“The Bremars’ are members of St. Luke’s Catholic Church, out on First Street.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know their priest’s name?”
Patrice raised her eyes and looked around discretely for over-eager ears. “I believe it’s Father Nicholas, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Thanks, Patrice. How are the other kids handling Annie’s death?”
She shook her head. “Hard to keep it quiet, with all the noise and people running around yesterday afternoon. Everyone really liked Annie. It’ll take a little time. The other kids will be going home in a few days, so that will help. All the other doctors are sort of hovering a little more today.”
“Understandable. Hopefully it will be the only tragedy we have to deal with for the trial.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear.”
She bustled back to business down the hallway and Jason headed toward the elevators, contemplating Patrice’s comment about Briet. If she wasn’t here on the floor, he had no clue where she’d gone.
Ten minutes later, coffee in hand, he sat in the lobby with his cell phone, briefing the good Father Nicholas. The man had been very understanding and appreciative of Jason’s desire to keep the parents informed and empowered. Fortunately, he also understood the business ramifications of Annie’s death and was willing to front-run the problem and call him back after he’d had a chance to speak with the Bremars. At least Jason could consider the issue circumvented.
As he finished the call, Jason watched Max head through the lobby with Sanyu and two other men. The first barely looking old enough to be out of college, carried a small satchel and appeared distinctively uncomfortable in the hospital. His nervous glance cut a wide swath over the other visitors. He tightened his jacket as if his clothes would fend off germs. The second man sported a tight crew cut, black suit, and sunglasses. Muscle or security? Either way, the entourage was a little much for an autopsy.
Max pressed the button for up on the elevator instead of down. Jason stood, relieved he had a few more minutes to hunt down Briet because he’d just figured out where her inquiring mind had taken her. Her butt would be in deep trouble if they found her where he suspected she’d gone.
The group at the elevator took too long to clear the lobby so Jason made a discrete pass into the stairwell and headed down. He wasn’t familiar with the morgue in this hospital. However, the basement seemed a logical call.
He was so busy focusing on Briet and her propensity to put herself in harm’s way that he didn’t pay attention to the two flights down or the hallway to the morgue entrance. Finding himself suddenly at the doors to the exam tables, he fought a wave of disorientation.
Glancing over his shoulder for confirmation no one else was coming, he pushed through the swinging doors into the cooler, climate-controlled room. Fortunately, few people worked in this section of the building. It didn’t stop him from keeping an ear cocked as he watched Briet extract a blood sample from Annie’s arm.
He heard the bing from the elevator at the same time Briet did. Her head jerked up and her eyes widened as she realized he’d been standing there. He peered through the shoulder high windows in the door to confirm the elevator had opened for someone in the medical supply department, also on this floor, not Max and crew.
He shook his head and moved toward her. “You’re damn lucky it was me. What are you thinking coming down here?”
She crossed her arms and held her stance. He almost laughed at the mutinous look on her face. Caught, syringe in hand, and she was still going to take the offensive.
“I didn’t get a chance to check her yesterday. I wasn’t sure you would authorize me access if I asked.”
He ignored the slight. “You need your own samples for what reason?”
She pursed her lips but answered him. “My sole purpose is to make sure none of the rest of my patients end up down here. I only trust my results.”
He didn’t blame her, but this was risky. Her presence in the morgue could be misconstrued as meddlesome, or worse, given she was Annie’s doctor. Tampering with the body could lead to speculation of her care and treatment. He knew neither were valid conjectures, yet he would rather she didn’t put herself in the spotlight.
“So, are you finished? The Welson team is here to do the autopsy.”
Her face paled, a ghost of last night’s grief passed over her features, and he lost his grip on stern and forceful.
“I found one thing that’s odd,” she said with less bravado than before.
Okay, he’d placate her if it got her moving.
She brushed back the sheet over Annie’s feet and pointed to small black marks on Annie’s ankles. “What would you make of this?”
