Daniel was reclining beside Molly on her hospital bed, his one arm around her little shoulders, the other arm holding his iPhone in front of them both. Her face was pressed against his chest, and he could feel the heat of her fever even through the cloth of his shirt. He’d been shocked by the blueish shadows under her eyes and her labored breathing when he’d first arrived. What a change from yesterday!
He kissed the fuzz on her bald head, which she usually kept covered, and it was like the down of a dandelion. People, like Samantha, couldn’t understand his aversion to having children of his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t like children. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have specialized in pediatrics. But the attachment to them was just too strong, too devastating when it was broken. Molly was a case in point. He hardly knew her, and yet . . . and yet!
Molly hadn’t let him shut down his phone since he’d first shown her the present she would get when she got better. It was the picture of the seven kittens, and Molly couldn’t make up her mind between the pure white or the yellow-and-black striped one. Of course, their colors might be entirely different when they lost their birth hair, but she didn’t seem to care about that.
It was presumptuous of him to promise a pet to a child without the parents’ approval, but he would worry about that later. Somehow, he would make it happen.
“That one!” she decided conclusively, pointing her finger at the white one. “Snowball.”
“Are you sure? Bumble is cute, too.” Molly had given each of the kittens names. The yellow-and-black one was named after . . . what else . . . ? A bumblebee.
“No. Snowball is smaller, like me. And you told me she’s a girl. Bumble is a boy. Maybe you could find a boy to adopt Bumble.”
Somebody is going to take all seven of these cats, that’s for sure. Maybe even eight, if Maxine can be thrown into the mix.
Molly had acute myeloid leukemia and while she had responded well to the initial high dosage of chemo, today she had relapsed, and her white cell count had skyrocketed. A stem cell transplant was her only hope, but she had to be in remission for that to take place.
Ideally, one of her siblings would be a good donor match, but both parents had to agree to the procedure, and thus far, Molly’s mother couldn’t be reached. Her father was a match, thankfully, and although parent to child bone marrow transplants weren’t common, they could be done. But that meant getting Molly back into remission and getting her father here from Savannah.
“I want my daddy,” Molly said, suddenly losing interest in the kittens.
“I know, sweetheart. He’s on his way.” He glanced up to see a nurse approaching with a syringe. “Why don’t you take a nap, and maybe your daddy will be here when you wake up?”
“I don’t wanna sleep,” Molly whined, even as she cuddled even closer into his embrace.
To distract her, he began to describe the situation at his home. He’d told her about the plantation before. Now, he said, “Did I tell you about the animals who have come to visit me this week? There’s a biiiiiig dog, who has a sore hip, and can only move around slowly. Then, there’s a biiiiig cat that looks like a cougar. Do you know what a cougar is? Yes, the wild animals with the stripes. And get this . . . a little pig called Emily who follows me around like a shadow.”
Molly giggled at that. A wonderful sound, especially considering how bad she must feel. She didn’t even notice the needle entering her upper arm.
“And did I tell you about the bird . . . a cockatoo . . . that can only say one thing, and it’s a bad word? Maybe if you came to visit one day, you could teach Clarence some new words.”
“Betcha I could,” Molly said.
Within minutes, she was fast asleep, and he was able to slip off the bed. The nurse arranged the child more comfortably in the bed, and checked her temperature once again. “No change,” she remarked shortly.
George came in then and motioned for him to come out into the hall. “Did you get her father on the line?” George asked him.
“I did. He should be en route, as we speak.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Threats. Bribery.”
George laughed, halfheartedly. “When I talked to him earlier, he had a half dozen excuses. Couldn’t get off work; he just got a new job working construction. No money for gas. His car needs repairs. No place to stay when he gets here. All legitimate excuses, of course, but . . .”
“I offered him a job and a place to stay until Molly gets better.”
“What?” George blinked at him with surprise. “Doing what? Staying where?”
It had been a spur of the moment decision, but one that could work out well. “Aaron and I can never get enough help renovating that damn plantation house. If Molly’s dad can wield a paintbrush or hammer a nail, he can work for us. For a while, anyway. And I figure one of those old slave cottages is better than the run-down motels where he’s been staying, even without indoor plumbing. Hell, he can put plumbing in, if he has the expertise.”
