ADAM WATCHED CARRIE’S FACE AS HE DROPPED THE BOMBSHELL on her, and he wasn’t disappointed. Her jaw dropped like a fish gasping on dry land. He couldn’t recall ever seeing someone so totally surprised. Then again, he’d been just as surprised when Corky mentioned DeLuca’s second family.
“I think you’d better explain,” Carrie said.
“Most of this is conjecture, but it makes sense. Charlie’s wife—Bella’s mother—was something of a shrew. Charlie’s law practice and shadier activities often took him to Cicero, which is sort of a suburb of Chicago. That’s where he met a woman who was clerking for a judge—maybe a judge Charlie or one of his associates had ‘bought,’ so to speak. They started seeing each other, and he eventually married her.”
“Didn’t his wife—either wife, for that matter—didn’t they suspect anything?”
“Not at all. Charlie split his time pretty evenly, and each wife was told his absences were because of business trips.”
Carrie picked up her legal pad again. “So what was his name in Cicero?”
Adam grinned. “Charlie DeLuca.”
“You’re kidding! I can’t believe it. He had a second family, a few miles away from the first, both of them under his real name? The man was either incredibly stupid or incredibly confident.”
“My personal opinion? He was both.”
Adam watched as Carrie wrote “second family” and drew a line under it. Then he told her what Corky had found. Charlie’s double life remained undiscovered until after he was about to go on trial. When the second wife learned the truth and realized the second marriage was invalid, she retook her maiden name, found a job at the courthouse, and closed that chapter of her life.
“So she’s not going to want revenge,” Carrie said.
“Maybe on Charlie, not on me.”
“Did they have any children?”
“She had two from a previous marriage—a son and daughter, both grown.”
Under “second family”, Carrie wrote “son” and “daughter.”
“Before you get too carried away with that list, you’d better hear what we know about the children.” Adam leaned forward with his clasped hands between his knees. “As best we can tell, the daughter was terribly disturbed by what happened. So disturbed, as a matter of fact, that she entered the novitiate for the Franciscan Sisters. She’s currently at Our Lady of Victory Convent in Lemont, not far from Chicago.”
Carrie pursed her lips and drew a line through “daughter.” “So what about the son.”
“He disappeared.”
“Don’t tell me he followed his sister’s example and went into a monastery.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was working in a hospital in Cicero and going to night school, getting his certification as an Emergency Medical Technician. After he finished his training, he went to work driving an ambulance there. Then, about a week after the bigamy came to light, he simply didn’t show up for work. There’s no trace of him since then, at least not by his real name.”
“So at least we have one possible out of that list,” Carrie said. “What was his name?”
“The name he was born with is Robert Kohler. But we have no idea what he goes by now.”
Adam expected Carrie to write down the name. Instead, she gripped the pen so tightly her knuckles turned white. Then she looked up at him and said, “I may know.”
Carrie wondered if she was jumping to conclusions. Then again, the pieces seemed to fit together. Adam came to Jameson about eight months ago. Within a few weeks Rob Cole showed up, working as an EMT. About the time it was evident that Adam and Carrie had become an item, Rob started showing more interest in Carrie. She’d thought at first it was infatuation on his part. Now she wondered if it was an attempt to get close to her in order to keep tabs on Adam.
“You’re going to think this is crazy,” she said.
“No crazier than someone shooting at me—at us. Let’s hear it.”
Carrie laid out her theory about Rob, watching Adam’s face carefully. To his credit, he neither interrupted nor argued. Instead, he listened thoughtfully until he was sure she’d finished.
“Let’s look at it objectively.” Adam picked up Carrie’s pad and pen and wrote “Rob Cole” toward the middle of the page. “There are three things the law looks for in the commission of a crime: motive, means, opportunity. Let’s take them in reverse order.” Under Rob’s name, he scribbled the words movie, office, hospital 1, hospital 2. “Let’s look at opportunity for each of these episodes.”
“I’m with you,” Carrie said.
Adam poised his pen over the first line in the list. “So could Rob have shot at us in front of the theater?”
