He turned, breathing hard.
His companion in the wheelchair was staring at him from her lopsided head. Was she smiling?
He raised his arm to backhand her with all his strength just as her head dropped forward to her chest and she exhaled a last breath. Staring at her a moment, he waited, but this time she was truly gone.
He went back to the bed, removed the pillow from the old hag’s face, and placed it under her head once more.
His mother. Gone. Finally gone.
For good.
Closing his eyes, he reached into the netherworld, where thoughts moved like rivers.
I’m coming for you, bitch.
You . . .
Lorelei.
CHAPTER 20
Laura opened her eyes with a jolt.
A shadow chased across the wall.
Justice?
She nearly screamed, then realized it was a branch swaying outside her bedroom window. Her bedroom. She was safe. . . . For the moment.
And Harrison Frost was probably on her couch.
It was just growing light, a gray dawn casting shadows as the events of the past day and a half flooded back to her. Justice crowded to the forefront of her mind, and she pushed him back, pulling an image of Harrison Frost into the place where his darkness had been. She drew a long breath and exhaled it, feeling her pulse start to slow its rocketing cadence little by little.
Throwing back the covers, she climbed from her bed, tossed on a lightweight robe over her cotton nightgown, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. She could see only an edge of the couch from her angle and caught sight of one bare masculine foot protruding from a blanket. The sight made her feel safe and relieved.
Emotions she’d rarely, if ever, felt with Byron.
In the bathroom she gazed at her reflection.
And a wave of nausea rolled over her.
Stumbling quickly, she ran for the toilet, heaving up the remains of the makeshift meal of leftovers she’d put together for them the night before, just before she’d reached out to Justice.
Pregnancy.
She waited for her jittery stomach to calm down, then flushed the toilet with shaking hands. Turning her face under the faucet, she ran cold water over her cheeks, chin, and mouth. Next, she brushed her teeth for all she was worth and then stood with her hands on the edge of the sink, balancing herself while her whole body quivered.
Was she out of her mind to tweak Justice’s tail? Undoubtedly. But the other option was to just wait and hope the authorities caught him, and that didn’t seem like an option at all.
Maybe the best thing to do was her first inclination: run away. Go back to Portland. Get the hell out of here!
But she’d thought that before the baby was a reality. And before she’d met with Catherine and her sisters.
And before she’d met Harrison Frost.
And before she’d determined she would help get Justice herself.
Now . . . she didn’t know what the right thing to do was. Justice was evil and determined, and she was dancing a very deadly dance with him.
Knock, knock.
She jumped at the sound and stared at the bathroom door panels, a hand to her chest.
“You okay?” Harrison’s muffled voice sounded.
“Oh . . . yeah.”
“It didn’t sound okay.”
She was embarrassed that he’d heard her throwing up. “Just . . . a reaction to everything, you know,” she said lamely. “I—I’m going to take a shower now.”
“Okay.”
She strained her ears and heard his footsteps recede, then stripped off her clothes and jumped beneath a spray of hot water. Ten minutes later, feeling decidedly more human, she returned to her bedroom, exchanging her robe for her uniform. Her hair was wet, and she brushed it in front of her dresser mirror, seeing the edge of her light brown hair peeking out at the middle part on her scalp. She realized she was through dyeing it. It wasn’t much of a disguise in the first place. Certainly not against someone who could reach her by simply using his mind.
And then there was the baby to consider.
Her baby.
Hers and Byron’s.
Oh, Lord.
She couldn’t go there. Not today.
Harrison was rubbing his growth of beard as she entered the kitchen. Spying her outfit, he said, “Thought you weren’t on duty till later.”
“I’m not but we’re shorthanded. I’m going to go to the hospital and see if they need me.”
“If I didn’t know better, I might get a complex. Sounds like you’re trying to get away from me.”
“No, I’m just . . .”
He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t know where she was going. Her stomach was jumping around as if it were full of grasshoppers. The image almost sent her back to the bathroom, and she swallowed hard.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, watching her.
“I’ll be okay at the hospital.”
“Yeah? How do you know that? You said you reached Justice last night. That he was coming for you. And he was pretty graphic. You were freaked.”
“Yeah. Really freaked. I . . . I know.” She frowned. Justice wasn’t going to send her scurrying for cover, and in the light of day she felt more secure. “Look, there are a lot of people at the hospital. I know everyone. Safety in numbers.”
“I could help.”
“Don’t you have to follow up on your story, anyway?” When he didn’t quickly argue, she added, “So you might as well get to it. I don’t want to make you wait around here with me all day.”
“I can do my work from here,” he pointed out.
“No, really. This’ll be okay. I’ll see you . . . later?”
“You said Justice was going to be pissed. You said you challenged him. I—”
“Please. Harrison.”
He gazed at her in frustration. “I thought we were on the same page about him and what to do.” He took a step toward her and Laura shrank back. Her rejection stopped him short.
“You’ve got a big story to finish up,” she reminded him again.
“The Deadly Sinners? Justice is a bigger story. And he’s dangerous to you.” His expression was grim.
“Follow me to the hospital, then. I really feel like I should go there. I need to work and keep busy.” When he hesitated, she laid a hand over his. “Trust me on this, okay?”
