The Pediatrician's Personal Protector Page 16

  Reilly hadn’t moved. He looked a bit shell-shocked. “I told you before, Christy. I’m a good guy.”

  Christy’s heart twisted. She knew that. Ever since this whole nightmare began, Reilly had been the one constant in her suddenly out-of-control life. The one person she could trust.

  Standing there in the doorway, tall and strong and handsome, he looked like everything she’d ever wanted. She was so tempted to throw herself into his arms and tell him everything. Let him take the whole burden of finding out who’d murdered Autumn.

  But he was a cop. That one thing stopped her every time.

  The tiny bit of evidence she had wasn’t enough. She had to find something more, something that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt who the cop was that had given Autumn drugs. Because she was sure that when she found that man, she’d have Autumn’s murderer.

  Right now, her only lead was the small-time dealer, Buddy Kramer. And to get to him, she had to go through Glo.

  She resisted putting a hand over her aching heart and leveled a flat gaze at Reilly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get dressed.”

  Reilly’s eyes left her face and flickered downward, toward her purse. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To see my father, of course,” she responded.

  Reilly looked back at her. “Christy—”

  “Don’t, Reilly.”

  His face went dark, his eyes changed and his fists clenched at his side. “I wish I could jerk some sense into you. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  He aimed a razor-sharp glare at her. “I don’t know why I care. All you’ve done is block me at every turn and tell me you don’t need me. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d lock you up so fast your head would spin.”

  Christy stared at him, unable to speak. A chill ran down her spine at his hard tone.

  He stood there for a few seconds, then lifted his hands, palms out. “Go ahead. Do what you want. I give up.”

  He turned on his heel and left the room.

  Christy stared at the empty doorway. Suddenly her chest felt hollow and sore, as if he’d ripped out her heart and taken it with him. She looked down at her hands. They were trembling. Her legs too, so badly she wasn’t sure they’d hold her up. It was as if Reilly had been her strength. She’d thought she was doing this on her own. That she was strong enough, tough enough, to find her sister’s killer. But whether she’d been willing to admit it or not, Reilly had had her back the whole time, giving her strength and courage.

  Now, he’d given up on her. She really was on her own. And suddenly, she wasn’t so confident.

  BY THE TIME CHRISTY came out of her room dressed in black slacks and a black-and-white block-print sweater, Reilly was dressed and waiting for her. He sat at the dining room table, pretending to be engrossed in the files before him, but the sheets of paper were a blur as his thoughts raced.

  He wasn’t sure he was ready for this. In the past hour, he’d tried to examine every possible scenario, but he’d kept coming back to the same plan. It was dangerous, maybe even foolish, especially given the evidence before him. As he’d told Ryker, the more he learned, the more convinced he was that Autumn’s secret boyfriend was a cop—the drugs with police evidence markings on it, the fact that a known CI’s fingerprint was on the gun used to kill Autumn Moser and shoot at Christy Moser. Not to mention his certainty that Christy was holding back evidence. Evidence she’d found among Autumn’s things. Evidence that very likely implicated a cop.

  Given how her mother had died, he could understand why she was reluctant to trust him or anyone else on the police force.

  It pissed him off, but he could understand it.

  Christy cleared her throat softly. Reilly sucked in a deep breath and looked up, as if he’d just realized she was there. “I talked to Deputy Watts a few minutes ago. He dragged Buddy Kramer in for questioning early this morning.”

  Christy looked at him wide-eyed. “What did he find out?”

  Reilly shook his head. “Not much. Buddy swore he had no idea how his fingerprint got on that shell casing. Said he was playing poker the night you were shot at. Has four friends who can alibi him.”

  “But he’s lying! Isn’t he?”

  “Probably. Still, like I told you, without any trace evidence or the gun itself, there’s not much we can do.”

  “What do you mean, not much?”

  Reilly shrugged. “Watts had to let him go.”

  “No!” Christy cried, her face reflecting disbelief. “He can’t. Don’t they have something else they can hold him on until they get enough evidence? I mean, he’s a drug dealer, right?”

  “He is, but there’s no point in holding him for something unrelated to the shooting. Even if they did have a specific possession or intent-to-distribute charge, that wouldn’t help your case.” Reilly glanced down. “And it could ruin a sting operation that’s been working for months to track down the drug distributor. Maybe even the smuggler who imports them.”

  Christy’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “This is so frustrating! Can you blame me for not trusting the police?”

  “I can understand how you feel, but—” He spread his hands, as if to say, What can you do?

  Then he took a deep breath and glanced down casually at the papers in front of him. “So, are you going to catch a taxi to the hospital today?” he asked, forcing an even, detached tone into his voice. He risked a peek at her face.

  She looked surprised. “A taxi? You want me to call a taxi?”

  He shrugged. “I may go to my mom’s for Sunday dinner. As a matter of fact, you might want to rent a car. I’m going back to work Monday.” The lie tasted like gall in his mouth, but it was necessary to his plan. God, he hoped he was doing the right thing.

  Christy’s head jerked slightly, as if from a blow. “I—I can do that. I’ll do it today.” She reached into her purse for her phone. “I should probably go to a hotel too.” Her voice sounded small, a bit hurt.

