Bone Deep (17 page)

Claire eased the door open and stepped into the corridor. “She’s sleeping, Jill. We might as well go on home.” Her mother looked exhausted and more defeated than she’d ever seen her.

Jill looked longingly through the glass and said a quick silent prayer for Kate. The newest level of Kate’s nightmare had just begun. As if she’d telegraphed those thoughts, Kate suddenly turned her head and stared at Jill.

Jill’s heart all but stopped as she watched her sister’s lips move. Whether it was Claire who reached for the door first or Jill, they both raced to Kate’s bedside.

Kate turned to stare at them. “I took him some place safe.”

Jill searched her sister’s battered face. “What’re you telling me, Kate? Did you take Cody some place safe?”

“Just stop, Jillian,” Claire protested. “You have to stop this.”

Kate’s expression grew slack and the light in her eyes dimmed. She was gone again. Back to that place inside her that no one could touch.

Jill glared at her mother. “Are you satisfied?”

They didn’t speak again as they exited the hospital. Jill was too furious. Claire was…God only knew what she was thinking or how she felt.

Outside the air was thick with humidity. The interior of the car was an oven. With the air conditioning set to max, Jill’s thoughts turned to Paul as she pulled out onto the street. She couldn’t wait to get to him and tell him what Kate had said. Surely this confirmed what she had thought all along. Kate would never hurt her son. There had to be a third party—the person or persons who had done these awful things. The question Phillips had asked her before the service nudged at her again. She’d never considered why she and her sister were both right-handed. It wasn’t usually that way with identical twins. She’d read that somewhere. Maybe her parents had discouraged Kate’s use of her left hand, Jill had always been a rightie.

She started to ask her mother, but her mother spoke first.

“You can’t make anything of what she said, Jillian. Kate is very ill. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying.” Claire fidgeted with her purse.

Fury lashed like a razor inside her and Jill bit her tongue to prevent saying too much. How could her mother be so blind? Not blind, no. She was hiding something.

It was all connected. Everything. MedTech. Benford Chemical.
Every-damned-thing
. And somehow Claire knew how or why it connected. But how did Jill make her open up? The sooner they were home, behind closed doors, the better. One way or another she was going to get her mother to talk.

“Don’t go so fast, Jill,” Claire pleaded. “You’re frightening me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mother. I’m driving the speed limit.”

They were almost home. The Washington Street intersection was next. The light turned yellow then red. Jill braked. Nothing happened. Her heart stumbled.

She stomped hard on the pedal.

Like mush, it sank all the way to the floor, useless.

Fear constricted her throat.

Cars moved through the cross street and…she…could…not…stop.

“Hold on!” She crammed her foot down on the emergency brake and swerved away from the traffic.

Claire screamed.

The force and sound of impact obliterated all else.

Then the world went dark.

Chapter 11

Paul stood in the corridor outside the trauma room where the paramedics had taken Jill. Her mother was two doors down. Terror throbbed in his veins. A nurse or doctor or someone had tried to herd him back into the ER waiting area, but he’d refused to go.

The cop covering the so-called accident had taken one look at the rage in Paul’s eyes and backed off. The paramedics had assured him that both Jill and her mother were okay, no serious injuries. But he wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw her with his own eyes. Until he touched her... held her in his arms.

He closed his eyes and fought to keep it together.

He couldn’t lose her.

That realization startled him.

A wayward neuron that misfired. A mental receptor that either absorbed too much or too little of a necessary chemical, triggering a primal response that he couldn’t deny. Panic hit him in the gut like a sledgehammer.

He hadn’t wanted to come here. To take this case. But he’d done it to get Lawton off his back. What had he accomplished? Nothing. He was supposed to help but he hadn’t made a difference fast enough. Hadn’t kept Jill from harm. He didn’t care what the police called it... Paul knew deep in his gut that foul play was somehow involved. The evil smoldering here had touched her... almost stealing her life. Just one more reminder of the balance of power.
They
were in control. Paul and Jill were fighting an uphill battle where the ultimate stakes and the rules of engagement were unclear. At this point they couldn’t even name the bad guys.

