Grave Risk

The feeling of loss after a code wasn’t something he missed about his former life. He did miss other things, however. He’d loved the interaction with patients and their families and the chance to have a meaningful impact on a patient’s quality of life. Internal medicine had given him opportunities for that. Still, if he had it to do over again—which he might, someday—he would have gone into family practice.

A general practice didn’t pay nearly as well as internal medicine. With the diminishing returns from health insurance, the number of uninsured patients and the high cost of professional liability insurance, many of his colleagues complained that they would soon have to pay their patients for the privilege of treating them.

Cheyenne Gideon and Karah Lee Fletcher didn’t seem to have that attitude, however.

When everything was collected from the floor, Rex sank onto the stool beside Edith’s body. She looked almost alive. If he didn’t know better, he would expect to see her chest rising and falling. There was something about her…“I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to you again,” he murmured softly. “Go with God.”

Footsteps echoed from the hallway, and Cheyenne stepped through the open threshold, mascara smudged around her dark eyes.

“Rex, I’m sorry you were dragged into this, but thank you so much for your willingness to help.” There was a catch in her voice.

“Thank you for including me. It’s been a while since I last did a code.”

“Someone from the funeral home will be here soon.” She reached for an empty syringe and placed it in the receptacle. “You don’t have to wait.”

“I’d like to, if you don’t mind.”

With a nod, she sank into a chair, her dark eyes shimmering with more tears.

“You must have cared a great deal about her,” he said.

“Everyone did. Jill and Edith were especially close, and I hate to think what she’ll be going through in the next few days.”

“She’ll blame herself,” Rex said.

Cheyenne nodded, her eyes narrowing fractionally as she gazed at him. “Yes.” There was a hesitation in the word. It wasn’t quite a question, but he could almost hear her thoughts. Then her gaze returned to Edith.

“When I was practicing medicine,” he said, “I made it a habit to ensure that the deceased patient was never left alone before being collected by the hearse or taken to the hospital morgue.” It hadn’t always been possible, of course, but he’d tried.

She nodded. “You were in internal medicine? I guess that means you did intubations.”

“Quite a few.”

“When I was a med student, I heard horror stories about ER docs and internists who left their intubated patients alone after a failed code in a room, where the tube was moved by a careless staff member.”

“Which set the doctor up for a malpractice lawsuit when he couldn’t prove he had the tube in correctly,” Rex said. “I heard the same stories.”

“You didn’t do this intubation.” Cheyenne gestured to Edith. “Obviously, you’re not staying to protect your liability.”

He shook his head. “Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right to leave her lying here alone on the cold, hard floor. It’s always been a hang-up of mine.”

“A tender heart? I bet you got teased about that in med school.”

“Not so much in med school as when I was a resident.” He hadn’t minded the teasing. His little eccentricity had actually been the first thing that had drawn Jill to him. It had taken weeks to realize why she’d been so understanding about his quirks—because she had some pretty interesting quirks of her own.

Karah Lee joined them in the room and sank onto the recliner. “Sheena’s not handling this well.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Rex asked.

Karah Lee nodded. “She’s on the telephone with her mother now. You know Jill’s got to be in agony. I’m just glad Noelle went with her.”

“I need to talk to Bertie, myself,” Cheyenne said.

“You’ll get your chance,” Karah Lee said. “And don’t worry, Bertie can handle this. She’s a trouper.”

“Blaze and I were the ones who found her husband dead,” Cheyenne said. “Red was the sweetest old man, deaf as a flowerpot, as Bertie liked to say. After his death, Edith was always there for Bertie, even willing to risk her savings to go into business with her at the bed and breakfast.”

“She was a wise and kind lady,” Rex said.

Karah Lee’s eyes narrowed. “You knew her?”

He looked down and studied the elderly, waxen face. There seemed to be just a hint of pink still in her cheeks. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was wearing makeup, but anything on her skin would have been removed with all that green stuff.

“You did know Edith?” Cheyenne asked.

“I met her years ago. I take it this was not completely unexpected? Heart failure?”