George was smiling at him. He didn’t have to say the words. He knew that Daniel was being pulled back into medicine, whether he wanted it or not. Fact is, he was ready.
After he left the medical center, with a promise to George that he would check in later, Daniel sat in his car and looked over the ridiculous grocery list Samantha and Tante Lulu had put together. He tapped his fingertips on the steering wheel. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Something had been niggling at the back of his brain ever since he’d left the plantation.
He thought about his last words with Samantha, and suddenly he knew what the problem was. Samantha was going to meet with her ex-husband, despite his asking . . . rather, telling . . . her not to.
Fear shot through him. Nick was a desperate man, as the FBI agent had told them, and desperate men were unpredictable. There was no knowing what Nick might do to Samantha to get what he wanted.
Then the fear was replaced with anger. How dare she take such chances? If she didn’t care about herself, why didn’t she care about his feelings?
But then, how did she know what his feelings were? He didn’t know himself.
He called Samantha’s cell phone, and was not surprised to get no answer. Then he tried Luc and John LeDeux’s respective cell phone numbers. No answers there, either. Finally, he tried the last resort. Tante Lulu.
She answered on the first ring.
“Tante Lulu, is Samantha there?”
“No. Do ya know where the Tabasco sauce is? I cain’t find it nowhere.”
“What do you mean, no? Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Samantha.”
“Oh, I ain’t supposed ta say.”
That was answer enough for Daniel. He clicked off and put his car in gear, heading toward New Orleans. He had a rough idea where Nick’s new medical building was located.
He saw enough evidence of the harm that came to people, without trying. He’d be damned if he’d let her put herself in harm’s way, willingly.
As a result, he drove like a maniac north on 90 toward New Orleans, and had no trouble finding Nick’s three-story Southern Women’s Maternity Center, which looked like a mini Taj Mahal. No wonder he was in financial trouble. All black onyx, marble, and glass. It even had a dome and finial on top like the Indian architectural wonder. Obviously, the clientele served here had to be of the wealthy class (except for Nick’s black market baby mothers). No way would regular insurance pay for the kind of luxury this place exuded.
He assumed there were already unmarked police and FBI vehicles parked around the perimeter of the building. At least, he could hope so, for the benefit of Samantha’s safety.
He picked a spot near the front entrance and hesitated, not sure if Samantha and her “posse” had arrived yet. He could go in and case out the place, maybe ask a receptionist if they’d seen Dr. Coltrane’s ex-wife, but then the question was taken out of his hands as he saw Samantha’s BMW pull into the far end of the lot.
“I knew it!” he muttered to himself as he realized he’d been half hoping that he’d been wrong. That she really wouldn’t be coming to meet Nick the Prick as he went looney-bird, batshit crazy.
Her BMW was immediately followed by several other vehicles that were probably the FBI and/or local police, although they were innocuous enough. A Comcast van. A beat-up pickup truck. A private mini-bus for handicapped folks. And, holy crap! Was that an ice cream wagon? The vehicles pulled in on either side of Samantha’s BMW and one just across the lane from her. The ice cream trunk was parked off to one side of the parking lot, near the building, though he noticed its bell wasn’t ringing. There was also a black guy with expensive sunglasses trimming the bushes, and a female jogger, with the biceps of a linebacker, who’d made two laps around the parking lot so far.
And Samantha was dead center, like a bull’s-eye, in the middle of this goat rodeo. He exited his car with a foul expletive that caused the lady getting out of the next car with a toddler to flinch. “Sorry.”
After riding in his air-conditioned car, the hot Louisiana sun hit him like a blow. Hotheaded came immediately to mind, in more ways than one. He stomped quickly to the back of the parking lot so he would be out of range of any security cameras in case Coltrane was watching. Though the good doctor wouldn’t have any reason to be suspicious of him. As far as Daniel knew, Coltrane wasn’t even aware of his existence.
The FBI saw him almost immediately. In fact, there were probably other agents planted around the lot and even inside the building, prepared to record Samantha’s wired meeting. And they expected Samantha to suddenly become some kind of Jennifer Garner/Sydney Bristow CIA agent from the old TV series, Alias. Insanity!
