The Paediatrician's Personal Protector

Chapter Two

When the blow slammed Christy to the floor, the bag containing the bottle of wine flew out of her hands and landed with a thud in front of her.

Still driven by the momentum of the blow and the weight against her, she pitched forward, hands out to break her fall. She hit the hardwood floor hard and felt a distinct, painful snap in her right wrist.

Pain and panic immobilized her for an instant as a heavy body landed on top of her. He straddled her, pinning her down.

Her heart pounded violently and her limbs quivered. The man grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her face down onto the hardwood floor. He put his mouth near her ear. She could smell stale cigarettes on his breath.

She tried to suck in enough air to scream, but his weight pressing her chest into the hardwood floor was too heavy. She tried anyway. All that came from her lips was a feeble squeak.

“Shut your mouth,” his gravely voice whispered.

Christy’s hands were pinned underneath her, and her right wrist pulsed with a sickening pain. Using her left hand, she tried to move, to roll, anything to get him off her. Nothing worked and every tiny movement intensified the piercing agony in her broken wrist. It was making her nauseous.

Whatever the man intended to do to her, she couldn’t stop him. He was too strong and she was too weak.

“Please—” she rasped. “What do you want—?”

His hand pushed her cheek harder into the floor. “Go back where you came from,” he growled. “Or you’re as dead as your sister.”

Terror sliced through her like a razor blade. Her sister’s killer. He’d followed her. Just as the thoughts whirled through her brain, he grabbed her hair again and banged her head against the floor—twice. The blows stunned her.

At some point, she was aware that his crushing weight was gone. Dazed, her head spinning and her wrist throbbing, she managed to roll over onto her side.

Where was he? Dear God—she couldn’t see anything in the dark. Was he really gone? Or was he hiding in the shadows, preparing to kill her?

Instinctively she reached for the tiny can of Mace she carried in her pocket, but when she moved her hand, the pain nearly took her breath away.

She rolled onto her back and tried to reach it with her left hand. It was awkward—almost impossible. Tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Tears of frustration, of pain, of paralyzing fear.

Finally, she got her fingers on the object in her pocket, but it wasn’t the Mace. It was her smart phone.

Desperately she grabbed it, trying to press the buttons for 911. But her fingers were shaking too badly. The device slipped from her fumbling fingers and clattered across the hardwood floor.

No!

“Help!” she whispered, her lungs deflated by sobbing. She rolled onto her stomach and reached out with her left hand, feeling along the floor. Where was it?

“Where are you?”

She gasped, at first thinking it was her attacker’s voice. But no. This voice was tinny, mechanical. Was it her phone? She squinted.

There. She saw the light from the display. Thank God. But it was halfway across the room.

Forcing a deep breath into her spasming lungs, she tried to pull herself up enough to crawl toward it, but her right wrist was useless. Worse than useless. If it didn’t stop throbbing, she was going to throw up. The pain was making her sick.

Giving up on trying to move, she cried, “Help me!”

God, what was the name of this place? Her brain was so fuzzy, and she hurt so bad. “Three—! she cried breathlessly. “Cottage Three,” Christy sobbed. “Please hurry!”

REILLY DROVE LIKE A bat out of hell toward the Oak Grove Inn. What if he was wrong? What if he’d misunderstood Christy Moser’s sobbing words? The only cottages he knew about were on Oak Street in Chef Voleur, about two miles from his Covington high-rise condo.

He should have asked her where she was staying when he’d gotten her phone number. Now it was too late. Something had happened to the beautiful black-haired serial killer’s daughter, and she’d called him—because his number was the latest number in her phone.

“Christy? Christy can you hear me?” he yelled into his phone. “Hang on. It’s Reilly Delancey. I’ll be right there.” He kept talking to her because the line was still open. He had no idea whether she could hear him or not. Holding his breath, he listened. Was that a sob? Or harsh, panicked breathing?

“Christy. Talk to me. Where is Cottage Three? Is it Oak Grove Inn?”

“Oak—?”

Fear arrowed through him at her weak, rasping voice. “Christy? I’m coming. Hang in there.”

He careered around the corner onto Oak Street and into the driveway of the B&B. His brain registered three vehicles in the parking lot. A silver Avalon with rental plates, a light blue pickup with Louisiana plates and a Prius with a Mississippi vanity tag that said LVG CPL. He pulled into the parking lot beside the pickup and vaulted out of his car.

Cottage Three. As he sprinted toward the row of small cottages lined up on the grounds of the Oak Grove Bed-and-Breakfast he grabbed his weapon and flashlight from his belt.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Guerrant! Guerrant, you in there?” The owner, Guerrant Bardin, lived in the back of the main house. “Call the police!”

“What the hell?” he heard just as a motion-sensing light flared.

