Mallory Kane - The Paediatrician's Personal Protector

“Sorry,” he said to the woman. “It happens a lot. Especially if I’m dressed up.” He ran his finger under his collar again. “Which is as seldom as possible. I hate suits.”

The tension around her mouth softened a bit.

“I’m Officer Reilly Delancey. SWAT.” He held out his hand.

From behind him he heard, “The Delancey that didn’t make detective,” followed by Phillips’s annoying laugh. One day he was going to punch Dagewood.

She ignored or didn’t notice his hand as she sent a swift, withering glance toward the two detectives. “Where is Detective Delancey?” she asked, looking at her watch. “He disappeared as soon as the judge dismissed us. I thought maybe he’d be out here.”

“My guess is, if he’s not scheduled for another court appearance, he’s gone to check on his fiancée,” Reilly replied.

The woman in front of him stiffened even more.

“To check on his fiancée? Of course. That’s exactly what I’d do after I put a sick old man in prison. Or maybe I’d go to Disney World.”

Reilly’s hackles rose at her sarcasm, although he could hardly blame her for being upset. After all, she’d just witnessed her father plead guilty to what—four counts of murder? Still, he leaped to his brother’s defense, choosing his next words carefully.

“My brother’s fiancée was injured on the day your father was arrested,” he said carefully. “She had a doctor’s appointment this morning.”

Her sharp glance and the grimace of pain that passed fleetingly across her face told him she understood what he hadn’t said. Ryker’s fiancée’s injury had been at her father’s hand.

“I’m sorry about your father—and your sister,” he offered.

Her mouth tightened. “Why?” she asked. “You don’t know me. Or my family.”

“I know a little about your father’s case. How the death of your sister—”

“How can I find Detective Delancey?” she interrupted, two bright spots of color appearing in her pale cheeks.

Despite her words, what he heard was that’s none of your business. And it wasn’t. He’d crossed a line. He immediately backtracked.

“He’s probably already left the courthouse. If you want, I can make sure he gets in touch with you.”

She glanced at her watch, then back at Reilly. Suddenly she appeared unsure, and that surprised him. She didn’t seem like the type to ever be unsure of anything. She might be wrong, as she was in thinking he was Ryker, but she would always be sure.

“Hand me your phone,” he said.

She put her glasses back on and gave him a narrow look. For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to comply. But finally her hand snaked inside her purse and she handed him a smart phone. He quickly programmed his number and name into it, then pressed Call. His cell phone began to ring. He dug it out of his pocket, answered it, then hung up her phone and handed it back to her.

“What’s your name?” he asked without looking up.

“Dr. Moser,” she said without hesitation.

He raised his gaze to hers.

“Christy—Moser.” She stared for an instant at the display on her smart phone, then stuck it into the pocket of her jacket.

Reilly finished entering her name into his phone. “Okay. I’ll get my brother to call you.”

“How soon? I need to find out what happens next. How long my father has before he—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I have to go,” she said. She fingered the watch on her left wrist and looked at it for the third time. Or was it the fourth?

“Yeah, me too,” he said, checking the time on his phone’s display before he pocketed it. His seventeen minutes were up. He had to get to Courtroom Three.

Christy Moser turned and walked away. Reilly watched her excellent backside sway in the black fitted skirt. It was amazing how high-heeled shoes affected a woman’s walk. In a good way.

Dr. Moser. He’d have to ask Ryker what kind of doctor the serial killer’s daughter was.

CHRISTMAS LEIGH MOSER stood at the front door of the house where she and her sister Autumn had grown up in Covington, Louisiana. Yellow crime-scene tape crisscrossed the doorframe, garish against the dingy white paint.

She stared at it, aghast. Why was her dad’s house a crime scene? Nothing Detective Delancey had told her had indicated that her father had done anything here. Horror churned in her stomach, mingled with shame.

She hadn’t been in the house since her sister’s death. She should have made more of an effort to get back here to see her dad. But two years of residency plus a fellowship in pediatrics at one of the foremost children’s hospitals in the northeast made it difficult to get home to sleep, much less take a trip thirteen hundred miles away.

She’d called him every week—well, nearly every week. How had she not known something was dreadfully wrong with him? How had she not realized he’d gone off the deep end?

A twinge under her breastbone gave her the answer to that. She had known something was wrong. Known it and ignored it. She’d chalked up his monotone answers and disinterest to mild situational depression, and had encouraged him to get out more, see his friends, get back to playing golf. She’d told him he should talk to someone and suggested that he ask the pastor of his church about a grief-counseling class or a therapist.

She thought about the one time she had visited her dad in the past five years. She’d attended a seminar in New Orleans. She’d met her dad at a restaurant for a hurried dinner before kissing him on the cheek and rushing back to her hotel room to prepare for a talk she was giving the next day.

Now here she was. Too late. Her family home had become the home of a killer.

She shuddered, swallowing hard. Shock and revulsion and fear had dogged her steps ever since she’d received the phone call telling her that her father had been arrested. The call had come less than twelve hours after she’d talked to her dad. When she put the times together, she realized that within an hour of their conversation, he’d shot two people, a policeman and a restaurant owner, and had tried to kill a third.

He’d done it with the misguided notion that he could force the police to reopen Autumn’s case.

Guilt washed over Christy like a blast of hot summer wind, stealing her breath and leaving her back and neck prickling with sudden sweat. The certainty that this was her fault sat like a dead weight on her chest. She’d gone off and left him to deal with Autumn, knowing her younger sister was in trouble with drugs.

If she’d stayed in Louisiana, would her little sister still be alive? Would her father be an active, vibrant man in his early sixties, rather than a deranged murderer?

Rationally, she recognized that her decision probably wouldn’t have changed what happened, but rationality and guilt were like matter and antimatter. They couldn’t occupy the same space. And the guilt was stronger.

Christy realized she’d become exactly what she’d sworn she’d never be, a workaholic career woman with no time for family, like her mother. Deborah Moser had been a tenured professor at Loyola until the day she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Christy glanced around the neighborhood where she and Autumn had played as children. None of the neighbors were outside, and there were no cars on the street. She’d once known many of the people who lived here. Where were they now? Resentment burned deep within her. Why hadn’t they known something was wrong with her dad?

Why hadn’t she?

She looked down at the key in her hand. Suddenly, she needed to go inside and look at her father’s things. See her sister’s room. Wallow in some more guilt.