
She seemed satisfied with that. “Okay. I’m Dr. Reynolds. I led the surgical team who operated on Dr. Matthews. We had to stabilize her condition and reduce the bleeding before we could treat her injury. Because of the severity of the wound, we administered a general anesthetic to determine the extent of the damage. Although there was significant trauma caused by the blade penetration, I’m hopeful that there will be no long-term effects to her arm. The greater concern was dealing with the amount of blood Dr. Matthews lost.”
“What treatment has she been given?” Griffin asked.
“After cleansing the wound, we closed it using sutures. We are administering intravenous fluids and antibiotics and she has been given a blood transfusion. It’s possible she may need more blood but that’s something we’ll judge when she comes around from the anesthetic. We’ll continue to monitor her vital signs, of course and, longer term, she’ll need physiotherapy.”
“But she will recover?”
She placed a hand on his arm. “Yes. I have every confidence that she will make a full recovery.”
He bowed his head, the relief that flooded through him almost as overwhelming as the fear it replaced. Abigail was alive and she would be okay. “Can I see her?”
“Yes. She’s awake now and has already asked for both you and someone called Maya.”
“That’s our daughter.” He said the words without thinking but as soon as he heard the phrase out loud it made him pause. Our daughter. Two little words that contained everything he wanted for the future. “Can I take her to see Abigail?”
“Of course. You can see her together.”
* * *
When she first came around from the anesthetic, Abigail felt like she’d been sleeping for too long and too deeply. Now, she was tired but impatient to see Griffin and Maya. Obediently following the nurse’s instructions to rest, she had her eyes closed when she heard Maya let out a cry of delight as they entered the room.
“Yes, it’s your mom.” Griffin was talking softly. “But we need to be quiet so we don’t disturb her.”
“I’m awake.” Even though she’d been conscious for some time, there was still a slight slurring to her words, as if she was tipsy.
Griffin was at her side instantly. “I’ll call the nurse.”
“No. I’m fine. She said to use the call button if I need anything.” She turned her head slightly so she could look at him and Maya. “This is nice. Just us.”
“How do you feel?” He shook his head. “Stupid question.”
She lifted her right hand and touched his wrist before stroking Maya’s cheek. “Jenna ran away. Did they catch her?”
“No.” The voice came from the doorway as, with perfect timing, Emmanuel strode into the room. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news for you, but she mingled with the crowds in the park and we lost her. We’re still searching, of course.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to tell us exactly what’s going on,” Griffin said.
“Are you strong enough to have this conversation now?” Emmanuel asked Abigail.
“I need to know why I’m in this hospital bed.” She tried to shift position and winced as pain shot through her injured arm. “And whether I have to worry about the future.”
“Okay.” Emmanuel pulled up a visitor’s chair and indicated for Griffin to do the same. When Griffin was seated, Maya settled onto his knee and, by the way her eyelids were drooping, it looked as if she would soon be asleep. “I followed up the information from Griffin and Riley about Jenna’s dishonesty over the RevitaYou pills and paid her a visit. When I interviewed her, she came across as very edgy. There wasn’t anything specific, but I got the definite impression that she was hiding something. After I left her apartment, I decided to hang around and watch the place. Sure enough, ten minutes later, she came hurrying out carrying a large travel bag. She got into her car and drove off like the hounds of hell were chasing her.”
“Did you follow her?” Griffin asked.
“I tried but I lost her after a few blocks. We didn’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant for her home address but, after Dr. Hardin’s murder, I was able to search Jenna’s office at Danvers University. She hadn’t been very careful about covering up her obsession with you, Abigail.”
“Obsession?” Abigail reached out her right hand and Griffin took hold of it.
“In one drawer of her desk, she had a file containing pictures and cuttings from academic texts. It must have contained everything that was ever printed about you,” Emmanuel said.
“But why?” Abigail asked. “We were friends.”
“Not according to this.” Emmanuel withdrew a book from the inside pocket of his jacket. Although it was contained within an evidence bag, Abigail could see that it looked like a journal of some kind. “This is Jenna’s diary. In it, she helpfully documents how she added Anthrosyne to the Mem10 trial and tried to frame you for it. How she wanted to further ruin your reputation by pretending to have taken RevitaYou and gotten ill. She goes into detail about how she killed Evan Hardin because he was about to fire her from her job but how she callously used his death as another chance to get back at you. And, as I already said, she outlined her plans to kill you and Maya, if the police get close to her.”