“Call 911!” Reilly shouted. “Get the police over here. A woman’s been attacked.”

More lights came on. He saw Bardin standing on his back porch in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, with his phone at his ear.

The door to Cottage Three was standing open. Reilly slowed down and approached carefully, holding his gun and his flashlight ready.

He rounded the door facing and the flashlight’s beam hit a female body sprawled on the hardwood floor.

Christy! Horror turned his blood to ice. Then she moved and gasped, and relief flooded him. Automatically, he swept the room with the flashlight’s beam and called out to no one in particular, “Clear.”

Then he crouched beside the black-haired beauty and brushed her silky hair out of her face. “Christy?” he said softly. “Hey, Christy, talk to me.”

“No—” she moaned, trying to push him away.

“It’s okay. I’m Reilly Delancey—” He took a breath. “The police,” he clarified.

At that instant, crunching footsteps approached. Reilly whirled, aiming flashlight and gun at the doorway. “Hold it right there,” he barked.

“What’s going on?” a voice growled. He heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being chambered.

“Guerrant? It’s Reilly Delancey. Did you call the police?”

“Hell yeah, I did.” Bardin stepped into the doorway and reached around to flip on the lights. He’d pulled on blue jeans over his boxers. “Oh, crap. What happened?”

“I think she was attacked. Don’t touch anything. Wait out there for the police.”

“Is she alive?”

As Bardin spoke, Christy moved her right arm and cried out in obvious pain.

With the lights on, Reilly saw that her slim skirt was ripped, her stockings were torn and one foot was bare. Beyond her, toward the bathroom, her purse had slid across the floor and spilled. A bottle of wine in a paper bag had rolled into a corner. Her phone lay just out of her reach.

“Guerrant, guard the door. If you see anything, holler. I need to clear the area.” Reilly slipped out the door of the cottage and canvassed the area. He didn’t see anyone. He checked the seashell-and-gravel path that connected the cottages. It ended at the fence that surrounded the inn’s grounds. The fence was green chicken wire, designed to disappear amid the landscaping. It would be absurdly easy for someone to climb it and vault over. He shone the flashlight into the thicket on the other side of the fence. Nothing.

He circled around the cottages, just to be sure there was nobody lurking, then walked up to the door where Guerrant was standing guard.

“Didn’t see anybody here,” Guerrant reported.

When Reilly entered, Christy was struggling to sit up. She looked up at him. There was a scrape on her cheek. She blinked. “Reilly Delancey,” she said hoarsely. “Not the detective.”

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? “

She squeezed her eyes shut. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist is fractured, although it’s not displaced. Please help me up.”

Scaphoid bone? Reilly had no idea what she’d just told him, but he had heard the words wrist and fractured. “No. You stay right there. Don’t move. I’m calling—”

Christy pushed herself up using her left hand and pressed her right hand protectively against her ribs.

“—the EMTs,” Reilly finished with a sigh. Super-confident. Super-cool, even after being attacked. Even with a broken wrist. Did that come from being a physician? Or from what must have been a very difficult childhood? Either way, he was glad she was alive.

Giving up on the notion that she might listen to him, he crouched beside her, ready to steady her if she felt faint or got sick. She looked a little green around the gills.

“Help me up,” she ordered. When she tried to move, her mouth tightened and the tension along her jawline increased.

He had his phone out. “No. You’ll wait for the ambulance—” he started.

Using just her left arm, she struggled to get her feet under her. With a sigh, he slid his hands under her arms and helped her to her feet. “Do you ever listen?”

“I—know my own body,” she replied, putting a notion in Reilly’s head that he quickly banished.

She teetered between one high heel and one bare foot. Earlier at the courthouse, he’d observed that she was just about as tall as his nearly six feet. But now, as she put her weight on her bare foot, she seemed small. Her shoulders under his hand felt bony—feminine—sexy.

She still appeared dazed, and if the situation weren’t so dire, she might have looked comically awkward with one shoe on and one shoe off. He gently pushed her down into the chair, a little surprised when she didn’t protest.

He watched her carefully. She held her wrist cradled against her, protecting it. A large red area on her forehead was swelling and turning purple. Her lips were white at the corners. The scrape on her left cheek blossomed with tiny beads of blood, like early morning dew on a red flower.

She caught him checking out the scrape. “It’s nothing more than an abrasion.” She tentatively pressed it with a finger. “I’ll probably have a mild contusion,” she said, then added, “a bruise.” She frowned. “And a larger one on my forehead.”

“Your wrist—” Reilly started.

“I told you, it’s not displaced. It won’t need setting. I’ll wrap it and get a wrist guard. There’s no need for medical treatment.”

“That’s not your call,” Reilly informed her as he dialed one-handed. “What happened?”

She shook her head as if trying to clear it and touched the bruise on her forehead. “I was hit from behind. Knocked to the floor. I thought—” She stopped.

