Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Dana Mentink (novels to improve english txt) 📗

on training. I’d been short on sleep, living on coffee and fast food.” She heaved in a deep breath. “I saw a patient named Cordelia, who presented with abdominal pain. I didn’t do a thorough exam because I was already running an hour behind. I sent her home with a prescription for antacids. I didn’t do an ultrasound or blood work. Barely touched her in the physical exam.” Irene winced. “She died two days after the appointment from internal bleeding. Pauline was my nurse at the time.”

Laney shifted to keep pulling at the handle. Had she felt it give? “Oh, I see now, the Pauline connection.”

“The police came calling to question me. I knew I hadn’t completed a thorough exam, but I changed the file to say that I’d done a full workup and recommended immediate surgery, but Cordelia declined. The police were satisfied and so was the medical board.” She paused. “Pauline knew, though. She realized I’d altered the file. She quit, but not before she saved copies of the file and stole the supply of pills I’d been keeping as an insurance policy. I packed up and fled as soon as the police were done with me. Came to this nowhere to start again.”

The handle was definitely loosening. Laney kept up the pressure, even though the zip tie was cutting into her wrist. “But Pauline found you here, didn’t she?”

“Yes, the filthy blackmailer. She had taken screenshots of my initial report and the changed version. The screens were date stamped, proving I’d altered them after the fact. She kept the pills too. I suppose it was too hard for her to sell them herself without getting caught. She tracked me down here and threatened me. Brought the proof, but only one set. She had a second set and my pill stash in a safe place, she said. I didn’t have the money to pay her.”

“So you killed her?”

“I didn’t want to, but she gave me no choice. I needed my stash to fund my getaway, but I couldn’t find it, so I hoped no one else would either. I figured with Pauline dead, maybe I’d be okay here for a while.”

Incredulity warred with Laney’s disgust. The woman she’d trusted with her health and her baby’s. How could she have been so blind? “You let Beckett take the blame. No, you framed him by writing the note and putting Pauline’s sweater in his car. You sent him to jail, enabled Kenny to terrorize both of us. You never said a word.”

“I am sorry. I like Beckett and I like you. If I could have figured another way, I’d have taken it, but I couldn’t run again, not then. I have some money saved up now. And when Beckett brings me the pills, I’ll have plenty.”

Laney thought back over the last harrowing weeks. “The snake? Throwing rocks at me at the spring? I can’t believe you did those things.”

“I didn’t. I imagine that was Kenny, but it worked in my favor. Kenny really is a bad dude, you know.”

Laney felt like crying, but she gulped back her emotions as Irene continued.

“When you told me Rita was investigating Pauline’s death, possibly looking for some sort of proof she was murdered, I couldn’t believe it. I tried to scare her, with the fire. I guess I did, but she got me in the end anyway, hiding my package in your basement.”

The bolt that fastened the handle to the roof of the car began to shimmy. She pulled harder, trying to keep the effort out of her voice. “What happened with Rita? You killed her too, didn’t you?”

Irene shook her head. “There’s no more time to talk about that right now. We’re here.”

Laney stared out into the blackness. “Where?”

Irene pulled off a dirt track into a hollow surrounded by hills. “I love running, you know. Sometimes I run for most of the night while it’s cool. I find all kinds of things.”

She got out.

Laney tugged frantically, but the bolt refused to give. Tears crowded her eyes, her wrists stung, but she could not free herself.

Irene came around to Laney’s door and opened it, pulling a pair of clippers from her pocket. “I’m going to cut you loose.”

Laney’s heart beat faster.

Irene snipped the zip tie. Laney got out of the car.

“Come on,” Irene said, gesturing to the darkness.

“My ankles… I can’t walk.”

“Hop, then.”

Laney stared. How could this be the same woman who she’d believed was her friend? Confidante? “You took an oath,” she said. “To do no harm.”

Irene stopped. “Yes, I did, but in order to follow my oath, I have to continue practicing medicine, don’t I? It will be easier for me when I’ve got my pills. I can pay for a new identity and start over.”

“This is not what you vowed to do.”

Irene pulled a small gun from her pocket. “I don’t have time. I have to meet Beckett.”

Ice formed in Laney’s belly. “What are you going to do to him?”

“Nothing, if he gives me what I want. Then I’ll take off and call him to tell him where you are.”

Her tone was overly casual, a shade too bright. Laney realized it would be simpler for Irene if Laney and Beckett did not live to tell the police what they knew. Rita was dead and so was Pauline. Laney’s and Beckett’s murders might be pinned on Kenny, and Dr. Irene would cease to exist in favor of another identity. She swallowed a rising tide of terror as they came to an old ruin, a cement pier supporting a rusting eight-foot-tall pole. It was the remnants of some sort of mining machinery, common to Death Valley. Irene had made sure they were well away from the road, concealed by the rippling hills. No one would see them there. Laney was still alive just to make sure Beckett cooperated. And then…

Make a plan, she ordered herself. She figured her only way to get to Beckett was to wait until Irene left and take off