Brad Dillon stepped out of one side of a cable company van, and Sonny Sonnier stepped out of the other. The fire in their eyes turned the temperature about ten degrees higher. And that fire was aimed at him.
Brad held a map in one hand and pretended to be asking Daniel for direction but, instead, he hissed, even as he took hold of his upper arm, “What the hell are you doing here, LeDeux?”
Sonnier came around his other side, also grabbing an arm. “I shoulda known. Ya cain’t tell a LeDeux ta do nothin’.” The agents and law enforcement officers in the other vehicles were probably shaking their heads at the crazy ass doctor who was going to ruin the show.
Almost magically, the sliding door on the side of the van opened and he was shoved inside, and Samantha was shoved into the other side, rather stunned.
“I give you five minutes to send this asshole home or we abort this mission,” Dillon told Samantha.
“Let me jist shoot ’im with a stun gun. Quicker and more fun,” Sonnier said.
“No, give me the stun gun. I’ll take care of him.” Samantha shot him a look that would curdle milk.
He sank down onto the bench seat facing hers, and the sliding doors slammed shut. There was even a click of the lock. What did they think he was going to do? Pick her up in his arms and run from the vehicle. Even if he made it out, in this heat, he wouldn’t make it ten feet. Hell, even without this heat, he wouldn’t make it that far.
He made a quick survey of her appearance and felt a little sick. Yeah, she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on this morning, but she’d amped up the sex factor with makeup, hooker high heels, and a scarf around her waist that pulled her blouse tighter against her breasts. A wave of unwarranted possessiveness swept over him as he realized she’d done all of this to impress her ex-husband. That was unreasonable, he knew, but what place had reason in a jealous mind?
Jealous? Me? Aaarrgh!
“You were supposed to be gone for hours,” she said.
The wrong, wrong, wrong thing to say! “With that grocery list you gave me, I would have been.”
“And?”
“I went to the medical center and spent some time with Molly, who is not in good shape, thanks for asking.”
She made a clucking sound of disgust at his sarcasm.
“I suspected all along that you would agree to this lamebrain wiring, putting yourself in the hands of a madman, but it was after I left the hospital that it hit me. Here were all these people, mostly kids, who, through no fault of their own, are living with a dangerous disease, or dying from it. And then, there you were, perfectly healthy, taking on danger. Why not just smoke a pack of cigarettes a day to give yourself cancer?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It felt like it to me at the time. Still does.”
“Daniel, Nick has to be stopped. What he’s doing is evil.”
“Let someone else stop him.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“Yeah, I do. Let me go with you.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . because I . . . care.”
He could tell she was touched, maybe even reciprocated the . . . caring, but she stiffened and said, “Well, you can’t come with me. Nick will never open up with a third party there. If he’s going to reveal anything, it will only be if he thinks I’m there alone.”
“Shouldn’t your lawyer be here with you? Does Luc approve of this madness?”
“Luc should be here any minute. He was at the police station with Angus. And, yes, he agrees, sort of.”
“What the hell does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“He says the FBI and police will step in at the first sign of danger. But in the end it’s my decision whether to participate. And, Daniel . . .” She paused to make sure she had his attention. “. . . I have decided to get this whole mess over with. Me. Not you, or anyone else, will make that decision.”
“I thought . . .” He wasn’t sure what he’d thought. He wasn’t her husband. He wasn’t even her boyfriend, or lover. Just a one-night stand . . . or one-week stand . . . or whatever. A good fuck. Who’d fucked up. “Forget I ever showed up,” he said and pounded on the window for the Fibbies to open the door.
“Daniel, wait,” she said, even as the door slid open and he stepped out. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“You meant it exactly how it sounded, but that’s all right. I crossed the line. I won’t do it again.”
“Daniel . . .”
He heard the pity in her voice. So, he left before he made even more of an ass of himself.
Luc arrived then and gave him a passing, questioning glance as he went into the van, presumably to give his client some last-minute instructions. He hoped one of them was, “Be careful!” Because she sure as hell wasn’t listening to him.