The Paediatrician's Personal Protector
Mallory Kane
The Paediatrician’s Personal Protector
Mallory Kane
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u3c92378a-6f4a-5db2-92ef-c7d19e64c61f)
Title Page (#u13905e90-6ed0-58d4-9442-492317fd02bc)
Dedication (#u0e28b32a-2595-5d54-aa5b-dc18ac3f6d53)
Chapter One (#u873ad2b0-82e9-5ee9-85cc-3eb0e283c3e7)
Chapter Two (#u92227885-0032-598a-aa6b-28374c7ab0fd)
Chapter Three (#u74fa664c-ee1f-5a55-8b62-b20468420f8f)
Chapter Four (#u6dc78a34-4b90-5ac9-a7a0-02365cd6acca)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
To Daddy, my hero and my biggest fan. I know you and Mama are dancing.
Chapter One
Reilly Delancey was late. He hurried up the steps of the St. Tammany Parish courthouse, through the metal detectors and into the large central hall, fingering the knot of his tie and wishing he hadn’t tied it so tightly.
He spoke to a couple of fellow officers who were waiting to testify in other cases. They had the same resigned expression on their faces that he was sure was on his.
A quick glance at the courtroom schedule told him that the McGilicutty case, in which he was testifying as the lead hostage negotiator, was in Courtroom Three. He rushed to the door, only to be stopped by the assistant district attorney who’d prepped him.
“Judge Simmons just got here,” Hale Dunham told him. “It’ll be at least twenty minutes before we need you.”
“Simmons is hearing the case? It’ll be thirty. I’ll get a cup of coffee.”
“Be back in fifteen,” Hale warned.
“Eighteen,” he countered and headed toward the small kiosk on the far side of the hall. If Simmons had just entered the courtroom, it would be ten minutes before he finished straightening his robes and arranging his gavel and pens. Then another twenty before the preliminaries were over. Simmons questioned everything.
He ordered and paid for his coffee and dumped sugar into it, then stood sipping it as he glanced around at the hubbub in the courthouse.
Two detectives walked by. Dagewood and Phillips. He didn’t remember their first names. They worked with his twin brother, Detective Ryker Delancey. Phillips was loud and overweight, but basically he seemed like a good guy. Dagewood, on the other hand, was arrogant and rude.
As if to prove Reilly’s opinion, Dagewood stopped in front of him. “Well,” he said. “If it’s not the Delancey that didn’t make detective.”
Reilly bit his tongue. Somehow, Dagewood had figured out how badly Reilly had coveted the position Ryker had gotten, and he mentioned it every chance he got.
“Dagewood,” Reilly responded noncommittally, taking his own shot. The big detective liked the uniformed officers to address him by his title, so Reilly never did.
“So what’s up today?” Dagewood continued. “Defending a traffic ticket?”
Phillips chuckled at the old joke.
Reilly sipped his coffee and didn’t answer.
“Come on, Ted,” Phillips said. “I didn’t get any breakfast. By the time we get back to the office, all the doughnuts’ll be gone.”
“Hang on,” Dagewood said. “I haven’t tried the coffee here. If it’s good enough for Delancey …”
Phillips laughed again and the two stood in line.
Reilly ignored them as his gaze slid over the crowd. He half expected to see Ryker. His brother was here for the sentencing hearing of the man who’d killed four women in St. Tammany Parish over the past five years.
Reilly and Ryker didn’t normally see each other a lot these days. They ran in different circles since Ryker was a detective and Reilly was SWAT. But Reilly had babysat his brother’s injured star witness a few weeks ago while Ryker was booking the killer. She wasn’t just his star witness either. Since two weeks ago, she was his fiancée.
Ryker engaged. Reilly shook his head. Hard to believe. Before his older brother—older by seven minutes—had met Nicole Beckham, he’d never even dated anyone seriously.
As his thoughts wandered and his coffee cooled, his gaze settled on what just might be the most striking woman he’d ever seen. She was tall and slender, with midnight-black hair that fell to her shoulders and a confident walk that had more eyes than his following her.
As soon as he realized that most of the males in the central hall were watching her, it became obvious that she wasn’t paying attention to any of them. She was headed straight for him.
Or more likely, for the coffee kiosk.
Whatever she had her eyes on, Reilly would bet a month’s pay that she’d get it. She was the confident, super-cool type who got whatever she wanted. He swallowed a chuckle as he watched her mow down the men in her path with a glare. Her high heels clicked with purpose on the marble floor.
He couldn’t tell where she was looking behind the narrow, black-rimmed glasses she wore, but he managed to resist the urge to glance behind him. He kept his gaze on her face. He was dying to know if her eyes were as black as her hair and her glasses frames. He got his answer when she stopped directly in front of him.
They weren’t black. They were green. And flashing with irritation. At him.
At him?
“Detective Delancey,” she said, propping a hand on her hip.
Reilly shook his head and muttered his automatic response. “No, I’m not—”
“Don’t start with me again, Detective. You must be so proud. My father is barely recovered from the heart attack he suffered in your jail less than two weeks ago. But he was determined to stand before the judge and plead guilty. How could you be so quick to catch him, but no one can find my sister’s killer? Why don’t you spend some time on that!” She paused to take a breath.
Reilly jumped at the opportunity. “I’m not Detective Delancey,” he said quickly. “People make that mistake all the time. I’m—”
She jerked off her glasses and took aim with those lasersharp eyes. “What do you mean you’re not—” She stopped, frowning at him.
Reilly assessed her more closely as, behind him, Phillips chuckled. Then Dagewood spoke up loudly. “Need any help there, Officer Delancey?”
Without the glasses shielding her eyes, he could see something behind their cool expression. Something that was far from cool and far from confident. The lids were rimmed with red and faintly puffy. Her generous mouth was pressed into a severe line, and the skin along her jawline appeared stretched tight. He could see pale blue veins under the delicate skin of her neck. The black-haired beauty was wound tight as a spring about to break.
He replayed her words in his mind, fitting the pieces together.
Detective Delancey—
My father … pleaded guilty—
She was the daughter of Ryker’s serial killer. That surprised him. He wracked his brain, but couldn’t come up with the man’s name.
“No. You’re not Detective Delancey,” she said, shaking her head.
He shrugged, intrigued that she’d arrived at that conclusion so quickly. Usually it was the other way around. He’d had people actually argue with him about which twin he was, and so had Ryker. Which was funny, because he didn’t think he and his brother were alike at all. Both of them had always been lean, but Ryker had put on a little weight in the past year. And Reilly was a lot less OCD about haircuts and clothes and life in general.
“Sorry,” he said to the woman. “It happens a lot. Especially if I’m dressed up.” He ran his finger under his collar again. “Which is as seldom as possible. I hate suits.”
The tension around her mouth softened a bit.
“I’m Officer Reilly Delancey. SWAT.” He held out his hand.
From behind him he heard, “The Delancey that didn’t make detective,” followed by Phillips’s annoying laugh. One day he was going to punch Dagewood.
She ignored or didn’t notice his hand as she sent a swift, withering glance toward the two detectives. “Where is Detective Delancey?” she asked, looking at her watch. “He disappeared as soon as the judge dismissed us. I thought maybe he’d be out here.”
“My guess is, if he’s not scheduled for another court appearance, he’s gone to check on his fiancée,” Reilly replied.
The woman in front of him stiffened even more.
“To check on his fiancée? Of course. That’s exactly what I’d do after I put a sick old man in prison. Or maybe I’d go to Disney World.”
Reilly’s hackles rose at her sarcasm, although he could hardly blame her for being upset. After all, she’d just witnessed her father plead guilty to what—four counts of murder? Still, he leaped to his brother’s defense, choosing his next words carefully.
“My brother’s fiancée was injured on the day your father was arrested,” he said carefully. “She had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”
Her sharp glance and the grimace of pain that passed fleetingly across her face told him she understood what he hadn’t said. Ryker’s fiancée’s injury had been at her father’s hand.
“I’m sorry about your father—and your sister,” he offered.
Her mouth tightened. “Why?” she asked. “You don’t know me. Or my family.”
“I know a little about your father’s case. How the death of your sister—”
“How can I find Detective Delancey?” she interrupted, two bright spots of color appearing in her pale cheeks.
Despite her words, what he heard was that’s none of your business. And it wasn’t. He’d crossed a line. He immediately backtracked.