But the evil was close…Jill was standing on the edge of a deep, dark abyss. One he knew well. Too well.

It wasn’t until he’d gotten the call about the accident that he’d realized just how deeply she’d gotten to him. He wanted Jill on a level he’d denied himself for so long he’d forgotten it was even there. He thought of the feel of her skin beneath his lips when he’d kissed her earlier today. Why hadn’t he driven them to the service? He swallowed hard, tasting the regret that served no purpose except to remind him that he was a fool too many times over.

“Dr. Phillips?”

His head came up at the sound of the nurse’s voice.

“Yes.”

She stood outside the door of Jill’s room. “You can go in now. The doctor would like to speak with you.”

Renewed fear collided with the knot of anxiety in his gut. “Thank you.” He took a breath and opened the door. Jill was sitting on the exam table, smiling feebly, falsely. A fighter, he thought, she didn’t give up so easily.

Uncertainty crushed in on his chest when he took in the whole picture. She had an angry red lump on her forehead above her left eye. Her neck and arms were covered in dried blood. Lots of it. His heart dropped to the floor.

“Her mother had a laceration on her forehead near the hairline. That’s where the blood came from,” the doctor explained quickly.

Paul nodded, relieved beyond words.

His gaze locked with Jill’s watery blue eyes. “You okay?”

Jill laughed a dry, aching sound, blinked several times and demanded, “Are you nuts, Phillips? I totaled my car and almost killed us both. Of course, I’m not okay.”

He managed a smile. “I saw the car. Hell of a job you did on it.”

She released a shaky breath. “I guess we were pretty lucky.” Her voice was a little thin, but steady.

Damn lucky
. “So what’s the prognosis, Doc?” He turned to the ER physician who’d waited quietly during their exchange. A spot or two of blood stained the right cuff of his lab coat. Mrs. Ellington’s, Paul assumed. That image nudged him. The feeling was a familiar one that usually warned of things to come.
Bad
things. It soured in his gut.

“Shaken, but fine,” the doctor said, drawing Paul from the trance he’d suddenly drifted into. “The head injury is only a contusion. She’ll have a lot of bruising, especially where the seat belt held her in place. But, otherwise, she’s in remarkably good shape.”

“And Mrs. Ellington?” Paul knew head injuries bled more than most, but the amount still concerned him. Images of Jill holding her mother in her arms until help arrived flashed in his brain. Made his chest tighten.

“Shaken as well. Ten stitches near the hairline on the right side of her forehead. No broken bones, which was a concern since she’s a bit older. As soon as I’ve written the discharge orders, they’ll both be ready to go.”

When the doctor left the room, Paul moved closer to the patient. “You scared the hell out of me.”

She swiped at her tears and blew out a ragged breath. “Scared myself.”

“What happened?” He wanted to touch her. No, he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her. But first, he had to know what took place in that car. If his instincts were on target, the enemy had just issued a major warning.

“I was in a hurry.” She shrugged, then winced. “I wanted to get back to you and tell you what happened at the hospital. But I wasn’t speeding. The light changed at the Washington Street intersection…I couldn’t stop.” Her shoulders sagged and she closed her eyes wearily.

He’d known it. Dammit! His tension shot to a higher station. “What do you mean, you couldn’t stop?”

“The pedal went all the way to the floor. Nothing. No brakes.”

“But you did brake, I saw the skid marks.”

“The emergency brake.” Fear glittered in her eyes as she obviously relived those terrifying moments. “It didn’t slow us much, but it lessened the impact when we hit that brick wall.”

The car had careened between two vehicles in the cross street, barely clipping one, and then slammed broadside into the brick retaining wall that bordered a residential lawn. The passenger side had been the one to hit the wall. Every time Paul pictured the scene he realized how much worse it could have been.

“Mother’s head hit the passenger window,” she said, her voice shaking. She pressed her lips together and tried to hold back a sob.

Paul put his arms around her and held her against his chest. “She’s fine. You’re both fine.”