“Get back at me?” Abigail couldn’t manage to raise her voice above a whisper. “For what?”
“She has always been jealous of you, both personally and professionally. There is a lot of ranting in the diary about your looks and how you rose to your current position at the university. But she seems to have become unhinged recently because she believes you were investigating her role in an online adoption scam.”
Griffin sat up a little straighter and Maya gave a sleepy grumble. “So she was living a double life as Anne Jay?”
“I don’t understand.” Abigail looked from one man to the other in confusion.
“I didn’t have time to talk to you about my suspicions,” Griffin explained. “But one of my cases involved an online adoption scam. The woman at the heart of it looked a lot like Jenna. From what Emmanuel is saying, it appears it was her.”
“It was,” Emmanuel confirmed. “Jenna had been conning childless couples in an online adoption fraud for several years. Basically, she used the miscarriage project you were both involved in to target childless couples. She targeted them through social media, introducing herself as the head of MorningStar Families, a private, online adoption agency. After building up a relationship with the vulnerable person, or couple, she would ‘introduce’ them to the pregnant woman who was supposedly carrying their child and ask for money for expenses. Over the course of the so-called pregnancy, photographs and documents would be exchanged as well as cash. The pregnant woman didn’t exist, of course, and when the nine months were over, Jenna simply ceased all contact with the couple who had been paying her.”
“But that’s awful.” Abigail was horrified.
“Preying on people when they were at their most vulnerable is something that I see too often,” Griffin said. “And social media allows people like Jenna to do it anonymously.”
“But she knew someone was on to her. Her social media accounts were being tracked and someone was making inquiries about MorningStar Families,” Emmanuel said. “You, Abigail, had been talking openly about your research into adoption. Jenna put the two things together and became convinced that you had discovered her guilty secret. She lied about RevitaYou to make you look bad. When Evan called her into his office and told her she was fired, she was certain you had reported your findings to him. The truth was that she’d been falsifying records again. He’d covered up for her in the past because they’d had a brief affair and she was using it to blackmail him but this time she’d gone too far. The details were all on his computer. It looks like she killed him before he had time to explain because she continued to blame you.”
“I was the person who was on to her.” Griffin lightly squeezed Abigail’s hand. “When I think what could have happened...”
He looked torn apart with tiredness and worry. She returned his grip. “Hey. I’m still here.”
“We need to talk about that,” Emmanuel said. “I hate to do this right now, but Jenna is still on the loose and she’s sworn to kill you and Maya.”
* * *
Griffin’s fears were back, only this time they were stronger than ever. Jenna Avery was unhinged, and she wanted to harm his new family. And no one knew where she was, or when she would strike.
“How are you going to look after them?” he asked Emmanuel.
“While Abigail is in the hospital, we’ll put a guard on this room,” the police officer said. “Detective Lopez is in the family room with your brother and his fiancée. He can take the first shift.”
“But what about Maya?” Abigail’s face, already pale, turned ashen as she looked at the baby, who was now sleeping in Griffin’s arms. “Jenna’s threat was directed at both of us.”
“I won’t let her out of my sight,” Griffin promised.
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I can’t bear this. How can I lie helpless in this bed, knowing that Jenna is out there just waiting to snatch my baby and harm her?”
Griffin knew exactly what she meant. He also knew it wouldn’t do her recovery any good to be separated from her daughter at a time like this. Abigail would be distraught with worry every second she and Maya were apart.
“I need to talk to the doctor.” Easing Maya into the crook of his arm, he got to his feet. “You’ll be here with Abigail the whole time I’m gone, right?” He asked Emmanuel.
The detective nodded. “You can count on it.”
Still carrying Maya, Griffin returned to the family room. Riley and Charlize were deep in conversation with Daniel Lopez and he figured that Emmanuel’s partner had given them all the details about Jenna and her obsession with Abigail. All three of them looked up when he entered.
“How is Abigail?” Riley asked.
“She’s going to be okay.” He still felt the weight of everything those words meant about his feelings and his hopes for the future. “I have to go find the doctor and then I have something I need to run by you.”
“Anything we can do to help.” Riley placed a hand on his shoulder. “You know that.”
