Diagnosis Death (25 page)

She thought of her midnight caller, the mysterious Karri. When she'd first seen the name on Will's note, Elena couldn't place Karri Lawson, but soon the picture came clear. Karri, the attractive brunette nurse who'd cared for Mark during his terminal stay in the ICU. Karri, who was so attentive. Karri, who always seemed to be around Mark. Could they have been having an affair before Mark was stricken? Was Karri the reason for Mark's note? Was it jealousy that drove Karri to torment Elena with the cards and midnight calls? But did it go even further? Had Karri somehow managed to arrange for Charlie Lambert to die under circumstances that would cast suspicion on Elena?

What about Mark's sister, Natalie? Elena had no idea the woman even existed until the name appeared in Lillian's obituary. Had Natalie come out of the shadows to carry on the vendetta against Elena that her mother had started? Could she have had a hand in Lambert's death? Was it possible that she was in Dainger even now? Perhaps under an assumed name?

A loud honk from behind her brought Elena's attention back to the road. A glance at her speedometer told her she'd slowed to forty miles an hour. Ahead of her a solid double line divided the highway as far as she could see, while behind her was a string of cars almost a half mile long. She waved an apology and pulled onto the shoulder. She sat there, her emergency flashers going, while car after car passed. As the slipstream from each passing car rocked her little Ford, Elena fought back the tears.

The last car passed, but she didn't pull out. Instead, she did something she hadn't done in months. She'd read somewhere that the two most fervent prayers anyone could utter were "Please, please, please" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Before Elena turned the wheel and pulled back onto the road, her lips formed the words: "Please. Please. Please."

Every step from the parking garage to the elevator to Josh Samuels's office was like moving through a field of tar. To dredge up the events of five months ago was more than Elena could contemplate. Yet she trudged on.

Once she stopped in her tracks, frozen, until words began playing in her head like an endless loop: "Investigate my life, O God . . . See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong." Surely God already knew whether she'd done anything wrong. Now it was time for it all to be brought into the light. It would either help . . . or hurt. But it was time.

The waiting room was small, neat, and empty of patients. Elena took a seat in the farthest corner and picked up a magazine, hiding behind it as though it could shield her from unseen eyes.

"Elena?"

She hadn't heard the inner door open. Now Josh Samuels filled it, a look of genuine welcome on his face. Knowing gray eyes stared out from a craggy face with a distinct five o'clock shadow. Ridges marked his shaved head like a relief map. Samuels wore a starched white dress shirt, open at the collar, the cuffs laid back two neat turns. Creased Dockers and white Reeboks completed his outfit. Not exactly what she expected a psychologist to wear. But, according to Cathy, Samuels wasn't a typical psychologist.

She followed him into an office that was just as small and cozy as the waiting room. A desk sat butted against the far wall, facing a landscape Elena thought was by Monet.

Samuels led Elena to the corner of the room where a group of three armchairs formed a semicircle around a coffee table. He motioned her to take one of the chairs. A number of certificates and plaques hung on the wall nearby, and she tried to sneak a look as she was seated.

"Perfectly normal to be curious about the credentials of someone to whom you're about to pour out your secrets," Samuels said. "Let me save you the trouble of straining your eyes." He pointed to two certificates in the center of the grouping. "Undergraduate work at USC. Graduate degree from Stanford. Stayed on the faculty for a couple of years. Married a Texas girl and moved here." He crossed his legs, revealing white crew socks. "Now, how can I help you?"

Once Elena started, the words tumbled out one after the other with hardly a pause for breath. Samuels didn't move, didn't ask a question, didn't take a note. He spoke only when it was obvious she had finished.

"You want me to see if I can regress you to those times in the ICU when your husband and Mr. Pulliam died. Is that right?"

It seemed to Elena that she had no more words, might never speak again. She nodded.

"You realize that I have no legal privilege. If I find that you committed a crime, I have to report it."

"Both Mark and Chester Pulliam were essentially . . ." She swallowed hard and forced out the hated word. "They were brain-dead. I'd already given permission to withdraw Mark's life support. Mrs. Pulliam was reaching the same conclusion. My attorney tells me that the worst thing I could be guilty of was going outside ethical boundaries. If something else comes up, and you think there's a crime involved, I'd ask that you discuss it with an attorney before proceeding."