Cheyenne hesitated, watching him with those dark eyes, obviously trying to decipher the implication of his having known Edith. “She’s been struggling with chronic heart failure for the past year.”

“Was she taking her medication faithfully?”

“Yes, and I thought we were keeping a close eye on her numbers, so this was a shock.”

“You can’t place the human body on a schedule,” he said. “When the heart gives out, it gives out. You know that.”

“Yes, but when we’re especially close to the patient, we do tend to take on more responsibility for the outcome,” Cheyenne said.

“You’ve been in Hideaway before?” Karah Lee asked Rex.

He resisted a smile at the redhead’s evident curiosity. “Yes, and I actually stayed at Edith’s house a few times. Edith was one of the most hospitable people I’ve ever known. She not only fed me and gave me a place to sleep when I visited, but she invited me to return, even after…” He caught himself and fell silent.

Karah Lee and Cheyenne waited.

“You might as well tell us,” Karah Lee said. “We’ll drag it out of you one way or another. What’s up between you and Jill?”

He had hoped to speak with Jill before sharing this information with anyone else. Especially considering the cool reception he had received from her this afternoon, he didn’t want her to feel as if he had betrayed her confidence.

However, he had never sworn to remain silent about their past together. She had done nothing to be ashamed of, though he had been ashamed of his words to her in the hospital cafeteria that one heartbreaking afternoon.

“Don’t even try to tell us you and Jill didn’t have something going on,” Karah Lee said. “I saw her reaction when she realized who you were.”

“We met over twenty years ago, when I was doing rotations in Springfield,” he said, still reluctant to explain. “Jill was doing her clinicals at St. John’s.”

When he was silent for a moment, Cheyenne prompted, “And?”

He was far too conscious of Edith’s still form. “Perhaps it isn’t totally respectful to be talking about this—”

“Spill it, Rex,” Karah Lee said. “Edith would totally approve.”

He glanced at the outspoken young doctor and grimaced. “Jill and I were once engaged to be married.”

Jill stood as if rooted into the grass at the side of the road. The heat of late summer blasted her face, and yet she felt cold. The graceful lines of her sister’s face blurred before her.

“Are you okay?” Noelle asked.

Jill blinked to clear her vision, feeling moisture in her lashes. “Your tone implied Edith might have died from something other than heart failure.”

“Yes, but—”

“Something other than natural causes.”

Noelle gave a quiet sigh, then nodded almost imperceptibly.

“But we were right there in the next room. She was fine.”

“I know.”

“And then I thought I heard her laughing. It probably wasn’t laughter, but…but she might have been clearing something from her throat, and then—”

“Jill, I can’t tell you any more than that right now, because I simply don’t know.”

“So if it wasn’t natural causes, then that means someone or something else caused her death.” Suddenly self-doubt attacked Jill. “Could I have made a mistake? Could I have been wrong when I thought she’d stopped breathing, and when I initiated CPR I actually caused her heart to—”

“Stop that.” Noelle seldom raised her voice at Jill, but the sudden intensity of those two words halted the painfully familiar sense of panic.

“Remember I told you that especially this time you aren’t to blame?”

“Then someone else is?” Jill asked.

“I’m not saying that, either. Don’t put words in my mouth. I just think there’s something else wrong here.” Noelle hesitated, her expression clouding. Jill wasn’t the only one in this family who had an overwhelming amount of self-doubt. “But with Edith’s heart, we knew it was probably just a matter of time.”

Jill felt another twist in her gut, in spite of Noelle’s reassurance. “I might have done something wrong.”

“No. You did everything right.”

“How can you know that for sure? You weren’t there the whole time.”

“Stop second-guessing yourself. You’re the best—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have started CPR.” Jill paced across the grass a couple of yards. “Maybe her heart was fine before I—”

“Jill!” This time Noelle did raise her voice, and she grabbed Jill by the arm. “Stop doubting yourself. That’s the OCD talking.”

“What if this time it isn’t the OCD?”

“Even that statement suggests that it is. You know better.”

“I’m handling everything appropriately.”

“No you aren’t! You don’t need to be going to Bertie in the state you’re in right now. You’ll upset her in your condition, and you’ll feel awful about it later.”

