“Shut up, Jessie,” Jensen said as he got to his feet as four EMTs poured into the room. “The police will find that scumbag. Nothing’s going to happen to you now. We’ll take good care of you.”
Newell’s gaze clung to Eve’s. “Don’t leave me.”
Eve nodded as Joe reached down and helped her to her feet. “Don’t worry, I’ll hardly let you out of my sight.” She added grimly, “We’re going to talk.”
“Soon,” he said, as they carried him out of the apartment. “It doesn’t matter that I didn’t tell him. He’ll find her…”
“Which hospital?” Joe asked Dr. Jensen as the intern hurried after the EMTs.
“Santa Barbara General.” He tossed back over his shoulder, “Did I hear that you’re a police detective? You’d better contact your headquarters. This has to be reported.”
“Yes, it does.” He took Eve’s elbow and nudged her toward the door as Jensen left the apartment. He added in a low voice to Eve, “But not before we get a chance to talk to Newell.”
“He told me that the name of the man who cut him is Drogan. While we’re waiting for word on Newell, can you run a check and see if you can find anything about him on the database?”
“You bet I will. Drogan…”
* * *
DROGAN’S FOOT PRESSED HARD on the accelerator, then lifted the pressure. He mustn’t be caught speeding. That would be the stupidest thing he could do. It would be the crowning blow to a totally frustrating night.
Not that he hadn’t enjoyed making the son of a bitch hurt. But Newell had been stubborn, and Drogan hadn’t been able to squeeze the information about Beth Avery out of him before that detective Joe Quinn had broken into the apartment. It had to be Quinn. Pierce’s description of the cop matched, and who else would be snooping around the hospital personnel?
Why the hell couldn’t Pierce have managed to throw Quinn off the track? It was just one more example of the doctor’s pitiful inadequacy and another wall for Drogan to overcome. The anger was searing through him, and he had to get a grip on himself so he could think clearly. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.
It was going to be all right. He had lost Newell as a source of information, but he had something else that might give him what he needed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell phone he had taken from Newell.
Phones were magical instruments, and Drogan knew just how to pull that magic into the real world. First, go the simple route. Check and see just what calls Newell had received lately. Then check them all out until he hit pay dirt. Identify, locate the target, then execute.
But he had to hurry. He wasn’t sure that he’d managed to kill Newell, and he couldn’t chance him calling and warning the woman.
He pulled over to the side of the road and began to go through Newell’s call list.
Seventeen Mile Drive
BETH MADE A FACE as she switched the news channel off and leaned back in the chair. So much ugliness and corruption. Wars and dirty politics and unbelievable cruelty. Occasionally, there was a story that raised the heart, but they were rare. She had been tempted to turn the set off a dozen times and just stare out the window at the sea.
But she had promised Billy that she would take this time to learn about all the events of the years she had missed and try to grasp how the world was working. She had been studying the History Channel and Discovery as well as the news channels, and she preferred the past to the present. It was the violence of the present that was goading her to draw back into her shell and just look out the window at the sea.
Coward. She had done just that for all these years, and it was time for her to come alive. She had been drugged and manipulated into that false contentment, and she wouldn’t do that to herself now that she was free. She was learning. She wouldn’t be defenseless when she ventured out into the world. She just had to do as Billy told her and not try to hide her head.
She reluctantly reached out and turned the news channel back on. “Go ahead,” she muttered to the slick-looking newscaster who was showing scenes from the latest Middle Eastern atrocity. “Give me another couple days, and maybe I’ll get as callous as the rest of you. Though God knows I don’t—” She broke off, stiffening, as her gaze flew to the desk across the room.
Her cell phone was ringing.
It was the first time the phone had rung since Billy had given it to her.
Billy?
She jumped to her feet and ran across the room. He had said he wouldn’t contact her, but he was the only one who had her number.
Or it could be a wrong number.
She hesitated.
The phone rang again.
But what if it was Billy, and he needed to reach her?
Private number on the ID panel.
She slowly reached out and punched the access. “Billy?”
“No.” The voice was crisp and businesslike. “Santa Barbara Police Department. We’re investigating the homicide of a Jessie Newell. Your number was on his phone. What is your name please?”
“Homicide?” Murder. He was talking about murder. Billy’s murder. She couldn’t breathe. “How? What—”
“He was stabbed to death. What did you say your name was?”
Stabbed. She closed her eyes. “Dear God.”
“Your name.” This time his voice was no longer crisp and businesslike. It was rough and ugly.
And she recognized it.
“Bitch.”
A dark hospital room where she struggled for her life.
A man who cursed her and tried to inject her with that deadly hypodermic.
Panic.
Her heart leaped in her breast.
She hung up the phone.
He had found her.
She felt a wave of sickness wash over her.
And he had found Billy.
Stabbed him. Billy was dead.
He had died for her.
And now his killer would be coming to get her.
She steadied herself on the desk as the sadness and fear and anger attacked her.
Billy.