Samuels was silent for several minutes, his gaze fixed on the painting across the room. Finally, he nodded. "Fair enough. I'll hypnotize you, and we'll see where it takes us."

Elena looked around. "Do you want me to lie down on a couch or something?"

A ghost of a grin flitted across Samuels's face. "You're fine right where you are. Are you comfortable?"

Elena nodded.

"There's a lot of misinformation about hypnosis. Some psychiatrists use a drug like amytal to induce a hypnotic state. I'm not an MD, so that's not an option. However, I've found that it's easy to hypnotize a cooperative subject. If we had time, I could teach you self-hypnosis. I've helped people lose weight and stop smoking that way."

"I just want you to get that information. Please."

"I'll do my best. Now lean back. Close your eyes. Concentrate on the sound of my voice."

Elena recalled having her tonsils removed in childhood. As she came out of the anesthetic, she heard the voice of her mother as though it were issuing from a tunnel, echoing and hollow but still recognizable. She remembered the pleasant feeling as though she were emerging from a deep and restful sleep into a day full of promise. Of course, then the pleasant feeling gave way to a terrible burning in her throat and things went downhill from there.

This time she was experiencing the pleasure without the pain. The voice that echoed through the tunnel of her mind wasn't that of her mother. Nevertheless, it was associated with a feeling of comfort, of security. "Elena, wake up. You're coming awake now. Can you open your eyes?"

She did, and saw Josh Samuels sitting in his chair opposite her. "Did . . . did you get what we wanted?"

"Yes. I took you back to the day of Mark's death. Then we went forward to Mr. Pulliam's death. You were a very easy subject."

"Did . . . did I do anything bad?"

Samuels pointed to a small tape recorder on the table. "I took the liberty of recording the session. You can listen if you wish. If not, I'll let you erase the recording."

Elena was already shaking her head. "No, I can't relive those times. Will you just tell me what you learned?"

"Very well. Would you like some water? A soft drink?"

Her throat was parched as the Sahara, but she couldn't wait even another minute. "After we finish. Tell me, please."

"Let's start with Pulliam. You spoke with Mrs. Pulliam. When she left the room, you spent five minutes considering all the ways you could put an end to his life—your words were 'give him a death with dignity'—but you didn't act on those impulses."

Elena felt tears forming in her eyes. "Thank God."

"That's another interesting thing. Before you walked out of the room, you paused at his bedside, took his hand, and prayed. For him, and for you."

"Are you sure? That would be so out of character," Elena said. "I stopped praying when Mark died."

Samuels's hand moved toward the recorder. "Want to hear it?"

"No, I believe you." There it was. She hadn't removed Pulliam's life support while in a fugue state. She wasn't really a danger to terminally ill patients. Elena couldn't process all the implications yet, but she would eventually. "What about Mark?"

"Before we go there, you mentioned one more thing that might be important. As you left the ICU, you felt for your pager at your waist but didn't find it. You turned back toward Pulliam's room, thinking it might have slipped off in there. Just as you found it in the pocket of your white coat, you saw a nurse going into that room. Your words, as I recall, were 'I wonder what Karri is doing in there?' "

E
ven after the puzzle piece marked "Karri" dropped into place, Elena still had more questions than answers. But she could think about that later. Right now, all she felt was a sense of relief.

Samuels leaned toward her. "Are you all right?"

"I'll take that water now, if you don't mind."

The therapist disappeared through a side door and returned in a moment with two frosty bottles of water. Elena drained hers fast enough to make her temples hurt. Samuels uncapped his bottle and sipped, his eyes never leaving her.

"Do you want to go on?" he asked.

"Yes. Obviously, it's a relief to hear that I wasn't responsible for Chester Pulliam's death, but I need to know for sure about Mark."

He put his almost-full bottle on the table. "By your recollection, you sat with Mark as you had done for two weeks, holding his hand and talking to him, hoping he could hear you. You'd decided there was no hope of recovery for him, so you told him what was coming. You kissed him and said, 'May God give you peace. May God give both of us peace.' "

"Is that when I turned off the ventilator?"

