The Alpha Men's Secret Club 4: Intrigue: A Shockingly Hot BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance (5 page)

12

It was Kate’s first time at Bellevue. As the white walls of the handsome
brownstone building drew up, she had to remind herself that this was a hospital for the criminally insane, no matter how pretty the surrounding trees were and how delicate the flowers fluttering in the sprightly breeze.

So Rust worked here before with his father. What horrors had he seen within these walls?
What horrors had he subjected himself to now?

“Why did he check in as a patient?” Kate asked Hector, who was driving them.

He seemed as distressed as she was. “I don’t know, Ms. Penney.”

“It’s got nothing to do with the fact he’s depressed, does it?” Michaela demanded.
“I mean . . . he dumped Kate here, and that has to be the stupidest move anyone can make. Maybe depression is a symptom of stupidity.”

Kate was very pale. “No. He checked himself in because of all this . .
. all that has been happening to him. He thinks he’s guilty of murdering Teddy Mitchell.”

She couldn’t tell Michaela about the shifters, of course. But she knew how Rust’s mind worked now. It all tied up.

Hector parked the car in front of the building.

“You can’t just go in to see any patient you like, Ms. Penney,” he warned her. “They are very particular about their visitors.”

“I know what I’m going to say,” Kate said, breezing out.

Michaela followed.

They went to the front doors, which were closed. What did one do in a place like this? Ring the doorbell? There was indeed a doorbell by the large doors, and Kate pressed it.

A bell sounded in the echoes of the hall within.
Kate heard footsteps as someone came to the door.

A man in hospital whites opened appeared.

“Yes?” he said.

“You have a new patient, Rust O’Brien. I would like to see him,” Kate said boldly. “I am his girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry, Ms . . . ?”

“Penney.”

“Ms. Penney. But only registered relatives are allowed to visit the patients.”

Kate peered into the interior beyond the male nurse. Unlike other hospitals, this one did not have a reception.
Instead, a great hall branched out into several corridors. She could glimpse other attendants walking around.

She said, “I want to see Connor O’Brien then. It’s important. I have facts pertinent to the
Teddy Mitchell
murder
case.”

Michaela added, “You told him, girl.”

The nurse hesitated. There was not a single person in New York who hadn’t heard about the murder by now.

“Wait here,” he said, “I’ll get Dr. Connor O’Brien.”

*

When Connor appeared, Kate thought his expression seemed a little worried. Or was it her imagination?

“Kate,” he said warmly, holding out his hand to shake hers. “Good to see you again.” He glanced at Michaela. “What are you doing here? You mentioned you had news for me about the murder?”

OK, so that was a ruse.

“Hello, Dr. O’Brien. This is my best friend, Michaela, come to New York.”

“Hello.” Exchanges and pleasantries all round.

Michaela held Connor’s hand for a tad longer than normal. The gleam in her eyes was appreciative. “Might I say you’re one fine-looking man, Mr. O’Brien?”

“Michaela!” Kate hissed, jabbing her best friend.

“Oh, but he is. Every inch of him.”

Connor smiled. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say so.” He looked at Kate. “Why have you come?”

“Please, Dr. O’Brien . . . is Rust all right?”

He glanced at her, and then at Michaela, as if to say ‘How much does she know about us?’

Kate gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“What have you heard about Rust?” Connor said evenly.

“Only that he’s checked himself in as a patient here.”

“Who did you hear it from?”

The last thing Kate wanted to do was to get the ultra-kind Hector into trouble. “Please, Dr. O’Brien, it doesn’t matter at this stage. Is Rust all right?”

He favored her with a long stare.
He said pointedly, “Didn’t Rust break up with you?”

“If you love someone as much as I love Rust, Dr. O’Brien,
the last thing you’d do is to walk away from him when he’s in trouble.” For the second time that day, Kate felt her eyes well up with tears. She must be recovering. “Please . . . I know he doesn’t want to see me, but I haven’t given up on him. I deeply care about what happens to him. I always will. The last thing I’d do is turn my back on him when he’s in trouble.”

Something inside her had to be so broken that
her heartfelt desperation came through on her face and her voice, because Connor paused to study her. His features softened.

“I’ll take you to see him,” he said. “But only you, not your friend. I’m sure you’d understand.”

Oh, yes. Kate did. With her stomach sinking, she wondered what had happened to Rust.

“You go ahead, girl,” Michaela said quickly. “I’ll be fine out here.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll keep company with that
cute male nurse over there.” Michaela winked and made a beeline for his direction.

“You’ve got a great friend there,” Connor observed.
“Great friends are a rarity. Make sure you keep them close. Now come with me. Perhaps you can be of help.”

*

Kate followed Connor down the corridors of Bellevue. They passed nurses and attendants and doctors and other staff, all who paid her no heed. From somewhere in the bowels of the hospital, she thought she could hear screams.

“Where are the patients being kept?” she asked.

“In their cells.”

“Do they all have individual cells?”

“Most of them.”

“I
s Rust being kept in a cell?”

For answer, Connor’s features grew grave
.

“He is a patient for another reason,” he said, pushing past a door which said ‘PRIVATE’.
“I think you know that reason.”

Kate stepped into the hallway.

Here, the corridor branched off into rooms, whose doors were all shut. This seemed more like a hospital wing than what she thought an asylum should be – with cells of listless, wandering patients who would look at you out of vacant, dead eyes.

Connor led her to a door at the end.
Kate’s chest was filled with dread. What would she see behind this?

