Cover Shot (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 5) (7 page)

I closed my hand around the mace canister Kyle had given me when I refused to take the handgun class.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

Rifle lax in his hands, the man who’d caused all the uproar appeared in the doorway.

And I let out a huge
whoosh
of air and reached for a pen.

Three inches shorter than me, he was slight, but muscular. Thinning brown hair, glasses, and jeans and t-shirt that had been slept in more than once. And his eyes—round, hazel, and…sad. Not angry. Not crazy.

Anguished.

Desperate.

He wanted something, but it wasn’t to shoot me.

“I’m Nichelle.” I offered a smile. And a hand.

He nodded and let go of the stock of the gun, keeping his other fingers closed around the barrel. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Taking a building full of sick people hostage is pretty far down my list of ways to spend Wednesday night,” I said, keeping my tone light.

The ghost of a smile flashed on his unshaven face. “Mine too.”

“All evidence to the contrary.” My nose picked up a hit of B.O., my eyes skimmed the clothes again, and a puzzle piece clicked in place.

Aaron said he knew the hospital.

“You don’t work here, do you?”

He shook his head, his face crumpling. “I can’t lose her. They’re going to let her die. Money is greater than love after all.”

Oh. My.

LOVE>MONEY.

It took a second to find my voice.

“Are you LCX12?”

He nodded, tears slipping down his face.

I pulled out a notebook and a pen. Eight years of dealing with some of the worst society had to offer had honed my asshole radar to a fine point. This guy was desperate and depressed, but he was no murderer.

And he had a story to tell.

“Help me understand.” I poised the pen.

“How?” He shook his head, slumping back against the wall and sliding to the floor, his hands still on the gun. I ran my eyes over the weapon.

The safety was on.

Any lingering doubt about his motive vanished. I studied him. Completely middle of the road, unremarkable thirty-something dude. Except for the rifle—I’m no expert, but it looked pretty standard, too. Hunter?

Maybe. Still, though. How does Average Joe end up here?

“You’ve been sending me messages for weeks,” I said. “Why?”

“I needed people to listen.”

“I’m listening now.” I reached into my bag and clicked off the radio. I knew as sure as I knew my shoe size that Charlie had weaseled her way back into the RV, and if I was going toe-to-toe with the gunman, she could find her own lead. Aaron would get over it. Surely he’d heard enough to stand down for the time being. My eyes stayed fixed on the top of the man’s bowed head.

“Someone you love is sick.” I glanced at his left hand. “Your wife?”

“She has cancer.” His shoulders quaked with sobs.

“And she’s in the ICU, so it’s bad.” I didn’t bother with the question.

“Stage four ovarian cancer.” His voice took on a bitter edge, his head thumping back against the wall. “We’ve tried everything. I’m drowning in medical bills. We had to sell our house. But she was in remission for ten months. It was worth every penny to give my babies their mother back.”

Heat flushed my cheeks and the backs of my eyeballs pricked. I blinked hard, scribbling every word. He stopped talking, and I looked up. He shrank into the wall, clutching the gun like a life preserver and shaking his head as tears dripped from his chin and spattered his threadbare t-shirt.

A vise closed around my heart. I had been there. Vomiting into a plastic trashcan every time I ate because the fear of losing my mother was too much to stomach.

I half-wanted to hug him, but I wasn’t suicidal. I nodded instead. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Everyone is sorry. The insurance company people, who won’t pay for anything else because we’ve reached our lifetime maximum. The nurses, who come in and make small talk about the drawings the kids make for her and try to smile at me. And the fucking lying doctors, who tell me she’s dying and there’s nothing else they can do.” His voice took on a hard edge, and he brushed at the tears. “They will stop lying. Or they will pay.”

He flipped the safety off and looked over my shoulder. “I just have to find the chickenshit bastards first.”

10.

Hidden truth

“W
hoa there, cowboy,” I said, raising both hands slowly. “Why would the doctors lie to you about being able to help your wife?”

“They can cure it.” His fingers tightened on the gun. “I know they can. They can make her better. But they won’t.”

I studied his face, the five o’clock last Tuesday shadow and too-wide eyes making me want to run back outside. Or cry. I felt sorry for the guy, but he sounded a little looney.

Not murderer-looney. If he killed anyone it’d be plain old bad luck.

But my gut said I was about to get an earful of a cancer cure conspiracy. Since I’d done a mind-numbing amount of research on such things when my mom was in a cancer ward, I felt suddenly qualified to try to talk him down.

Probably not the smartest (or sanest) idea I’ve ever had.

“Far be it from me to disagree with the man with the big gun, but a cure for cancer would be the biggest news story in…pretty much ever. I would have heard about it. Trust me.” I tried for a smile.

It only made him flip the gun to his shoulder and spin for the door. “No. This is why I need you in here. Because it’s time people finally knew the truth.”

“What truth is that?”

He did a slow one-eighty and lowered the rifle to his side and his chin to his chest.

“We love stand-up,” he said, so softly I had to step forward to hear.

