Fatal Reaction (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

Dr. Dorian Carmichael hung his lab coat over the back of his office chair and stared out the second-floor window of his Oakland Street office. He ruffled his wavy, dark blond hair, and rubbed a stray eyelash from the corner of his caramel-brown eyes.

A mound of snow slid from the roof of the detached garage and piled on the construction trash next to it. Tearing down the old building was the last step in converting the 1900s home he had bought with his first bit of grant money into a welcoming obstetrical surgical practice. Nestled in a primarily residential neighborhood, the office was close to County Memorial Hospital where his pioneering of a uterine transplantation procedure had him quickly ascending the ranks.

Before his research, women born without a uterus, or those who had lost theirs to disease, were limited to surrogacy and adoption if they wanted to have a family. Dorian’s procedure gave them the ability to experience childbirth firsthand. The response was overwhelming. Like anything new, the procedure wasn’t without complications, not the least of which was the unwillingness and general lack of donors, but he’d forged past that, and had operated on his first human, a woman named Stephanie Martin.

Four blocks away, a grieving family held his second patient’s fate in its hands. Thirty-six-year-old Janice Harmon remained alive on life support after a car crash had left her clinically brain dead. A perfect donor match for Emily Warren, a twenty-eight-year-old who had lost her uterus to fibroids, Janice, who had never had children of her own, and whose family would never see a penny from agreeing to the donation, was the key to a high six-figure paycheck that helped keep things, especially with County’s CEO, Mitchell Altman, lubricated.

A knock came at the door, and Dorian turned to see his nurse, Noreen Pafford, at the threshold, holding a sandwich.

Noreen was a young thirty: slim and fit, with a beautiful softness about her. Her highlighted brown hair was cut into a short bob style that ended just past her earlobes. A cascade of purple star earrings glistened against her ivory neck. Wispy bangs across her forehead gave her a pixie look that, if he was being honest, enchanted him in a one-night-stand kind of way. Besides being a genuinely caring person, Noreen was a more dedicated employee than Dorian had a right to expect her to be. She kept his long hours and never once complained. She filed his research paperwork, worked on grants, and eased tensions with his more-anxious patients in a way only another female could. Dorian wouldn’t be where he was without her, a fact she reminded him of on late nights when a couple of glasses of off-duty wine colored the otherwise dry, clinical conversations. Those nights were like walking a tightrope. Dorian knew better than to bring his sex life into the workplace again.

Noreen slipped the stethoscope from around her neck and dropped it into her lab coat pocket. “You really should eat something.” Her voice was sweet honey.

Dorian smiled and nodded. “You’re always taking care of me.” He sank into the leather office chair behind his desk and sighed. “Any word from County?”

Noreen set the turkey sandwich—light mayonnaise, no crust—in front of him, and leaned against his desk. Her jacket fell open and beneath it, a fitted blue dress revealed the delicate curves of her hourglass figure. “I went over there this morning and spoke with Janice Harmon’s family.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. “Harvest team convenes at six a.m. Emily Warren’s transplant is scheduled for eight.”

“You got them to sign?”

She smiled. “There’s not much I don’t do for you.”

“What about Prusak? Have you talked to Mitchell about him?”

Mitchell Altman, County Memorial’s CEO and a man motivated more by power and money than ethics, had promised to take care of Marco Prusak, the pathologist who had staged a protest complete with blood and baby dolls. His position was that the transplant posed a risk to the fetus. At first blush, one would’ve thought he was protesting abortion.

“Mitchell gave him two weeks’ leave,” Noreen said.

“That’s
it
?”

“Guess so.”

Kristin Newman, the receptionist, appeared in the doorway. Her thin brown hair was pulled back from her plain, if not homely face. She wore a wrinkled cotton dress and Birkenstock sandals, which were entirely out of season. “Dr. Carmichael, your first afternoon patient is here.”

Dorian swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “I’ll be right down. See if she wants some water or tea while she waits.”

Kristin muttered something as she walked away about not being a waitress. Her flip-flop footsteps echoed on the hardwood.

Dorian waited until she was downstairs to comment. “Tell me again why we hired her?”

“She’s smart, efficient, and good with computers. Do you need her to be beautiful, too?”

“I guess I can’t have everything.”

Noreen guided his hands to her hips, beneath her lab coat, and smirked. “You can if you ask nicely.”

CHAPTER 5

Ana dragged a brush through her tangled, wet hair. The shower, meant to revive her, only made her more tired. She inhaled deeply, the warm steam easing the congestion from hours of crying, but doing nothing to quell the overwhelming sadness. Depression surrounded her, crushing her with its weight.