“Go ahead. Open it,” Connor said.

Kate grasped the knob. She noticed the chain and padlock outside the door. With her pulse fluttering at her throat, she opened the door.

When she saw what was behind it,
her heart stopped.

13

Lance
held up the analysis of the pubic hair and looked directly at Geraldine.

“Is this
his?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do we have enough evidence to get a warrant for his arrest?”

“The evidence may be circumstantial,” Lance said.

“Pubic hair planted at the scene of the crime of an animal attack,” she said. “It may be a signature.”

“He’s not a serial killer.”

“Not yet.”

Lance caressed his jaw. He was conflicted about the case. It was strange. Beyond strange. A seemingly animal attack by a yet-to-be-found large feline.
A pubic hair scattering in the wound of the deceased.

“Has the claw analysis come back?” he asked Geraldine.

“Let me check.” She turned to her computer. “Yes, it has. The gouge marks are consistent with a large feline animal.”

“What are the felines that size?”

“Lion, tiger, cougar, jaguar, leopard, cheetah, puma. The animal is large. More probably lion or tiger.”

Lance said, “We searched
Aaron Mitchell’s estate. There’s no wild animal sanctuary. We combed the woods. No signs of any felines there.”

“Someone could have brought the feline from somewhere else.”

“There’s something we’re missing here. Something . . . unusual.” Lance could sense himself getting close . . . and yet not close enough to see the truth.”

“There are no missing animals from the zoo
s or the circuses. I checked. Meanwhile, do we arrest Rust O’Brien?” Geraldine raised her head.

“He has no alibi. His DNA was found on the scene of the crime. He had a motive. Sort of.” Lance grimaced because he was not really sure. “Let’s get a warrant.”

14

Kate walked into the room, which hosted a basic hospital bed. Rust was lying on it, and he looked dazed and confused. He was wearing a hospital gown and a sheet was draped over his body. His forearm still wore an IV line which was unattached to a drip.

Moira O’Brien
was at his bedside. His hand was clasped between hers. She looked up.

“Kate,”
she acknowledged.

“What happened to him?”
Kate said softly.

Rust’s parents exchanged glances with each other. They were probably wondering how much to tell her.

Moira said in a gentle tone, “Rust had an ECT, Kate. I’m sure you know what that is.”

As a psychology student, Kate certainly did. She was stunned.

“But he wasn’t depressed,” she said.

Was he?

“I’m sure he told you why he had to leave you,” Moira said. “Here in Bellevue, Connor has experimented on some forms of
resistant
bestial behavior in our kind. ECT works . . . sometimes. It reconfigures the brain’s cathecolamines and dampens the over-enthusiasm. Rust thought it best to undergo such a procedure to see if he may be saved.”

“And is he?” Kate could not take her eyes off Rust. “Is he saved?”

Rust’s eyes were cloudy, out of focus. His other hand – the one not clasped by his mother – was restlessly writhing.

Moira turned back to her son.

“We don’t know . . . yet,” she said. “He doesn’t know who I am.”

Kate’s heartstrings twinged.

Connor moved closer to his son. Concern mirrored his face.

“Rust?” He laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Rust . . . do you know who I am?”

Rust turned his head to stare up at his father. He did not say anything.

“How long has he been like this?” Kate said.

“Two days.”

Two days!

“Is this supposed to happen?” she said.

“Most people recover within hours,” Moira said. “But we’re not most people.
And Connor had to give him a higher voltage than what a normal human being can take.”

Kate was terribly afraid.

She said, “Is this supposed to happen to your kind after ECT?”

“There haven’t been many ECT cases, Kate. Rust’s uncle and Connor’s brother died of a fit shortly after he had ECT for the same . . . problems,” Moira said. “But Rust’s great-grandfather, who had it in the sixties, survived till a very old age.”

“It can go either way,” Connor said. “But Rust gave me his informed c
onsent to try. He thought that he had nothing to lose.”

Kate crept to Rust’s side. She stroked his forearm.

“Rust?” she whispered.

He turned to her, unseeing, and her heart sank.

She said to Moira and Connor, “Would you mind if I . . . stayed around him . . . to try to make him better?”

Rust’s parents exchanged glances.

Moira said, “Of course, Kate.”

*

Kate clasped Michaela’s hands.

“I have to stay,” she said.
“I don’t know how long I need to be here for Rust, but I will stay for as long as it takes.”

“You can’t stay here forever, girl. You’ve got classes to attend.”

“I’ll take a leave of absence.”

Michaela looked worried. “
You won’t get enough credits. Not to pass anyway.”

“It’s OK. I’ll repeat the year.
”

“Are you sure? He mightn’t
even recognize you. He mightn’t even snap out of it, and you’d have given up college for nothing.”

“But he needs me.”

“He wouldn’t have done the same for you, girl.”

“You don’t know that.
He’s done plenty.” Kate thought about why Rust stayed away from her.
For your own safety
. And now he gave himself up to the ECT and an indeterminate outcome for everyone’s safety.

T
he part of her mind which was still insecure whispered to her:
Are you sure he just isn’t looking for a way out – away from you?

Michaela looked at her helplessly, and then the two best friends enveloped each other in a hug that went on and on.
Both of them had tears in their eyes when they finally parted. They both knew Kate wasn’t coming back to college, and Kate had the sense that it was permanent.

“I’ll call you,” Kate said.

“You do that,” Michaela said fiercely.