Bed of Lies (29 page)

1.
Evan urges Leila to try harder to get her daughter, Isabel, to like him because he believes their relationship is largely dependent on Isabel's view of him. Do you think he's wrong to ask that of Leila, or should Leila try to see things from his perspective?

2.
Paulette went from lying about being blackmailed and having an affair to lying about her pregnancy. She believes she still has to lie because the stakes are even higher. Do you think her reasons are justified, or is she continuing to make the same mistakes?

3.
Dante decides to represent the woman who was in the car accident with Terrence in yet another way to exact revenge on the Murdochs. Dante says that he's behaving much like his father did when he was alive. Do you think his late father, George Murdoch, would at least admire Dante's ruthlessness and tenacity?

4.
A usually optimistic Terrence sinks into depression after his car accident. Why do you think it was so hard for him to bounce back from what happened to him?

5.
C. J. ran away from her old life and started a new one because she said she no longer wanted to be restricted by her family's lies and expectations. In the course of doing that, she broke all ties from her family and ran out on her fiancé the day of her wedding. Were her actions justified?

6.
Paulette decides to talk to the detective in order to find out more information about Marques's murder investigation even though she fears her husband, Antonio, may have murdered Marques. Was that a smart move on her part?

7.
Charisse confesses to Evan her reason for why she was such a horrible wife to him and why she wants to try to salvage their marriage. Based on her explanation, should Evan give her a second chance?

8.
Terrence is angry at C. J. for not telling him about showing up at the hospital to interview him soon after his accident. Does he have the right to be angry?

9.
When Evan figures out that Leila's ex-husband plotted Isabel's attempt to run away, he decides not to tell Leila and asks Isabel to also keep the information secret. Do you agree with his decision?

10.
C. J. decides to forgive her father and agrees to help him with his campaign and return to Aston Ministries. Terrence tells her he doesn't think this was a good decision. Who do you think is right?

11.
Who do you think shot Dante?

Prologue

H
ospitals weren't usually happy places, especially the Wilson Medical Center ICU where many of the patients were hovering near death's door and a pall of sickness seemed to hang over every surface. But today the ICU staff at least
tried
to be festive in honor of the new nurse's birthday. Meredith, the plump nurse with the springy red curls and freckles was turning thirty. The other nurses figured the big 3-0 deserved, at minimum, a small party in their break room. They had even brought a cake and candles for her. One of the nurses, Rhonda, had brought balloons and streamers that were left over from her nephew's birthday earlier that week. By the time they finished decorating that sad-looking room with its bare white walls, loaned microwave, coffee maker, and two tables, it looked like a completely different place. A small two-tiered cake sat at the center of one of the tables on a cotton bed sheet that they used as a makeshift tablecloth.

They decided to hold the party mid-day when visiting hours were at a lull since many of the patients' families would leave to eat lunch and return in an hour or so to stand vigil at their loved ones' bedsides. The five nurses on that shift had agreed to take turns at the front desk and keep an ear out for the buzzing from patients' rooms, though most of the patients were so sedated they wouldn't be buzzing anything. Not Mr. J. Hinkler in Room 402, who was dying of cirrhosis of the liver. Or Mrs. C. Reynolds in Room 410, who had suffered multiple strokes and was now little more than a vegetable connected to a respirator, and certainly not Mr. D. Turner in Room 406.

Turner was the youngest patient in the ICU, and if not for the gunshot wound to the stomach that he had suffered earlier that week, he probably wouldn't have found himself in the ward at all. He looked fit and handsome. The nurses had speculated that he had been quite the heart-breaker before the shooting. A few of them had even whispered about his six-pack abs and muscular arms, and admired and giggled about another appendage they had noticed while changing the dressing on his wound.

“No wonder his name is Dante,” Rhonda had murmured ruefully as she pointed to his bare crotch. “A man
that
fine wielding
that
thing could certainly drag a girl through hell and back!”

But Mr. Turner wouldn't be putting any women through hell or breaking any hearts any time soon. He was heavily sedated while his body repaired itself. And unlike the other patients, he had had almost no visitors to his room.

Nurse Kelly took the first shift while the rest attended Meredith's birthday party. She glanced through the glass doors of each hospital room, including Mr. Turner's, as she walked from the break room to the front desk, carrying her slice of carrot cake. She passed an old woman who gave her a wan smile before entering Room 403.

“Hello, Mrs. O'Shea,” Kelly said, giving her greeting from the doorway.

“Good afternoon,” Mrs. O'Shea said, as she dragged a chair toward the bed to sit next to her husband, who was dying of end-stage lung cancer.

A minute later, Kelly plopped into her rollaway chair and dug into her carrot cake, finishing the entire slice in less than three minutes and licking the remaining icing off the plastic fork and the tips of her fingers. She looked longingly at her empty paper plate. She could use a second slice.

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,
she thought, glancing down at her wide hips encased in blue scrubs. She had been trying to lose her last ten pounds of baby weight for ages. Plus she was supposed to be manning the front desk while the other nurses were at the birthday party.

But then Kelly ran her tongue over her lips, tasting the remains of the cream cheese icing and she almost shuddered in ecstasy. She remembered how fluffy the cake itself had been, how the bits of carrot had been so crisp.

“Just one more,” she mumbled, rising from the chair. “I'll be quick.”

With the exception of Mrs. O'Shea, it was dead as a door nail around the ward—no pun intended. None of the patients would miss her.

It was just seconds after Kelly walked out of the break room and plunged her fork into her second slice of carrot cake that she heard the alarm, a piercing beep to alert anyone at the nursing station that a patient was in distress. She rushed down the corridor, still holding her plate of cake in one hand and fork in the other, wondering if it was Mrs. Reynolds or poor Mr. O'Shea.

That's when she saw something jump out of Room 406 and flash past her like a wraith in a horror movie. She screamed and dropped her cake and fork to the floor. It was only after a few quick blinks that she realized it hadn't been some ghost that had flown out of the room, but a person—a living, breathing person dressed in a black hoodie, cap, and sweatpants who was racing with breakneck speed down the hospital hallway.

“Hey!” she shouted after him—or her. She couldn't tell the sex of the person at this distance. “Hey, what were you—”

Her words died on her lips when the person slammed into the metal doors, shoving them open and disappearing into the adjoining hall. The door slammed shut behind them.

Kelly began to give chase but paused near Room 406 when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. She looked and saw a pillow slumped on the linoleum floor. Her eyes raised and she saw Mr. Turner. His head was now tilted to the side instead of forward and upright in its proper position, and it looked like his breathing tube had been partially removed. The white tape below his nose now flapped limply, revealing the peach fuzz above his lip. His mouth hung open like a catfish on a slab of ice.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, feeling the carrot cake and bile rise in her throat as she realized what had happened. She rushed into the room and heard thunderous footsteps behind her as the other nurses and doctors came to assist.

It looked like someone had tried to kill Dante Turner
—again.