Jenna Ryan - Mistletoe and Murder

Sometimes a situation just plain sucked.

THE LIGHTS DIMMED TWICE, but stayed on. Sensing that Shera would prolong the drama as long as possible, Jacob drained his coffee and backhanded Barret’s shoulder.

“When Romana comes out, tell her I’m having a chat with Patrick North.”

“If she comes out.” Barret plucked a thread from his coat. “Shera can be difficult.”

“Romana handles difficult better than anyone I know. Give them five minutes.”

Which didn’t give him a lot of time to talk to Patrick, because the moment Romana reappeared he wanted to get the hell out of here. Maybe they’d have dinner in a restaurant, or maybe they’d order in-after he made love to her about five times.

“Evening, Detective Knight.” The guard on Patrick’s door took a huge bite from his take-out burger.

Jacob scanned the corridor as the lights dimmed again. “Where do you put it all, Jefferson?”

“Call me Hollow Man.” He cocked a thumb. “North’s awake and pissed off. If you’re searching for some inventive new ways to swear, he’s your man.”

“Should be interesting.”

Patrick glared when Jacob entered. He wore sterile blue, and his arm was taped to his chest in an immobile sling.

“You know where you can go, Knight.”

“Been there and back.” He halted at the foot of the bed, left his hands in his jacket pockets. “Why did you kill her?”

Patrick’s lip curled. “What, no good cop, bad cop routine?”

Jacob kept his eyes steady on the other man’s face. “Captain says you made a full confession. Anything you tell me won’t make much difference.”

Patrick picked at his bandages. “The cops’ll go through my house, won’t they?”

“From cellar to attic. They’ll talk to your neighbors, too.” He added the soft sting. “And Fitz.”

A disgusted sound emerged. “You knew her. You went out with her.”

“Before she married Critch, yeah.”

“She was a siren.”

Not from Jacob’s perspective, but people saw things differently. “Did you have an affair?”

Patrick launched a visual spear. “Of course we did, for five months. I loved her, and we were hot, like fire. She was going to leave Warren.”

“Did she say that?”

“No, but I can read between the lines.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t do it. For whatever reason, she came in to work one day and said it was over. We were done. I think he threatened her.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Well, hardly,” Patrick scoffed. “She claimed she loved him, said she was tired of proving herself to herself. Warren loved her, she loved him, and we were done.”

“So you killed her?”

Disdain twisted his mouth. “Not then, no. I told you, I loved her. I gave her space, let her think. I figured he must have brainwashed her. I thought if I didn’t see her, she’d start to miss me. When she didn’t, I got a little-well, steamed. I confronted her.” The fingers of his good hand curled around his gown. “She laughed at me.” He glowered at the bedsheets. “I don’t like it when people do that. Mortician’s son, mother who works in the morgue-kids figured maybe my name was really Igor.”

“We were talking about you and Belinda, Patrick.”

“It’s my dime, Knight. I’ll say what I want to.”

The room lights went out completely, then snapped back on.

Patrick’s eyes heated up. “Brainwashed or not, she laughed at me. Then she told me to leave.” He smiled. “So I did.”

“Just like that?”

“Exactly like that. I gave her another chance, of course, and another. But she kept saying she loved him. She wouldn’t listen to reason, and it made me mad, so I threatened her.”

“Did you have any idea that she was pregnant?”

“I-no, at least not until I did the autopsy.”

“Which Gorman signed as his own work.”

“He’d sign pretty much anything I gave him at that point. I didn’t forge his signature like Hanson did, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Patrick’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t expect her to be pregnant.”

“Was it your child?”

“No idea. Maybe. She never said and she couldn’t have told her husband because he never mentioned it…” Lost in thought, he scratched his fingernails over the bandages in the region of his heart. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she said she had no feelings left for me, not even friendly ones.” Red blotches stained his cheeks. “I knew she was lying, but I couldn’t help myself. I used her own gun on her. It wasn’t registered. She’d gotten it for protection when Warren wasn’t home. One shot, and it was done.

“I thought I’d fall apart. I mean, I started to, but then I didn’t. I put everything right. I do autopsies. I knew what had to be done. I cleaned the place, and I left. I thought maybe I’d screwed up somewhere. I kept waiting for the cops to come and arrest me. But they never did. And Stubbs and Canter only went through the motions.”

“So where does Fitz come into this?”

Patrick made a dismissive motion. “I thought she knew the truth, thought she’d figured it out, when all she really wanted was to ask me some dumb question about James Barret and a watch. It sounded like she knew something, just like it did when Critch showed up tonight. But I’m told I was wrong about him, too.”

He fell back against the pillow, stared blankly at the ceiling. “They called me Igor. Can you believe that?”

When he began to hum a Christmas song, Jacob decided it was time to leave. At the door, however, he turned his head and offered a quiet, “Why the mistletoe leaves?”

Patrick’s lips moved, but he merely continued to sing.

That’s when the lights went out.

“I won’t be sick. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

The bathroom lights flickered several times, prompting Romana to push off from the sink.

“Okay, that’s it, Shera. We’re leaving, or I am.”

Shera angled her jaw in defiance. “I’m not going to see your cousin.”

“Leaving, Shera, now.”

She took the woman’s hand, pulled. But the lights snapped off completely, and this time they didn’t pop back on.

“Wonderful.” Romana kept them both moving. “Night’s just getting better and better.”

“You said there were emergency generators.”

“For the vital areas, not out-of-the-way bathrooms. Ouch.” Shera kicked her heel. “You don’t have to drape yourself all over me, okay? I won’t abandon you.”

“He always does.”

“I’m not your husband.” Romana located the wall, but not the door.

“I-oh!” Shera slipped, clutched at Romana’s coat, then gave a yelp and went down.

“Shera?’ Romana crouched, slashed a hand across the low shadows. “Where are you?”

A moan was her only answer.

The door opened behind her and a weak shaft of light filtered in. She saw Shera’s face, saw her lips move, her eyelids flutter.

“Sher-ah-h-h…”

Romana emitted a painful gasp as someone’s hand tangled in her hair and gave it a vicious yank. The hand-it had to be a man’s-hauled her roughly to her feet, snapped her head back and her body up against his.

Yes, definitely a man…

She glimpsed a red suit and whiskers and saw a quick flash of teeth. Then his other hand came up, and an even greater pain sliced through her skull.

She heard a soft, icy chuckle as the washroom faded to black.

JACOB LEFT PATRICK’S ROOM at a jog. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he had to get to Romana.

He punched O’Keefe’s number into his cell as he went. The service said O’Keefe was away from his phone.

The emergency lights came on, making the corridors navigable, but many of the patients were nervous and plucked at Jacob’s jacket and jeans.