CHAPTER
9
JOE AND EVE WERE IN the waiting room for over three hours before Jensen gave them a report. “He’ll be okay. The shoulder wound was only a glancing blow, and that was the worst of it,” he said as he came out of the emergency room. “Thirty-two wounds, inflicted to give maximum pain. Whoever did it knew what he was doing.” His face was tight. “Jessie could have bled to death if he’d been careless, or he might have gone unconscious from the trauma effect. Jessie’s a good guy, he didn’t deserve this. Do you know who did it?”
“No, did he tell you?”
Jensen shook his head. “I didn’t ask him. That’s not my job. But evidently it’s your job. He’s waiting for a room to be readied. You can go in and ask him a few questions, but I don’t want him agitated.”
“No problem.”
Jensen frowned. “I mean it. Everyone likes Jessie Newell. The nurse on duty has been taking inquiries ever since we got here asking about him.”
“Really? From whom?”
He shrugged. “People from the apartment. Coworkers from the hospital where he works. Look, I’ve no idea what he did, but I’d lay odds that Jessie is clean. That guy who did this must be a complete nut.”
“Good chance. May we see him now?”
“Sure.” He turned away. “Second door on the left.”
“Coworkers,” Eve murmured as she walked with him down the hall. “Pierce?”
“If he’s the one who hired Drogan, the man who did this. Drogan might have called him with a report.” He checked his phone. “No info on a Drogan yet. Maybe Newell will be able to tell us more.”
“I didn’t get the impression that he knew much more than his name, but I could be wrong.”
When they entered the recovery room, Jessie Newell was lying in bed, swathed in bandages. “It’s about time. You’ve got to get me out of here.”
“I thought you’d
changed your mind and were going to let them check you into the hospital,” Eve said. “Your intern friend said you were waiting for the next available room.”
“You can’t argue with hospital personnel. I know that from experience. You just have to agree, then do your own thing.” He struggled up in bed. “Get me something to wear. They stripped everything off me.”
“They had no choice,” Eve said dryly. “Your clothes were bloody and ripped in dozens of places.”
“I have to get out of here. Now.” He met Eve’s gaze. “I’m vulnerable here. Doctors and nurses all belong to the same club. Pierce is well-known all over Santa Barbara. He or one of his cohorts could come in here, and they’d welcome him with open arms.”
“You think he’d try to kill you?”
“Not if he could arrange for someone else to do it. But he’s scared, and he might get desperate.”
“Can you prove that he’s behind this attack on you?”
“I can’t prove shit. Why do you think that I was still hanging around the hospital after Beth got away?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you or your motives.”
“Then get me out of here, and you might find out.” He added firmly, “Clothes.”
“Why should we help you?” Joe asked. “What if you split the minute we get you out of here?”
“You take the risk. Because if you don’t, I’ll find a way to get out of here on my own. I’ve wriggled my way out of tight places before.”
“Not looking like a mummy from a grade-B movie.” Joe hesitated, then turned away. “You’d better be worth the trouble. I’ll see if I can float around the area and grab some scrubs.”
“You expect us to smuggle you out of here?” Eve asked Newell as Joe left the room.
“Yes.” He sat up in bed. “Because you want me to talk about Beth Avery, and I won’t do it until you spring me from this place. Why not do what I need? You must know that woman in the hospital they’re calling Beth Avery is a phony. So you must know there’s something nasty going on.”
“I have suspicions,” she said. “Were you the one who helped Beth hide the pills in her mattress?”
“You found out about that? Yes. I had to do it myself for the first couple weeks. After that, she had the clarity to help me hide them.”
“Was it Drogan who tried to kill her that night?”
“I didn’t know his name. Just that he was hired to do the job. But from things he said while he was working on me tonight, I’m sure that he was the one. He was angry with her. He expected a victim, and she was strong enough to fight him.” He smiled. “Hell, she was strong enough to beat him.”
And he was proud of her, Eve realized. It mattered to him that Beth was no longer the drugged, mindless creature she had been told about. The knowledge brought a rush of warmth toward him. “She was bedridden, wasn’t she? I would have thought that her muscles would have been too weak to function after all those years.”
“She wasn’t in bed all that time. It depended on what doctor was on Pierce’s favored list. From what I can glean from her medical history during most of her stay, the orders were to keep her fit and well exercised.”
“That sounds like training a horse.”
“Except they don’t keep a horse drugged and under hypnosis for the majority of their waking hours.”
“Hypnosis?”
“She had regular sessions with Pierce and an expert from Berlin from the moment she arrived here in Santa Barbara.”
“Some kind of therapy?”
“You might call it that. I understand the expert from Berlin was a Dr. Hans Gelber who specialized in erasing the damaging memories of vets who suffered trauma during wartime. I thought it curious that Pierce thought that a skiing accident would cause that serious a trauma.”
Memory erasure. She shuddered at the thought. Losing a part of your life as if it had never been. “How do you know all this?”
“I don’t know nearly enough.” His gaze narrowed on her face. “But evidently more than you. What are you doing nosing around here? What’s Beth Avery to you? You said you didn’t know her.”
“I don’t. I’ve never met her.” She paused. “But she’s my sister.”
