Midnight Betrayal (Midnight #3)(90)

Conor followed the gurney up the steps and into the cool night air. Jackson and Ianelli were right behind him.

“Don’t you have to stay at the scene?”

Jackson popped a piece of gum into his mouth. “Nope. Not our jurisdiction.”

Zoe was frog-marched to a patrol car and put in the back. As the cop pushed her head down, she turned and glared at Conor.

He shivered. Her eyes were pure evil.





34


Conor paced the surgical waiting room. Three hours before, Louisa had been rushed through the ER into an operating room. Dropping into a chair, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out Louisa’s pearls, given to him to hold by one of the ER nurses. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he stretched the strands between his hands. The beads were smooth under his fingers, but spots of Louisa’s blood had dried to a rusty brown on the lustrous finish, the stains an insult to the necklace’s perfection. His mind replayed images of Louisa’s pale skin coated in red, the bullet wound in her side, her blood-soaked silk blouse. Her beauty and elegance magnified the violence and horror in the Camden basement.

She’d lost a lot of blood. She’d nearly drowned in it. Her lung had collapsed. She could die.

Fear and reality crowded his mind and his heart.

This morning, she’d said she loved him, and he’d withdrawn. Pat was right. He was a coward.

Had he lost his chance? Would she die never knowing she’d claimed his heart?

Pat and Jayne walked in. Jayne handed Conor a cardboard cup of coffee. “Sit down for a minute.” She tugged him to a chair and pushed him into it. Sitting next to him, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “She’s going to be all right.”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” Damian said from another plastic chair.

Conor put the coffee on the laminate table untouched. He couldn’t respond. The bullet had entered through Louisa’s ribs and lodged in her lung. They’d intubated her in the ambulance. She wasn’t even breathing on her own. How could she be all right?

Detectives Jackson and Ianelli had hung around. They sat across the room, occasionally ducking into the hallway to take a call.

Everyone stood when a grim, green-scrubbed surgeon walked into the room. A mask hung loose around his neck. “Who’s here for Louisa Hancock?”

Conor stepped forward, his heart slamming into his rib cage until it felt bruised.

The doctor swept the cloth hat from his head. Sweat beaded his forehead. “She came through the surgery fine.”

Conor didn’t hear the details. The surgeon’s voice was drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears. Pat’s giant hand slapped him on the back. Conor stiffened his buckled knees. “No permanent damage?”

“Risk of infection aside, she should make a full recovery. We’ll keep her in ICU for the next twenty-four hours as a precaution. You can see her as soon as she comes out of recovery.” The doctor left the room.

Conor backed up to a chair and let his legs collapse. For the next hour, he was busy being grateful and counting his blessings. Jayne brought him fresh coffee and a candy bar from the vending machine. When the nurse escorted him to Louisa’s bedside, he almost felt human.

She was pale and attached to a dozen wires and tubes, but her heartbeat was steady on the monitor next to the bed. Nice and strong and steady. He took her hand and held it for the allowed five minutes. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.



Two days later, Louisa sipped water from a straw while Detectives Jackson and Ianelli asked her gentle questions. Conor took the cup from her hand and set it on the wheeled tray.

“Zoe really killed three women just to eliminate Isa as her academic competition?” Louisa shifted her position and winced.

Conor put a hand behind her back to support her weight while he adjusted her pillow.

“Not exactly.” Jackson sighed. Since the case had come to a conclusion, disbelief and disgust were etched deeper in the lines on his already-craggy face. “She was used to getting everything she wanted. Her parents gave up their lives to educate her. She was always the number-one student in her class. She’d never been turned down for anything. Until she didn’t get the Pendleworth grant. But it was clear when we interviewed her that she got off on the whole thing. So what started out as a plan to get the Pendleworth grant escalated as she developed a taste for murder.”

“I can’t believe it.” Louisa let Conor fuss. Frankly, the pain in her chest made her more than OK with him taking care of her. “She was so smart, so talented.”

“Don’t forget crazy.” Jackson stuffed a piece of gum into his mouth. “She put her smarts to use, that’s for sure. She planned this entire operation down to the smallest detail.”

“The cops at the museum found some other personal stuff of hers hidden in the museum storage rooms. Looked like she’d been sleeping there since she went ‘missing.’ We also found three small trinkets, one from each of the dead girls, in another box. There are fingerprints all over them. Plus notes, schedules, and observations about both of you and the three murder victims. She had a laptop and an air card. Apparently, she holed up in the museum attic like the Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Ianelli explained. “So by the time we got your second text from the house in Camden, we already suspected it was Zoe.”