Jason leaned down and moved a light closer to the marks. One mark was above the inside ankle and two on the outside, all on the same foot, each small black marks with light, fern-like patterns. No puncture wounds, at least none visible, and no apparent additional bruising around the area. “Any other marks on the body?”
“I haven’t looked everywhere. Are you thinking of something specific?”
He heard the elevator ding and switched off the light. Shoving the sheet back over Annie’s body, he grabbed Briet’s wrist and propelled her before him toward the far door. The frown on her face cleared as she heard the voices in the corridor.
Jason already had her through the side door and into the small office before the new arrivals entered the morgue.
He turned, holding her body behind him and locked the door just as someone approached from the other side. The knob rattled several times, then whoever had tried backed away.
Briet’s mouth opened to speak to him. He pressed his fingers to her lips and motioned her toward the opposite door, reaching that in time to lock it as well. The knob rattled, and again after several tries the person left.
Muscle guy, Jason thought. He glanced around at the small desk; the walls were filled with steel shelving and supplies, but no phone or file cabinets. Not an office, so they weren’t looking for a person. Just checking for surveillance. What could possibly require such security measures for an autopsy?
Briet’s lips moved beneath his fingers. He leaned in close to her ear to whisper. “We give them ten minutes to get started and then we head through this doorway.” He nodded to the last door he’d locked. “There’s a stairway at this end, somewhere. We’ll head upstairs that way.”
She nodded and reached for his wrist, checked for the time, and then crossed her arms.
He was still close enough to feel her hair on his cheek. “I don’t think you should go home tonight.” He said nothing more, not sure where he’d been going with this comment because he hadn’t intended an invitation. Lack of evidence aside, Annie’s death and the break-in at Briet’s apartment seemed a little too close in time for comfort.
He started to move away when she held on to him and whispered back. “I have plans.”
He raised a brow and tilted his head in question. Not what he had intended. At all.
She rolled her eyes and whispered again. “I’m going with my brother. He’s picking me up, wants me to stay at home with him for a few days.”
Jason considered for a moment, then gave her a nod. Ansgar might not be his favorite person, but he would keep his sister away from the hospital and her isolated apartment, ensuring her safety. The man acted like her personal Rottweiler, and she needed a good guard dog to watch over her.
They waited, side by side, and listened to the murmur of voices from the next room. He could differentiate the tone of Max’s voice and the clipped intonation of Sanyu’s. The man doing the autopsy was too soft spoken to make out more than extended pockets of silence.
Briet pointed to the watch and raised her eyebrows in question—almost eight minutes had passed. He held up two fingers. They heard someone walk by the door they’d planned to use. The footsteps moved away down the hall and Briet turned back to him again, leaning in to speak.
He couldn’t resist the opening. Framing her head in his hands, he pressed close for a deep, long kiss, coaxing her lips with his tongue until she moved closer and returned his touch. Pulling back, he looked pointedly at his watch and smiled.
It was the best two minutes of his day. If his doctor planned to leave with her brother, it would be the last two minutes of enjoyment he had for several days.
CHAPTER 20
Jason shook his head at the champagne waiter and glanced around the two-tiered ballroom. The lavish bar, extravagant menu and attentive staff touted Hauer Gault’s effectiveness in rolling out the money and goodwill when it suited his interests. The guest list numbered one hundred and fifty of Boston’s elite and influential. Each offered up five thousand dollars a plate for the opportunity to be photographed, interviewed, and considered in the running to have a hospital wing or department named after them. The doctors on the test trial team attended gratis, but they were the entertainment, the sideshow of work well done and success achieved.
Hauer’s intense conversation with Max on the balcony level of the hotel’s ballroom might be private, but his hand gestures and Max’s frown indicated Jason would have to head over there and smooth over expectations.
According to Max, the table assignments for the three donors for the next Welson project were on the opposite end of the room. He would need to go massage their egos, as well.
He released a long breath and contemplated how much he was truly beginning to dislike this job. Not only did his little doctor torment his waking and sleeping hours, now she’d soured him on the job that was his bread and butter.