Jill looked across the street toward the general store. “What about Cecil? He’s going to be heartbroken. He and Edith have been such good friends for so many years. Someone needs to tell—”

“Cheyenne will call her husband. Dane can talk to Cecil.” Jill knew better than to try to stop the wild ideas that bounced around inside her head like poisoned arrows that confused and clouded her mind. I’ve killed my friend…. I’ve made some kind of mistake that I can’t remember…. I’m a worthless nurse…. I destroy everything I touch….

“You could be wrong this time, Noelle,” she murmured. The weight of responsibility, already heavy enough to crush her, increased yet again. “There’s something you aren’t telling me. I can see it in your eyes.”

Noelle released her then. “Have you stopped taking your medication?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“That is the subject!”

When they were younger—when Jill, barely past childhood herself, felt the responsibility for Noelle’s welfare resting solely on her own small shoulders—she had been much worse. Caught up in the conviction that something was horribly wrong at their home in Cedar Hollow, she had feared for Noelle’s life if other members of their family discovered Noelle’s gift, and had slapped her to keep her quiet about it.

Something had been wrong then. How could Jill be sure something wasn’t wrong now as well? She and Noelle were far too familiar with the specter of murder.

“Have you stopped taking your medication again?” Noelle repeated.

“I’m taking it, just not as much. I’m titrating down.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need as much. I can get a handle on this thing without chemicals flowing through my body all the time. You know how much I hate that stuff.”

“But you hate the OCD more,” Noelle said. “Look what it’s doing to you right now, and this is a horrible time to reduce the meds. You need to increase the dosage, not cut back on it.”

Voices reached them from the bed and breakfast, and Jill glanced in that direction, barely a block away, to see another familiar figure stepping out onto the broad front porch.

“Noelle?”

“What?”

“Please tell me I’m not hallucinating.”

Noelle followed her line of vision, then caught her breath in a tiny gasp. “Depends on what you think you see,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “If you think that’s Attila the Hun, you’re hallucinating. It’s just a distant descendant of his. He was in the spa earlier this morning.”

“What was Austin Barlow doing in your spa?”

“Paying a friendly visit.” The sarcasm didn’t abate. Noelle had never liked Austin.

“We need to suggest an autopsy for Edith,” Jill said, softly, so her voice wouldn’t carry to Austin.

“For what? You think anyone’s going to listen to us?”

“We can try.”

“As you said, Cheyenne is sure it was an MI that killed Edith,” Noelle said. “Myocardial infarction. Nobody’s going to listen to my hunch. Remember, Cheyenne’s the doctor. I’m not. So that’s exactly what they’ll call it—just a hunch.”

“They’ll listen to you before they’d listen to me,” Jill said. “Remember, I’ve been a little jumpy since last year. I’ve called the sheriff a couple of times about noises around the house.”

“Well, I’m the one who admitted to breaking and entering last year,” Noelle said.

Jill shook her head. “You were tracking a killer. The sheriff knows that.”

Noelle nudged Jill. Austin was glancing toward them.

“I’ll talk to the sheriff myself,” Jill said. “I’m telling you one thing now, though, sis. I’m going to run lab tests on that blood I drew from Edith.”

Noelle nodded. “That’s something we can take care of as soon as we’ve spoken with Bertie.”

Chapter Six

The massage room became so silent Rex could hear the quavering voice of the traumatized masseuse out in the lobby, apparently still talking to her mother on the telephone. Cheyenne and Karah Lee stared at him, waiting.

He didn’t want to say anything else.

“Jill never mentioned being engaged,” Cheyenne said.

“One doesn’t always like to talk about a broken relationship,” he said.

“I don’t know why not,” Karah Lee said. “We talk about everything else around here, especially among the office staff. Who broke it?”

Cheyenne cleared her throat. “Uh, careful. We could be invading private turf.”

Rex raised his eyebrows at them. You think?

Karah Lee spread her hands. “If we’re going to be working together for the next few weeks, we’d better make sure we’ll all get along.”