“He’s probably already left the courthouse. If you want, I can make sure he gets in touch with you.”
She glanced at her watch, then back at Reilly. Suddenly she appeared unsure, and that surprised him. She didn’t seem like the type to ever be unsure of anything. She might be wrong, as she was in thinking he was Ryker, but she would always be sure.
“Hand me your phone,” he said.
She put her glasses back on and gave him a narrow look. For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to comply. But finally her hand snaked inside her purse and she handed him a smart phone. He quickly programmed his number and name into it, then pressed Call. His cell phone began to ring. He dug it out of his pocket, answered it, then hung up her phone and handed it back to her.
“What’s your name?” he asked without looking up.
“Dr. Moser,” she said without hesitation.
He raised his gaze to hers.
“Christy—Moser.” She stared for an instant at the display on her smart phone, then stuck it into the pocket of her jacket.
Reilly finished entering her name into his phone. “Okay. I’ll get my brother to call you.”
“How soon? I need to find out what happens next. How long my father has before he—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I have to go,” she said. She fingered the watch on her left wrist and looked at it for the third time. Or was it the fourth?
“Yeah, me too,” he said, checking the time on his phone’s display before he pocketed it. His seventeen minutes were up. He had to get to Courtroom Three.
Christy Moser turned and walked away. Reilly watched her excellent backside sway in the black fitted skirt. It was amazing how high-heeled shoes affected a woman’s walk. In a good way.
Dr. Moser. He’d have to ask Ryker what kind of doctor the serial killer’s daughter was.
CHRISTMAS LEIGH MOSER stood at the front door of the house where she and her sister Autumn had grown up in Covington, Louisiana. Yellow crime-scene tape crisscrossed the doorframe, garish against the dingy white paint.
She stared at it, aghast. Why was her dad’s house a crime scene? Nothing Detective Delancey had told her had indicated that her father had done anything here. Horror churned in her stomach, mingled with shame.
She hadn’t been in the house since her sister’s death. She should have made more of an effort to get back here to see her dad. But two years of residency plus a fellowship in pediatrics at one of the foremost children’s hospitals in the northeast made it difficult to get home to sleep, much less take a trip thirteen hundred miles away.
She’d called him every week—well, nearly every week. How had she not known something was dreadfully wrong with him? How had she not realized he’d gone off the deep end?
A twinge under her breastbone gave her the answer to that. She had known something was wrong. Known it and ignored it. She’d chalked up his monotone answers and disinterest to mild situational depression, and had encouraged him to get out more, see his friends, get back to playing golf. She’d told him he should talk to someone and suggested that he ask the pastor of his church about a grief-counseling class or a therapist.
She thought about the one time she had visited her dad in the past five years. She’d attended a seminar in New Orleans. She’d met her dad at a restaurant for a hurried dinner before kissing him on the cheek and rushing back to her hotel room to prepare for a talk she was giving the next day.
Now here she was. Too late. Her family home had become the home of a killer.
She shuddered, swallowing hard. Shock and revulsion and fear had dogged her steps ever since she’d received the phone call telling her that her father had been arrested. The call had come less than twelve hours after she’d talked to her dad. When she put the times together, she realized that within an hour of their conversation, he’d shot two people, a policeman and a restaurant owner, and had tried to kill a third.
He’d done it with the misguided notion that he could force the police to reopen Autumn’s case.
Guilt washed over Christy like a blast of hot summer wind, stealing her breath and leaving her back and neck prickling with sudden sweat. The certainty that this was her fault sat like a dead weight on her chest. She’d gone off and left him to deal with Autumn, knowing her younger sister was in trouble with drugs.
If she’d stayed in Louisiana, would her little sister still be alive? Would her father be an active, vibrant man in his early sixties, rather than a deranged murderer?
Rationally, she recognized that her decision probably wouldn’t have changed what happened, but rationality and guilt were like matter and antimatter. They couldn’t occupy the same space. And the guilt was stronger.
Christy realized she’d become exactly what she’d sworn she’d never be, a workaholic career woman with no time for family, like her mother. Deborah Moser had been a tenured professor at Loyola until the day she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Christy glanced around the neighborhood where she and Autumn had played as children. None of the neighbors were outside, and there were no cars on the street. She’d once known many of the people who lived here. Where were they now? Resentment burned deep within her. Why hadn’t they known something was wrong with her dad?
Why hadn’t she?
She looked down at the key in her hand. Suddenly, she needed to go inside and look at her father’s things. See her sister’s room. Wallow in some more guilt.
She slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened easily, silently.
Christy ducked under the crime-scene tape. She pushed the door wide. The first thing that struck her was how dark the inside of the house was. The second, that it had been that way ever since their mother had been killed when Christy was sixteen and Autumn was twelve.
Leaving the front door open for light, she stepped over to her father’s recliner and turned on the lamp on the side table. The glow was feeble. After a couple of seconds, her eyes adapted to the dark and she could see a little bit.
Smudged gray dust outlined a large square on the side table.
She wiped a fingertip across it. Fingerprint dust. It had to be. The peculiar color distinguished it from household dust.
Looking at the table, Christy knew immediately what had lain there. Dad’s scrapbook. More pain gnawed at her heart. Ever since she could remember, he’d kept it. How many times had she sat in his lap as he’d pasted pictures of her and baby Autumn in the leather-bound book and carefully, in neat, precise printing, labeled each one with their name, the date and a sweet or funny comment?
But that image quickly morphed into the memory of Detective Ryker Delancey showing her the pages in the back of that beloved book, behind the family pictures. Pages containing baby photos of girls she didn’t know, with comments written beside them in a shaky hand she hardly recognized as her father’s.
Those were her father’s victims, and Detective Ryker Delancey had made her look at them, made her read her father’s careful notes about where they lived, when their birthdays were and when he planned to kill them. Then the detective had demanded to know if she’d seen them before.
Of course she’d never seen them. Angrily she swiped her hand across the table’s surface, obliterating the dust outline of the book. Did the detective know he’d destroyed every last good memory from her childhood? Did he care?
She dusted her hands together. She should leave. She knew she wasn’t supposed to cross crime-scene tape. But this was her home, or it had been. Didn’t she have a right?
She glanced desperately around the dimly lit room, hoping to find something—anything—that would give her an explanation for why her father had done what he had. Something rational that she could take to the police and say, “Here, look. This is what he was doing. Now it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
But she knew there was nothing to find. No rational explanation, no sane reason.
She blinked and realized her gaze had settled on a framed picture Autumn had drawn of their mother. It hung on the wall above the television. Christy’s eyes filled with tears. Their mother had been beautiful and smart. Autumn had looked just like her. She stepped over and touched the glass. More dust. She sneezed.
Guilt and embarrassment tightened her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Anyone coming into this sad house would immediately see how badly she’d neglected her father.
She reached into her purse for a tissue.
“Freeze!” a harsh voice barked.
Shocked, she turned. The unmistakable silhouette of a uniformed police officer darkened the doorway.
“Wait!” she called out, her hand still inside her purse. “I’m—”
“I said freeze!”
She froze.
The harsh beam of a flashlight swept her, blinding her as it passed over her face. Finally, the beam stopped on her hands.
“Hold it!” he barked when she started to pull her hand out of her purse. “Don’t move that hand.”
“Oh, no. It’s okay. I was just—”
“Stop! Now I want you to lift your hand out of your purse, thumb up.”
Christy frowned, but tried to comply. She raised her hand until her thumb was visible over the edge of the purse’s clasp.
“Okay,” the officer said, his gun still pointed at her, his eyes bright in the dimness of the doorway. “Now—slowly, lift your hand all the way out, and if I see anything in it, I’ll shoot.” Numb with fear, she did what he said, spreading her shaky fingers to demonstrate that they were empty.
The officer’s stance relaxed a bit. “Drop your purse. Do it!”
She dropped it.
“How’d you get in here?”
“Please,” she said. “I’m—”
“How?”
“My key. It’s in my purse.”
The officer shone the beam of the flashlight in her face again. “Are you alone?” he asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Step outside,” he continued, backing across the threshold. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
She complied, following him until she was on the porch and he had backed down the steps to the sidewalk. She saw the police car parked behind her rental car.
“Who are you?” he snapped, once he got a look at her in the afternoon sunlight.