"No, that's when you went to the family room to cry. That's where they found you to tell you Mark was dead."

Elena couldn't hold back the tears.

"Does this help?" Samuels asked.

"More than you can ever know," Elena said. "I didn't act in a fugue state. I'm not a threat to patients. The only thing I did wrong was write Mark's DNR order when I couldn't find Dr. Matney to tell him I'd finally reached that decision. Oh, yes. It helps."

Samuels remained silent, apparently waiting for her to say more. What more was there to say? She felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

He sipped once more from his water. "Don't you wonder who actually was responsible for these deaths? And why?"

And with those words, she felt her shoulders sag once more.

Summer days were long in Texas, and daylight savings time added yet another hour of sunlight. When Elena pulled out of the parking garage, the setting sun was low on the horizon, almost blinding her. She looked at the dashboard clock and did some fast calculation before she pulled into the parking lot of a steak house near Samuels's professional building. If she took her time over dinner, the sun wouldn't interfere with her drive home.

An hour later, Elena climbed into her car, started the engine, and cranked up the air conditioner to high. There was no reason to hurry home, and this was probably as good a time as any to try the call. She pulled her phone from her bag and checked the display: three-fourths charged.

The yellow slip was still in her purse. Elena's fingers hovered over the phone keys like a scared diver peering over the edge of the high board. She took a deep breath and punched in the number.

One ring. Two. Three. Four. Then a soft voice answered. "Hello?"

Even if Elena hadn't been aware of the number she'd dialed, she would have recognized that husky alto from the single word. She'd never thought much about the expression "her blood boiled," but it was as though she could feel it roiling through her veins at this moment.

Again, "Hello?"

"Karri, this is Elena." She rushed on, anxious to get the words out. "Don't hang up. I'll just keep calling. We have to talk."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I know you've called every week to torment me. I suspect the letters came from you too. And now I know that you took Chester Pulliam off life support. Tell me why."

There was the click of a lighter, the sound of a deep inhalation, a satisfied exhalation. Elena pictured Karri drawing on the cigarette, blowing smoke into the phone. Her next words dripped with venom. "You poor sap. You never knew, did you?"

"Knew that you and Mark were having an affair? No, I didn't know until after his death. That's when I found the note he'd written, the one telling me it was over between us."

Karri's cackle was right out of the story of Hansel and Gretel, the wicked witch enjoying the confusion of her victim. "Like I said, you never knew. I met Mark when he was working on some computer issues at the hospital. We seemed to click. For a while I thought something might come of it. Then I asked him to leave you."

Elena struggled to keep control of her voice. "What happened?"

"He told me he loved you. He planned to beg your forgiveness. It was over between us. That note you found was meant for me."

"So Mark—"

"Mark was unfaithful to you a couple of times. Big deal. When it came down to it, he wanted you, not me. Then he had that stroke and died." Another puff of the cigarette. Elena could almost smell the smoke. "When I couldn't take my anger out on him, I decided to vent it against you. That's the reason for the calls and the notes. I wanted you to worry that you'd ended his life without knowing it. I wanted to wreck your life, the way Mark wrecked mine when he got my hopes up and then dashed them."

"And Chester Pulliam?"

"Same thing. I thought it would really mess up your head if you were accused of that one as well. I even transferred from Zale to St. Paul to get the opportunity." Elena heard another puff.

Elena remembered the dark-haired nurse who ducked into a room in the ICU to avoid her. "How could you know I wasn't the one who took Mark off life support?"

"Because I did! I waited until you left. Then I sneaked into his room, shot him full of some morphine I'd been saving out of patient shots, and turned off his respirator. As much as he hurt me, I couldn't stand to see him go on the way he was. He was going to die anyway. And I figured I might as well use it to hurt you."

A car pulled up beside Elena. A couple got out, favored her with a curious glance, then walked side-by-side into the restaurant.

"One more question," Elena said. "How did you manage to get into the ICU here at Summers County General? How could you arrange the patient death here?"

Karri seemed genuinely puzzled by the question. "I don't know what you mean. I don't even know where Summers County is. All I know is you must not have changed your cell phone, because I used the number we had in the ICU at the hospital."

