Chapter 20

20

C alvin stayed close to Jenna's side as she turned through the labyrinth of hallways in the hospital. Hushed whispers bounced off the bright white floors and the sad eyes of the staff were impossible to ignore. Not having any words, and wanting to stay as inconspicuous as possible, Calvin kept his chin down and ignored the pain pounding against his side as Jenna stopped in front of Dr. Church's office.

Jenna plunged a hand in her pocket and grabbed her keys.

"You have a key to your boss's office?"

"I told you. We were good friends." With a quick glance over her shoulder, she shoved the key in the lock, opened the door, then preceded him inside before closing and locking the door behind her. She sucked in a shuddering breath.

Calvin pressed a palm between her shoulder blades. "Take a second. This is a lot."

Shaking her head, she limped toward the desk in front of a built-in bookshelf.

Calvin followed, studying the modest room. Sitting at the desk, Dr. Church would have had a view out the window of the smattering of trees in the back of the building with the mountains looming in the distance. The bookcase boasted medical journals and thick, hard-backed books of deep browns and blues. Framed photos took up open space on the shelves as well as the desk, which was neat as a pin.

Picking up a silver frame, he studied the smiling couple. A well-cut older man who kept himself fit and a petite woman with gray streaks through curling black hair huddled together while rain splashed down on them somewhere on a beach. Where most people would be put out, the couple beamed, laughing at the weather. "They looked happy."

Jenna fell into the desk chair and slid open the top drawer of a filing cabinet. "They were happy."

The firm tone of her voice warned Calvin not to argue, not to question. Bomb after bomb had been dropped on Jenna the last couple of days. Even if she was questioning her friend's possible involvement in Stella's murder, he didn't need to voice his concerns. Not now. When the unspoken suspicions were clear enough for everyone investigating this case.

Pulling out a manilla file folder, Jenna leafed through the contents. "He pulled the information on Dr. Kent—the death of Tracey Mayfield."

Calvin read over her shoulder. The information on the paper matched what he'd heard from both Jenna and Dr. Kent. "Anything else in the file?"

She flipped through the loose papers. "A copy of my complaint against Dr. Kent is in here, his response to my allegations, as well as a write up of Dr. Kent's termination from the hospital." She slid the file back in place and shifted through the protruding tabs. "Just standard paperwork."

Calvin poked around the books, tilting them from their places and searching for hiding spots in the nooks and crannies or behind the leather tombs. Nothing. He spun around, searching for any other place the doctor could have tucked things away from prying eyes.

Jenna sighed and struggled to her feet. "We won't find anything. I can promise you. If he'd had more to show me, it would either be on his desk or maybe he'd have taken it home. I'm sure Officer Sawyer has already been to his house, and I wouldn't feel right showing up and upsetting Marin further. She has enough to deal with right now."

Calvin pressed his lips in a sad smile. Leave it to Jenna to be more concerned with the grieving widow of a friend than gathering information that could point to a killer. Although she was probably right. Anything connected to the case at Dr. Church's home would have been gathered by the police already. Not knowing what else do, he crossed over to her and wrapped his arms around her.

She rested her forehead on his chest. Her long, slow breaths leaked from her partially opened mouth.

His heart hitched, and he inhaled her intoxicating scent. A familiar mix of lavender and mint transported him to another time. Yearning to deepen those memories, feel the blur of years fall away, he cupped the delicate line of her jaw.

Jenna pressed her hand over his and closed her eyes for a beat before the heat of her gaze bore into him. "Calvin."

The way she said his name was like an answered prayer—a prayer he wanted to forever hear uttered from her perfect lips. Jenna might not be the same girl he'd loved, but she'd grown into a strong woman whose soul was just as gentle and sweet and kind as it'd always been. And he was tired of pretending he didn't want to get to know her all over again. That he didn't want to throw away every single reservation that had ever held him back and invite her back into his life. "Jenna, I?—"

A swift knock on the door interrupted his confession.

She stilled and widened her eyes.

A few more tense seconds passed then the distant sound of footsteps walking away.

"We should go," Calvin said, dropping a quick kiss on the top of her head before breaking away. A shiver danced down his spine and he couldn't fight the smile curving his mouth. Something had shifted inside him, and he wasn't sure what to do about it. Or even if there was anything to be done. Either way, now wasn't the time to figure it out.

Rounding the desk, his foot grazed the side of a metal trash can tucked beside the leather chair. Wadded papers filled the receptacle. Bending, he grabbed the piece from the top and flattened it. "What is this?"

Jenna rested a palm on the small of his back and looked at what he'd found. The heat of her body pressed against him. "Looks like a printout of a patient's chart."

He glanced over the numbers and letters that might as well be a foreign language. "Do doctors usually print out their patient's charts?"