“I don’t see why not. Actually, I suppose anyone could.”
Adam made a check mark. “Could he have lobbed that Molotov cocktail through the front window of the law offices?”
“Same answer.”
Another check mark. “Now we begin to narrow the field. Could he have sent the text that lured me to the hospital parking lot?”
Carrie thought about that for a moment. “Yes. Rob’s in and out of the ER all the time. He’d know about the locker where my phone was. And he’d be familiar with the property, including where you’d park if you came to the ER.”
A third check mark. “And the shooting in the hospital parking lot?”
“Of course.” She waited while Adam made the final check. “You said he was in dark clothes that night, but not in uniform. We have only his word that he likes to hang around the ER when he’s off duty. He could have followed us from the restaurant, shot at me—”
“We’ve also said that could have been a mistake,” Adam said. “Maybe he thought he was shooting at me.”
“And when you emerged from the darkness carrying me, he saw what he’d done. So he ran to help you.”
Adam ran his finger down the check marks. “All right, we know he had the opportunity. The means presents no real problem here. That leaves motive.”
“If he’s Charlie DeLuca’s stepson from that second marriage . . . We don’t know that he is, but if that’s true we should be able to connect the dots.”
“We need to find out if Rob Cole was originally Rob Kohler,” Adam said.
Carrie nodded. She knew two things: that it would be up to her to get that information from Rob, and that she dreaded the encounter.
It was well after midnight before they agreed that their brains were no longer functional. Adam paused by Carrie’s kitchen door and wondered if she’d ever forgive him for getting her into this. His doubts were erased by the hug and kiss she delivered, followed by the whispered admonition, “Be careful.”
“I will,” he assured her.
“And call me when you’re safely home.”
“I’ll make it short. If our friend, the stalker, has some sort of way to track me via my cell phone, that would at least make it less likely he’ll know that I’m in my apartment.”
Adam slid out the door and ran in a crouch toward the six-foot-high wood fence that separated Carrie’s backyard from the alley. The slats were fastened to two horizontal rails. Adam put his toe on the lower of the two boards, grasped the top of the fence, and pulled himself to the top. He rolled over and landed on the narrow strip of grass that separated the fence from the paved alley.
He took a minute to catch his breath, then worked his way slowly through the alleys toward where he’d left his car. The neighborhood was dark. Although there were street lamps in the area, there were none in the alleys. Adam was sure some homes had motion-triggered lights in the backyards, but the fences shielded his movements, so he remained in darkness. The occasional bark of a dog signaled his passing, but he kept moving.
He emerged from the last alley and scanned the area where his vehicle was parked. Other cars sat silent nearby, but all of them were empty—or if there were occupants, they were hidden. Adam gave it a few minutes. He heard no sound, saw no movement. No telltale embers of cigarettes glowed anywhere. The last thought made Adam smile, as he visualized a man clothed in black, lurking in the darkness, smoking a cigarette, occasionally fingering the gun tucked into his belt. You’ve seen too many late-night movies on TV.
He hurried to his car and unlocked it with his key to avoid the beep and flashing lights of the security system. He eased into the driver’s seat, glad he’d remembered to remove the bulb from the interior light. He pulled the door closed gently and relocked it. He didn’t turn on his headlights until he was half a block away. Then he went through a series of turns to make certain no one was following him. The drivers of the few cars he encountered seemed more interested in getting to their destination than pursuing Adam.
As he pulled into the parking lot behind his apartment, he killed the headlights and scanned the area. He’d made an effort to memorize as many as possible of the cars normally parked there, and he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Rather than taking his numbered slot, he chose a visitor’s space toward the end of the row. He recalled his brother’s warning about the dangers of predictability. If unpredictability meant being exposed for a longer walk to his back door, so be it.
Before he opened the car door, he pulled up his right pants leg and slid the pistol from its holster. If he was going to need it, now would be the time. Much like a coach giving a pep talk, he reminded himself that although he wasn’t a killer, he was the target of one. And if he had to shoot to defend himself, he would.
He eased out of the car and locked it with the key. Adam looked around once more. Nothing moved.