Reilly ordered an ambulance then hung up. “You thought what?”

She shook her head again. “Nothing. The man said, ‘Go back where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.’“

The words shocked Reilly. “He said that? Those exact words? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Although she looked like a frightened, hurt young woman, her reply was confident and smooth.

“What else did he say?”

“Nothing. He got off me and left.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

She shook her head. “I tried to turn over and get up but my wrist—” Her voice gave out.

“You’re positive it was a man?” Reilly asked.

She looked at him frowning. “Of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

But before she could answer, the crunch of heavy boots on seashells and gravel announced the arrival of the police. Two uniformed officers appeared at the door to the cottage, their weapons drawn.

Reilly indicated the badge at his belt. “Deputy Reilly Delancey, SWAT. Dr. Moser here was attacked.” He didn’t know the officers, but both of them glanced his way when he told them his name. He’d long since stopped being surprised by that.

In and around Chef Voleur the name Delancey always drew a reaction. Depending on the situation and the people, the reactions were vastly different. Reilly figured the two officers knew or had heard of Ryker.

One of the officers stepped over to Christy and the other faced him.

“Delancey? Deputy Buford Watts. How’d you get here?”

“Dr. Moser is involved with a case of my brother’s, Detective Ryker Delancey. I had given her my phone number in case she couldn’t reach him.”

The officer’s gaze sharpened. “Moser. Not—the October Killer?”

“There’s no reason to get into that,” Reilly responded, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth that he was wrong. Given what her attacker had said, there was definitely a reason to get into that.

“No? Do you know who attacked her?”

“Not yet.”

“Her father killed half-a-dozen women,” Watts said, his gaze studying her.

Four, Reilly corrected silently, sending an apologetic look toward Christy. The deputy was being deliberately insensitive.

“What if it was a victim’s family member?” Watts continued. “Have you gotten specifics?”

“Just got here myself,” Reilly answered. “I’d like to be in on your interview though.”

The officer didn’t have any objection. Within a few minutes, Christy, who was still refusing medical treatment, Reilly and the two officers were seated at the dining room table in the main house of Oak Grove Inn.

“Now, Ms. Moser,” the first officer started.

“It’s Doctor Moser,” Reilly inserted, just as Bardin’s wife bustled in, wrapped in a voluminous fleece robe.

“For goodness sakes! What are you doing to this poor girl?”

Reilly tensed at Ella Bardin’s use of the word girl. He glanced at Christy sidelong, trying to send her a signal not to insult Ella, but she wasn’t paying any attention to Ella’s choice of words or to him. She was staring into space and frowning.

“Get out of the way, all of you,” Ella continued.

“Ella—” said the older officer.

“Buford Watts, you just hold your horses.” Ella turned to Christy. “I’ve put some water on to boil, and I’ll get you a cup of tea in just a minute, unless you’d rather have coffee?”

Christy realized that Ella was talking to her. She looked up and her stiff demeanor softened just a little, barely enough to notice. “Oh, thank you. Tea is fine.”

“And here.” Ella Bardin stepped over to a recliner and pulled an afghan off the back of it. “Cover up with this. The very idea—” this aimed at the three men “—of leaving her sitting there in that torn skirt. What kind of gentlemen are you?”

Watts answered, “The kind who’re trying to find out who attacked her, Miss Ella.” His words were measured.

The younger officer grinned at Ella. “I sure could use something warm to drink, Miss Ella.”

Ella looked at him. “I’m sure you could,” she retorted as she started back toward the kitchen.

Watts turned his attention back to Christy. “Dr. Moser, could you tell me your full name please?”

She straightened. “Christmas Leigh Moser. That’s L-E-I-G-H.”

Watts’s eyebrows raised, then lowered.

Reilly’s did too. Christmas. He thought about what Christy had said about her sister, and remembered Ryker mentioning Moser’s other daughter. Her name was odd too. Summer? No, Autumn.

He assessed Dr. Christmas Leigh Moser. Somehow, the name, which could easily have seemed silly, fit her. He wasn’t sure why he thought that.

Buford Watts wrote something on his pad, then addressed Christy again. “Good. Now if you would, tell me exactly what happened.”

“Certainly,” she said coolly. “As you obviously already know, my father is Albert Moser.” She waited for confirmation from the officers. They nodded.

“I flew in from Boston late last night.” She paused. “I had to find physicians to take my patients before I could leave,” she explained. “I went to his arraignment this morning. Then this afternoon I received a call that he had suffered an MI—a heart attack, so I went to the hospital.” She stopped to take a fortifying breath. “He’s in the cardiac care unit. I left there around six o’clock, stopped at a liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine, then drove here, to the inn. I parked in the lot out there.”