“Chr-Christmas Leigh Moser. Albert Moser is my father.”
“Your father?” He rubbed a hand across the bald top of his head.
She understood the slight note of bewilderment in his voice. Until twelve days ago she’d thought the same thing. Serial killers didn’t have daughters, families, lives.
“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to cross crime-scene tape?”
Christy shrugged carefully. “I’m sorry,” she said innocently. “I’ve never been involved in a crime before.”
The officer touched the microphone on his shoulder. “Sneed here. I’m at the Moser scene. Cancel backup. It’s the perp’s daughter.” He aimed a stern gaze at her. “You need to leave, ma’am. If you go to the sheriff’s office over on Columbia Street and fill out the proper paperwork, you can get access to the scene once the crime lab has released it.”
Horror enveloped her like a dark cloud. “The perp? The crime lab?” Her stomach turned over again and acrid saliva filled her mouth. She swallowed hard.
“Why is my father’s house a crime scene?” she demanded, her voice hollow to her own ears. “He didn’t do anything here.” She shuddered as the scrapbook’s pages rose before her inner vision and the court bailiff’s bland voice listing the women her father had killed played over in her mind. “Did he?”
He sniffed. “The suspect’s residence has been declared part of the crime scene, as have his vehicles.”
“I see,” she said, feeling numb. “Thank you.”
The policeman gestured toward her car. “Now get on out of here,” he said as he holstered his gun.
She had no choice but to obey him. She walked past him down the sidewalk. As she did, the microphone attached to his shoulder crackled. The only words she could make out were Moser and hospital.
“What?” she exclaimed, turning back toward him. Her heart thudded painfully. Her father? Hospital? Oh, no!
The policeman spoke into his mic. “I’ve got the daughter here. I’ll let her know.”
“Ms. Moser,” he said. “That was the dispatcher. Your father has suffered a heart attack. He’s being taken to St. Tammany Parish Medical Center.”
“Oh, no!” Christy breathed. “Not again!” She started toward her car.
“Ma’am?” the officer called after her. “I can get you there faster in the squad car.”
Christy stopped in her tracks. “Thank you,” she said.
As she got into the police car and the officer cranked it and sped away, blue lights flashing, she prayed, “Please don’t let my father die before I get there. I need to tell him how sorry I am.”
THREE HOURS LATER, after her father had been moved from the emergency room to the cardiac care unit, Christy left the hospital. The nurse in charge had told her that she wouldn’t be able to see him again until morning. She argued that she was a physician and demanded to see the doctor in charge. But when the cardiac specialist found out she was a pediatrician, he’d smiled apologetically and told her the same thing. It was a hospital policy. Intensive-care visiting hours must be observed—by everyone.
So she’d called a taxi to take her back to her dad’s house to pick up her rental car. Then, exhausted, she headed to the Oak Grove Inn, a bed-and-breakfast she’d booked in Chef Voleur, stopping along the way to pick up a bottle of wine.
After her flight the night before, she’d barely had time to unload her bags and fall into bed. Then this morning she’d been up at dawn, unable to sleep with her father’s nine o’clock sentencing hearing looming. Now more than twelve hours later, her dad was in the hospital, and all she wanted to do was go back there and sit with him. But she couldn’t. The last thing the nurse had told her was to rest. “It’s the best thing you can do for your father now. It won’t help him if you’re exhausted.”
Irritatingly, it was the same thing she told worn-out parents of her young patients. It was bitter medicine to swallow, but she knew the nurse was right.
She took a deep breath and squeezed her burning eyes shut. She vowed to take the nurse’s advice.
As she approached the inn, which was on a quiet street in a residential section of Chef Voleur, she thought about the difference between the north shore of the Pontchartrain and Boston. As much as the north shore had grown over the last twenty years, the cities still retained a lot of small-town character.
She pulled into the small parking lot. A loud roar announced a big pickup pulling in beside her. Living in Boston for six years, she’d forgotten how many pickups were on the roads in Louisiana. She couldn’t remember ever seeing one in Boston proper.
She got out, grabbed her purse and the bag holding the wine and headed for her cottage, sending a vague smile toward the darkened windows of the pickup. As she walked past the main house toward the third of four tiny cottages lined up behind it, a motion-sensing light came on. But her cottage was dark. Someone—the maid?—had turned off the light she’d deliberately left on this morning.
Behind her, heavy footsteps crunched on the tiny seashells that were mixed with gravel to form the path to the cottages. The driver of the pickup, probably.
Her big-city instincts kicked in and she clutched her purse tightly against her ribs as she quickly inserted the key into the door and turned it.
The crunching footsteps came closer.
It’s just the person in Cottage Four, she told herself as she opened the door to slip inside.
A crushing blow hit her on the back and sent her sprawling onto the floor.
Chapter Two
When the blow slammed Christy to the floor, the bag containing the bottle of wine flew out of her hands and landed with a thud in front of her.
Still driven by the momentum of the blow and the weight against her, she pitched forward, hands out to break her fall. She hit the hardwood floor hard and felt a distinct, painful snap in her right wrist.
Pain and panic immobilized her for an instant as a heavy body landed on top of her. He straddled her, pinning her down.
Her heart pounded violently and her limbs quivered. The man grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face down onto the hardwood floor. He put his mouth near her ear. She could smell stale cigarettes on his breath.
She tried to suck in enough air to scream, but his weight pressing her chest into the hardwood floor was too heavy. She tried anyway. All that came from her lips was a feeble squeak.
“Shut your mouth,” his gravely voice whispered.
Christy’s hands were pinned underneath her, and her right wrist pulsed with a sickening pain. Using her left hand, she tried to move, to roll, anything to get him off her. Nothing worked and every tiny movement intensified the piercing agony in her broken wrist. It was making her nauseous.
Whatever the man intended to do to her, she couldn’t stop him. He was too strong and she was too weak.
“Please—” she rasped. “What do you want—?”
His hand pushed her cheek harder into the floor. “Go back where you came from,” he growled. “Or you’re as dead as your sister.”
Terror sliced through her like a razor blade. Her sister’s killer. He’d followed her. Just as the thoughts whirled through her brain, he grabbed her hair again and banged her head against the floor—twice. The blows stunned her.
At some point, she was aware that his crushing weight was gone. Dazed, her head spinning and her wrist throbbing, she managed to roll over onto her side.
Where was he? Dear God—she couldn’t see anything in the dark. Was he really gone? Or was he hiding in the shadows, preparing to kill her?
Instinctively she reached for the tiny can of Mace she carried in her pocket, but when she moved her hand, the pain nearly took her breath away.
She rolled onto her back and tried to reach it with her left hand. It was awkward—almost impossible. Tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Tears of frustration, of pain, of paralyzing fear.
Finally, she got her fingers on the object in her pocket, but it wasn’t the Mace. It was her smart phone.
Desperately she grabbed it, trying to press the buttons for 911. But her fingers were shaking too badly. The device slipped from her fumbling fingers and clattered across the hardwood floor.
No!
“Help!” she whispered, her lungs deflated by sobbing. She rolled onto her stomach and reached out with her left hand, feeling along the floor. Where was it?
“Where are you?”
She gasped, at first thinking it was her attacker’s voice. But no. This voice was tinny, mechanical. Was it her phone? She squinted.
There. She saw the light from the display. Thank God. But it was halfway across the room.
Forcing a deep breath into her spasming lungs, she tried to pull herself up enough to crawl toward it, but her right wrist was useless. Worse than useless. If it didn’t stop throbbing, she was going to throw up. The pain was making her sick.
Giving up on trying to move, she cried, “Help me!”
God, what was the name of this place? Her brain was so fuzzy, and she hurt so bad. “Three—! she cried breathlessly. “Cottage Three,” Christy sobbed. “Please hurry!”
REILLY DROVE LIKE A bat out of hell toward the Oak Grove Inn. What if he was wrong? What if he’d misunderstood Christy Moser’s sobbing words? The only cottages he knew about were on Oak Street in Chef Voleur, about two miles from his Covington high-rise condo.
He should have asked her where she was staying when he’d gotten her phone number. Now it was too late. Something had happened to the beautiful black-haired serial killer’s daughter, and she’d called him—because his number was the latest number in her phone.