He strode purposefully toward the back door of his apartment and was halfway there when gunfire from behind a Dumpster to his left made him drop to the ground. Two shots in rapid succession were followed by the scream of a car alarm. Adam stood up, pointed his pistol at the area where he’d seen the muzzle flashes, and pulled the trigger twice.
He heard the whine of a car engine revving, the screech of tires on pavement. He got a fleeting glimpse of a bulky vehicle, probably a light-colored SUV, exiting the parking lot. Adam took that as his cue. Already lights were popping on in the apartment building. Witnesses would emerge in a moment, and the police wouldn’t be far behind. He sprinted for his apartment, opened the back door, and tumbled inside in one motion. Adam moved toward the center of the apartment, but not before he engaged both the door’s lock and deadbolt. Then he duck-walked to an interior wall and eased down against it, trying to catch his breath.
Returning fire had been a reflex, and now Adam wondered at the wisdom of his action. He realized he could have injured, even killed an innocent bystander. Moreover, now the assailant knew Adam was armed. Would that make him even more dangerous?
Should he clear out again, move to another motel? If he stayed, was he endangering his neighbors? He decided that the shooter was unlikely to return that night, so it was probably safe to stay here for the time being. Tomorrow . . . well, he’d decide that after the sun came up.
Adam leaned against the wall, his gun almost forgotten in his hand, and wondered how many more close calls there would be . . . and how many he could survive.
Carrie wished she could call the clinic and tell whoever answered that she wouldn’t be in today. Her head was still sore, but more than that, her brain felt like a house after a tornado struck, her thoughts scattered like pieces of furniture, some fragmented, all out of order. And long periods of staring wide-eyed at the ceiling interspersed with occasional troubling dreams had done nothing to refresh her during the night.
But Thursday was Thad Avery’s afternoon off, and she didn’t want to ask him to cover for her. No, she’d bite the bullet and go to work. She’d done it before, in medical school, in residency training, in practice. If she could care for patients right after the death of her husband, she could certainly power through headache and fatigue.
In the shower, Carrie tried to avoid getting her scalp wound wet but eventually decided she couldn’t stand dirty hair one more day. She carefully washed her blond hair, then dried it gently and used a few light brush strokes to style it to hide the scab left by the bullet. She dressed in a white blouse and black slacks and put on a minimum of makeup. It wouldn’t hurt if people thought she was pale—maybe they’d take it easy on her.
Her breakfast was a cup of coffee and two extra-strength Tylenol. Carrie wasn’t particularly hungry now. If that changed, she’d grab a donut from the break room mid-morning, by which time a pharmaceutical rep would no doubt have left a couple of boxes of them, along with information on the latest drug from his company.
In her car, she pulled her cell phone from her purse, paused with her thumb over a speed-dial button, then changed her mind. She and Adam had agreed to keep communication to a minimum, not so much to avoid electronic eavesdropping as to allow each of them to carry out the tasks they’d set for themselves. Before he left last night—this morning, actually—they agreed to meet again tonight about ten p.m. at her house. She hated the maneuvers he had to go through to get there, but he insisted that was the best way to keep from leading the shooter directly to Carrie.
Either by design or coincidence, the list of patients Lila placed on Carrie’s desk was short. She scanned the names and the diagnosis or reason for each visit and felt herself relax a bit. She should be able to handle these, as well any emergencies that cropped up. She also found a note from the receptionist on her desk: “See Dr. Rushton.” No explanation. Not a request. A command. She wondered if those had been the exact words Phil had used.
In any case she’d see Phil, but first she wanted to check on her hospitalized patients, review the reports and lab work on her desk.
Hospital rounds were easier than Carrie anticipated. In her absence, Thad Avery, the other internist in the group, had seen both her hospitalized patients, found them to be much improved, and sent them home. Maybe she’d misjudged Thad. Perhaps he really was a nice guy. She’d always figured he had a hand in patients switching from her care to his, but she could be wrong. Maybe it was all Phil’s work.