“That’s your car? The rental?” Deputy Watts asked.

She nodded. “Just as I parked the car, a light-colored pickup pulled in next to me. I walked to my cottage—Cottage Three,” she amended. “I unlocked the door, but before I could enter, something hit me from behind. The blow knocked me to the floor. I landed on my wrist and fractured the scaphoid bone.”

Both officers’ gazes went to her right hand, which she held against her torso. At that moment, Reilly saw the flash of red lights through Ella Bardin’s lace curtains and heard the crunch of tires on shells and gravel. “There’s the ambulance,” he said, earning him an angry glance from Christy.

“I told you—” she started, but he sent her a look that his brother Ryker had dubbed “The Silencer.” It worked. She pressed her lips together and merely glared at him.

The EMTs made quick work of her broken wrist. For the most part, she’d been right. There was little that could be done about the bone that was broken. The EMTs iced it for a few minutes, then applied a pink cast that covered her palm and half of her thumb, and extended about four inches up her forearm.

“You need to ice your forehead too,” he said, scrutinizing the bruised skin. “It’ll help keep the swelling down, and maybe prevent a black eye.”

“I know,” she responded archly.

The EMT glanced over at Reilly, then applied a small bandage to her cheek. The bandage was also pink, with ladybugs on it.

Reilly was pretty sure Christy had no idea what was on the bandage. The wink one of the EMTs gave him on the way out confirmed it. Their way of getting her back for lecturing them about the futility of putting a cast on a scaphoid fracture.

Once the EMTs were gone, the officers resumed the questioning.

“You were saying that someone knocked you to the floor,” Buford Watts prompted her.

She adjusted the ice pack. “Yes. I’d just unlocked and opened the door when I was hit from behind. The man landed on top of me. I tried to roll over, or buck or kick, but he was too heavy.”

Reilly noticed a faint shiver tense her muscles. He doubted the officers saw it. They seemed mesmerized by her striking appearance, or maybe her calm recitation of what had happened.

Watts asked the question Reilly had asked her before. “You know it was a man? Did you get a good look at him?”

“No.” A sharp syllable. “I was on my stomach and he was on top of me. But it was a man. No question.” She met each officer’s gaze, but didn’t look at Reilly. Then she took a deep breath. “I know because he was straddling me.”

Reilly’s breath stuck in his throat. “Did he—?” he croaked, earning a stiff glance from the officer in charge. This wasn’t Reilly’s case. Not technically. For their purposes, he was merely a witness—the first person the victim had called.

Christy Moser looked directly at him for the first time since they’d come into the house. As before, when he’d looked into her eyes at the coffee kiosk, he thought he saw something underneath their cool darkness.

She gave a slight negative shake of her head. “I wasn’t raped,” she said quickly. “But it was obvious that he was male.”

The younger officer’s face turned pink. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Did he—did he take anything?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Apparently his only purpose in attacking me was to give me a message.”

“A message?” the officer echoed.

Christy opened her mouth but before she could speak, Ella Bardin was back with a steaming mug of fragrant tea. “Here you go, dear. I’m sorry it took so long, but I wanted to wait until the EMTs were gone.”

The two officers eyed the hot drink with covetousness in their gazes, but if Ella Bardin noticed, she gave no sign of it. Christy thanked her and held the cup in her left hand.

“You said the attacker left you a message?”

“That’s right. He pushed my face against the hardwood floor and said, ‘Go back where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.’“

Reilly watched the two officers. Both of them sat up straight in their seats.

“Your sister?” Watts said.

At the same time the younger officer echoed, “Get out of town?”

Christy Moser held up the hand with the cast. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured, except for the right index one, which was raggedly broken. “Let me explain,” she said, much more calmly than the officers’ outbursts. She took a quick breath and continued.

“My sister was murdered five years ago, on Bienville Street in the French Quarter. Her death was ruled a mugging, but my father was certain that she was murdered by a married man with whom she was having an affair. The night she died was her birthday and she’d gone down to the Quarter to celebrate.”

The word celebrate took on an ironic tone. Reilly wondered just how much Christy knew about her sister and the man she’d been seeing.

“I’ve been in Boston for the past six years, doing a residency and then a fellowship in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital. I had—” She paused and a fleeting shadow crossed her face. “I wasn’t aware of everything that was going on. However, I believe that my attack this evening proves that my father was right. My sister’s death wasn’t just a mugging. And apparently whoever killed her feels threatened by my presence here.”

Reilly noticed that the two officers seemed bewildered. He sympathized with them. He’d barely kept up with her rapid-fire explanation and conclusion, and he had the advantage of knowing something about the case from Ryker.

The lead officer looked at Reilly then back at Christy. “I think we need to get an official statement from you—downtown. And I’m going to call CSI to look for trace from the man who allegedly assaulted you.”