  Reilly had expected that. “That’s not necessary. My maid comes tomorrow though, so you might want to put away anything you wouldn’t want her to see.”

  He watched her as she started to speak, stopped and swallowed, then opened her mouth again. “I will. Thanks for letting me know.” She turned around and walked back into the guest suite. As soon as he heard her on the phone, ordering a taxi, he grabbed his phone and called his brother Dawson.

  “Hi, Reilly,” Dawson said when he picked up. “You going to be at Mom’s for lunch today?”

  “Nope. I’m sort of on a case. In fact, that’s why I called. I need a GPS tracker for a car.” Reilly watched the door of the guest suite as he talked.

  “Since when does SWAT tail people?”

  “This is kind of a personal favor.”

  “Sure. You want to pick it up this afternoon?”

  Reilly sat up. “Actually, I need it now. Think you can run it by here? Leave it behind the right rear tire of my car?”

  There was a brief silence. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “Thanks, Dawson. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me several, but who’s counting?”

  Reilly hung up and wiped a hand down his face. Damn, he hated being so deceptive. But short of kicking Christy out, locking her up or holding her at gunpoint while he went through her things, it was the only way he knew to find out what she was holding back.

  He’d thought about requesting a tail for her, but had decided against it. He’d started this, and he was going to finish it. Besides, the way things were going, he wasn’t willing to trust Christy’s safety to anyone else.

  He just hoped to hell she decided to rent a car instead of using taxis. He doubted a taxi driver would appreciate having a GPS tracker attached to his vehicle. As soon as he tapped her car, he needed to call Deputy Chief Mike Davis and fill him in on what he was doing, in case he needed backup.

  Mike wasn’t going to like it. Hell, it could be the end of Reilly’s career, b
ut that couldn’t be helped. His career wouldn’t be worth squat if he let Christy get herself killed. He planned to be right behind her, wherever she went.

  AFTER CHRISTY PICKED UP a rental car, she drove to the hospital to see her father. On the way, she called Glo. The girl’s voice was just as smoky and raspy as it had been before.

  “Glo, it’s Christy. Christy Moser. You called me earlier?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got more information. I wondered if you—you know—had some more money for me.”

  Christy winced. She didn’t want to go inside Glo’s house again. “What kind of information?”

  “It’s good. It might help you with—you know—your sister.”

  “All right,” Christy said reluctantly. “Do you want me to come down there?”

  “No,” Glo said quickly. “I’ll meet you, but I don’t have a car, so it can’t be—you know—too far.”

  “Just tell me where.”

  “Do you know the old shopping center on Middle Street? There used to be a drug store on the corner called Brent’s.”

  “I can find it.”

  “I’ll be there at the corner by the drug store.”

  “What time?” As Christy spoke, she heard noise in the background. Was it Jazzy yelling?

  “Two o’clock,” Glo whispered and hung up.

  Christy pulled into the parking lot at the hospital and sat with the motor running as she entered Middle Street, Chef Voleur, LA, into the car’s built-in GPS locator. The device indicated that it would take her nineteen minutes to get there. She decided she should allow forty-five, since she didn’t know how long Middle Street was or where on the street the shopping center was located.

  She got to the cardiac care unit just in time for noon visitation. Her dad seemed to be struggling to breathe, and she didn’t like the gray tint to his skin. She spoke to him and kissed him on the cheek, but as usual, he didn’t respond. Quickly, she glanced at the IV fluids that were hanging. They’d increased the morphine drip, and his lidocaine had been upped too. She looked at the heart monitor. His heart beat was irregular.

  She swallowed hard and tried to choke back the tears that clogged her throat. He was getting worse. Sometimes, like right now, she hated being a doctor. Because her knowledge told her that her father wasn’t going to survive much longer. His life was now being measured in days, if not hours. She took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’m so sorry. I should have been here,” Christy whispered to her dad.

  The sound of a throat clearing caught her attention. “Dr. Moser.”

  She turned. It was the cardiologist. She smiled. “Please call me Christy.”

  Dr. Tanner gave the IVs and the monitor a cursory glance. Then he looked down at the chart he held in his hand. “Only if you’ll call me Jim.”

  “He’s worse,” she said. Not a question.

  Jim nodded. “He’s lost some ground since yesterday.”

  She nodded, swallowing again.

  “We can still hope that he’ll turn around, but as I told you the other day, with the amount of damage to his heart muscle, he’s just not pumping enough blood. And that blood doesn’t have enough oxygen.”

  “I know,” she said, nodding. “But I’m sure you realize, there’s a difference in being a doctor and being a daughter. So forgive me if I’m in daughter mode right now.”

  He smiled back. “I do understand. Did your father have a living will?”

  “No. As far as I know, he never wrote one.” She sighed. “He was never sick.”

  “I see. We should discuss your options. Soon.”

  Soon. The word cut into her heart. She’d known for a couple of days now that her father was never coming out of the hospital, but hearing it from the cardiologist still hurt.