She walked to the master bedroom and sat, slumped over, on the edge of the bed, holding her throbbing head between her hands. The light made her headache worse, and she closed her eyes, immediately recalling the image of Sydney’s lifeless body on the filthy motel-room floor. For the rest of her life, that was what she’d see first when she remembered her sister.

She stood, a simple act made difficult by unrelenting grief, and haphazardly toweled off, leaving her back and shoulders damp.

The phone rang for at least the tenth time that night, and Ana checked the caller ID before answering. Word of Sydney’s death spread quickly, in no small part due to Terri Tate’s news report. If Ana heard another person say they were sorry, she’d scream. She stepped into a pair of black underwear, gray yoga pants, and a sweatshirt, and answered the phone on the fifth ring.

“Hello?”

It was Mike.

“Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were awake.”

“I am,” she said. “Why?”

“Can we talk?”

A car door slammed, and Ana looked out the window to see Mike’s blue Dodge parked in her driveway. She hung her towel on a hook in the bathroom, headed downstairs, and stood, arms akimbo, in the open front door. The cold breeze froze her damp hair and chilled her scalp.

“Is there any news?”

Mike closed his cell phone and forced a tight-lipped grin. “Unfortunately, no.” He moved to step inside, but Ana blocked him.

“I’m not feeling up to company.”

“Ana, don’t be mad.”

“Don’t be mad? Like it’s that easy? You should’ve called. We’re family, right? Isn’t that what you always told us? The minute you realized it was Sydney, you should’ve said something.”

“I didn’t want you to see her that way, Ana. There was nothing you could do.”

“You honestly believe that?”

A plow truck cleared the road in front of her house, adding to the already enormous banks and filling the tense silence with its loud scraping.

Mike wiped his gloved hand down the side of his face and sighed. “Yes”—he looked directly into her eyes—“I do. Can I please come inside? It’s freezing out here.”

Ana kept her distance, avoiding their usual greeting hug and feeling a little uncomfortable because of it. “If you have no answers, why are you here?”

“Other than being concerned about you, I thought you might want your car. I can give you a ride to the station.” Mike took her keys out of his pocket.

With everything that had happened, Ana barely remembered handing them over.

“You should be investigating, not driving a taxi.”

“I’ve done all I can do for tonight. I have Julian and Elsa on it, people with a different perspective and fewer attachments. You know, you screwed us with evidence. We’re going to have to disclose that ambush of yours.”

At the time, Ana knew she was crossing a line, storming the crime scene, but she was too panic- and grief-stricken to care. “Jim seem angry about what happened?”

“A bit, but right now he’s more worried about you than protocol.”

Ana rummaged the coat closet for something warm to wear, settling on a down-lined parka and pulling the hood up over her wet hair. “He probably should be.”

Mike flashed a concerned look.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out,” she said. “I just meant that after all the years I’ve known him, he should be more concerned about me than disciplinary action.”

Mike pressed the button on his remote start, and the late-model Ram sprang to life. A cloud of white smoke poured from the tailpipe, and the wipers made a pass across the windshield. Mike opened the passenger’s side door and helped Ana inside.

A Willie Nelson song played quietly on the radio. It was barely audible over the sound of the blasting heat, but it brought back better times. Mike had sung that song to her and Sydney when she was young.

Though most people didn’t know it, Mike was pretty good at campfire guitar.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ana said. “I know you thought you were doing the right thing. Anger’s one of the first steps, right?” Mike nodded. “So what do Elsa and Julian think happened?”

“Suicide?” Ana’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

Even with four-wheel drive and the roads clear, Mike kept his speed under thirty. “Elsa found a note on the nightstand. I know what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t think you do.” On a scale of one to ten, four being how pissed off she was at him when he arrived, and ten being a swarm of angry hornets, she hit a solid twenty. “Suicide, Mike? Does that make
any
sense to you?” Mike shrugged. “The woman fought for her life, enrolled in school to be a grief counselor, to help other depressed people, and you think it’s even plausible she killed herself?”

“It’s been a tough year. Maybe a lot of what Sydney was doing was self-help. Between separating from Anthony, the surgery, and the cancer, I don’t know what to believe. Less has broken stronger people.”

“No one was stronger than Syd, and you know it.”

“I’m not taking anything at face value, but given the scene, nothing looks out of place.”

