Fatal Hearts (29 page)

CHAPTER 30

Hayden found the service entrance door wide-open. That would be Boyd’s work. What had he said? Never close an avenue of retreat? That suited her fine. She didn’t want to wheedle her way past Mrs. Garner. Or muscle her way past, if need be.

She followed the sound of a female voice and almost blundered on Mrs. Garner in the kitchen. She was working at the counter, but she had the telephone receiver wedged between her neck and shoulder as she carried on a conversation with what had to be a relative.

Hayden backed quietly out of the room, then ventured down the hall toward the rear of the house. This time, she heard a male and female in conversation. Boyd and Sylvia.

“You’ve dragged her too far into this, Detective,” Sylvia was saying. “Josh was clever enough to keep his investigation private, but you’ve been leaning on her this whole while.”

Were they talking about
her
?

“You’ll never get away with it.”

“Of course I will. There was a break-in. You suffered a cardiac arrest trying to defend me and Hayden.”

Oh, God. No, Boyd. Don’t listen. Don’t let her get to you.

“But Hayden’s not here.”

“You think I can’t get her here?”

“But Mrs. Garner . . . she’ll know there was no break-in.”

“Perhaps the burglar will shoot her too.”

Hayden’s stomach lurched.

“You don’t need to do this. Hayden . . . she doesn’t know enough.” His voice was fading alarmingly.

“But, Detective, you just told me that she knew for certain Josh and Angus hadn’t met until very recently.” Sylvia appeared in Hayden’s line of sight as she came around the desk holding a gun.

“That’s right.” There was an unmistakable cocking sound, just like in the movies, and Hayden knew Sylvia had pulled back the hammer on the revolver. “She’s as good as dead, and it’s your fault.”

Hayden had to cover her mouth to keep any noise from coming out.

Then Boyd lunged at her, arms grappling for her, but it was more of a staggering lurch. Sylvia leapt back. There was a crash, and Boyd hit the floor and lay there, unmoving.

Oh, God, no!
He’d arrested—Sylvia had killed him!

Sylvia moved with calm fluidity to stand over Boyd’s body.

“You were a fool, Boyd McBride. As big a fool as your brother, and almost as big a fool as that mother of yours. She thought she could take Lewis from me by
becoming pregnant
?” As Sylvia continued to rant, Hayden realized this was her chance. Maybe her only chance.

She glanced around for a weapon. There, on the bookcase inside Sylvia’s den, was a brass heron bookend.

Please be heavy. Please be heavy.

She stole into the room and picked up the bookend. It was very heavy, and the bird’s slender craned neck proved to be an excellent handle. She lifted it high and swung it at Sylvia’s head. The old woman went down harder than Boyd had, and it occurred to Hayden she might have smashed the woman’s skull. Frankly, she didn’t care.

She flew to Boyd. And oh, God, he
had
arrested. No pulse. No respirations.

She dug out her phone and dialed 911, quickly giving the details to the dispatcher. Then she dropped the phone, knelt, and delivered thirty chest compressions. She paused to give him two breaths, then resumed chest compressions. Two more breaths. She checked for breath and pulse. Nothing.

Dammit, she needed a defibrillator. But the ambulance was probably ten minutes away.

Unless . . .

After giving him another thirty compressions and two breaths, she leapt up and raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Josh had always said the Senator’s sickroom was as well equipped as any hospital room. She sure hoped he was right. A nurse jumped up as though to defend the old man when Hayden burst into the room.

“Defibrillator!” Hayden shouted. “Where is it?”

The nurse pointed. Hayden grabbed the portable unit and ran downstairs. “I need your help,” she called over her shoulder. “Come on!”

She could hear the nurse right behind her as she thundered down the stairs.

“Omigod, Dr. Stratton!” The nurse hurried over to her employer and bent to check her vitals. “She has a pulse.”

“Over here!” Hayden commanded. “We have to resuscitate him.”

The nurse didn’t question the order for a second. She was at Boyd’s side and starting CPR while Hayden got the defibrillator set up. The nurse paused to allow Hayden to stick the pads to his chest.