Okay. I waited. He missed five beats before he continued. “I heard a comic do a bit on cancer once. A long time ago, before Amy got sick. ‘There’s no money in the cure. The money’s in the medicine.’ That’s what he said. And he’s right. Think about how many drug companies will lose billions of dollars a year if they cure cancer. This isn’t about people. It’s about business and money.”

His words flowed through my ear to my hand and onto the page. I didn’t stop to consider them. Get the story now. Have an opinion later.

“And you think someone in this hospital has this miracle cure you’re looking for?”

“If no one on the oncology staff has it, they can get it. The doctor who discovered it is here in Richmond. Half of these guys play golf with him. I hear he’s got a killer putt, when he’s not refusing to help young mothers see their children grow up.”

No.

Way.

“Who’s the doctor you’re looking for?” I couldn’t force my mouth around the words. Three attempts later, they tripped through my lips.

“David Maynard. He used to be the head of oncology at the university hospital. He went to private practice, but he refused to see us. Said he couldn’t possibly take a non-trial case. I guess he’ll see her now, won’t he?”

I shook my head, my dry tongue rasping against the roof of my mouth. “He can’t. He’s dead.”

My eyes followed his slow-motion crumple al
l the way to the floor.

I flinched when I heard the rifle hit the tile. It didn’t fire, though. I stepped forward, the sight of his body curling into a ball as he repeated a drawn-out refrain of “no,” making the tear-pricking return.

“I’m so sorry.” Lame, but they were the only words I had.

“She’ll die.” He didn’t look up. “Maynard. Getting Maynard’s attention was our last hope. I can’t live without her. What am I going to do? My babies—how am I going to tell them their mother’s not coming home?”

Sweet cartwheeling Jesus. I didn’t want his children to lose their mom any more than I’d wanted to lose my own.

I cleared my throat. “Why do you think Dr. Maynard had something as huge as a cure for cancer that he kept a lid on?” I’d been sure my Twitter stalker was delusional just moments ago, but…Well, Maynard was dead, and the cops did think someone killed him.

A cure for cancer?

Fame. Fortune. Instant spot in the history books for the genius who produces that string of chemicals.

People have killed for less.

“Money. Everything is always about money.” He spit the words into the tile. “If I had enough of it, my Amy would be going home with me. We did all the DNA mapping. A whole summer in Houston. But it’s not as effective for ovarian cancer as it is for some others. Seventy-five thousand dollars, no insurance accepted. No brainer. I cashed out my 401K and we got on a plane. They gave her some prescriptions and told her she’d be fine. No chemo, even. Just pills.

“But then she started having pain and bleeding again. By the time she told me and we got her in to see a specialist here, it had metastasized to her liver and lungs. Stage four, sorry folks, we can’t help you.” He sat up. “I spent hours in front of my computer. I applied for every clinical trial there was. Her cancer was too advanced for Maynard’s peer group. He told me to try again next time. I don’t have a next time. She’s dying.” His words faded into a wail. “Oh, God, she really is.”

In a blink, the entire range of human emotion flashed across his haggard face. Anger was last, twisting his mouth and brow such that he didn’t look like the same guy who’d been sobbing half a minute before. He snatched up the rifle and braced it against his shoulder, standing and turning in a slow arc.

“Come out, cowards! Do I have to actually kill someone to get your attention?”

Silence.

He slammed one heel back into the wall as he roared again, swinging the gun wide.

I dove for the tile, not really sure if the scream that sounded so far away came from me or someone else. Two shots split the silence.

Five beats. Ten. My heart slowed to slightly less than verge-of-bursting speed and I raised my head.

“That’s not going to help her,” I said softly.

“Nothing’s going to help her.” The words were hollow, his arms going slack as he dropped back to the floor.

I scanned the hallway for any sign of injury.

The room just behind my online friend looked vacant, the two-thirds of the bed I could see from my angle neatly made.

The open doorway across the hall was empty, silence settling back over the floor. I swung my gaze back to the grieving husband.

“I’m so sorry.” Still too little. But I had nothing better.

He sobbed. Just once. “Yeah. Me too.”

He dropped the rifle. I eyed it for a full two minutes, part of me thinking I should grab it before something stupid could happen, the other part whispering I might be the something stupid if he freaked when I moved for it.

He didn’t seem to notice it wasn’t in his hands, and he was still babbling.

Curiosity, shoes, and white chocolate are generally my biggest weaknesses—if you don’t count my mother. The fleeting mention of a cure, even from a man who might well be a few sandals short of a spring collection, was enough to keep the questions tripping out of my face.

“How can you be sure Dr. Maynard had this magical key?”

He pulled in a hitching breath and dragged the back of one hand across his face. I inched closer, my pen biting into my clenched fingers.

“I saw some messages in a forum about cancer survivors,” he said. “Probably five or six months ago. It was late, and I remember sitting up and shaking off half-sleep, thinking I was dreaming. They didn’t say anything outright—the group was open to whoever found it. But I’m a communications guy. Pretty good at reading between the lines. I DM’d one of the people in the conversation, and at first she avoided my messages. But I kept trying, telling her about Amy. I finally sent a photo of her with the kids. The first Christmas she was sick, they spent the holiday with her in the hospital. That got me a reply.”

