Love M.D. (35 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s addressed to you.”

“Who is it from?”

“I don’t know. Lucas called me and
told me the letter was hand delivered to the gate by messenger. He’s inspected
it, and it’s safe to open. We just think it’s suspicious because of the way it
was delivered. It has no return address.”

“We can’t put it off forever. Can
you please get me the envelope? Let me see what it is.”

Retrieving it from the side table,
he hands it to me. I’m about to tear the envelope open when he pulls it away.

“Are you sure you want to handle
this just days before Christmas?”

“Morgan, I appreciate you always
looking out for me, but you can’t keep things like this from me. It’s wonderful
knowing that I have you in my corner, but I can take it. Who knows? What happened
tonight could have had something to do with that letter.”

He hesitates, then hands it to me.
A typed, unsigned letter is inside.

Dear Zoë,

I write you this letter to plead with you to
please speak to the necessary authorities and set Todd free. I know he was at
your house, but I also know he did not burn down your home.

What you don’t know is that Todd’s fiancé is
pregnant with twins and a few weeks ago, she was diagnosed with cancer.

She is determined, no matter what, to make
sure that she gives birth to two healthy babies, but as you would imagine
health care costs for a pregnant woman with cancer are very high.

Todd may have been snooping around your house,
but only out of sheer curiosity. He was not there to hurt you. He was there to
talk to you about arranging some sort of payment because he needs this money
for his family to survive.

When he heard the voice of two other
individuals in the woods, he panicked and ran away. He did not destroy your
home. He was reaching out to you for help.

Please, time is of the essence, as the cancer
is rapidly progressing.

Without the necessary care, his fiancé and the
twins will most definitely die. Now, he faces two problems. He has financial
issues, and because he is under house arrest, he can’t support his fiancé while
she’s in the hospital. You are the only one in a position to help.

The names of his lawyer and the doctors are
below.

I’m sorry your house was burned, but it wasn’t
Todd who did it. The true perpetrators of the crime are still out there.

I hope you can help.

I wish you well.

After reading the letter, I hand it
to Morgan.

Closing my eyes, I sink back into
the sofa. I’m entirely overwhelmed, and despite the fact that I don’t know who
sent that letter or wrote it, for some reason I believe it. My instincts tell
me it’s true.

I feel awful for more than one
reason—that someone is going through this, and after tonight it’s obvious that
someone is still out there tracking my movements and waiting for the right
opportunity to kill me.

“You believe this don’t you?”

I nod.

“I personally know both doctors
here. If this is true, it would be easy to verify.”

“You can speak to them if you want,
but I think we should call Detective Bradshaw and Jonathan. Detective Bradshaw
has the means to verify this. It’s important to get it done. She needs care.”

“I’ll call the doctors now.”

“And I’ll call Jonathan and
Detective Bradshaw.”

An hour later, most of the details
in that anonymous letter prove to be true. Of course, we can’t be sure whether
Todd burned down my house, but since everything else checked out and the police
have verified that Todd has been home all night, we have to consider it might
be true. I feel a lot antsier than I had in the past because Abby is here.

After a visit from Jonathan and
Detective Bradshaw and many phone calls between Todd’s lawyers, we legally have
the ball rolling to stop the court-ordered payments, so his fiancé can get the
care she needs. Before he leaves, Detective Bradshaw bags the letter and the envelope,
hoping to get some finger prints. Whoever delivered it seems to know a lot, and
he’s hoping that he might be able to identify who that is so he can question
them. That said, there’s a lot more work to do on the fire aspect of this.

“Maybe I need to go away,” I say
when we’re in private later that night. “It’s not just about you and me
anymore. An innocent child has entered the mix. It would kill me if something
happened to Abby. And it would definitely hamper any chance you had of seeing
her again in the future.”

“That’s true. But here is the
safest place for all of us to be right now. I’m going to call Audrey to let her
know there was an incident, but for the rest of her trip, until we are able to
get her home, we’ll just have to figure out how to spend time with her here in
the house.”

“How did these men know we were
going out on the boat today?”

“I don’t know. The police think it’s
possible that this may have been a crime of opportunity. They probably
recognized the boat because they had previously seen it on the pier in front
the house. They happened to see us during the parade and followed us once we
left there. They already have one in custody. Maybe he’ll start talking, and we’ll
find out more about this.”

“Morgan if it’s not Todd, then what
did I do to someone to make them that determined to kill me? What if that man I
saw had something to do with this?”

He ponders for a moment and
replies, “That might be a possibility. At some point, I can go through my party
guest list with you and look up the invitees either on the hospital’s website
or on Facebook. You can see if you recognize anyone.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this.
It’s Christmas, Abby’s here, and we’re all okay. If this shit didn’t happen,
today would have been a perfect day. Let’s just try to enjoy the holidays.”

I don’t argue. That’s really what I’d
like to do, but we’re back to where we began. On some level, I had started to
live my life again and now, I have to constantly watch my back. We lock up and
activate the alarm. Morgan lets Lucas know we’re turning in for the night.

After a shower together, we lay in
bed. I am emotionally exhausted, worried and distracted. I can’t sleep.

I get out of bed, leaving Morgan
asleep. I slip on some clothing and step into the family room. I have to try to
figure this out. There must be some clue of something that happened in my life
that would help me figure out who would want me dead. I decide to go over my
schedule for the last six months and make a list of all the major events that
have occurred, places I’ve visited, and new people I’ve met.

I spent the first week of June in
Greece, and when I returned, I took on a new job with the Rogers family in San
José. Zach went to Greece after that, and I spent the rest of that month completing
that San José job. The only slightly off thing that happened in June was a
media room design I pulled together for a client named Kayden Clarke. He
approved the design, but never got back to me again about a start date.

