Mercy

  She was sound asleep thirty seconds later. Michelle had learned, while doing her residency, the benefits of catnaps. She had conditioned herself to sleep anywhere, anytime.

  “Dr. Mike?”

  She jerked awake. “Yes?”

  “You need some caffeine,” a nurse remarked as she walked past.

  “You want me to get you something to drink? You look wiped out.”

  Michelle didn’t hide her irritation. “Megan, you woke me up to tell me I looked tired?”

  The nurse was a young, pretty woman, fresh out of school. She had been working at the hospital less than a week, but already she knew everyone’s name. She had just received notice that she’d passed her state boards. Nothing was going to bother her today, not even a surgeon glaring at her.

  “I don’t know how you can sleep like that. You were chatting on the phone just a minute ago, and then boom, you’re drooling on your charts and snoring.”

  Michelle shook her head. “I don’t drool, and I don’t snore.”

  “I’m going down to the cafeteria,” Megan said. “Do you want me to get you something?”

  “No, thanks. I’m on my way out the door. I’ve just got to finish going through the mail and I’m done.”

  An aide interrupted. “Dr. Mike?”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a delivery for you down in ER,” she said. “I think you have to sign for it. It looks important,” she added. “I hope you’re not getting sued.”

  “Dr. Mike hasn’t been here long enough to get sued,” Megan interjected.

  “The messenger said the package is from a law firm in New Orleans, and he won’t leave until he hands it over to you and gets your signature. What do you want me to tell him?”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Michelle picked up the completed charts and put them in the out box. She left the two she still had to dictate on top of the stack of mail, then took the stairs down to the emergency room. The messenger was nowhere in sight. The staff secretary spotted her and hurried over to hand her a large manila envelope. “Here’s your package, Doctor. I knew you were busy, so I told the messenger I had the authority to sign your name for deliveries.”

  “Thanks, Elena.”

  She turned to go back up to the surgical floor, but Elena stopped her. “Don’t thank me yet, Doctor. There was a bad wreck on Sunset, and the paramedics are bringing in a vanload of kids. They’re two minutes out. We’re going to need your help.”

  Michelle carried the large envelope with her into the doctors’ lounge to get a Diet Coke. Then she returned to the nurses’ station, sat down, and popped the lid on the beverage. She needed the caffeine to get her second wind, she decided. She put the can down and reached for the envelope just as the door opened and a paramedic shouted for assistance.

  “We’ve got a bleeder.”

  Michelle hit the ground running, the envelope all but forgotten.

  CHAPTER TEN

  No man is an island, and Leon Bruno Jones wasn’t the exception.

  The Count, as he was called by his associates because his eyeteeth were noticeably longer than his other front teeth, resembled a vampire when he smiled. Leon looked as though he could suck the blood out of his victim, and if the extortion numbers in his duplicate set of books were accurate, he had taken more than blood.

  Leon had a very large circle of friends, and all of them hated Theo Buchanan. Without Theo’s investigation, Leon wouldn’t have turned state’s evidence and he wouldn’t have testified before a Boston grand jury, bringing down one of the most powerful organized crime rings in the country.

  Theo had returned to Boston a few days after his surgery. Even though Leon’s case had ended and a half dozen high-level mob bosses were now behind bars, Theo still had a ton of reports to file and a mountain of documents to record. His superiors in the Justice Department suggested that he maintain a low profile. Theo had received death threats before, and though he certainly didn’t take them lightly, he also didn’t allow them to interfere with his work. For the next couple of weeks he spent long, exhausting days at the office.

  Finally, when the last paper had been filed and his staff had given their final reports, Theo closed the door to his office and headed home. He was worn-out, mentally and physically. The pressure of the job had gotten to him, and he wondered if, after all was said and done, his efforts actually made much difference. He was too tired to think about it. He needed a good night’s sleep. No, he needed a month of good nights. Then maybe he could see things a little more clearly and decide where he should go from here. Would he take the job of heading up a new crime study that the Justice Department had offered, or would he return to his private law practice and spend his days in meetings and negotiations? Either way, he would be jumping right back on the treadmill. Was his family right? Was he trying to escape life by working nonstop?

  The department heads had urged him to stay out of sight for a little while, at least until Leon’s family simmered down some. Time away from it all actually sounded good to Theo right now. Visions of a fishing line rippling the serene waters of a Louisiana bayou popped into his head. Before he’d left New Orleans, he’d promised to return to give the speech he’d missed, and he guessed now was as good a time as any. After the speech, he could take a little trip and check out the fishing hole that Jake Renard had bragged about. Yes, a little time to chill out was just what he needed. There was another reason he was anxious to return to Louisiana, however . . . and it had nothing to do with fishing.