Bolstered by her second and third cups of coffee of the morning, Carrie walked down the hall to Phil Rushton’s office. There was never any problem finding Phil. From before sunup to after sundown, Phil was either in his office, in surgery, or making hospital rounds. She hadn’t seen him at the hospital and his name wasn’t listed on the surgery schedule in the doctor’s lounge. Therefore, Carrie figured he’d be in his office.
She looked through the open door. Phil was seated at his desk, paging through a journal, occasionally using a yellow highlighter to mark a passage. She tapped on the door frame. He didn’t raise his head, didn’t acknowledge her in any way. She tapped again, and in a voice that conveyed neither irritation nor pleasure, Phil muttered, “Come.”
Carrie entered and took one of the two chairs on the opposite side of the desk from Phil. He held up one finger in a “give me a minute” gesture. Carrie marveled at the man’s ability to focus so completely on the task at hand. She recalled what a colleague had once said about Phil. “His focus is so complete he could burn a hole in a telephone directory with it.”
While Phil’s head was down, Carrie looked once more at the diplomas and certificates on his office wall. His training had been impressive: Northwestern, Pritzker, Rush. Then, when the puzzle pieces fell together in her mind, her throat tightened and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Doctors as a group might not have a firm grasp of geography, but most of them knew the locations of first-rate medical schools and hospitals. And she knew where all these were: Chicago—the same city that had been home to Charlie DeLuca . . . and his family and friends.
Phil closed the journal and looked up. “Carrie, thank you for coming by. How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Some headaches, some scalp tenderness—nothing that Tylenol doesn’t handle.”
Phil twirled the highlighter between his fingers. “You know, you seem to be something of a magnet for trouble nowadays. You were in the lawyer’s office when the firebomb was thrown. Somebody took a shot at you in the hospital parking lot and barely missed doing grave damage . . . maybe killing you.” He looked at Carrie as though he could read the deepest secrets in her eyes. “Is there something going on in your life I should know about?”
Here we go, Carrie thought. He’s building a case to get rid of me on the basis of “improper conduct.” Well, I’m not going to let that happen. “Phil, I’m offended that you’d ask that. My private life isn’t the issue here. When I joined this clinic, I signed a contract with all the standard clauses, including the one that lets you terminate me because of improper conduct. But I don’t think that gives you permission to delve repeatedly into what I do on my own time.” She took a deep breath. “If you’re unhappy with my work as a doctor, say so and we can talk about the group buying me out. If not, I’d rather not go into what I do outside the office and hospital.”
Phil’s response came quickly. “Carrie, I have to ask these questions. If there’s something going on that might affect the clinic, I need to know. That’s all.” He leaned across the desk, radiating sincerity from every pore. “You know I like you—like you a lot. I’m just offering to help.”
Carrie marveled at how quickly Phil’s manner changed. It was as if he’d flipped a switch, and a caring colleague replaced the all-business administrator. Then again, she didn’t totally buy this nice-guy act. “Sorry. I guess my fuse is sort of short these days. Getting shot will do that to you.” She shook her head. “Let me assure you that recent events have nothing to do with the clinic or my work here. And on a personal level, I’m fine, and I don’t need any help. But thanks for asking.”
Phil apparently wasn’t through though. “Your ex-fiance—Adam Davidson. You’ve been seeing a lot of him lately again, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but I can’t see where that could possibly affect the group.”
“I was just wondering. He only turned up here in Jameson a few months ago, right? Do you know much about his past? Is there something there that might be at the root of these attacks?”
Carrie’s antenna was tingling. She needed to head this off, and quickly. “I know what I need to about Adam, but I don’t see that it’s necessary to discuss it with you. Again, that’s my private life, and it has no bearing on my professional activities.” She looked at her watch, rose, and said, “If that’s all, I really need to get started with my morning clinic.”
As she walked down the hall, Carrie tried to replay her recent encounters with Phil, now viewing each of them in a whole new light. She felt as though she were trapped in a maze where a new surprise, each one unpleasant, waited around every corner. They’d need to add Phil’s name to the list. How many more suspects? How much longer?