In July, I tried calling him but
never heard from him again. I met with Jada several times regarding the designs
for Bleu Resorts and finalized designs for an Italian family who moved into a
house at Seacliff near Jada and Jonathan’s home. I spent a lot of time with
photographers that month because I was preparing for an interior designer trade
show, and I had to submit an article to AD magazine of some designs of mine
they were featuring.

Zach and I also met the Simpson
family. He designed and built their house, and I worked with them to complete
the interior. I only met with one woman for a master bedroom design after that.
At the end of the month, Zach left for Greece.

The beginning of August was busy. I
got many new jobs in San José, Zach returned from Greece and Morgan Drake walked
into my life. Little did I know back then how my life would change one month
later. I started seeing Morgan, Zach was engaged to Megan and the day after I
left for Greece, my only brother died.

From then on, anything and
everything that was significant in my life was related to Zach’s
death—preparations for his funeral, visits to the hospital to find out what
caused his death. Apart from the Giorgi install at Seacliff, it all seemed
downhill from there. I was attacked in my office, my house was burned down and
someone tried to kill me on Morgan’s boat…

The bedroom door opens and Morgan
steps out.

“Baby, what are you doing?” His
hair is a disheveled mess.

“I’m trying to figure out what
changed in my life to cause all this. I’m making a list of clients and any
other major events in the last few months. I can’t continue to wait. There must
be some clue, something must have happened. Either that, or someone I met in
the last few months should lead to who is behind this.”

He curls up on the couch next to
me.

“Are you sure you want to do this
now?”

“Yes. Morgan, tonight could have
ended very differently. You could have gotten hurt, and it scares me like hell
that this happened while Abby was here.”

“I know. Can I help? Have you seen
anything?”

“Well, I met one client in June. We
had a consultation and he approved my design, but he never funded or scheduled
when work was to begin.”

“You think he’s involved in this?”

“Honestly, no, but it was bizarre
that we got to that stage of the process and I never heard from him again.”

“He could have changed his mind,
had a family emergency or something like that. There could be any number of
logical explanations for that.”

“I know.” I’m frustrated.

“Maybe we’re doing this the wrong
way. You were first attacked on what date?”

“October 15.”

“What happened in the days before
that?”

“I spent the entire week before at
the Giorgi house at Seacliff. You visited me there and the hospital gave me the
autopsy results. Wait a minute…” I suddenly have a revelation.

“What is it?”

“This all started after Zach died.
Why didn’t I see this before? More specifically, it happened after I was given
the autopsy results.”

He looks at all the dates I listed,
“God. But why?”

“It doesn’t make any sense. They
give me fake results then try to have me killed?”

“Then why give you the results in
the first place?”

“Exactly.”

“They could have chosen not to give
me the results. Time was on their side because they told me between seven and
ten days. I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. Do you think they could
really be involved in this?”

“They falsified documents, which
was bad enough. This would take it to a completely new level. I’m so tempted to
go see Robin right now, you wouldn’t believe.”

“Morgan, no. Please don’t.”

“What the fuck is going on at that
hospital? Give me one sec,” he rises to his feet and heads downstairs,
returning moments later with his laptop.

“Do you think we’ll ever find out
how Deandre and his brother were killed?”

“It depends on how they died.” He boots
up his laptop. “Their bodies may be too badly decomposed to make a decision one
way or another. On the other hand, if, for example, there was a gunshot wound
to the head, there would be a hole in the skull. If they were drugged or
drowned, because of the condition of the bodies we might never be able to tell.
Not unless some witness came forward.”

“This scares me. Would a hospital
go that far? Would they really do this?”

“I guess it all depends on what
they were trying to cover up. We know it was the use of that chemical or substance.
However, if they were involved in attacks on us, it suggests that this chemical
was administered by the hospital, not a visitor. Otherwise they wouldn’t go
this far.”

“Why would they do that? Why would
a hospital poison a patient?”

“That’s what we need to find out.
It could just be some psycho employee, and the only reason I would think they
would try to cover this up is because of the liability and legal issues. What
the chemical is and where it is from might answer those questions.”

“We should let Christina know about
this.”

“We can, but it will have to be
after the holidays. Christmas is two days away. Jonathan told me earlier she’s
on holiday with her family.”

“When I started this, I had hoped
it would give me an answer. Now, I have more questions. And if our suspicions
are true, Morgan, this scares me. That makes you a target, too.”

“I don’t want you to worry. I can
protect myself. I can protect you and Abby. And when we’re here, Lucas and his
team help me do that. Right now, what’s becoming a greater concern for me is
Robin’s involvement in this.”

“Do you think she’d be upfront if
you spoke to her about this?”

“I don’t know. Of late, I’ve been
questioning just how well I know my sister, especially after finding out she
lied to me about some very simple things. Why would she lie to me about seeing
Uncle Tony and Dad? After finding that out, I now question everything she tells
me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your
fault. Look here,” he says. I look at the screen and see he’s pulled up the
hospital’s website. “Tell me if you recognize the man from the restaurant
tonight.”

We spend the next two hours looking
up profiles on the hospital site and Facebook—everyone who was at his party.
Unfortunately, blond hair and blue eyes are a common trait amongst Morgan’s
colleagues. All the men I see are either too young or too old and the ones that
are the correct age do not look like the man I saw. We even looked at the
profiles of some of the women he works with to see if they’d match the woman I
saw the man with, but we come up with nothing. When our efforts are futile, we’re
both frustrated and head to bed.