  Three and a half weeks post surgery, Theo was back in New Orleans standing at the podium in the Royal Orleans ballroom waiting for the applause to die down so he could give his long overdue speech to the law enforcement officers who had come once again from all over the state to hear what he had to say. Suddenly, there she was, inside his head, messing with his thoughts. She had the most wonderful smile, like bottled sunshine. She also had a killer body, no doubt about that. He remembered how, lying in that hospital bed, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Any normal man would have reacted the way he had. He had been sick at the time, but he hadn’t been unconscious.

  He was trying to remember the conversation he had had with her when he suddenly realized the applause had ended. Everyone in the ballroom was staring expectantly up at him, waiting for him to begin, and for the first time in his life, he was unnerved. He couldn’t remember a single word of his prepared speech, or even the topic. He glanced down at the podium where he had placed the program, read the title and a brief description of the talk he was supposed to give, and ended up winging it. Because he kept his remarks short, his trapped audience loved him. Overworked and overstressed, they had been given a one-night reprieve to eat and drink and celebrate. The sooner he finished boring the badges off of them with platitudes about putting their lives on the line every day, the happier they would be. His thirty-minute presentation ended in just under ten minutes. Their response was so enthusiastic, he actually laughed. They gave him a standing ovation.

  Later, on his walk back to his hotel, he thought about his bizarre behavior and concluded that he was acting like a boy who had just discovered sex. He felt like he’d traded places with his youngest brother, Zachary. These days Zack couldn’t speak two full sentences without the words “girl,” “hot,” and “sex” in them.

  Theo didn’t know what had come over him, but he figured it would all go away as soon as he went fishing. He loved to fish. When he was out on his boat, the Mary Beth, he completely relaxed. It was almost as good as sex.

  Tuesday morning, before he headed to Bowen, Theo had a breakfast meeting with a couple of New Orleans police captains, and then he stopped by Dr. Cooper’s office. The doctor worked him in just so he could give him hell about not keeping his appointment after the surgery. After he finished his lecture about how important his time was, he checked Theo’s incision. “It’s healed nicely,” he announced. “But you could have gotten into trouble if there had been any co
mplications. You shouldn’t have flown back to Boston so soon after surgery. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  Cooper sat down on the stool next to the examination table. “To be honest, I didn’t expect any complications. Mike did an excellent job. She always does,” he said. “She’s as good with a knife as I am, and that’s high praise indeed. She’s one of the best cutters in the country,” he added with a nod. “You were very fortunate she saw you were in trouble. I offered her a place on my team, even hinted at a partnership. She’s that gifted,” he stressed. “When she turned me down, I encouraged her to go on and get a subspecialty under her belt, but she wasn’t interested. She’s too stubborn to see she’s wasting her talent.”

  “How so?” Theo asked as he rebuttoned his shirt.

  “Doing family practice out in the boonies,” Cooper said. “Mike will be doing a little cutting, but not much. It’s a waste, all right.”

  “The people of Bowen might not see it that way.”

  “Oh, they need another doctor, no doubt about that, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Cooper was fiddling with the lid of the cotton swabs. He abruptly closed it and stood. “Bowen isn’t the sweet little town she made it out to be,” he said. “I talked to her this morning about a bowel resection she’d sent me, and she told me her clinic was vandalized. Turned upside down.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Last night. The police are investigating, but so far, Mike told me there aren’t any leads. You know what I think?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Kids did it, looking for drugs. When they didn’t find what they wanted, they tore up the place.”

  “Maybe,” Theo said.

  “Mike doesn’t keep hard drugs in her clinic. None of us do. Patients who need that kind of medicine should be in a hospital. It’s a real shame,” he added. “She worked hard to get that clinic ready, and she was so happy and excited to be going back home again.” He paused to shake his head. “I worry about her. I mean to say . . . if it wasn’t vandalism, then maybe someone doesn’t want her back in Bowen.”

  “I’m headed to Bowen to go fishing with her father,” Theo said.

  “You could do me a favor then,” he said. “I’ve got another box of supplies I was going to take to her, but you could take them for me, and while you’re there, you could look into this vandalism. Maybe I’m overreacting, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “She’s scared. She didn’t say so, but I could tell. I got this feeling while I was talking to her that there was something else she wasn’t telling me. Mike doesn’t get scared easily, but she sounded upset when she was talking to me.”

  Theo left the doctor’s office a few minutes later carrying a large cardboard box of medical supplies. He had already checked out of the hotel, and his suitcase and fishing gear were packed in the car he’d rented.

  The sky was pristine blue, and it was sunny and warm, a perfect day for a drive in the country.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was early afternoon, and Cameron, Preston, and John were all chomping at the bit for Dallas to arrive. They had been waiting in John’s library for over an hour and were becoming more and more anxious.

  Dallas was late as usual.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Cameron demanded the second Dallas walked into the library, looking as tired and haggard as the others. “We’ve been waiting for hours.”

  “I’ve been running my ass off,” Dallas snapped. “And I’m not in the mood for attitude, Cameron, so knock it off.”

  “Do we pack up and leave the country?” Preston asked. “Are the police going to knock on our doors?”