Karri was still talking when Elena broke the connection. She'd solved one mystery, but another one remained. Who killed Charlie Lambert? And why did they want to blame it on her?

The insistent tapping roused Elena. She raised her head from its resting place on the steering wheel of her car and turned to look at the couple she'd seen enter the restaurant earlier. The man tapped once more, and Elena lowered the window.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm all right. I've just had some disturbing news."

The woman leaned over her husband's shoulder. "Is there anything we can do? Are you okay to drive?"

"I'm fine. Thank you."

Elena watched them climb into their car and pull away. She'd have to stop using parking lots for her private pity parties. Having strangers stop to offer assistance was embarrassing.

It was almost dark now. Time to head back. She glanced at the reverse directions she'd printed, making sure she knew how to get out of Fort Worth and onto the road to Dainger. There it was again. Even though the experience had been emotionally draining, she'd felt safe in Josh Samuels's office. Now she was driving back into danger.

As soon as she cleared the Fort Worth city limits, she engaged the car's cruise control and tried to do the same with her mind. She determined that she wouldn't worry for the next half hour. After all, she should feel relieved. It was unlikely that Karri would call again. Elena would have to talk with someone, perhaps Will, to see how to convey this new information to Dr. Matney.

What did she have to substantiate what Karri told her? The recording Samuels had made during her regression therapy would back her up, but she could imagine a lawyer tearing it to shreds. Could she have recorded her conversation with Karri? Maybe, if she'd thought of it. But she hadn't. No, Karri had told her what she needed to know. That was more important than any legal confession.

As her car moved through the gathering darkness, Elena saw two bright pinpoints in her rearview mirror. How long had that car been back there? She was going the exact speed limit, and in her experience that was an invitation for every car on the road to pass her. But this one hung back. Either they were extremely law-abiding, or they were following her.

You're being paranoid again.
No, the person looking into her bedroom window hadn't been a figment of her imagination. And she was a woman driving alone at night. Reason enough to be a bit jumpy. She checked to make sure that her doors were locked. Her eyes scanned the gauges. Plenty of fuel, temperature fine, no red warning lights showing.

She added ten miles per hour to her speed. The lights in her rearview mirror maintained their position. She slowed, and so did the car behind her, trailing as though at the end of an invisible cable. Elena saw the lights of home on the horizon. She sped up, determined to lead her pursuer to a safe, well-lit place as quickly as possible.

She decided to head for RJ's. She took the appropriate exit and the car behind her did the same. Two short blocks brought her to the restaurant. She pulled into the parking lot, encouraged to see that it was almost full of cars, with people coming and going almost constantly.

She kept her eyes glued to her rearview mirror. In a moment, a car slowed as though about to turn in, then accelerated away. There was plenty of light in the parking lot, but that just made the street leading to it seem darker, and it was impossible for Elena to make out details of the car. No matter. At least she'd managed to scare away her stalker.

Elena restarted her car and had her hand on the gearshift when another car came down the same street she'd used. She recognized this one as soon as it entered the parking lot. She watched the black and white SUV rock to a stop in a no parking zone in front of the restaurant. Frank Perrin climbed out and gave her a casual wave.

Elena rolled down her window but kept the engine going.

Frank leaned against the driver's side door. "Aren't you even going to ask?"

"Ask what? Why you followed me all the way from Fort Worth?"

Frank showed a perfect poker face. "Actually, I didn't. I had a call to a fender-bender out near the Tarrant-Summers county line. I was about to head back when I thought I saw your car go by, with a black Chevy right behind it. It looked like he was following you, so I just made myself a caboose to your little train."

Elena had a momentary pang over her decision to seek a safe place. Why couldn't she have simply driven home, so Frank could identify the man following her? Then again, who was to say that Frank wasn't the real stalker, and the car she'd seen was one he'd let get between his and hers to avoid identification?

"Do you want me to follow you home?" Frank asked.

Elena did her best to sound calm and casual. "No, but I appreciate your looking out for me like that."

"All part of the service." He tipped his hat back and smiled. "Now that's two dates you owe me."

"Thanks for bringing lunch." Cathy spooned up the last bit of soup and chased it with Diet Sprite. "I hope you didn't mind coming here. Milton still wants me to take things easy."