“I don’t like it.”
She grinned then, impulsively brushed her lips across his cheek. “I know.”
It clearly went against everything Harrison wanted, but he reluctantly let her have her way.
An hour later Laura was at Ocean Park, asking for extra hours, while Harrison drove back to Seaside. Laura ran into a wrangle with administration over the amount of overtime the hospital was prepared to pay and ended up heading to the staff room to sit down heavily at a table while they worked it out.
After a few moments, she contemplated what, if anything, she could have for breakfast from the vending machines. Her stomach was still sending out ripples of unease, the aftershocks from her bout at the toilet this morning, yet she knew she needed to eat something.
At least she felt safe, for the moment, within the walls of the hospital. She picked at her yogurt, scanned the newspaper scattered across the table, and half listened to the news, the top local story being the burning of an old sawmill, a fire that had kept emergency crews working through the night.
Ten minutes passed, and then Byron strode into the staff room. Spying her sitting alone at the table, he draped himself in a chair opposite her. “What’s going on with you?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like death warmed over, and why did you come in early?”
“I thought we were short-staffed, but I haven’t been granted the overtime.”
“So, why are you still here?”
He saw too much. She didn’t want to deal with Byron, and she certainly didn’t want to explain he
rself.
“I left some things in my locker and decided to just sit down a minute or two,” she lied. “You don’t have to give me the third degree.”
“Don’t I? What was all that mumbo jumbo with Mrs. Shields and her pancreas? You’re making me look bad when you start diagnosing with your laying on of hands, or whatever the hell you do.”
Laura’s interest sharpened. “You found something?”
“Gave her a new blood test just to check. Not a lot of insulin being produced. She was in the lower range before, but nothing to be overly concerned about. But now . . . looks like there’s something going on. Some kind of pancreatic tumor developing, possibly, or not. We’ll check. But you sure as hell got all the little tongues wagging around this place.”
She saw that she’d made him seem a little less godlike in others’ eyes and he didn’t like it one bit. “Her blood levels changed. It’s not your fault.”
“Tell that to her,” he muttered, his jaw tight. “What the fuck, Laura? Where do you get this stuff?”
“I just asked if cancer ran in her family.”
“Bullshit. I know you.” He leaned toward her.
Laura stared back at him. No, you don’t. You never have.
And then her stomach revolted again, and she jumped up, fighting the heaves. She ran from the room to the bathroom, wishing for all she was worth that she could control this.
Ten minutes later she emerged and found Byron staring at her with his laser look. “You’re pregnant!” he accused.
“Dr. Adderley?”
They both looked up toward the young nurse hovering down the hallway, a nervous smile flitting across her lips. Her eyes were all over Byron.
“You’re way off base,” Laura told him in an intense whisper.
“Am I?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze and lied for all she was worth.
With a last, dark look at her, he turned to the nurse, his broad hand splaying across her lower back as he leaned down to her and guided her toward the ER.
Her stomach momentarily under control, Laura headed for the cafeteria and the faintly appealing thought of dry toast.
Harrison drove to the Seaside Breeze offices, which were housed in a flat-roofed, glass-fronted concrete-block building with a stationery/gift store on one side and a place to buy team trophies on the other. Pulling into the front lot, he climbed from the Impala, stretched, ran a hand through his hair, and determined that as soon as he was finished with the follow-up on last night’s story, it was time for a shower. Heading inside, he picked up one of the morning papers, scanned the front page, and smiled.
SEVEN DEADLY SINNERS NABBED FOR BURGLARY: LOCAL TEENS CAUGHT IN POLICE STING
“You sure were Johnny-on-the-spot with your story,” said Buddy, one of the paper’s stringers who wrote local-color pieces in the hope of becoming a full-fledged reporter. Harrison could have told him there was no money in the business, but Buddy was as eager as Harrison had once been, and money and job security weren’t really what either of them was after. “How’d you get your byline out so fast?” Buddy demanded.
“Experience and talent,” Harrison said.
Buddy snorted.
“Is he still here?” Harrison asked.
“Went home. Be back around noon.”
“Okay.”
He was Vic Connelly, the paper’s owner and editor, a garrulous guy with wild white hair à la Albert Einstein and a gruff attitude. Harrison had hoped to catch him and talk about the follow-up articles he planned to put together and also tell him that he next intended to put all his energies into going after the Justice Turnbull story.
After checking in with Buddy and his office voice mail and e-mail, then dinking around with his follow-up story for half an hour, he left the offices, heading to his apartment to run through the shower and make himself feel human again. Keeping to Lorelei’s side was all fine and good, but her couch, as she’d said, left something to be desired.
When he was dressed, he pulled the piece of paper John Mills had given him from his wallet and yanked out his cell phone. Written on the scrap was the young officer’s direct cell number. As he placed the call, Harrison examined his beard growth in the mirror, scowling at his reflection. He looked like he’d just come from a weeklong bender.