“Clear!” Hayden said.

The nurse backed away and Hayden hit the “Shock” button. He arched up, then sagged back to the floor.

The nurse bent over Boyd to resume compressions, stopping to allow Hayden to give the rescue breaths. They kept that up for two minutes. The nurse checked for a pulse and shook her head.

“Dammit, Boyd, do not die on me! I’ll never forgive you if you do this.”

The defibrillator was back at full charge.

“Clear!”

She hit the button, and again Boyd arched up and sagged back.

This time, Hayden did the compressions herself, as well as the rescue breaths. At the two-minute mark, she pulled back and let the nurse check him again. She looked up at Hayden and smiled. “He’s back.”

“Oh, thank God.” Hayden dumped the defibrillator controller and leaned over him. He was breathing but still unconscious. She stripped off her hospital coat, rolled it up, and slid it under his neck.

In the distance, she heard sirens.

Ray Morgan was the first on the scene, and Hayden gave him the
Reader’s Digest
version. But when the paramedics arrived, she turned her attention to them. She recognized them from the ER—Doug Trammel and Susan Barclay—and they recognized her.

“What do we have here, Dr. Walsh? Looks like two victims.”

“This one actually arrested.” She gestured to Boyd. “There was a portable defibrillator on site, and I used it to get him back.”

The female paramedic had already taken his pulse and was strapping a blood pressure cuff on him.

“He almost certainly has hereditary long QT syndrome. It’s been silent his whole life, but over the past weeks, he’s been given a proarrhythmic drug. I’m guessing it’s an antidepressant, but they need to screen for anything remotely proarrhythmic—antihistamines, decongestants, antibiotics, everything. He’s going to need beta-blockers, sodium channel blockers, and a quick ride to the ER.”

“Perfect,” Doug said. “We’ve got this.” He glanced over to where Dr. Stratton still lay on the floor under the close eye of Senator Stratton’s nurse and Detective Morgan. “There’s another bus on the way for the second vic, but maybe I should take a look.”

“That’s Dr. Sylvia Stratton,” Hayden said. “And she’s no victim. She’s the one who tried to kill this guy, Boyd McBride, after which she apparently was going to kill me.”

“No way!”

The nurse, who’d been following all this, spoke. “I’m a registered nurse and Dr. Stratton is my employer. Her vitals are fine. I can keep an eye on her until the other crew comes.”

“Well, all righty then,” Doug said. “We’ll just focus on Mr. McBride.”

“Good plan.”

As it happened, the second paramedic team arrived just as they were moving Boyd out.

“Can I go now?” Hayden asked Detective Morgan. “They’re taking Boyd.”

He grimaced. “I’m going to need you for a bit. Is there anything you can do for McBride if you go?”

She took a deep breath. He was right. “No.”

“Then I’ll ask you to hang in here to answer a few questions while we get this mess dealt with.” He gestured to Dr. Stratton, who was now receiving the full attention of the paramedics.

She nodded.

Within the next few minutes, Sylvia regained consciousness. Of course, she immediately tried to get up, and the paramedics had to restrain her. After they’d checked her out and determined she needed to be evaluated at the hospital and probably kept for observation, Ray Morgan stepped in to announce he was placing Dr. Stratton under arrest for attempted murder. Hayden watched with satisfaction as a uniformed cop, at the detective’s direction, quickly handcuffed her to the gurney.

Sylvia glared at the constable, then turned her attention back to Ray Morgan. “Did you say
attempted
murder?” Sylvia craned her neck, clearly looking for Boyd’s dead body. “I was quite sure I’d actually succeeded.”

“You did, ma’am,” Morgan said cheerfully. “But Dr. Walsh here resuscitated him.”

Then he proceeded to read Sylvia her rights. In typical arrogant fashion, she declared the whole thing both unnecessary and tiresome. Understandably, the detective persisted.