“Christy? Christy can you hear me?” he yelled into his phone. “Hang on. It’s Reilly Delancey. I’ll be right there.” He kept talking to her because the line was still open. He had no idea whether she could hear him or not. Holding his breath, he listened. Was that a sob? Or harsh, panicked breathing?
“Christy. Talk to me. Where is Cottage Three? Is it Oak Grove Inn?”
“Oak—?”
Fear arrowed through him at her weak, rasping voice. “Christy? I’m coming. Hang in there.”
He careered around the corner onto Oak Street and into the driveway of the B&B. His brain registered three vehicles in the parking lot. A silver Avalon with rental plates, a light blue pickup with Louisiana plates and a Prius with a Mississippi vanity tag that said LVG CPL. He pulled into the parking lot beside the pickup and vaulted out of his car.
Cottage Three. As he sprinted toward the row of small cottages lined up on the grounds of the Oak Grove Bed-and-Breakfast he grabbed his weapon and flashlight from his belt.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Guerrant! Guerrant, you in there?” The owner, Guerrant Bardin, lived in the back of the main house. “Call the police!”
“What the hell?” he heard just as a motion-sensing light flared.
“Call 911!” Reilly shouted. “Get the police over here. A woman’s been attacked.”
More lights came on. He saw Bardin standing on his back porch in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, with his phone at his ear.
The door to Cottage Three was standing open. Reilly slowed down and approached carefully, holding his gun and his flashlight ready.
He rounded the door facing and the flashlight’s beam hit a female body sprawled on the hardwood floor.
Christy! Horror turned his blood to ice. Then she moved and gasped, and relief flooded him. Automatically, he swept the room with the flashlight’s beam and called out to no one in particular, “Clear.”
Then he crouched beside the black-haired beauty and brushed her silky hair out of her face. “Christy?” he said softly. “Hey, Christy, talk to me.”
“No—” she moaned, trying to push him away.
“It’s okay. I’m Reilly Delancey—” He took a breath. “The police,” he clarified.
At that instant, crunching footsteps approached. Reilly whirled, aiming flashlight and gun at the doorway. “Hold it right there,” he barked.
“What’s going on?” a voice growled. He heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.
“Guerrant? It’s Reilly Delancey. Did you call the police?”
“Hell yeah, I did.” Bardin stepped into the doorway and reached around to flip on the lights. He’d pulled on blue jeans over his boxers. “Oh, crap. What happened?”
“I think she was attacked. Don’t touch anything. Wait out there for the police.”
“Is she alive?”
As Bardin spoke, Christy moved her right arm and cried out in obvious pain.
With the lights on, Reilly saw that her slim skirt was ripped, her stockings were torn and one foot was bare. Beyond her, toward the bathroom, her purse had slid across the floor and spilled. A bottle of wine in a paper bag had rolled into a corner. Her phone lay just out of her reach.
“Guerrant, guard the door. If you see anything, holler. I need to clear the area.” Reilly slipped out the door of the cottage and canvassed the area. He didn’t see anyone. He checked the seashell-and-gravel path that connected the cottages. It ended at the fence that surrounded the inn’s grounds. The fence was green chicken wire, designed to disappear amid the landscaping. It would be absurdly easy for someone to climb it and vault over. He shone the flashlight into the thicket on the other side of the fence. Nothing.
He circled around the cottages, just to be sure there was nobody lurking, then walked up to the door where Guerrant was standing guard.
“Didn’t see anybody here,” Guerrant reported.
When Reilly entered, Christy was struggling to sit up. She looked up at him. There was a scrape on her cheek. She blinked. “Reilly Delancey,” she said hoarsely. “Not the detective.”
“Are you okay? Are you hurt? “
She squeezed her eyes shut. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist is fractured, although it’s not displaced. Please help me up.”
Scaphoid bone? Reilly had no idea what she’d just told him, but he had heard the words wrist and fractured. “No. You stay right there. Don’t move. I’m calling—”
Christy pushed herself up using her left hand and pressed her right hand protectively against her ribs.
“—the EMTs,” Reilly finished with a sigh. Super-confident. Super-cool, even after being attacked. Even with a broken wrist. Did that come from being a physician? Or from what must have been a very difficult childhood? Either way, he was glad she was alive.
Giving up on the notion that she might listen to him, he crouched beside her, ready to steady her if she felt faint or got sick. She looked a little green around the gills.
“Help me up,” she ordered. When she tried to move, her mouth tightened and the tension along her jawline increased.
He had his phone out. “No. You’ll wait for the ambulance—” he started.
Using just her left arm, she struggled to get her feet under her. With a sigh, he slid his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet. “Do you ever listen?”
“I—know my own body,” she replied, putting a notion in Reilly’s head that he quickly banished.
She teetered between one high heel and one bare foot. Earlier at the courthouse, he’d observed that she was just about as tall as his nearly six feet. But now, as she put her weight on her bare foot, she seemed small. Her shoulders under his hand felt bony—feminine—sexy.
She still appeared dazed, and if the situation weren’t so dire, she might have looked comically awkward with one shoe on and one shoe off. He gently pushed her down into the chair, a little surprised when she didn’t protest.
He watched her carefully. She held her wrist cradled against her, protecting it. A large red area on her forehead was swelling and turning purple. Her lips were white at the corners. The scrape on her left cheek blossomed with tiny beads of blood, like early morning dew on a red flower.
She caught him checking out the scrape. “It’s nothing more than an abrasion.” She tentatively pressed it with a finger. “I’ll probably have a mild contusion,” she said, then added, “a bruise.” She frowned. “And a larger one on my forehead.”
“Your wrist—” Reilly started.
“I told you, it’s not displaced. It won’t need setting. I’ll wrap it and get a wrist guard. There’s no need for medical treatment.”
“That’s not your call,” Reilly informed her as he dialed one-handed. “What happened?”
She shook her head as if trying to clear it and touched the bruise on her forehead. “I was hit from behind. Knocked to the floor. I thought—” She stopped.
Reilly ordered an ambulance then hung up. “You thought what?”
She shook her head again. “Nothing. The man said, ‘Go back where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.’“
The words shocked Reilly. “He said that? Those exact words? Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Although she looked like a frightened, hurt young woman, her reply was confident and smooth.
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing. He got off me and left.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
She shook her head. “I tried to turn over and get up but my wrist—” Her voice gave out.
“You’re positive it was a man?” Reilly asked.
She looked at him frowning. “Of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
But before she could answer, the crunch of heavy boots on seashells and gravel announced the arrival of the police. Two uniformed officers appeared at the door to the cottage, their weapons drawn.
Reilly indicated the badge at his belt. “Deputy Reilly Delancey, SWAT. Dr. Moser here was attacked.” He didn’t know the officers, but both of them glanced his way when he told them his name. He’d long since stopped being surprised by that.
In and around Chef Voleur the name Delancey always drew a reaction. Depending on the situation and the people, the reactions were vastly different. Reilly figured the two officers knew or had heard of Ryker.
One of the officers stepped over to Christy and the other faced him.
“Delancey? Deputy Buford Watts. How’d you get here?”
“Dr. Moser is involved with a case of my brother’s, Detective Ryker Delancey. I had given her my phone number in case she couldn’t reach him.”
The officer’s gaze sharpened. “Moser. Not—the October Killer?”
“There’s no reason to get into that,” Reilly responded, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth that he was wrong. Given what her attacker had said, there was definitely a reason to get into that.
“No? Do you know who attacked her?”
“Not yet.”
“Her father killed half-a-dozen women,” Watts said, his gaze studying her.
Four, Reilly corrected silently, sending an apologetic look toward Christy. The deputy was being deliberately insensitive.
“What if it was a victim’s family member?” Watts continued. “Have you gotten specifics?”
“Just got here myself,” Reilly answered. “I’d like to be in on your interview though.”
The officer didn’t have any objection. Within a few minutes, Christy, who was still refusing medical treatment, Reilly and the two officers were seated at the dining room table in the main house of Oak Grove Inn.
“Now, Ms. Moser,” the first officer started.
“It’s Doctor Moser,” Reilly inserted, just as Bardin’s wife bustled in, wrapped in a voluminous fleece robe.
“For goodness sakes! What are you doing to this poor girl?”
Reilly tensed at Ella Bardin’s use of the word girl. He glanced at Christy sidelong, trying to send her a signal not to insult Ella, but she wasn’t paying any attention to Ella’s choice of words or to him. She was staring into space and frowning.