“Let me take Maya.” Charlize was on her feet in an instant, and he carefully handed the sleeping baby over.
“I guess you know about the threats from Jenna Avery?” Griffin spoke directly to Daniel Lopez.
“Don’t worry.” The detective nodded. “I’ll be right here with your baby.”
“Thank you.”
When he reached the reception desk and asked for Dr. Reynolds, Griffin expected he would have a long wait. She was an emergency surgeon, after all. He was surprised when she joined him after a few minutes.
“My shift is just ending,” she explained as they walked into her tiny office. “How can I help you?”
Quickly, he outlined the situation. “While I understand that Abigail may need recovery time in the hospital, I’m concerned about the effects on her well-being if she is separated from her daughter at such a difficult time.”
The doctor frowned. “What are you proposing as an alternative?”
“If Abigail can be moved to my brother’s home in Heritage Hill, my siblings and I will be able to take full-time responsibility for her care. She would be with Maya, and the police would have them both in one place, so their protection would be simpler. Her caseworker will need to agree to this arrangement as well, of course.”
Dr. Reynolds was silent for a few moments. “I had envisaged Dr. Matthews being hospitalized for at least a few days. Since the circumstances are unusual, I’m prepared to consider your suggestion on the condition that we arrange for a nurse to visit her each day. And, if she shows any sign of a temperature, sickness, or the wound appears to be infected, then she must return to hospital immediately.”
“Of course. I won’t do anything to put her in danger,” Griffin assured her. “All I want to do is protect her.”
“I can see that.” The doctor smiled for the first time. “She’s a very lucky lady.”
“After everything that’s happened to her recently, I’m not sure she’d agree with you.”
He returned to the family room and shared the details of his plan with Riley, who immediately started making plans. As Griffin listened to his brother making calls to the other siblings, alerting them to the situation and enlisting their help to get a room ready for Abigail at the CI headquarters, his heart expanded with warmth. This was his family and now they were opening their arms to Abigail and Maya the same way they had accepted him all those years ago.
“How about we take Maya home with us now?” Riley asked when he finished his calls. He turned to Detective Lopez. “Does your vehicle have a car seat?”
“No, but I can get one here within minutes that does.” He started talking into his radio.
“What about your vehicle?” Griffin asked.
Riley flapped a hand. “Details. We can sort that out tomorrow.”
Griffin briefly gripped his arm in a gesture of gratitude. “Thank you.”
“Hey. Maya will have a little cousin soon enough.” There it was. That assumption that Maya’s place in their lives was permanent. Griffin only hoped Riley was right. “I know you’d do the same for us if the time came.”
They spent the next few minutes getting the sleeping baby out to the parking lot and into the patrol car that had pulled up outside the front entrance of the building. Detective Lopez got in the driver�
�s seat with Riley next to him. Charlize sat next to Maya in the rear.
Before the police officer drove away, Griffin leaned into the window to speak to him. “What are the chances that Jenna Avery could be watching the hospital?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Could she follow you? Or the ambulance that takes Jenna to the CI headquarters?”
“If she does, we’ll be ready for her.” The detective’s lips thinned into a line. “But don’t build her up into something she’s not. She’s a woman on the run and, thanks to your weird pet, she’s also injured.”
For now, Griffin figured that was the best he could hope for. He stepped back, watching the vehicle as it drove away. A quick scan of the area outside the hospital showed nothing suspicious and, reassured that the police were protecting Abigail and Maya, he went back inside.
Chapter 14
By the time the ambulance reached the CI headquarters, Abigail was exhausted and aching all over. But she wasn’t going to complain. This solution of Griffin’s meant she could heal in a safe place among people she knew. And the best part was that she didn’t have to be parted from Maya.
When the emergency vehicle pulled up at the rear of the house, two orderlies carefully pushed her wheelchair into the building.
“I can walk,” Abigail protested. “My arm is in a sling, but my legs work just fine.”
“I don’t know.” One of them regarded her dubiously. “The doctor told us to use our judgment and you do look pale.”
“How about she takes my arm?” Griffin said. “That way she can lean on me?”
The orderlies appeared to feel that was an acceptable compromise. As Griffin helped her from the wheelchair, and her legs trembled, she realized just how weak she was. When she finally stepped into the house, she felt like she’d just run a marathon.
“Where’s Maya?” she asked.