As they raised the gurney and prepared to wheel her out, Sylvia’s mask of composure finally slipped. “The Senator!” She looked around, locating the nurse. “Miss Shepherd, you’ll stay with my husband until you’re relieved?”

“I will, ma’am.”

Sylvia fixed her eyes on the detective. “You must call my son immediately. Nurse Shepherd has the number. He’ll come and take over his father’s care until other arrangements can be made.”

“You can call him yourself, Dr. Stratton. I’m sure we can afford you that opportunity, perhaps at the hospital.”

Her mask was back in place now. “I’d rather not speak with Jordan right now. He won’t be sympathetic. But he will step in to see to his father.”

“So be it.” The detective tapped the gurney and addressed the paramedic. “This officer is going to accompany you and take custody of Dr. Stratton on arrival.”

A moment later, the room was emptied enough for the CSIs to come in. Morgan paused to get the phone number for Sylvia’s son from the RN and called him. He wasn’t immediately available, so he left an urgent message. Then he took Hayden’s unresisting arm and drew her toward the kitchen.

“Where’s Mrs. Garner?” she asked. At Ray’s lifted eyebrow, she clarified, “The housekeeper.”

“She’s being questioned by one of my colleagues.” He gestured for Hayden to sit at the kitchen table. “I’ll make this as quick as possible. I know you want to join Boyd.”

He was true to his word. It took perhaps half an hour for Hayden to relate the conversation she’d had with Boyd, his epiphany that it had to have been Sylvia. Then her headlong rush from the hospital when she realized what Boyd was likely too upset to think of—that Sylvia had poisoned him too.

Morgan laughed when she recounted finding the service entrance door ajar, per tactical protocol, but they both sobered when she pointed out that fact probably made the difference between her getting there in time to help Boyd or not. No delay while she waited for Mrs. Garner to answer the door and while she tried to explain why she needed to be directed to wherever Sylvia was.

And she related the tail end of the conversation between Boyd and Sylvia that she’d overheard. By the time she described the sound of Boyd’s last-ditch lunge at Sylvia even as he must have been losing consciousness, and his body hitting the floor, she was sobbing. Usually, it helped her keep emotion at bay to think about the physical processes that were going on. Not this time. She imagined Boyd’s heart going into v-fib, ventricles quivering uselessly, unable to pump blood to his brain. Then within seconds—unconsciousness. Within minutes, death. She couldn’t hold it together anymore.

Detective Morgan let her cry a moment. Then he handed her a crisp, clean handkerchief, which she used to dry her tears. Also useful in helping her conquer the tears? She’d reached the part in her tale where she clubbed Sylvia over the head with the brass bookend.

“You clocked her pretty good, huh?”

She laughed, wiping away the last of her tears. “They teach you how hard to press a scalpel to get through various types of tissue, but they don’t tell you how hard to hit someone to knock them out. The way she went down, I thought I might have killed her, but I didn’t have room to think about anything but Boyd. So I kicked the handgun farther under the table, then started CPR. But then I realized they might have a defibrillator upstairs for the Senator. I think I about scared that nurse to death when I tore in there, demanding the defibrillator.”

“She helped you with Boyd?”

“Thank God, yes. She did CPR while I got the defibrillator ready. And she kept going with the compressions between shocks.”

A uniformed cop approached to interrupt them. “Thought you might like to know that Detective McBride is conscious and very much himself.”

“Oh, thank you! That’s such good—”
Oh, shit.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“I need to call the ER. I kind of ran out on them after my conversation with Boyd. I tried to call him to alert him to what I figured Sylvia had done, but his line was tied up, so I left and raced down here.”

“He was likely trying to reach me,” Detective Morgan said, “but I was on the line with the hospital establishing that Josh McBride’s blood work was definitely faked.”

Hayden pulled out her phone. “I should call Marta and make sure they found someone to cover for me. As it was, I was covering for someone else.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “In fact, you can take off now. I’ll need to sit down with you again, maybe a couple of times. I have a hunch this is very complicated and far-reaching. I just can’t figure out why people needed to die, just to cover up a shady adoption.”