“There will be no trouble between Jill and me,” Rex assured them. How could he have forgotten that special character that had always been such a vital part of Hideaway—the…inquisitiveness?

“It sure didn’t look that way to me a while ago,” Karah Lee said. “Jill wouldn’t even talk to you.”

“She was upset about Edith. Both of us know how to behave in a professional manner.”

“Does this mean you’re not going to tell us what happened to your engagement?” Karah Lee asked, patently disappointed.

He glanced at Cheyenne to see if she would use her authority to curb this vein of inquisitiveness. But she appeared just as curious as Karah Lee.

Obviously, they had been well nourished in the soil of small-town know-thy-neighbor’s-business. “We parted under less than ideal circumstances,” he said.

Karah Lee leaned forward, as if settling in for a story.

Fawn followed Austin onto the porch, still intrigued by this man and his so-called mission. “So, did you suddenly get religion or something?”

He gave her another irritably amused glance over his broad-but-bony left shoulder. “How did you guess?”

She frowned at him. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. “Well, I mean, I guess I don’t know much, but I’ve never heard of someone going out of his way to return to his hometown and start making apologies to everybody.”

“A fella does if he’s smart. Especially if he wants to stay awhile.”

“So you are moving back here?” As she asked the question, she caught sight of Jill Cooper and Noelle Trask standing at the edge of the greenway that bordered the municipal boat dock. They were staring in this direction.

Fawn glanced at Austin, and found him staring back at the sisters.

“Uh-oh,” she said softly. “It must be time for another apology.”

He ignored her and stepped toward the two women.

Rex decided to give his colleagues what they wanted. In fact, if he knew for sure he could trust them, he might even be willing to enlist their assistance in paving the way for a better relationship with Jill—at least a working relationship—but that was taking it too far.

“We discovered quickly that we worked well together,” he said. “Jill wanted to be an intensive-care nurse. When we did shifts together, she seemed to read my mind.”

“She does that with me,” Cheyenne said. “She seems able to tune in to what I’m doing.”

Rex shrugged. “And all this time I was under the impression there was this special bond between the two of us.”

“So you got engaged?” Karah Lee asked, obviously impatient with the slow pace of the narrative.

“We were friends first. We enjoyed each other’s company, often shared a meal together in the cafeteria when our shifts coincided. We found many things in common, and the relationship grew.”

“That’s the way it works best,” Cheyenne said.

“Then we got engaged.”

“And then what?” Karah Lee asked.

“Life intruded. I discovered I wasn’t as patient with her as I had been when we were just friends.” He had become jealous and selfish, something that continued to shame him. “Jill was forced into the role of surrogate mother at far too young an age, and she had trouble balancing her time between me and her little sister.” And he’d been no help at all. Why had he been such a pig?

“No doubt about it,” Karah Lee said, “Noelle was a handful growing up. She still gets reminded of that.”

“I wasn’t mature enough to handle it amid the rigors of internship and early residency. I said some things to Jill that didn’t go over well. The engagement ended six months after it began.”

“Ouch!” Karah Lee exclaimed.

The front door opened, and Cheyenne rose. “That’s probably the hearse for Edith.”

Jill watched Austin walk down the path to the circle drive in front of the bed and breakfast. He paused beside a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee as if he might get in and drive away. But, of course, she wouldn’t be so lucky. Not today. She half expected to look up into the sky and see it splitting apart and Jesus calling His own home to be with Him. And she, of course, would be left behind.

That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen, of course. She’d walked the aisle years ago, given her heart to Jesus. But the way her life had worked out—and especially the way it seemed to be working today—she could probably expect to discover a glitch in that plan, as well.

Yes, she knew better, but OCD could make a person doubt her salvation as much as it made her doubt everything else in her life.

Austin came toward her, his cowboy boots crunching loudly on the gravel.

“You know,” Noelle said softly, “we could just leave right now. You don’t need this. Nobody needs this. Let’s just turn around and walk away, give him time to leave.”

“Austin’s harmless, Noelle.” Jill stepped toward him. She was no longer attracted to the man, of course. A lifetime had passed since they went together in high school. Apparently God had decided to try her in a test in which her whole past was coming back to haunt her in one day. She might as well deal with it.