Newell went still. “I didn’t know she had a sister. No one told me.” He shook his head. “Beth would have told me.”
Eve’s lips twisted. “We appear to be in the same boat. No one told me either until she disappeared. My mother had to sign papers that Beth’s birth was not to be disclosed. And I doubt if Beth knew about me. My mother kept her word. Beth belonged to the Averys and not to her.”
“Interesting.” His gaze focused on her face. “You don’t look like her.”
“No. But there’s a slight family resemblance.” Bonnie’s curly hair that was so like that of Beth in the photo. “And I’m sure that she looks more like her father. He was very good-looking, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Beth said he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. She only saw him a few times a year, but she loved him. She still loves him.” He was carefully taking off the bandages on his face and neck. “The bastard never visited her since she came to that hospital.”
“What are you doing with those bandages?”
“Quinn called me a mummy. The bandages attract too much attention. They’ll stop me if I try to walk out of here with them on my face. I can cover the ones on my chest and arms.” He frowned impatiently. “If Quinn gets a move on and brings me—”
“Shut up,” Joe said as he came into the room. He tossed a bundle of blue-green scrubs on the bed. “It takes time to walk in and steal surgical garb from under the noses of everyone in the ER. We’re just lucky it’s a busy night. Tunic, pants, slippers. Do you need any help getting dressed?”
“I can manage.” Newell swung his feet to the floor. “But I’ll need to hurry. I can’t take the chance of—” He inhaled sharply as he stood up. “Shit.”
“Sure?” Joe asked.
Newell nodded and reached for the tunic. “I’ll slip out the door where the ambulance brings in the patients. Bring your car around and wait for me there.”
Eve gazed at him skeptically. “You don’t look very well. There’s a good chance someone will stop you.”
He shook his head. “Not if I do it right and look as if I know where I’m going. If I seem to have a purpose and appear a little impatient, no one is going to get in my way.”
“Will they put out an alarm when they find this room empty?”
“No, they’ll just assume someone else has come in and taken me to an available room. Hospitals aren’t always efficient, and it may take them a few hours just to find out I’m not here. Believe me, I know.” He was carefully working the tunic over his head. “Get out of here. I’m okay.”
“If you say so.” Eve turned away. “But if you go out another door and try to give us the slip, I’m coming after you, Newell.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not well enough to be deceptive. Though I might have tried that if I thought I could get away with it.” He added grimly, “But I’m not the one who is going to suffer if I move too slow. Just have that car at the entrance. I’m not going to be able to do much for a few hours beyond getting to the front door.”
“It will be there.” Joe took Eve’s arm as they left the room. “Tough. I believe we’d better look beyond the personnel record he gave to the hospital.”
“I’m glad he’s tough. He would never have been able to get Beth out of there if he weren’t.” She added as they walked out of the hospital and headed for the parking lot, “He told me that he’d found out that she was attended by all kinds of different doctors during the years. One of the first ones was a German doctor who specialized in memory erasure by hypnosis. It was the principal treatment during her first year at the mental hospital.”
“Did you get his name?”
“Yes, Gelber, but won’t it be in the records?”
“It depends on whether they wanted
to have the details of that particular therapy documented.” He opened the car door for her. “And what memory they were determined to erase.”
“You mean the memory that someone tried to kill her on that ski slope?”
“I’m not sure they did.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure of anything right now. We’re only putting together the pieces one by one.”
“And Newell should be able to give us a few more pieces to add to the puzzle.” Eve’s gaze was on the emergency door. “I think he cares about her, Joe.”
“We’ll see. When he first came around her, evidently she was almost a vegetable. It’s difficult to develop any feeling for a woman in that condition.” Joe’s tone was noncommittal. “It could be that he just hates her enemies. It would have the same effect.” He started the car. “There he is. Bold as brass. He’s right. No one is going to stop him.”
Newell’s skin was pale against the blue-green scrubs, but his step was firm as he came toward their car as they pulled up before him. “It’s about time.” He opened the rear door and climbed into the car. “I told you it was an emergency.” He sat up very straight on the seat until they had driven out of the hospital zone. “Okay.” He slumped back on the seat and closed his eyes. “Give me a minute. Get on the highway and head north.”
“Suppose we talk first,” Joe said.
“I can’t talk right now. And I can’t wait for you to interrogate me.” His hands closed into fists at his sides. “Drive, dammit. There’s no time. Look, he got my cell phone. I tried to get one of those EMTs to let me use his phone to call Beth, but he wouldn’t do it.”
“I imagine they were too busy trying to save your life,” Eve said dryly.
“I have to warn her, and they wouldn’t listen to me. By the time I got to the hospital and persuaded the intern to let me use his phone, it was too late. She didn’t answer.”
Eve stiffened. “You think Drogan managed to find her?”
“I don’t know, but there’s a possibility. He could locate the nearest tower from her GPS if he has the right equipment.” His lips twisted. “And he impresses me as a person who’d have the right equipment. He takes both pride and pleasure in his work. I learned that when he was cutting my flesh with such precision.”