"No. Everything's computerized now, and it's easy to pull up whatever's needed on the system we use at the hospital. I don't know why Edward would have printed this out." Leaning forward, she ran the tip of her finger over the paper. "This was one of my patients. This doesn't make any sense."

Intuition kicking in, Calvin scooped the rest of the papers from the trash and dumped them on the desk. Each piece was wadded into a tight little ball. He flattened out the closest paper. The markings looked similar to the first page, but the name at the top was different. "Another chart?"

She snatched the page. "Different patient, but another one of mine."

His pulse thundered as he uncrushed another page and handed it to Jenna.

"What the hell?" Her voice rose an octave and she grabbed another wadded-up page. "Also my patient. Edward said he would investigate any complaints made against me. These aren't complaints."

Dread settled in his stomach. "Did all of these patients die under your care?"

"Yes." Jenna scanned the copied charts and nodded. "Why wouldn't he show these to me if he thought they were important?"

"Maybe he was looking for someone connected to one of these cases that could be angry with you. What if we missed something? What if the person who's after you is connected to one of your patients that didn't make it?"

She frowned, the lines in her forehead rippling. "Like some kind of sick revenge scheme to get payback because someone thinks I'm the reason their loved one died?"

"It's an angle we haven't explored and could explain why Dr. Church was killed. If someone from within the hospital found out what he was searching for, they might have decided to take him out before he could put everything together."

Jenna trailed a finger along the wrinkled paper on one of the charts still resting on the desk. "Because he got too close to the truth. He didn't kill Stella. He didn't attack me. He tried to help. He died because of me."

Jenna burst outside through the double doors of the emergency room and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. The weight of the world fell on her shoulders like a collapsing building, brick by brick, crushing her slowly and paralyzing her with pain and fear.

Another death on her conscience. Another angle to explore that involved someone coming after her and those she loved because she might have made a mistake. Hell, she might have done everything right but still couldn't save someone. She wasn't God. There was only so much she could do to try and save a life.

She rubbed her tight chest. When would the truth finally come to light? When would she be able to move forward without wondering who would be the next victim to some madman's sick game?

Calvin stopped beside her and rested a hand on her back. He moved his palm in small circles against her jacket. "Tell me what you need me to do. What would help right now?"

She fisted her hands at her side, relishing the anger sweeping through her. Anger was better than pain and terror. She could use that to put one foot in front of the other. She needed to be strong, not fall apart or crumble under the pressure mounting higher and higher. "What haven't we checked into? What else can we do to get to the bottom of everything? I can't just sit around and be idle. I have to move. Have to help."

Calvin squinted against the harsh sunlight, his nose squishing as his eyes crinkled at the corners. "I still believe you're at the center of this, but this whole mess was put into motion with Stella's murder. Why? What pushed her to come to you and threaten to take Oliver? What was the catalyst that made this person snap and kill Stella?"

"Did Dean ever find where those payments to Stella's bank account were coming from?" She'd tried to keep what she'd learned about the case straight, but things were bound to slip through the cracks of her memory with everything she had on her plate.

"No, but I'll text him and see if he's found anything more." Calvin grabbed his phone and sent off a quick text.

"What would your next move be?" Jenna asked. "If you were attacking this case just like every other one you'd worked before." He was damn good at his job. That's why she'd reached out to him in the first place. She didn't want to hold him back, even if she refused to leave his side while he worked.

"I still want to talk to the administrative staff at the church Stella cleaned. That's the last place that follows the timeline of Stella's shift in financial status. Plus, she spent a lot of time there. Could be someone we haven't spoken with who knows more than they've mentioned."

Jenna let her gaze wander past the packed parking lot to the towering evergreens surrounding the lot. "I haven't heard back from Father Bowman. I need to get the details of Stella's funeral from him as well. We could stop by the church on the way home. We might stumble upon someone working who knew Stella."

"Are you feeling all right? Maybe you should rest a little before we go to the church."

"I'm fine," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

He quirked one eyebrow. "Really?"

"Okay," she said on a sigh. "My head's killing me, and I still feel a little sick to my stomach. But that doesn't mean I need to rest. I can keep moving, keep going."

Grabbing his keys from his pocket, he shook his head. "But it doesn't mean you should."

She gave him a hard stare, unwilling to back down.

His phone dinged, and he glanced at the screen. "It's Dean. The bulk of the money from Stella's bank account came from a local bank in a small town in North Dakota. That's weird."

She searched her memory for anyone she knew from North Dakota and came up empty. "Any chance he found a name connected to the account?"

"Not yet, but he's still digging. He'll let me know if he finds anything else. Hopefully he'll find something soon, but for now let's head to the church."

Walking beside him, she steeled her nerves for another disappointing excursion. She wouldn't admit it to Calvin, but she was losing hope that they'd ever find Stella's killer.