“Get out of the way, all of you,” Ella continued.
“Ella—” said the older officer.
“Buford Watts, you just hold your horses.” Ella turned to Christy. “I’ve put some water on to boil, and I’ll get you a cup of tea in just a minute, unless you’d rather have coffee?”
Christy realized that Ella was talking to her. She looked up and her stiff demeanor softened just a little, barely enough to notice. “Oh, thank you. Tea is fine.”
“And here.” Ella Bardin stepped over to a recliner and pulled an afghan off the back of it. “Cover up with this. The very idea—” this aimed at the three men “—of leaving her sitting there in that torn skirt. What kind of gentlemen are you?”
Watts answered, “The kind who’re trying to find out who attacked her, Miss Ella.” His words were measured.
The younger officer grinned at Ella. “I sure could use something warm to drink, Miss Ella.”
Ella looked at him. “I’m sure you could,” she retorted as she started back toward the kitchen.
Watts turned his attention back to Christy. “Dr. Moser, could you tell me your full name please?”
She straightened. “Christmas Leigh Moser. That’s L-E-I-G-H.”
Watts’s eyebrows raised, then lowered.
Reilly’s did too. Christmas. He thought about what Christy had said about her sister, and remembered Ryker mentioning Moser’s other daughter. Her name was odd too. Summer? No, Autumn.
He assessed Dr. Christmas Leigh Moser. Somehow, the name, which could easily have seemed silly, fit her. He wasn’t sure why he thought that.
Buford Watts wrote something on his pad, then addressed Christy again. “Good. Now if you would, tell me exactly what happened.”
“Certainly,” she said coolly. “As you obviously already know, my father is Albert Moser.” She waited for confirmation from the officers. They nodded.
“I flew in from Boston late last night.” She paused. “I had to find physicians to take my patients before I could leave,” she explained. “I went to his arraignment this morning. Then this afternoon I received a call that he had suffered an MI—a heart attack, so I went to the hospital.” She stopped to take a fortifying breath. “He’s in the cardiac care unit. I left there around six o’clock, stopped at a liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine, then drove here, to the inn. I parked in the lot out there.”
“That’s your car? The rental?” Deputy Watts asked.
She nodded. “Just as I parked the car, a light-colored pickup pulled in next to me. I walked to my cottage—Cottage Three,” she amended. “I unlocked the door, but before I could enter, something hit me from behind. The blow knocked me to the floor. I landed on my wrist and fractured the scaphoid bone.”
Both officers’ gazes went to her right hand, which she held against her torso. At that moment, Reilly saw the flash of red lights through Ella Bardin’s lace curtains and heard the crunch of tires on shells and gravel. “There’s the ambulance,” he said, earning him an angry glance from Christy.
“I told you—” she started, but he sent her a look that his brother Ryker had dubbed “The Silencer.” It worked. She pressed her lips together and merely glared at him.
The EMTs made quick work of her broken wrist. For the most part, she’d been right. There was little that could be done about the bone that was broken. The EMTs iced it for a few minutes, then applied a pink cast that covered her palm and half of her thumb, and extended about four inches up her forearm.
“You need to ice your forehead too,” he said, scrutinizing the bruised skin. “It’ll help keep the swelling down, and maybe prevent a black eye.”
“I know,” she responded archly.
The EMT glanced over at Reilly, then applied a small bandage to her cheek. The bandage was also pink, with ladybugs on it.
Reilly was pretty sure Christy had no idea what was on the bandage. The wink one of the EMTs gave him on the way out confirmed it. Their way of getting her back for lecturing them about the futility of putting a cast on a scaphoid fracture.
Once the EMTs were gone, the officers resumed the questioning.
“You were saying that someone knocked you to the floor,” Buford Watts prompted her.
She adjusted the ice pack. “Yes. I’d just unlocked and opened the door when I was hit from behind. The man landed on top of me. I tried to roll over, or buck or kick, but he was too heavy.”
Reilly noticed a faint shiver tense her muscles. He doubted the officers saw it. They seemed mesmerized by her striking appearance, or maybe her calm recitation of what had happened.
Watts asked the question Reilly had asked her before. “You know it was a man? Did you get a good look at him?”
“No.” A sharp syllable. “I was on my stomach and he was on top of me. But it was a man. No question.” She met each officer’s gaze, but didn’t look at Reilly. Then she took a deep breath. “I know because he was straddling me.”
Reilly’s breath stuck in his throat. “Did he—?” he croaked, earning a stiff glance from the officer in charge. This wasn’t Reilly’s case. Not technically. For their purposes, he was merely a witness—the first person the victim had called.
Christy Moser looked directly at him for the first time since they’d come into the house. As before, when he’d looked into her eyes at the coffee kiosk, he thought he saw something underneath their cool darkness.
She gave a slight negative shake of her head. “I wasn’t raped,” she said quickly. “But it was obvious that he was male.”
The younger officer’s face turned pink. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Did he—did he take anything?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Apparently his only purpose in attacking me was to give me a message.”
“A message?” the officer echoed.
Christy opened her mouth but before she could speak, Ella Bardin was back with a steaming mug of fragrant tea. “Here you go, dear. I’m sorry it took so long, but I wanted to wait until the EMTs were gone.”
The two officers eyed the hot drink with covetousness in their gazes, but if Ella Bardin noticed, she gave no sign of it. Christy thanked her and held the cup in her left hand.
“You said the attacker left you a message?”
“That’s right. He pushed my face against the hardwood floor and said, ‘Go back where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.’“
Reilly watched the two officers. Both of them sat up straight in their seats.
“Your sister?” Watts said.
At the same time the younger officer echoed, “Get out of town?”
Christy Moser held up the hand with the cast. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured, except for the right index one, which was raggedly broken. “Let me explain,” she said, much more calmly than the officers’ outbursts. She took a quick breath and continued.
“My sister was murdered five years ago, on Bienville Street in the French Quarter. Her death was ruled a mugging, but my father was certain that she was murdered by a married man with whom she was having an affair. The night she died was her birthday and she’d gone down to the Quarter to celebrate.”
The word celebrate took on an ironic tone. Reilly wondered just how much Christy knew about her sister and the man she’d been seeing.
“I’ve been in Boston for the past six years, doing a residency and then a fellowship in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital. I had—” She paused and a fleeting shadow crossed her face. “I wasn’t aware of everything that was going on. However, I believe that my attack this evening proves that my father was right. My sister’s death wasn’t just a mugging. And apparently whoever killed her feels threatened by my presence here.”
Reilly noticed that the two officers seemed bewildered. He sympathized with them. He’d barely kept up with her rapid-fire explanation and conclusion, and he had the advantage of knowing something about the case from Ryker.
The lead officer looked at Reilly then back at Christy. “I think we need to get an official statement from you—downtown. And I’m going to call CSI to look for trace from the man who allegedly assaulted you.”
“Allegedly?” Her voice was frosty.
“Legal terminology,” Reilly commented in an effort to soften the officer’s words. He was afraid if Christy stiffened any more, she’d break.
Turning to Watts, he said, “Can the statement wait until tomorrow? Dr. Moser is exhausted.”
Watts sent him a glaring look, but nodded. “Sure. We can take the official statement tomorrow. But Ms.—Dr. Moser, you might want to give some thought to what you want in the official record. If you’re prepared to make a written sworn statement to everything you’ve just told us, then you are accusing the man who assaulted you and threatened your life of killing your sister. If we’re able to find any trace evidence and match it to someone, your statement accuses that person of murder.”
Christy waited a few seconds, watching the officer closely, but he didn’t say anything else. She nodded. “That’s exactly right, Officer. I am definitely accusing the man who attacked me of murdering my sister.”
Chapter Three
After the police finished questioning Christy, they cordoned off and locked Cottage Three, holding it as a crime scene until the CSI team could process it the next day.
Ella Bardin insisted that Christy sleep in the front bedroom of the main house of the Oak Grove Inn, the Lakeview Room. It didn’t look out over any lake Reilly had ever seen, but there were photos of famous lakes all over the room, including Lake Pontchartrain. After Ella made sure the room was in perfect condition, she excused herself, saying she had an early morning. Tomorrow was French toast day and she had to get up at five o’clock.