“I don’t get it,” Noelle said, falling, obviously unwilling, into step beside her. “You blew off Rex Fairfield back at the spa, so why are you going out of your way to greet Austin Barlow?”

“Because I’m not a little kid. I’m ashamed of my behavior with Rex, and I’ll have to apologize as soon as I see him again.” If she saw him. “I was preoccupied with Edith. Do you have any clue why Rex and Austin would both show up in this town on this day when I’m already losing my mind?”

Noelle looked at her. “None. But I do know there is some kind of reason for it.”

“Yeah, right, God has a plan.”

“He always does. You just have to wait and see it from hindsight.”

“I don’t like to wait for hindsight.” She’d lived in this town for a lot of years, as had Austin. When he was mayor, she was school nurse. After Austin’s wife died, when Ramsay was a child, there had even been talk about a resurrection of that long-ago romance between Austin and Jill.

It hadn’t worked out.

In fact, the way she’d heard it through the Hideaway grapevine, Austin had developed a schoolboy crush on Cheyenne when she came to town. He apparently hadn’t taken it well when Dane Gideon made the more lasting impression on her. That change in circumstances had nearly cost Cheyenne her life when Austin’s son decided to act on his father’s displeasure.

High-school memories seemed so much more innocent than adult ones. So much more distant, they paled in comparison to the tragedies of more recent years—though there had been tragedies even in high school.

She recalled the tragedy that had been the catalyst that ended her relationship with Austin. Another classmate, Chet Palmer, had died, and some fingers had been pointed toward Austin and his buddies.

Now, she held her hands out to Austin as graciously as Edith would have done had she encountered him on the street.

“Why, Austin Barlow, what are you doing back in town? Everything okay with Ramsay?”

The gratified relief that etched his expression made her feel sorry for him.

“Hello, Jill.” His hands grasped hers with a warmth she hadn’t expected. “Ramsay is still in rehabilitation. How are you doing?”

She hesitated, staring up at him quizzically. How much did he know? How much could he know? News about the discovery of the murder of her father and grandparents eleven years ago had made the rounds last autumn and winter. He could have heard of them from just about anyone who was still speaking to him.

Amazingly, she found strength in the touch of his hands and the concern in his voice. He sounded sincere.

She wondered again about the odds of two former boyfriends converging on Hideaway the same day Edith died.

Astronomical. Ridiculous. Was it possible she had made a break with reality?

No. She had a neurosis, not a psychosis. She needed to trust Noelle’s faith that God was in control of this situation.

She mentally shook herself and gazed up into Austin’s eyes. Familiarity and comfort seemed to lie beneath the surface of that questing gaze. How she needed comfort right now.

“We’ve just had a horrible shock, Austin,” she said, surprised at herself for speaking about it. “Edith Potts just died. Noelle and I are on our way to tell Bertie.”

Her shock seemed to transfer to him. His hands tightened on hers. His eyes widened. “What happened?”

“Cheyenne thinks it was her heart,” she said, gently disengaging from his grip. Cheyenne was seldom wrong. But this time…

He released her immediately. “Cheyenne?”

She heard the sudden, lingering interest in that one spoken name. So, the rumors were true. Poor Austin must have fallen hard. “She tried everything to bring Edith back. Nothing worked.” Jill knew it was the truth. She felt badly about her behavior at the spa. “You knew she was the director of the clinic, didn’t you?”

“I’ve heard a few things, but I haven’t kept up with everyone now that Mom is no longer in town. Is Cheyenne sure about the cause of death?”

“I don’t know at this point.”

“So she will investigate further to make sure?”

Jill hesitated and frowned at him. “Austin, is there some reason you feel it should be—”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know you were good friends with Edith. Will you be okay?”

She nodded, thanked him, turned toward the bed and breakfast with Noelle at her side.

Amazing that she was able to behave so rationally—and politely—when her brain struggled to contain all the thoughts that tumbled through it—telling her she had killed Edith.

Noelle had been right, this was the wrong time to try to cut the meds. I’ll start back on the full dosage tonight.