  “I want you to know that if we put a do not resuscitate order into the chart, that won’t affect his care at all. The only thing that will change is that if he goes into cardiac arrest—”

  “I know. I agree.” She squeezed her dad’s hand.

  Dr. Tanner nodded gravely. “I’ll have the nurse prepare the paperwork for you to sign. And Christy—”

  She looked at him.

  “I’ll let the nurses know that you can come in anytime to see him and stay as long as you like.”

  “Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it.”

  Christy spent an hour with her dad, holding his hand and talking to him, even though he was too heavily sedated to respond. Then she headed to her rental car and followed the directions to Middle Street in Chef Voleur. On the way, she stopped at an ATM and withdrew several hundred dollars. She folded five twenties and stuck them in the pocket of her sweater, then put the rest in her purse.

  It didn’t take her long to find the shopping center and the drug store. As Glo had warned her, the place was abandoned.

  Christy was fifteen minutes early. Once she saw the condition of the neighborhood, she decided not to stop.

  When she drove past the drug store for the third time, she saw Glo huddled against the storefront near the corner. A car pulled up with the passenger window lowered. Glo bent down slightly as if listening, then shook her head. A second or two later she shook her head again, said something and made a gesture that clearly telegraphed, Get the hell away from me.

  There were a few other women and a couple of men standing around on the sidewalk in front of the abandoned stores. One of the women, dressed in a tight red miniskirt and stiletto heels, waved at the driver Glo had just rebuffed. He put his car in reverse and backed toward her.

  Christy bit her lip. This abandoned shopping center was a hangout for hookers. She debated whether to stop the car and get out to talk to Glo, or to invite Glo into the car. She finally decided it would be safer for both of them if Glo got into the car.

  After glancing around to make sure there was no one else hovering nearby, Christy pulled up in front of the shaded entrance to the drug store and rolled down the passenger side window. Glo looked up from under her brows. Christy waved and called her name.

  Glo’s face shone with relief. She climbed in on the passenger side, bringing with her the smell of stale cigarettes and a chill that didn’t match the temperature outside. She huddled in the seat just as she’d huddled against the building, her shoulders hunched, her arms crossed, her head down.

  Christy drove. “That looks like a dangerous place to hang out.”

  “Yeah.” Glo’s voice sounded scornful, as if she were thinking, Like you’d know anything about it.

  “What did you have to tell me?”

  “You’ve got the—you know—the money?”

  “Yes, when you tell me what you know.” Christy assessed Glo out of the corner of her eye. The girl seemed harmless, especially as compared to her brother Jazzy, but Christy was fully aware that she could be hiding a knife or a gun in those folded arms.

  A pang of fear dug into her chest, joining the apprehension that had taken up residence there the day she’d gotten the call about her father’s arrest. Had she made a mistake letting Glo into the car?

  As if she’d heard Christy’s silent question, Glo pressed her lips together, closed her eyes and shook her head. Her shoulders straightened slightly. “I heard Jazzy talking on the phone last night. He was really upset. I could hear him yelling, telling somebody they better hope Buddy wasn’t under arrest, because he owed Jazzy some stuff.”

  “Buddy?” Christy said. “Buddy Kramer?”

  “That’s the only Buddy I know. I called a girlfriend who dates him. He was picked up by the police down at the Hotel Winsor—you know—where I told you he hung out? My girlfriend said it was something about a gun. She said that was all she knew.”

  “I already know that, Glo. He was picked up because his fingerprint was found on a shell casing from—from a shooting.”

  “Oh.” Glo hunched down again. She mumbled something.

  “What? I didn’t hear you.”

  “I can’t help i
t if you already heard that. You said you’d give me some money.”

  “I said I would if you had information for me. Something I don’t already know.”

  Glo was silent for a few moments. Then she pulled a battered pack of cigarettes out of a pocket.

  “You can’t smoke in the car.” Christy hated cigarette smoke, but that wasn’t the only reason she objected. Maybe the need for a cigarette would spur Glo into revealing what else she knew. The faster Glo could get her money, the faster she could get out of the car and have her smoke.

  Christy was sure Glo knew more than she’d told so far. She seemed to be struggling with the question of how much to share. Or maybe she was afraid.

  “Who was Jazzy talking to about Buddy?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Glo. Jazzy’s your brother, right? You live with him. I doubt you’re totally oblivious to what he does.”

  Glo didn’t answer.

  After a couple of minutes, as Christy made a turn and headed back in the direction of the abandoned drug store, Glo sat up.

  “Okay. I do know something. But he’ll kill me if he finds out I told.”

  “Who’ll kill you? Jazzy?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  The tentative reply meant Jazzy wasn’t the only one Glo was afraid of.

  “Listen to me, Glo. I’m trying to find out who killed my sister. Anything you tell me is going to help me do that. So why would I rat on you?” Christy said solemnly, a little surprised at herself for using the word rat. “You’re the one who’s helping me.”

  “What I know’s worth a lot more than a hundred bucks.”

  Christy pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. “That’s it, Glo. Get out,” she said calmly.

  “What?”

  “Get out. I’m happy to give you more money, but I don’t have unlimited funds, and I’m beginning to think all you’re doing is extorting me.”