Covert Reich (9 page)

I can’t lose her now.

“Someone get the ultrasound. Call a tech up here. She may be hemorrhaging,” Kelly shouted. “Get me neurology, too. I think Jessop’s on call tonight.”

The knot in her stomach began to loosen as she went to work on the baby, all her focus on keeping her alive.

The tech arrived just ahead of the neurologist.

Kelly took the baby’s vitals again and attempted to stabilize her with Eric and two other nurses. Baby S. looked like a creature from another planet, her eyes rolling back into her head, veins popping out on her translucent skin. Fortunately, the seizure ended almost as quickly as it started. The baby’s eyes’ glazed over, and she lay lethargically inside her sterile world.

“She’s having trouble breathing. Let’s increase the IMV unit,” Kelly ordered.

Eric turned the respirator another degree so Baby S. didn’t have to do any of the breathing on her own.

“She’s too exhausted to work very hard right now. Okay, let’s get the transducer in place and see if we can locate a bleeder anywhere.”

The neurologist Dr. Jessop entered the unit. His long legs carried him brusquely to the incubator. “What’s the situation?” he asked. His salt-and-pepper hair matched the gray tie he wore underneath his lab coat.

“I think she may have a bleeder. I’m hoping it’s not high grade. She’s already been through a lot for someone so small”

“Let’s take a look,” he replied in a gruff-sounding voice. He reminded Kelly of one of her former professors—strict, conservative, but likeable all the same. Jessop was a doctor she held in the highest regard. He’d saved many lives during his career, and he maintained considerable compassion for his patients.

The tech handled the baby gently as she ran the transducer over the brain, head, and neck areas.

All of them huddled around the screen, trying to see if they could find anything.

“There it is!” The tech was the first to spot the bleeder.

“Good job.” Jessop complimented her as he studied the picture for a few seconds before making a judgment. “Looks to be a grade two. But let’s go ahead and get some more pictures and measurements. I’ll have a closer look then. It doesn’t appear to be too major so it shouldn’t be too difficult to treat. You know what to look for, Morales, but I’ll keep checking in.”

“What are the chances of this progressing into hydrocephalus?” Eric asked.

Jessop clucked his tongue. “That’s tough to call. You know how it is with these really tiny ones, how quickly things can change. I mean one minute it looks like they are on an upswing, and the next minute…everything crashes. All we can do is wait. Make certain her head doesn’t begin enlarging too rapidly. If she has any more seizures, we may want to consider putting a shunt in place.”

“God, I hope not,” Kelly said, knowing cerebral hemorrhages could lead to all sorts of neurological problems, including cerebral palsy.

“Me, too.
Want me to speak with the parents?” Jessop asked. “Let them know what we’ve found?”

“She doesn’t have any.”

“Ah. I see. Well, there isn’t a lot we can do for the time being. Monitor and make sure we aren’t seeing major growth in head size.”

Kelly looked down at the baby in the incubator and said a silent prayer the baby girl would survive. And not merely survive, but would not have to suffer for the rest of her life.

God damn you,
Kelly thought.
God damn whoever did this.

She took Eric aside and asked him to meet her in her office.

He walked in behind her and commented, “Oh, you have a friend, Doc?” He pointed to the flowers.

“You got me. No name with them and the card is strange. Here read it.” She handed it to him.

“Ooh, kinda creepy.”

“Agreed.”

Eric sat down in the chair across from her desk. “Watch your back, Doc. Some weird shit is going on around here.” He tossed the card back to her. “But this is probably from one of those interns around here who eyeball you all the time.”

She rolled her eyes at him and got up to close the door. “So I called you in here to ask you about those two girls you mentioned.”

“I assume you’re talking about the pregnant women?”

“Yes. You worked on both those cases. I mean you were there for the babies.”

“Yeah.
We were standing by for the babies.”

“At what point did you make it down to ER with each case?”

“I think with the first girl, um, her name was…” He looked down. “Naomi Williams! The team got in there fifteen minutes before she started to deliver. The girl came in by ambulance. I guess she’d been found by a friend in the tenements.”