Reilly deposited the few items the officers had allowed Christy to grab from her cottage onto the antique dresser and turned to say good-night to her.
She was standing in the middle of the room, watching him carefully. She definitely looked the worse for wear. She’d twisted her glossy black hair into some kind of knot, but it was coming undone. Her torn skirt would have been indecent if not for the black lace slip. Her stockings were in shreds, and she’d long since discarded the single shoe and her jacket.
Her expression reflected her experience. It was at once angry, bewildered, frustrated and scared. Reilly felt an odd urge to cross the room and pull her into his arms. But Dr. Christmas Moser wouldn’t appreciate him peeking beneath her tough exterior. In fact, he knew what she’d say if he tried to offer comfort.
That does not accomplish anything, Officer. Surely you realize that.
“I heard your father had a heart attack,” he said. “He’s in the cardiac unit?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry. You don’t need any more stress right now.”
“What’s on your mind, Officer Delancey?”
The question surprised him. He’d already noticed her keen observation of the officers as they checked out her and her story. His grandmother’s saying, “doesn’t miss a trick,” certainly applied to her.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he parried.
“I doubt that.”
He inclined his head in agreement. If she was up to answering questions he had plenty to ask. “All right. How long did you say you’d been in Boston?”
“Six years.” She reached up with her right hand to push a strand of hair out of her eyes and winced when the cast got in her way.
“Six years. And did you say you hadn’t been home?”
“No. That’s not what I said,” she answered firmly, although Reilly thought he saw a flicker in her eyes that indicated that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. As a sniper and sometimes leader of the hostage negotiation team for the St. Tammany Parish SWAT team, he’d made it a practice to study kinesiology—facial expressions, body language, all indicators of stress.
“I believe I said I hadn’t known how badly my father was taking Autumn’s death. Of course I’ve been home in the past six years.”
“How many times?”
Christy lifted her chin. “Is all this on the record, Officer?”
He shook his head.
“Then I’d rather wait and give my statement once only, at the police station.”
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock, out front.”
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
He smiled and nodded toward her right hand. “You can’t very well drive with that cast on.”
“Certainly I can,” she shot back, but her right fingers twitched.
“Yeah? Touch each of your fingers to your thumb.”
She set her mouth and lifted her hand. But the cast was too restrictive. She couldn’t make her fingers and thumb touch. “I told the EMTs not to immobilize my thumb,” she complained.
“Eight o’clock,” he repeated. He thought he heard a feminine growl. “And in the meantime, you call me if you need me.”
“There’s no reason for you to appoint yourself my chauffeur. I’ll take a taxi.”
Reilly lay his hand on the cast where it covered her knuckles. “There is a reason. You asked me to help you.”
She looked at his hand, then up at him. One day, he promised himself, he was going to explore that vulnerability she kept locked behind her snapping green eyes.
“I thought you were your brother at the time.”
“Still,” Reilly said with a grin. “You did ask. And you called me when you were attacked. I figure that makes it my responsibility to keep you safe. I have no intention of letting that guy get within a hundred yards of you. Consider me your knight in shining armor, until I’m sure you’re no longer in danger.”
“I don’t need a knight—”
“Don’t start with me, damsel,” he said teasingly, touching her lips with his forefinger. “Whether you think you need me or not, you’ve got me.”
CHRISTY WAS FUMING by the time Reilly Delancey left. She prided herself on being able to handle any situation. As a pediatrician specializing in trauma, her working life was all about emergencies.
Involving kids. Not herself. She glared at the cast on her wrist. How careless of her to break her wrist. Still, it shouldn’t hinder her too much. As if to mock her, a throbbing ache began beneath the cast.
Reilly Delancey was a bully. Somehow, and she wasn’t sure how, he’d gotten her to agree to ride with him. She sniffed. It was ridiculous. She could drive. A simple wrist cast wouldn’t be that big a problem.
She wriggled the fingers of her right hand. A shooting pain made her gasp. Well, she amended, she could drive if she had to.
She was disgusted with herself. She should have been more careful. She’d seen dozens of children with wrist fractures because they instinctively reached out to break their fall. Tucking arms into the body and rolling was much safer. If one had time to react.
To be fair, she’d had no time. But now she had to live with a pink cast for several weeks.
She held up her hand and grimaced. Pink. Her colleagues in Boston would give her hell about that. Almost any color would have been better than pink. But the EMT had sworn the only colors of paste he had were pink or fluorescent green.
Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the color added after the paste was mixed? And wasn’t the default color of the paste white? At the time she hadn’t felt like protesting. So she had a pink cast and there was nothing she could do about it tonight.
She glanced at her watch. After ten o’clock. Reilly Delancey had told her he’d pick her up at eight in the morning. She needed to get some sleep.
Stepping into the bathroom, she reached up with her left hand to loosen her hair as she looked in the mirror. And stopped cold.
The EMT had applied a pink strip bandage with ladybugs on it. Ladybugs. She frowned at her image. Reilly Delancey was behind this. She was sure of it. He was nothing but trouble, and she didn’t need any more trouble than she already had.
She quickly undressed, dropping the skirt and the shredded stockings into the trash can in the bathroom. Digging into her suitcase, she unearthed her pink satin pajamas.
Staring at them, her face flamed, even though she was alone. Damn those EMTs and Reilly Delancey. How had he known—?
She stopped that thought right there. He couldn’t have known that she loved wearing pretty, feminine lingerie under her utilitarian work clothes. Although—his blue eyes were awfully sharp, and it looked as if he never missed a trick.
After a painful few minutes spent getting the pajamas on, she turned back the covers awkwardly and climbed into bed. But when she tried to relax and clear her mind, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing.
—where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.
—Mr. Moser, do you understand that by pleading guilty, you are giving up your right to a trial?
—I did it. I killed those girls.
Your father has had a heart attack—
Christy turned over and squeezed her eyes shut. But closed eyes couldn’t block the mental image of the emergency room technician loading all the heart monitors and IVs onto her father’s gurney and wheeling him onto the elevator to take him up to the cardiac care unit.
Christy hadn’t been able to take her eyes off her dad. Against the white sheets he looked small, frail, vulnerable. He looked nothing like the man who’d reared her and her sister.
Her eyes stung and hot tears squeezed out between her closed lids. Sniffling and telling herself that tears never solved a problem, she turned over again and tried to find a comfortable position for her wrist.
But despite her resolve, the tears kept on coming. They slid over the bridge of her nose and down her cheek to the pillow. When had her family fallen apart? When had her dad changed from a big, strong parent, raising two daughters on his own, into a deranged killer?
WHEN REILLY GOT TO THE Oak Grove Inn the next morning, Christy was waiting in the foyer.
“Morning,” he said with a smile, which faded as he took in her injuries. “Wow, they weren’t kidding about that bruise. Did you put ice on your forehead?”
“Of course. Otherwise I would have a black eye. You’re late.”
Reilly nodded. “Miss Ella caught me as I was leaving last night. She told me to wait until eight-thirty so you could eat breakfast. French toast day today, right?” He reached out and wiped a speck of powdered sugar off her chin. “Hard to eat with a cast on, isn’t it? Think how tough it would be to drive.”
Christy swiped at her chin with two fingers. “Are you ready to go? “
“Yep.” He opened the front door and stepped aside to let her precede him out the door. This morning she had on brown pants and a cream-colored top with long sleeves that stretched over the cast on her wrist and a short brown sweater. He didn’t see any buttons anywhere. She’d picked an outfit that was easy to don.
“You look nice,” he commented as he followed her to his car.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. She reached for the passenger-door handle with her left hand, but he stretched around her and opened the door. When he did, her hair brushed his cheek. A bolt of lightning-hot lust shot straight to his groin.
Damn. His reaction surprised him. So much that he’d almost gasped. He immediately straightened, putting the door between him and her, but not before his nose caught a subtle floral scent that was very familiar to him. Christy Moser smelled like the gardenias that grew in his grandmother Lilibelle’s garden.
As Christy climbed into the car, Reilly swallowed. When had he gone from merely admiring her figure and feeling protective of her to lusting after her? Of course, as soon as he asked the question he knew the answer. About two seconds after he’d first spotted her walking across the courthouse lobby.
In fact, he’d woken up in a very uncomfortable state this morning, with the dregs of a sexy dream involving the two of them and dozens of ladybugs floating in his head.