“Sydney, at the Aquarian—out of place.” Ana ticked off her argument on her fingers. “Pills and vodka—out of place.” Another finger. “The note—out of place. There wasn’t one goddamned warning sign, Mike, not
one
. She wasn’t withdrawn, or upset. She was even making peace with what Anthony did to her, the cheating piece of shit. Do you know how hard that is for a woman to overlook?”

“I know it was hard for her, but she wasn’t one to complain, especially where you were concerned.”

“And what is
that
supposed to mean?”

“It just means that Sydney was always strong around you. Ever since your parents’ accident, she only ever wanted to be your rock. She wanted children, Ana, and you know damned well that was a big part of the problem between her and Anthony. When she had the hysterectomy,” Mike said with a sigh, “it was all over from there. I’m not condoning or condemning what Anthony did. I’m just saying Sydney suffered silently. It was her way. The note is with a forensic handwriting specialist. If anything’s suspicious, he’ll find it. We fingerprinted the room, but a place like the Aquarian, it’s got a jaded history. We’re getting hits off the prints left and right. Every drug dealer, ex-con, prostitute, pimp, and john who has ever been in that room left at least his fingerprints behind, most of them more.” Ana cringed at the visual. “Is there any reason to believe Sydney would be tied up with anyone with a criminal past?”

“Really, Mike?” Ana pulled a face.

“I had to ask.” Mike rolled up to the stoplight and blasted the defroster. “Some things stay between sisters.”

“If there was something like that, don’t you think I’d have mentioned it?”

“I’d hope so, but I’m looking for anything to rule out some of these prints.”

A moment of silence passed between them.

“Any chance you found Anthony’s?”

Mike turned and looked at her. “Why do you ask?”

Ana pointed ahead when the light turned green. “Things got out of hand with the divorce. Sydney wasn’t exactly honest with Anthony, and he’s hurt, enough that he tried laying claim to half of her house.”

“The house your parents left to both of you.”

“Yes, but you know I’d never take the place away from her. She loved it. She had a lot more memories with our parents there than I did.”

“They’re your memories, too.”

Fresh tears spilled down Ana’s cheeks. “I know, but after giving up everything to stay with me, Sydney deserved to keep her home.”

“What did you mean Sydney wasn’t honest with Anthony? About what?”

Revealing Sydney’s secrets had Ana feeling like a traitor, though she knew it was only a matter of time before Anthony told his version. She needed Mike to understand why Sydney did what she did. “It’s no secret that Anthony wanted a stay-at-home wife and a large family. It’s the life he came from. One of nine children, I mean, what can you expect? Sydney just finished taking care of me. She wasn’t ready for children. She wanted them, yes, but Anthony had been hounding her since their honeymoon. Sydney wanted to get her degree. After what she’d been through, Mike, it wasn’t just the cancer that pushed her toward grief counseling. She said no one understood a crisis like people who had faced and beat one. Anthony didn’t agree. He told her to leave the past in the past, and she tried. He actually made her feel bad about her struggle. In a moment of weakness, she agreed to try to get pregnant, well, I mean, agreed to him, but she knew she had made a mistake as soon as she said it. Months went by without her conceiving, and she convinced him that something was wrong. He agreed to let her enroll in school, to be supportive of what she wanted to do, if she’d agree to see a fertility specialist. She did, but found a dozen reasons not to keep her appointments. When Anthony found her birth control pills, it was the beginning of the end.”

“She was taking them the whole time?”

“Yep. She said Anthony was suspicious. I told her she was being paranoid.”

“And that’s when Misty came into the picture?”

Ana rolled her eyes.

Misty Harper, a twenty-five-year-old waitress at the R&M Diner on North Main, couldn’t have been more Sydney’s opposite. Misty was too old to get off the dead-end path she was on, and she knew it. She flirted with anyone in uniform, married or not, and saw Anthony as a way out of her situation. Anthony wanted a stay-at-home type, and Misty wanted to be taken care of. He was an easy target.

“You know Misty attacked Sydney at the preliminary divorce hearing, don’t you?”

Mike shook his head. “When did you two stop telling me things?”

The EMS station came into view. Ana’s white Jetta was buried under a foot of fresh snow, but someone, Ethan if she had to guess, had been nice enough to lift her wipers.

“We didn’t stop telling you everything—only the stuff we figured you didn’t want to hear. The rest of that story was that Syd slapped Misty across the face and got hauled off by a bailiff. It took some amount of pleading to keep him from telling you.”

Mike parked next to Ana’s car. “And then what happened?”

“Sydney laughed and said, ‘Bitch had that coming.’” Ana smiled and reached across the seat to give Mike the hug she’d earlier avoided.

He hugged her back and chuckled. “She wasn’t wrong there.”