Mallory Kane - The Paediatrician's Personal Protector

She slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened easily, silently.

Christy ducked under the crime-scene tape. She pushed the door wide. The first thing that struck her was how dark the inside of the house was. The second, that it had been that way ever since their mother had been killed when Christy was sixteen and Autumn was twelve.

Leaving the front door open for light, she stepped over to her father’s recliner and turned on the lamp on the side table. The glow was feeble. After a couple of seconds, her eyes adapted to the dark and she could see a little bit.

Smudged gray dust outlined a large square on the side table.

She wiped a fingertip across it. Fingerprint dust. It had to be. The peculiar color distinguished it from household dust.

Looking at the table, Christy knew immediately what had lain there. Dad’s scrapbook. More pain gnawed at her heart. Ever since she could remember, he’d kept it. How many times had she sat in his lap as he’d pasted pictures of her and baby Autumn in the leather-bound book and carefully, in neat, precise printing, labeled each one with their name, the date and a sweet or funny comment?

But that image quickly morphed into the memory of Detective Ryker Delancey showing her the pages in the back of that beloved book, behind the family pictures. Pages containing baby photos of girls she didn’t know, with comments written beside them in a shaky hand she hardly recognized as her father’s.

Those were her father’s victims, and Detective Ryker Delancey had made her look at them, made her read her father’s careful notes about where they lived, when their birthdays were and when he planned to kill them. Then the detective had demanded to know if she’d seen them before.

Of course she’d never seen them. Angrily she swiped her hand across the table’s surface, obliterating the dust outline of the book. Did the detective know he’d destroyed every last good memory from her childhood? Did he care?

She dusted her hands together. She should leave. She knew she wasn’t supposed to cross crime-scene tape. But this was her home, or it had been. Didn’t she have a right?

She glanced desperately around the dimly lit room, hoping to find something—anything—that would give her an explanation for why her father had done what he had. Something rational that she could take to the police and say, “Here, look. This is what he was doing. Now it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

But she knew there was nothing to find. No rational explanation, no sane reason.

She blinked and realized her gaze had settled on a framed picture Autumn had drawn of their mother. It hung on the wall above the television. Christy’s eyes filled with tears. Their mother had been beautiful and smart. Autumn had looked just like her. She stepped over and touched the glass. More dust. She sneezed.

Guilt and embarrassment tightened her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Anyone coming into this sad house would immediately see how badly she’d neglected her father.

She reached into her purse for a tissue.

“Freeze!” a harsh voice barked.

Shocked, she turned. The unmistakable silhouette of a uniformed police officer darkened the doorway.

“Wait!” she called out, her hand still inside her purse. “I’m—”

“I said freeze!”

She froze.

The harsh beam of a flashlight swept her, blinding her as it passed over her face. Finally, the beam stopped on her hands.

“Hold it!” he barked when she started to pull her hand out of her purse. “Don’t move that hand.”

“Oh, no. It’s okay. I was just—”

“Stop! Now I want you to lift your hand out of your purse, thumb up.”

Christy frowned, but tried to comply. She raised her hand until her thumb was visible over the edge of the purse’s clasp.

“Okay,” the officer said, his gun still pointed at her, his eyes bright in the dimness of the doorway. “Now—slowly, lift your hand all the way out, and if I see anything in it, I’ll shoot.” Numb with fear, she did what he said, spreading her shaky fingers to demonstrate that they were empty.

The officer’s stance relaxed a bit. “Drop your purse. Do it!”

She dropped it.

“How’d you get in here?”

“Please,” she said. “I’m—”

“How?”

“My key. It’s in my purse.”

The officer shone the beam of the flashlight in her face again. “Are you alone?” he asked.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Step outside,” he continued, backing across the threshold. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

She complied, following him until she was on the porch and he had backed down the steps to the sidewalk. She saw the police car parked behind her rental car.

“Who are you?” he snapped, once he got a look at her in the afternoon sunlight.

“Chr-Christmas Leigh Moser. Albert Moser is my father.”

“Your father?” He rubbed a hand across the bald top of his head.

She understood the slight note of bewilderment in his voice. Until twelve days ago she’d thought the same thing. Serial killers didn’t have daughters, families, lives.

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to cross crime-scene tape?”

Christy shrugged carefully. “I’m sorry,” she said innocently. “I’ve never been involved in a crime before.”

The officer touched the microphone on his shoulder. “Sneed here. I’m at the Moser scene. Cancel backup. It’s the perp’s daughter.” He aimed a stern gaze at her. “You need to leave, ma’am. If you go to the sheriff’s office over on Columbia Street and fill out the proper paperwork, you can get access to the scene once the crime lab has released it.”

Horror enveloped her like a dark cloud. “The perp? The crime lab?” Her stomach turned over again and acrid saliva filled her mouth. She swallowed hard.

“Why is my father’s house a crime scene?” she demanded, her voice hollow to her own ears. “He didn’t do anything here.” She shuddered as the scrapbook’s pages rose before her inner vision and the court bailiff’s bland voice listing the women her father had killed played over in her mind. “Did he?”

He sniffed. “The suspect’s residence has been declared part of the crime scene, as have his vehicles.”

“I see,” she said, feeling numb. “Thank you.”

The policeman gestured toward her car. “Now get on out of here,” he said as he holstered his gun.

She had no choice but to obey him. She walked past him down the sidewalk. As she did, the microphone attached to his shoulder crackled. The only words she could make out were Moser and hospital.

“What?” she exclaimed, turning back toward him. Her heart thudded painfully. Her father? Hospital? Oh, no!

The policeman spoke into his mic. “I’ve got the daughter here. I’ll let her know.”

“Ms. Moser,” he said. “That was the dispatcher. Your father has suffered a heart attack. He’s being taken to St. Tammany Parish Medical Center.”

“Oh, no!” Christy breathed. “Not again!” She started toward her car.

“Ma’am?” the officer called after her. “I can get you there faster in the squad car.”

Christy stopped in her tracks. “Thank you,” she said.

As she got into the police car and the officer cranked it and sped away, blue lights flashing, she prayed, “Please don’t let my father die before I get there. I need to tell him how sorry I am.”

THREE HOURS LATER, after her father had been moved from the emergency room to the cardiac care unit, Christy left the hospital. The nurse in charge had told her that she wouldn’t be able to see him again until morning. She argued that she was a physician and demanded to see the doctor in charge. But when the cardiac specialist found out she was a pediatrician, he’d smiled apologetically and told her the same thing. It was a hospital policy. Intensive-care visiting hours must be observed—by everyone.