He tried to make small talk on the way to the sheriff’s office. He pointed out the Christmas decorations that lined the streets of Covington and made comments about Christmas in the South, where shorts and sandals were more appropriate attire than parkas and boots.
Christy seemed distracted, staring out the window at nothing. Probably thinking about her attack the night before and the statement she was going to have to make in a few minutes.
As he pulled into the parking lot at the sheriff’s office, she turned to him. “I never heard from Detective Delancey. I need to talk to him.”
Reilly winced. He’d forgotten to call Ryker. “I’ll let him know. I’m going to see him this morning.” He wanted to ask Ryker about Autumn Moser’s case. Whether, after Albert Moser’s confession and the connection between the murders he committed and his daughter’s death, the case was going to be reopened.
If it was—
“You told me you’d let him know yesterday.”
“Yes, I did,” he said rather testily. “But the day got busy, for you as well as me.” He cut the engine and got out of the car. He knew that Christy had more than one reason to be upset and irritable. And he couldn’t deny how beautiful and sexy she was, but he was getting a little tired of her officious attitude.
He walked around the car and opened the passenger door for her.
“Thank you,” she muttered as she got out. He followed her into the building and directed her down the hall to the interview rooms.
Buford Watts was standing near the break room, drinking a cup of coffee. When he saw them, he set the coffee mug down on the top of a bookcase and stepped up to Christy.
“Morning, Ms. Moser.”
Reilly started to correct him, then bit his tongue. If Christy wanted to remind the man that she was a doctor, she could do it herself.
“Good morning,” she responded evenly.
“I’ve got a room set up for us. It’s right through there.” Buford pointed the way to Interview Room Two. The door was open. Christy entered and Reilly followed, but Buford stopped him at the door.
“Don’t you have something to do this morning, Delancey?”
Reilly shook his head. “This week the SWAT team is practicing and recertifying weapons skills. I finished yesterday.” He gave Buford a bright smile. “You said I could sit in on the interview.”
“The interview last night. Nobody said anything about this morning,” Buford said.
“Well, do you have a problem with me sitting in?”
The deputy muttered something under his breath and went into the room. Reilly entered behind him. Buford indicated a chair for Christy to sit in, then sat directly across from her, with the tape recorder in the middle of the table.
Reilly moved a chair to a neutral spot at the end of the table, neither on Christy’s side nor Buford’s.
Buford turned on the tape recorder and went through the required preliminary information—date, name, location and so on. He quickly and casually ran through the questions he’d asked Christy the night before.
Then he leaned forward and picked up a folder that was lying near his right hand. “Ms. Moser—Dr. Moser that is—our crime scene investigator team went over to the Oak Grove Inn this morning and checked out Cottage Three. They didn’t find any trace evidence specific to your case.”
Christy stiffened. “What do you mean? Are you saying I made up the attack?”
“Now, now, Miss. I’m not doubting you were attacked. That was obvious. But as good a housekeeper as Miss Ella is, there was a lot of hair and dust and stuff on the floor of that cottage. CSI told me they didn’t find anything that could be definitely linked to last night.”
Christy tried to fold her hands in front of her but the cast interfered. The fingers and thumb of her left hand played with the edge of the cast. Her gaze flickered to Reilly and away.
“What about the pickup that followed me into the parking lot?”
“Well,” Buford reached into his pocket for a small notepad. “That belongs to a Chester Ragsdale. He lives over in Covington. Him and his wife had a spat over the weekend, so he’s been staying there in Cottage One the past few days. He said he’s gonna try to go home today.” Buford took a breath. “My partner talked to him and to the couple from Mississippi who were in Cottage Two. None of them saw or heard anything.”
Reilly saw and felt Christy’s frustration.
“So you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do to find the man who attacked me?”
“I’d like you to think back on last night. I know you’re awfully upset about your daddy. I don’t suppose anyone can blame you for that. And I’m sorry to hear that he’s in the hospital. But I do have to ask these questions. When the person knocked you down, tell me again what he said.”
She eyed him narrowly. “He said, ‘Go back where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.’“
Buford tapped his pencil on the desktop and watched it. “And you’re sure about that?”
“Yes.” The word was coated in frost.
“Why do you think somebody would go to all that trouble to warn you to get out of town?”
“Officer Watts,” Christy said in measured tones. “Five years ago, my sister was shot while I was on the phone with her. I heard her scream. I heard the—shots.” She took a breath and sent a quick glance toward Reilly. “The only times I’ve been back in Chef Voleur since her funeral were once for a seminar three years ago, and then two weeks ago. I flew down here to check on my father after I was notified about his first MI, while he was in jail.”
“MI?”
“Myocardial infarction—heart attack.”
Watts nodded.
Christy brushed her hair back, a typical sign of discomfort or deceit. Reilly didn’t think she was being deceitful.
“I flew back to Boston the same day.” She stopped and looked at Watts.
He looked at the eraser tip on his pencil, then back up at her. He raised his eyebrows. “You flew in when your father was put in the hospital. What about when he was arrested?”
She shook her head. “I was busy—on call. I couldn’t leave my patients.”
The detective nodded and wrote something on his notepad.
“Don’t you see?” she asked. “The man who attacked me is the man who killed my sister—” Christy’s voice gave out. She swallowed and spread her hands. “He knew I’d be here for the sentencing.”
Her words hung in the air. She looked at Buford, then at Reilly, then back at Buford. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Isn’t it obvious? The man who killed my sister knows she was on the phone with me. He obviously is worried that I heard something and can identify him.”
Reilly didn’t say a word. Buford sat still, his eyes on Christy, as if he were weighing her words. Then he sat up straight. “All right. I think that’s all for now, Ms. Moser.” He reached for the tape recorder.
“What?” Christy stared at him. “That’s all? Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
Buford punched the off button on the recorder, ejected the tape and stuck it into his shirt pocket. Then he pushed his chair back. Its legs screeched along the floor. He stood with a grunt.
“Why, no, ma’am. I’m not saying that at all. I am at a loss to explain how this man who you think killed your sister found you, watched you and followed you, when you’d only been in town for around twenty-four hours.”
Christy didn’t stand. “You’re at a loss? I don’t see how it could be any clearer, Officer. My father’s arrest and arraignment were in all the papers. If my father is right about my sister’s death, and I believe he is, then the man who killed her is the married man she was seeing.” She stopped long enough to take a breath.
“He knew she had a sister. Even if he didn’t know who she was talking to on the phone, her phone is missing. Isn’t it logical to infer that he took her phone and saw my number? Naturally, he would expect me to show up at the courthouse. It would be simple for him to spot me there and follow me. Wouldn’t it?” She addressed that question to Reilly before turning her icy gaze back to Buford Watts.
“I have to agree, Buford,” Reilly said. “It’s a theory.”
Buford nodded his head. “It coulda happened that way. I just can’t make a case for it.”
Reilly thought of something. “What about her clothes?” he asked.
Buford had picked up his pencil and was studying the end of it. He frowned at Reilly.
“Her clothes. The skirt, jacket and blouse. Did CSI test her clothes?” Reilly asked him.
The older officer picked up the manila folder and paged through the sheets. “I don’t reckon they did.”
“Nobody thought about testing her clothes?”
Buford sent Reilly a narrow gaze. “You were there, and being so all-fired helpful. Why didn’t you think of it? Hell, you coulda hired somebody to do it for you.”
Reilly didn’t bother answering him. The resentment had been bound to surface sooner or later. He and Ryker both caught a lot of flak because of their infamous, wealthy grandparents. It was no secret that the Delancey grandkids weren’t hurting for money, or that a lot of that money had been made in Louisiana politics, off the backs of citizens.
“I put the skirt and stockings in the trash,” Christy interjected. “In the bathroom.”
“Buford, call them now. Before Ella Bardin puts out the trash. Get the skirt and stockings. Her blouse and jacket too.”
Buford nodded irritably and left the room.
Reilly looked at Christy and gave her a rueful shrug.
She sniffed. “Why do you think I left Louisiana?” she said archly.
“It’s not the place,” he said. “It’s the people. There are good people and bad people everywhere.”
When she winced, he realized that his words had hit too close to home.
IT WAS AFTER ONE O’CLOCK before Deputy Watts was done with questioning Christy and forcing her to read her transcribed statements. She’d slowly and meticulously made changes to the transcription using her left hand.