“I can only assume she was doing drugs?”

“That’s what we thought. She never was conscious the entire time, and just like Lupe Salazar, she had a seizure and coded. Pearson did like you, delivered the baby, but it died within a minute or two. He was tiny and blue. There was no way he would have survived.”

“And then, the girl’s body was moved into the morgue.” She knew Jake had performed the autopsies.

“Do you know anything else about the girl? Family? Friends? Anything?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Doc. What are you thinking?”

“What about the other girl?”

“Desiree Jones. I remember her clearly. She was in a lot of pain just like Lupe Salazar and thrashing around. I was only in there for a short while before everything went down just like the Salazar girl. The next day I was off, but when I came back, I heard Pearson took off on an extended vacation.”

Kelly sat back. “I can’t help but think the deaths of those three girls are tied into Jake’s murder. Even you said it was a bit strange and coincidental.”

“I need to tell you something,” Eric said.

“What?”

He leaned forward across the desk. “I’m good at reading people, you know that. I considered Jake a work friend—we had coffee and lunch sometimes.”

Kelly nodded. She had introduced Jake and Eric the year before and the three frequently dined together. She knew there had been a few times when she couldn’t join them, or wasn’t working the same shift.

“Jake was scared of something. Then, the day before he was murdered, I saw him heading over toward Howard Mason Medical Center. I thought it was a little out of the norm. I mean, what would he be doing in the cancer treatment center? I actually started to worry he might be sick or something. But then I don’t think that was his final destination anyway.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. The cancer center was a half-mile from the main hospital. It would definitely be weird for Jake to go over there.

“I called out to him, but he didn’t hear me. Now here’s the weird part. I watched him cross the street and get into a limo. That’s strange, right? And it wasn’t like he was dressed to go out. He was still in his scrubs and from the way he approached the car, he seemed hesitant or reluctant.”

“Have you told this to the police? You know they’re asking anyone with information to come forward.” Kelly tried to shove the rising fear back down.

“I planned to tell the police, but I left before they finished packing up. I thought I could call the detective on the case and mention it.”

Kelly frowned skeptically. “You expect me to buy that?”

He shook his head. “I am likely as paranoid as you, Doc. There was something up with Hamilton that day. Limos and shaky nerves on a pathologist known to be as level headed as they come—I don’t like it at all. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Jake, and I want to see justice served, but I really think he was in over his head with something. It’s a bit scary.”

“I have to agree with you. I just wish I knew what it was.”

“Well, whatever it was, it wound him up on a cold slab. I don’t have any plans to join him.” He leaned across the desk. “And you shouldn’t either.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jeanine Horner took hold of her five-year-old twins’ hands. She still could not believe what she was doing, and she was struggling as to why she was doing it at all. The card Ryan gave her was in her purse. She’d read it over and over again on the train. He hadn’t had much time to explain. None really. And she didn’t completely understand. No. She didn’t understand at all. But she knew by the way Ryan looked at her that he wasn’t lying. They were in trouble.

The girls had been asleep when she’d arrived home by taxi from the party. She paid the babysitter and said her husband had been delayed. Then she called her best friend back in the states. It was only six a.m. in New Jersey. “Mel, it’s me Jeanine.”

“Jeanine? You okay?”

“No.” She started to cry.

“What is it, honey?”

“Ryan. Ryan and me. He’s cheating.”

“What?!”
Melanie shouted into the phone.

“He said it was only a one night thing and he never meant for it to happen,” she sobbed.

“Oh my God.
That bastard.”

Jeanine sobbed even louder.

“Honey, what are you going to do? I just can’t believe it. Ryan? You guys been having problems?”

“No. Not that I knew of. I mean, he works late and it’s hard here in a new country, but I’ve made friends. The girls love their school. I was even looking into a job.”

“I am so sorry, honey. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Come home. Come stay with us for awhile until you figure it out.”

“No. Thank you, but we can’t do that. I need a few days to think. That’s all. I don’t know. I might take the girls to France or Italy. Maybe Switzerland for a few days. Get my head together. I love him, Mel.”