No. Not fair. He’d soured on the job all on his own. She had added a little spark to his life and gently started breaking down the walls he'd taken years to carefully build. Given her influence on him, it wasn’t surprising he’d suffered terrible withdrawal over the last four days without her.
He’d kept busy. Some parts of his job still held reward. He met with Marco Sanchez’s father downtown at a store now selling Manuel Sanchez’s work on consignment. The man also had several offers for handcrafted work based on the human-interest video clip Jason released to the local news station. Enough offers to keep Manny busy and employed for the next year.
Jason had also spent more time than he cared to remember with the manager of Briet’s apartment building, scrutinizing the blank security tapes and pushing for answers on why no one reviewed the tapes on a consistent basis. In reward for his diligence, his car had been keyed down the side, his tires punctured and parts of the engine removed. The abused hunk of metal was serving a three-week sentence at a pricey repair shop.
Swirling around in the back of his mind were potential motives for Annie’s death. None made sense. None he could link to Briet’s blood samples. The autopsy Welson had commissioned indicated heart failure. The actual report hadn’t been released, even for his viewing. It hadn’t stopped him from questioning his lab contacts at Welson, who’d told him the autopsy results were processed outside of their facility. On loan from a sister company, the professional responsible had left just as inconspicuously as he’d arrived.
But eight-year-olds having heart attacks didn’t fly and the marks on her ankle bothered him. Without proof, all he had left was unease and a gut suspicion. Viable circumstances might just
explain Annie’s death and the strange blood samples, though he had yet to find any. He refused to add Dr. Arnault’s death and Briet’s break-in into the viable category. Nothing would justify the murder of a healthy woman and violent intent to harm his doctor.
Thoughts coming full-on, he gazed over the patrons in tuxedos and formal gowns, searching for blonde hair.
Jason had seen Briet on the pediatric floor throughout the week, if only a quick glance here and there. He kept tabs on her, as Ansgar had accused. Yet without a touch or a breath of her, he felt like an addict, strung tight and desperate for a fix. Each day proved harder, not easier. A problem he planned to remedy. He tapped his pants pocket absently, canvassing the entry doorways, and froze.
Ah.
Just inside the double doors, the object of his lust settled her creamy bare shoulders as if preparing for battle, riveting her attention to the balcony and her target, his CEO. For just a second he let himself drink in the picture of her in the sleeveless, floor length, Mediterranean blue silk dress. No lines broke the contours of the dress. It was all Briet. Silk hugged every curve, clung to every inch of skin from her rounded breasts, to the slit showing her delicate knee, ending where her feet sloped into silver high-heeled pumps.
Stunning. A man would have to be an idiot to walk away from that. He would like to think even he wasn’t so stupid. He grabbed a champagne glass, taking a swallow to force moisture back into his mouth and rational thought into his brain.
With a deep breath, he left the glass on a table and moved to head her off. Unfortunately, the feisty doctor was too fast on those silver heels.
She was already pulling back her hand from introduction with Max and Hauer Gault when Jason approached her from behind.
“I don’t understand why I can’t at least speak with the medical examiner on the case?”
“Dr Hyden, I can understand your distress at the death of your patient. Even your concern on how it might reflect on your care. But I hardly think this is the appropriate venue to pursue this concern.”
“I’ve tried calling your office.” She looked pointedly at Gault. “And was told no one was available to discuss my concerns.”
“Dr. Hyden, I’d be happy to meet with you in the morning—” Max didn’t get any further.
“I don’t require a meeting with you, Mr. Harris. I would like to speak directly with the medical examiner about the inconsistencies in Annie Bremar’s case.”
Oh, shit.
Jason pushed in front of Briet. “I suspect what Dr. Hyden is getting at is the desire for the team to fully review the findings in order to eliminate concerns related to the other patients.”
She scowled at him and turned back to Gault. “I can speak for myself. And no, I’m not concerned about a poor reflection on my practice. My sole interest, and only purpose, is the well-being of my patients. I want to know why Annie’s body was cremated, against the explicit wishes of her parents. I want to know why the autopsy report would indicate a heart attack, given her heart was perfectly healthy.”