at the beginning? What happened with your fiancé?”
Her head dropped for a moment. He could almost see her trying to collect her thoughts and gather her courage. Admiration flickered briefly before he squashed it. Leaning forward, he waited.
“Brett Stevens and I had been dating for six months.” His heart wrenched at the sorrow on her face, in her voice. “We had gone to high school together, but never really knew each other. There were over five hundred students in our graduating class. We met up again at a five-year get-together and just clicked. We dated for six months before we got engaged. I know that doesn’t seem like a long time, but we’d been talking marriage since the second month. We’d gotten engaged just five days before he died. I was over the moon.”
She swallowed. He knew that she was struggling, but to her credit, she kept going. “I went to a conference, and when I came home, he was in the hospital. An overdose. No one even knew we were engaged. Brett wanted to wait to announce it.”
The heartache in her eyes was painful to even watch. But he made himself. Maybe if he could get some answers for her, she’d have some peace.
“So he was in the hospital...” he said when the silence grew too long.
She ran a hand through her shoulder-length blond hair. “Yeah. He was actually supposed to be one of my patients. Isn’t that ironic?” She huffed a bitter laugh. “When I told the head nurse who he was, she put another nurse in charge of his case. During the night shift, he was somehow given the wrong IV. He went into cardiac arrest. They were unable to revive him.”
She stood, began to pace. “I was investigated because I was on duty that night. All the night staff were, but the police looked especially hard at me because of our relationship. Something about the significant other often being the culprit. To make matters worse, I had gone in to visit him during my break.” Alexa shook her head. “It was like being on one of those TV crime shows.”
No doubt. “I’m guessing that you were cleared of any wrongdoing.” It wasn’t really a question. If she hadn’t been, she would never have been hired as a nurse practitioner again.
“Yes. By the police. But the other nurses at the hospital were noticeably colder to me. I could tell that they weren’t convinced. Someone started the rumor that I had driven him to attempt to kill himself and then had finished the job. It was horrible. I knew that wasn’t the case, but still, I did wonder if it was my fault. If I had failed him. The guilt nearly destroyed me. Which is why I handed in my notice and sought out a new home in a quiet town where nothing exciting ever happened.”
“Why do you think you failed him?”
The glance she flung in his direction clearly said she thought he was being thick. “Seriously? I’m a nurse. I came back from a medical conference to find the man I planned to marry had been admitted into the hospital after supposedly trying to kill himself.”
“Surely, though, you knew you weren’t at fault when he died at the hospital.”
Alexa shrugged. “I wasn’t the nurse taking care of him, so obviously I knew that I hadn’t made the mistake with the IV. However, I thought that if I had realized he’d been depressed and gotten him help, he wouldn’t have been in the hospital to begin with.”
“Alexa, I will look into his death and the situation at the hospital. I will say this—I find it too much of a coincidence that both your fiancé and a man under your care at a medical facility have been hurt, or worse. Add to the mix the flowers that you got from a flower shop destroyed by arson.” He tightened his lips. He knew in his gut that Brett had been murdered. Without absolute proof, though, he was reluctant to voice the thought. Even though he was sure both Parker and Alexa were thinking the same thing.
“Alexa? Are you all right? Maybe you should sit down.” Parker’s concerned voice broke into his thoughts.
Looking up at the woman standing on the other side of the table, he understood why. If he thought her face was white before, it was completely colorless now. For a second, he feared she’d faint. He stood and moved to her side. Gently he urged her back to her seat. When she sat, he pulled out the chair beside her and sank into it.
“Alexa?” He touched her shoulder.
Finally, she turned her head, slowly, like it took great effort. “He followed me, didn’t he? The man stalking me followed me from Chicago. I hadn’t realized that someone was watching me there, too.”
That startled him. “Too? Alexa, has someone been watching you?”
The urgency of his voice seemed to jerk her out of her of the dark place she’d gone in her mind.
“I don’t know. I can’t be sure. It’s just that sometimes...sometimes I feel like someone’s watching me. You know the feeling?”
Both sergeants nodded.
“Where are you when this happens?” Parker asked. “At work? Home?”
She raised her hands, palms up. “Yes, to both. Home, work, once outside the post office. I never actually saw anyone suspicious. Nor have I noticed the same person in several places.”
Gavin digested that information, not liking it at all. “What about other incidents at the clinic? Anything unusual or suspicious stand out to you?”
When she shook his head, he held in a sigh. Not from impatience with her. She was a victim here. No, he was impatient with the idea that he had to let her go home without any assurance that the attacker was beyond bars. Who would protect her?
He would have to make sure that she was safe.
“Was it my fault?” she asked in a small, dull voice. “Did Brett die and did Noah get shot because of me?”
“No!” She flinched from the force of his response. He gentled his voice. “No. Alexa, it’s not on you that some creep is following you. You did not ask for it. And you certainly don’t deserve it. No woman does.”
“I get that, but Brett—”
He cut her off. “Brett loved you, right? I am sure that he wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
Gavin waited for her nod, then he stood. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll see about getting you some protection where you live. Obviously, you’ll need to take some time off work—”
“I can’t!” she interrupted him.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Why would anyone want to go to work when someone was literally gunning for them?
Parker stood and came around the table. “Alexa, you’re in danger. Going to work will bring that danger to the others who work there.”
“Gah!” She exploded into a standing position so fast her wooden chair fell over with a loud clatter. Parker stooped to pick it up. Alexa strode to the window. The tension was vibrating off her. “I get what you’re saying. I do. But I don’t have a choice. Maybe if we weren’t in the middle of a flu epidemic. As it is, the clinic is already short-staffed. We have patients who depend on us.”
Gavin considered the situation. “Hold on for just a minute, okay?” He strode to the door.
“He’s