Maybe it was time to spiff up a bit. Get rid of the down-and-out look he’d cultivated for the Deadly Sinners. He didn’t need to pretend he was anyone but who he was any longer, now that his deception with them was over. Not that his usual look was much more than what he’d been projecting; he wasn’t exactly the Brooks Brothers type. But now he thought about Geena Cho and the Tillamook County Sheriff Department’s staff. If he expected even the least modicum of information from them, it was best to look a little more tended, somewhere in between his own scruffiness and Pauline Kirby’s camera-ready slickness.
“Mills,” a serious voice answered.
“Officer Mills, it’s Harrison Frost of the Seaside Breeze. You suggested I call today? That you might have some information for me?”
“Oh yeah . . .” A pause. A hesitation. Then, as if Mills had finally connected the dots, he said quickly, “Bryce Vernon is a developer with property up and down the northern Oregon coastline. His son Noah is turning eighteen the day after tomorrow.”
Click.
Harrison hung up thoughtfully. Bryce Vernon was Noah Vernon’s father and Noah Vernon—N.V.—was turning eighteen the day after tomorrow. In a very few days he would no longer be a juvenile, and then all kinds of things could happen. He might be tried as an adult. He could go to jail. He might want to talk to a reporter about how misunderstood he was by his parents and how persecuted by the local police. He might lawyer up, and then again, he might have a helluva lot to say.
Faintly smiling, Harrison grabbed up his razor and went to work on his stubborn beard.
Detective Savannah Dunbar entered the sliding doors to Seagull Pointe and said to the woman at the desk, “The sheriff’s department got a call from your director, Darius Morrow?” She flashed her badge.
The receptionist nodded. “Oh. Oh, yes. Let me page him.”
Savvy twisted the kinks from her neck. She’d been up half the night with the damned fire at the old Tyler Sawmill. The blaze had exhausted all the county emergency crews, and both the fire and sheriff’s departments were stretched thin. She, herself, had already worked a full shift, and it looked like she wouldn’t be going home any time soon.
A few moments later a man and a woman met Savannah in the reception area. The woman was Inga Anderssen, whom Savvy had met before, but the man was someone new. Darius Morrow, no doubt. Inga looked disappointed upon recognizing Savvy, as she said brusquely, “Madeline Turnbull died sometime yesterday evening.”
“Oh.” Savvy was a little surprised since she’d just seen Madeline the day before. “You called because you think it could be the result of foul play?”
“I’m the director of Seagull Pointe,” the man broke in, holding out his hand. “Darius Morrow.” He had a horseshoe of dyed black hair around a bald pate and wore a worried expression that looked perpetual. “We called because when we checked on Ms. Turnbull, there was, ah, another woman in her room. Unconscious. Seated in a wheelchair.”
Savvy asked, “Who’s the woman?”
“We don’t know,” Inga responded, her voice tight, her lips even tighter. “She’s not a patient here.”
“Where is she now?”
“We moved her to a bed in an empty room. She was about to fall out of the chair.”
“Still unconscious?”
“Yes. The doctor on staff isn’t in today, so we called nine-one-one. They’re sending an ambulance.”
“She’s alive, then?” Savannah asked. The vibe here was all wrong.
“The ambulance should be here any second.” He seemed nervous.
“What about Madeline Turnbull’s?” she asked. “Her death was expected,” Savvy said, touching all the bases. “Natural causes. Right??
??
“The medical examiner will determine that,” Morrow said.
“You think there’s a chance of foul play?” Good God, what had she stepped into when she’d taken the call? Neither Morrow nor Anderssen answered immediately, and they seemed to be a tad too careful in not looking at each other.
“Foul play? No,” Morrow said after some consideration. Then, tellingly, “We don’t see how.”
“Excuse me for a moment.” Savvy took a few steps away and called dispatch, confirming what Darius Morrow had said, that an ambulance was due to arrive within minutes and that the ME was on his way. “Send another unit here,” she added. “I just don’t like the feel of this.” She snapped off the phone and said back to them, “I need to take a look at the Jane Doe.”
“Of course . . .” The director was beginning to sweat as he and Nurse Anderssen led the way to a small room down the end of one long hallway. At the door Morrow hemmed and hawed and finally left Savvy with Inga. He racewalked away, either to another situation that needed immediate attention or from the issue at hand. Inga entered the room first, with Savannah coming up behind her. The woman lying in the bed had been hooked to an oxygen supply; her breathing was labored.
What struck Savvy the most was how young she was; she’d expected someone much older. The atmosphere of the nursing home/assisted-living facility, she supposed.
“She’s been strangled,” Savvy said, seeing the bruise marks forming on the woman’s throat.
“What?” Inga seemed surprised.
“Didn’t anyone examine her?”
“Yes, yes, but we were just concerned about her breathing. . . .”
“What about Madeline Turnbull?” Savvy had no time for excuses. “Was she strangled as well?”
“Maddie? No . . . I don’t think . . .” The older woman’s face was full of consternation, and Savvy realized no one had examined the dead woman that closely; they’d been overtaken by the more immediate problem of their new, unexpected patient. By bringing up the staff’s lack of response to Madeline Turnbull’s death, Savvy had inadvertently embarrassed Inga Anderssen in a way that wouldn’t do any good in her public relations with the woman.