“And this person told you to find Maynard?”

“She said he could help us. Really help us. Fix it.”

I scribbled.

“How did she know?” I held my breath.

“Because he did it for her.”

I jotted the words in my notes by force of habit, not likely to forget them. What the everloving hell was my dead doctor into?

Deep breaths. Someone could have sent this guy on the wildest goose chase in the history of medicine, but my inner Lois Lane said maybe not. If Maynard was keeping his discovery a secret, it fit that his patients would guard it too. My mom, her hair coming out in clumps and her frail, chemo-weakened frame, flashed through my thoughts. If it had really come down to the wire for her, I’d have signed a confidentiality agreement in blood for a glimmer of a chance at a cure.

“So you reached out to Maynard.”

“I emailed him in the middle of the night and then watched my inbox like a kid looking for Santa Claus.”

Wait. “Where’d you get his email address?”

“From his website.” He gave me a look that said maybe I wasn’t as smart as he’d thought.

A website that wasn’t there anymore.

But it had been as recently as the spring.

“But he wouldn’t see you?” That was a sticking point for me, with all the wonderful things so many people said at his retirement party, added to what Jeff the doorman told me. If he was such a compassionate guy, wouldn’t he want to help a young mom who had everything in the world to live for? Wouldn’t he want to help…everyone?

“I begged. I offered him everything but one of the children. He said he couldn’t.”

“Why?” It popped out before I could stop it. I wasn’t even really asking him so much as asking the universe in general. The why in the story is the heart of what I do, and this one didn’t make any sense.

“He sounded sorry. And he told me to try his next trial. But she’s not going to make it to the next trial.”

Especially not with Maynard on the coroner’s table.

His hand ran absently over the stock of the gun, and I started to step backward. Was he a murderer? No. Not in his right mind. But grief-stricken people can do some crazy stuff.

He looked up. “I’m not going to shoot you. Whatever this has done to me, it hasn’t made me a monster.”

“I didn’t really get the feeling you were going to shoot anyone,” I said. “I have a pretty good eye for the type. You’re not it.”

“I wanted to.” His voice dropped in tone and volume. “In my blackest, worst minutes, I wanted to think I could make someone else hurt as much as I do. Maybe that would make Maynard see Amy. But the truth is, I’m not that guy. I don’t want to be the cause of anyone else feeling like this. I just don’t want to feel it anymore. And now there’s no way out of it.”

He lifted the gun, flipping the barrel back toward his face.

I blinked, my brain refusing to process the scene for a split second. When the reality of it crashed in, thoughts of his children and dying wife followed in almost the same instant.

Oh, hell no.

Not today, dude.

He braced the barrel under his chin and stretched a shaking hand for the trigger, and my foot shot out in a perfect
ap’chagi
, my Louboutin flying off end-over-end toward the wall as the rifle slid across the floor. A four-inch difference in the length of my legs, and I still made it there first. I snatched the thing up and whirled, kicking off my other shoe, and he fell to his knees, spreading his hands in front of him on the floor. One gulped breath issued back as the deepest, most horrifying scream I’d ever heard.

“Why?” he sobbed. “Why us?”

Dear God.

There were, quite literally, no words.

“Let’s get you back where you belong and get the cops out of here.” I stepped toward him.

“There’s nothing for me. Not without her.” He was limp as an overcooked noodle, but I managed to haul him to his feet and still keep my grip on the gun.

“There’s your children. They need you.” I steered him gently in the direction of the patient rooms. “And right now, your wife needs you.”

He nodded, dragging one hand across his face. “My girls. Amy keeps saying I have to be strong for my girls. She’s right. She likes to be right.”

My eyes flicked to the closed door in front of us.

“Your children aren’t here?”

He shook his head. “My in-laws have them. Bring them to visit, take them to school. The doctor said we should keep their lives as normal as we can.” He turned brim-full eyes on me. “Maynard was the key. I can’t believe he’s dead. What did we ever do to deserve such awful luck?”

I’d never said the doctor was murdered. The fact that this guy didn’t know it was most of what I needed to assure myself he wasn’t behind it.

“He didn’t just die.” I eased away from him, watching to make sure he could stand on his own, then studying his face for a reaction as I spoke. “Someone killed him.”

His eyes popped wide. “I would never,” he said.

“I believe you.”

His eyes fell on the gun, clarity in them for the first time since I’d walked in. “The police…What the hell have I done?”

“Taken thousands of people hostage and discharged a firearm in a public building.” Pity and resignation twisted around my words. Jail wouldn’t be fun for him.

He nodded and opened Amy’s door. “Thank you, Miss Clarke,” he said. “I knew you could help us.”

I turned toward the elevator, the rifle vibrating thanks to the adrenaline overload that had set my hands to trembling.

Before I could figure out how I was going to keep Landers from locking this guy up on an aggravated assault and weapons charge (I wasn’t above begging), another scream almost made me drop the gun.

I turned and spied a nurse standing in the open doorway just across from where I’d talked to the wannabe gunman.

She shrieked once more before she dropped to the tile.