“But it was my fault,” she murmured, her voice wobbling. “I should have reacted more quickly. I could have killed her. It’s a miracle I didn’t.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. The brakes will have to be inspected but I’m betting they failed, not you. This isn’t your fault.”

“She asked me to slow down. I should have listened.”

Her shoulders shook in his arms. He wanted to rip apart whoever was responsible for this. He’d known the moment the phone rang that it was something like this.

He held her. Held her and reassured her again and again that it wasn’t her fault. Finally, when she’d calmed, they walked together to her mother’s room. Jill and Claire hugged for a long time, shedding more tears, thanking God over and over that they were both safe.

But Paul had his own ideas about that.

He had a feeling that none of them were safe.

Not in Paradise.

~*~

Jill closed the door to her mother’s room and moved quietly away. She was finally resting. Considering the head injury, which like Jill’s was a contusion in addition to the laceration, Jill was to rouse her every two hours as a precautionary measure. She glanced at the clock hanging at the end of the hall. It was seven-thirty now, at nine-thirty she would check on her.

She’d had a shower and changed into lounge pants and a tee. Paul was waiting for her in the library to go over what they had so far. He looked up when she entered the room. Her heavy heart lifted at the sight of him. His smile nearly undid her. She saw it so rarely it took her breath every time he allowed it. The gesture softened the lean angles of his face and put a sparkle in those dark eyes. She could look at him like this forever and never grow tired of it. Her throat tightened whenever she thought of how close she’d come today to never seeing him again.

This bond they’d formed, both fighting it every step of the way, was damned strong. Pretending it didn’t exist would be pointless. She needed him. No, it was more than that. She wanted him here…she wanted to be close to him.

“She’s sleeping,” Jill said in answer to the question that formed in his expression.

He nodded. “Good.”

Jill collapsed in one of the leather wingbacks flanking her father’s desk. “So what does all this add up to?” She had mentally grasped all the bits and pieces, but she’d been so distracted by other events she hadn’t been able to put things together fully just yet. She was sure Paul had. When she’d told him what Kate said he’d only nodded but, like her, he recognized the revelation was significant. Her mother could pretend otherwise but Jill knew without a doubt that Cody was alive and out there somewhere—some place
safe
.

Phillips stared at her for so long she felt like squirming. “Is something wrong?” She’d had about all she could stomach this day.

He gave his head a shake, as if to clear it. “I was just thinking.”

“Well, that certainly got me into trouble yesterday.” She smiled, it felt good to do that when she had so little to smile about. He’d warned her not to look at him that way. Not happening.

When he continued to stare without saying more, she cleared her throat. “What are your thoughts so far?”

He blinked. “I think MedTech and LifeCycle are in bed together.”

She shivered at the analogy “Go on.”

“I believe there’s some kind of cover-up going on here that goes back to Benford Chemical and the murder of its owner,” he explained. “I also think there’ve been a number of human experiments.”

“Like Cody and the boy in Lynchburg.” She had been thinking along those lines as well. Maybe they’d both read too many novels or watched too many movies, but the incredible likeness between the children was impossible to ignore.

“Yes.”

Fear crept along her spine. “They could be twins.”

He nodded again. “They could be.”

She refused to be put off by his obvious need to answer only her question. She wanted more—all of whatever was on his mind. “Do you believe my nephew is alive?” She held her breath. She needed him on her side about this. And if Cody were alive, whose body had the chief found? The possible answer to that question made her stomach churn with a new kind of fear. Could the chief be that kind of bad man?

Jesus, she’d known most of the people in this town her whole life.

“I believe the remains the chief would have us believe is your nephew are a decoy to throw us off the hunt. If your nephew is dead, there’s no reason for you to hang around and look for him. Dotson wants you gone.”

“What about my sister? The chief knows I won’t leave with Kate’s situation up in the air.”

“I look for that to be resolved any day now. They—whoever they are—want rid of us. They’re willing to take extreme measures to reach that goal.”

“That’s why the brakes failed.” Her chest tightened with apprehension.

He tipped his head in silent acknowledgment, confirming but not elaborating. “They either know or don’t care why Karl Manning was murdered. They simply want the case closed and the two of us out of their hair.”