A brief silence on the other end.
“I know you do. Yeah, well, maybe it’s best if you take a few days away from home. The girls are little and they need their mom and dad. Maybe you guys can get past this. Get some counseling.”

“Maybe,” Jeanine replied. “I don’t know. I’m going to go stay in a hotel for the night though. I don’t think I could stand to see his face right now, and he could come home any minute.”

“Okay, but remember the offer still stands.”

“Thank you.” Jeanine hung up the phone, wiped her tears away, which were not all fake, and went to her closet where she changed out of her cocktail dress and into a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. She threw some items into an overnight bag and went into the girls’ room where she did the same thing. Twenty minutes later, she woke them up and told them they were going on an adventure. They protested sleepily until she whispered Disneyland Paris in their ears. They didn’t question the time, or where their daddy was.

Now they were in the center of Disney Village in Paris, and Jeanine was calculating her next move. She bought the girls lunch, and they sat down at a picnic table to eat before heading back through the Magic Kingdom. She took the card from Ryan out of her purse and read it again.

The people I work for are killers and they’re watching us. You need to 1. Have a fight with me here. 2. Go home, call Mel, and tell her I’m a cheater. 3. Go to another European city. Somewhere with lots of people. Stay there for a day. 4. Leave on an early flight to the states. 5. Go to the cabin and wait for me. 6. Change your looks. Do not use your cell once you leave Europe. EVER. DON’T use it to book flights. 7. Call a journalist at the L.A. Times named Georgia Michaels. Tell her to look into Peter Redding, Frauen Pharma, and her neighbor. Make sure you use the words neighbor and . 8. I’m sorry. Be careful and keep eyes open at all times! These people are powerful and they can be anyone and anywhere. I love you.

“Mommy, I want to go back to Peter Pan,” Taylor said.

“Yeah, Peter Pan.”
Chloe clapped.

“Okay. Finish your sandwiches and then it’s back to Peter Pan.” She tried to laugh for the twins’ sakes. “And then on to never, never land,” she muttered under her breath, wondering what the hell her husband had gotten them into.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When Kelly entered her home on the edge of Laurel Canyon, it was just after eleven o’clock. She hadn’t heard anything from Tamara about the blood samples, but she knew it took time.

She started to turn off the alarm on the wall behind the front door. But when she punched in the numbers, she realized it wasn’t on. Jesus. What was wrong with her? She’d forgotten to turn it on again? She’d had the alarm installed about six months earlier when a Peeping Tom had been reported in the area, but she often failed to set it while heading out to work in a hurry. She was pretty sure she’d done it that morning though, especially after Jake’s death. But maybe she hadn’t. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine it had slipped her mind, considering all that had been going on.

She double bolted the front door and headed into her kitchen. Putting the kettle on the stove to heat up some water for tea, she opened up her pantry and took out a box of kitty food to signal to Stevie T it was time for dinner. She shook the box—a ritual that would normally have him bolting from wherever he was sleeping—and called his name. “Stevie. Stevie T! Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” She poured the food into his bowl. But he didn’t appear. Again she called, “Stevie, here kitty, kitty.” Nothing. That was odd. He lived to eat. Her stomach fluttered. What if he was sick somewhere? He was getting on in years. Her voice, now frantic, kept calling his name as she searched the house.

Kelly reached her bedroom, still calling, when she heard a soft meow. Where was it coming from? Outside? She opened the slider off her room and Stevie T strutted into the house. “What? Where have you been? How did you get outside?!” Then, “Oh my God.”

The flutter in her gut grew into a knot of anxiety. Every nerve ending vibrated. There is no way she would have left a door or window open. She lived too close to a main street, not to mention the coyotes in the canyon who would love a plump cat like Stevie for dinner. She picked him up, happy he was alive, but confused and a little scared.

As she held Stevie T close to her, anxiety slowly changed to terror. Her eyes focused on her nightstand. Someone had been in her home and left her a present.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE