Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [692]
“They’re not his.” Racine was shouting now, but not out of anger. It was only to make herself heard over the noise surrounding her. “Look, I’ve gotta go, Doc. If you think of anything, anything at all, call me.”
And she was gone before Gwen could respond. She was beginning to think Racine had dropped the ball. Had she really checked out the fingerprints? Was it possible Nash had used someone else as his courier? Maybe he wanted to throw them all off.
She had just finished packing her briefcase when she heard the outside door to the office open. Amanda had either forgotten something or she’d neglected to lock it on her way out. She couldn’t handle one more delivery or repairman and was about to say just that when James Campion stopped in her doorway.
“Hello, Dr. Patterson,” he said, sounding out of breath.
He looked awful compared to his usual neat and tidy self. His clothes were wrinkled as if he had slept in them, his hair disheveled and his eyes bloodshot and swollen.
“James? Are you all right?”
“I really need to talk to you, Dr. Patterson.”
“What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
“No, no. Not hurt. At least not the way you mean.”
She knew she should tell him to come back in the morning, that it was after hours. But he looked so frantic, so frightened, his boyish face grimacing, and she worried morning might be too late, remembering the hesitation marks on his wrists.
“Come in and sit.” She needed to calm him down, but he was pacing the length of her office, watching out the window with every pass as if expecting to see that someone had followed him. She didn’t like her patients up and about. It made them too out of control.
“We can talk, James, but you need to sit down and tell me what’s happened.”
Finally he stopped long enough to meet her eyes and in what sounded like a very small boy’s voice he whispered, “The pounding, the banging,” and he pointed to his chest and his head, “it won’t stop. I think it’s because I broke the rules.”
CHAPTER 78
The Embassy Suites
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick actually looked forward to the evening. After some persuasion, he had gotten Christine to agree that Timmy could spend the night with him in his suite. He had even gotten Christine to call Mrs. McCutty and convince her that Gibson could spend the night, too. Of course, it hadn’t been easy. At first Christine didn’t like the idea.
“I can’t believe you want to reward them for skipping school,” she yelled at him over the phone. “You know how much I spent on that Explorers class?”
When he told her about Brother Sebastian coming to the house, looking for the two boys, she went silent.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Nick told her, “but you have to admit, this Sebastian guy is pretty creepy.”
“He’s the archbishop’s henchman,” Christine said. “If there’s something going on it involves Archbishop Armstrong. You don’t think he’s trying to get at Timmy because I’ve been working on this article, do you?”
“Are you kidding?” Sometimes he couldn’t believe how naive his big sister could be. “You’re trying to pin a cover-up on him and you don’t think he might try to stop you?”
“Maybe it would be a good idea for the boys to be someplace else. I’ll call Mrs. McCutty and tell her.”
His powers of persuasion worked on Jill, too, though he hated to admit there was little persuading. Jill seemed more than willing to forfeit an evening with him for another opportunity to check out flower arrangements, and oh by the way, the caterer was bringing by some samples so if he wasn’t going to be around she’d invite her bridesmaids over.
He was beginning to wonder if she was more excited about the getting-married part than she was about marrying him. What was it about wedding planning that seemed to turn an intelligent, sophisticated, professional woman into a magazine-flipping, mall-hunting, shop-till-you-drop addict? Even when they did manage to get together their conversation invariably turned to mini-quiches versus miniature watercress sandwiches and whether or not one groom’s cake would be sufficient. Surely they had talked about other things