To his credit, the deputy had ordered in po’ boy sandwiches and iced tea for lunch. To his discredit, the po’ boys weren’t seafood. They were piled high with ham and cheese and mustard—loads of mustard. Christy had picked at hers, tearing off bits of the delicious French bread and washing it down with sweet tea.
Reilly stayed with her the whole time. She didn’t want him to know how much that meant to her. She didn’t want anyone to know that. It bothered her that in two days Reilly Delancey had become the one constant in her suddenly out-of-control life.
She’d heard of the Delanceys. Everyone who’d grown up in Louisiana had. Because of their infamous grandfather, they were all stinking rich. Didn’t have to work a day if they didn’t want to. So why had Reilly and his brother become cops? She assessed Reilly. He looked sincere and genuinely delighted with his sandwich. But she didn’t know him. She couldn’t take the risk of depending on him.
She’d never allowed herself to depend on anyone—never looked to a man for validation—except her father. She wasn’t happy that Reilly Delancey had appointed himself her protector. Even if she had no idea how she’d have gotten through last night and this morning without him.
“Are you sure you don’t want something else to eat?” he asked for the third time as he drove her to the hospital to see her father.
“I’m positive,” she responded shortly. Her stomach was growling, but she was about to see her father for the first time since he’d been admitted to the cardiac care unit. Even if she could have eaten, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to hold it down.
Reilly placed his hand at the small of her back as they walked through the halls to the doors of the CCU.
“Thanks for bringing me here,” she said dismissively. “What time will you pick me up?”
Reilly looked at his watch, then at a sign beside the door. It listed visiting hours as twenty minutes every hour between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
“I’ve got a few things to do. What if I pick you up at four-thirty? Then you can have three visits with him.”
She nodded. “That’ll be good. The nurse told me yesterday that if it wasn’t too busy this afternoon, I could stay a little longer.” She took a shaky breath and sighed.
“Christy? You’re sure you’re okay? I can get back here earlier if you need me to.”
She shook her head. “No. I need to be with my dad as much as I can, before—”
Reilly gave her a searching look before nodding. “I’ll see you at four-thirty then.” He turned and headed back toward the front of the building.
She knew what Reilly was thinking, as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud. How could she sit there at her father’s bedside, knowing he’d killed four young women? How could she still view him as her dad, as the man who’d reared her and taught her the values she now embraced?
“I don’t know,” she whispered as she pressed the automatic door opener and showed the nurse her visitor’s badge. She braced herself for the woman’s reaction when she said, “I’m here to see Albert Moser. I’m his daughter.”
Chapter Four
While Christy visited with her father, Reilly searched out Ryker in his office.
“Hey, old man,” he greeted his older-by-seven-minutes brother. “How’s Nicole?”
His brother’s normally solemn face lit up at the mention of his fiancée. “She’s fine. The burns on her hands are almost healed.”
“Thank God they were only first-degree.”
“Thank God I got there before Moser shot her,” Ryker said hoarsely.
Reilly had never seen him so passionate about anything or anyone. Things had always come easy for his brother. Ryker had excelled at everything. And beaten Reilly. In high school, Ryker was quarterback, leaving Reilly to settle for wide receiver. Ryker had graduated top of his class. Reilly was second.
Both had joined the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Department, but Ryker had gotten the coveted detective position. Reilly, who was the better shot, had been chosen for SWAT.
And now, Ryker was getting married and once again Reilly was one step behind. One step, hell—he corrected himself. He wasn’t even dating anyone.
“Speaking of Moser,” he responded. “I’ve got a few questions about his daughter’s case.”
Ryker sent him an arch look. “Moser’s daughter that was murdered? That’s an NOPD case. It was shelved as a mugging five years ago.”
Reilly sat down in the chair across from Ryker’s desk. “Albert Moser’s older daughter sought me out at the courthouse yesterday. Thought I was you. She gave me an earful before I could get a word in to tell her she had the wrong twin.”
“Oh, yeah, Doctor Moser. The Ice Queen.”
Reilly smiled and shook his head. “Ice Queen? Yeah, not so much. She was attacked last night at her cottage at the Oak Grove Inn.”
Ryker sat and pushed folders out of his way. He leaned back. “I heard about the attack. I’ve just started looking into Autumn’s case again to get a better read on Christy’s situation. She okay?”
“Broken wrist and contusions.”
“How’re you involved? Other than your obvious preference for tall gorgeous brunettes. Tell me she doesn’t have green eyes.”
Reilly pointedly ignored him. “Yesterday, I told her I’d have you get in touch with her, and I gave her my cell number.”
“Your cell number. Why didn’t you give her mine?” Ryker’s blue eyes sparked with mischief.
Reilly didn’t bother to answer. “When she was attacked, she managed to grab her phone and quick-dial my number.”
“So you were first on scene?”
“Yeah. I called for backup, but by the time I got there the guy was gone.” Reilly took a breath. “You won’t believe what he said to her.”
Ryker waited.
“He told her, ‘Get out of town or you’re as dead as your sister.’“
“He said that?”
Reilly nodded. “So what did you find out about the case? Is NOPD going to look at it again?”
“Doubt it. I called Dixon Lloyd at the Eighth, down on Royal Street in the Quarter, and got the name of the detective who caught Autumn Moser’s case. His name was—” Ryker grabbed a small notepad that lay on the corner of his desk and paged through it for a few seconds. “Fred Samhurst.”
Reilly grabbed a piece of paper from Ryker’s trash can and made a note. “Samhurst. What’d he have to say?”
“Where are you going with this, kid?”
“Christy could have been killed last night. Her life was threatened. And if the man who attacked her didn’t kill her sister, he knows who did.”
“Well, Moser never gave up the notion that his daughter was killed by someone she knew. He thought it was a married man. He said his daughter told him the man was obsessive about keeping the affair quiet. Said his reputation and his career would be in jeopardy. Who’s handling Christy’s case?”
“Wait a minute,” Reilly said. “Go back to the married man. His reputation and career would be in jeopardy?”
Ryker shrugged. “That’s what he told me. I thought maybe it was someone Moser knew, and that’s why she wouldn’t tell him. But Moser insisted he didn’t know anybody who would be fired if he was caught having an affair.”
“But she thought Moser would recognize him?”
“I thought about that. Maybe he wouldn’t have known the man. Not personally. Maybe the guy was a celebrity or a politician. Someone in the public eye.” Ryker leaned back in his chair. “Moser nixed the celebrity idea. Said if the man were rich, Autumn would have made him buy her stuff. He was right about that. There was no sign in her belongings that someone was spending money on her.”
“So maybe what he bought her was drugs,” Reilly said.
Ryker’s brows drew down into a frown. “Why all the questions? What are you up to, kid?”
“I want to help Christy. I want to find the bastard who attacked her and see what he knows. What I don’t understand is why no one listened to her father. Why wasn’t Autumn Moser’s case reopened a long time ago?”
“I can’t answer that. I can tell you that the detective who caught the case probably missed something.”
Reilly laughed without humor. “Yeah? You think so?”
“Do you want to hear what I know? I’ve got plenty to do. I could just let you dig it up yourself.”
“Don’t go all big-brother master detective on me, Ryker.” Reilly hated it when Ryker took that supercilious attitude.
“Fine. Dixon didn’t want to rag on a fellow detective, but he did tell me that a couple of years ago Samhurst had a mild heart attack. Said he lost a lot of weight—maybe thirty pounds or so—which left him about forty pounds overweight.”
“Are you kidding me? He was that overweight and out of shape? No telling what he missed. How in hell is he still on active duty? “
Ryker shrugged. “Everybody’s shorthanded.”
“What else did Dixon tell you?”
“Nothing. I talked to Samhurst, but he didn’t have much to say. He got real defensive and claimed he didn’t remember much. I asked him why three point-blank shots to the chest didn’t throw up a red flag, but he didn’t have an answer.”
“Three shots to the chest? That’s how she died? Holy—” Reilly felt a sick weight in his chest. “No wonder Christy wants someone to reopen the case. Did you know she was on the phone with her sister when she was shot?”
“Yep. She gave me the gist of the conversation, and I got copies of her sister’s case file from NOPD.”
“Yeah? What about the sister’s phone? Christy said it turned up missing.”
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