  “Jesus, don’t talk like that.” Cameron broke out in a cold sweat.

  “I don’t think we’re going to have to pack our clothes just yet,” Dallas said.

  “You got the copies of our files back?” Preston asked eagerly.

  “No,” Dallas answered. “I didn’t get them . . . yet. I found out what courier service the law firm uses and went there. Fortunately, they hadn’t mailed the receipt back to the firm yet, and I got a copy. I called Monk immediately, and he headed out right away. Catherine sent the information to a relative, a Dr. Michelle Renard in Bowen, Louisiana.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would Catherine wait till she was dead to send it to a relative and not just turn it over to the Feds the minute she found out?” Cameron asked.

  John answered. “I know exactly what she was doing. Catherine was a fanatic about marriage being forever, and she wasn’t going to let me go. She would have used what she discovered to make me behave. The last couple of months, she must have thought I was coming around. I was being so sickeningly nice to the woman. But Catherine was vindictive. No matter how nice I was to her, she was going to send me to prison after she died. Still, I never would have guessed that she would have sent the file to the family she’d practically disowned.”

  “Did the doctor sign for the package?” Preston asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Son of a bitch. We’re screwed.”

  “Quit interrupting and let me finish,” Dallas said. “I talked to the man who delivered the package. He told me he went to Renard’s home first. She wasn’t there, and so he headed over to the hospital. He said she signed for the package in the emergency room.”

  “Why do we care where she was when she signed for it?” John asked.

  “I was getting to that,” Dallas replied. “The messenger remembered that, when he was pulling out of the parking lot, he almost ran into an ambulance as it came flying by. He said another ambulance was right behind the first, and while he waited, he saw the medics unload four boys. He remembers seeing a lot of blood on their clothes.”

  “So?” Preston prodded.

  “So, my guess is that Dr. Renard was pretty busy last night.”

  “We’re supposed to hang tight because you guess the doctor didn’t have time to read the files and call the police?” Cameron asked.

  “Will you shut up?” Dallas snapped. “As soon as Monk got to Bowen, he drove over to the St. Claire hospital. Sure enough, Dr. Renard had been in surgery. Monk told one of the aides that he wanted to talk to the doctor about a financial opportunity and asked her if he should wait. The aide told him that Renard had two back-to-back surgeries and wouldn’t be done for several more hours.”

  “What else?” John asked. He was sitting behind his desk, drumming his fingers on the blotter. Dallas resisted the urge to stop him.

  “The slip showed she signed for the delivery at exactly five-fifteen,” Dallas said, checking a notepad. “I checked with the ambulance service, and the time of arrival at the hospital was five-twenty. So . . .”

  “She couldn’t have had time to do anything about the package,” Preston said.

  Dallas continued. “While Renard was in surgery, Monk put a tap on the phone line to her house. When he got back to the hospital, there had been a shift change in the ER. He took advantage of the opportunity to slip into the doctors’ lounge and search Renard’s locker. He even had an aide helping him. He told her a package had accidentally been sent to the wrong person.”

  “And she bought it?”

  “Monk can be charming when he wants to,” Dallas said. “And she was young. They didn’t find anything, but she gave him all kinds of information about Dr. Renard.”

  “Maybe Renard took the package to surgery,” John suggested.

  “I doubt that,” Dallas said. “The aide said she went up with a patient.”

  “Then what did Monk do?”

  “He waited. It was late when Renard left the hospital, and he followed her. She made one stop on the way home. She went by a clinic, and she had some papers in her hands when she went inside. Monk would have searched her car then, but she’d left the motor running, which indicated she wasn’t going to be there long.”

  “Did she have the papers when she came back out?”

  “None that he could see
,” Dallas answered. “But she was carrying a backpack. Anyway, he followed her home, waited until he was sure she was asleep, then broke in and searched the house. He found the backpack in the laundry room and went through it first.”

  “It wasn’t there.” John made the statement.

  Dallas nodded.

  Cameron began to pace. “She had to have taken it to her clinic. Maybe she was thinking she’d deal with it today.”

  “Monk went back and checked the clinic. It wasn’t there either. He assured me he searched everything. Only problem was, he broke a lock on her desk and decided he had to trash the place so it would look like kids had been there.”

  “Where the hell is the package?” John was furious now and wasn’t trying to hide it. “I can’t believe the bitch sent it to her cousin. She hated her relatives.”

  “I don’t know where it is,” Dallas said. “But it occurred to me . . .”

  “What?” Preston urged.

  “She can’t possibly know what she has.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  St. Claire, Louisiana, was easy for Theo to find. Bowen was impossible. There weren’t any signs pointing the way, and as Jake had indicated, the little town wasn’t on a map. Loath to admit that he was lost and needed directions — a genetic flaw passed down to the males in the family, according to his sisters, Jordan and Sydney — Theo drove around in circles until he was almost out of gas and had to stop. When he went inside the filling station to pay, he broke down and asked the attendant if he happened to know where Bowen was located.