to be squeaky-clean or he wouldn’t have offered them up. Then what?”
“Then we have Ryan dig deeper. Figure out if Conrad has a burner phone or some other means of communication. Find out if he has any seedy connections inside the facility who might be willing to do his dirty work for him. Conrad’s rich and well-connected. This meeting we just had is only step one where it comes to Madeline’s ex.” Casey frowned. “My concern is the long list of hospital employees Madeline gave me, every one of whom is a potential suspect until we figure out the assailant’s motive.”
“Some of them will talk to us willingly,” Marc said.
“And some won’t. Plus, who knows who’ll be lying and why? Between the skills you learned from your days at the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and my psychological training, we’ll be able to do a pretty good job of figuring out who’s lying. But their motives? That’s another story entirely. We’ve got to find a nonconfrontational way into that hospital to get a thorough take on the names on Madeline’s list. We have to plan our approach carefully. We’ll only get one chance at this before we lose the chance to keep our role in Madeline’s life a secret.”
“The dedication ceremony to Ronald Lexington is our best shot at doing that,” Marc replied. Casey had told him about the hospital courtyard ceremony on the drive to Connecticut.
“Exactly.” Casey nodded. “But we can’t just walk in there. We’ll need to go as Madeline’s guests. Just a few of us, not the whole team.”
“That few will include me.”
The emphatic tone of Marc’s response wasn’t lost on Casey.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked.
Marc pivoted to face her. “Look, Casey. You and I agreed that I was going to assume my usual role in this investigation. I haven’t given you any reason to doubt that I can. So keeping me away from Madeline is ridiculous. I’m the most qualified person on the team to protect her, while simultaneously scrutinizing and assessing the attendees. I think it should be you, me and Claire who go.”
“And Emma,” Casey surprised him by saying.
“Emma?”
“Uh-huh. Let’s go back to the office. I have a plan that I think will work.”
THE HOSPITAL COURTYARD was lovely, and not just from the natural beauty of the red, orange and gold trees around it. The area was lined with miniature boxwoods and colorful, manicured plants, and surrounded by an iron fence that gave the entire area a close, intimate feel, despite being surrounded by tall hospital buildings. There were several benches situated around the courtyard’s periphery, so that employees could sit and enjoy the view. And, most impressive of all, there was a brass plate planted in the grassy entranceway that was engraved In Honor of Ronald Lexington.
Casey glanced around as the small group of FI team members and Madeline approached the site, noting that there were already so many attendees they were barely able to be contained within the courtyard itself and were spilling over onto the hospital grounds.
“Clearly Ronald Lexington was a well-respected man,” Casey murmured.
“Or everyone is just kissing the necessary asses,” Emma responded under her breath.
Claire bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Such a cynic.”
“She’s probably right,” Marc said. “For the most part, this is a political event, not a lovefest.”
“Shhh.” Madeline put her finger to her lips as a few people spotted her and started to walk over. “We’re on.”
“Wait.” Casey touched Madeline’s arm, then pointed at an attractive, middle-aged woman with frosted blond hair who was flanked on either side by a young woman and a young man. Given the resemblance, it wasn’t a long shot to guess that those were her kids. All three of them were surrounded by attendees. There was an air of importance about her as if she was central to the occasion, and Casey could guess why.
“Is that Ronald Lexington’s widow?” she asked Madeline.
“Nancy Lexington, yes,” Madeline confirmed. “Those are her two children, Ron and Felicia. Not really children anymore. I think Ron is twenty-five and Felicia twenty-four.”
Casey took all that in. “I’ll need to meet the three of them later when the masses have left their sides.”
“No problem. I’ll make it happen.”
The next half hour was spent with Madeline introducing her “friends” and discussing her accident with what seemed to be an endless flow of people. Casey had suggested that Madeline get as many introductions as possible out of the way before the ceremony, so that the FI team could mingle comfortably and do their own behavioral analysis as the event unfolded, while Madeline paid the appropriate respect to Ronald Lexington’s memory. There was no point in arousing any suspicions of her motives for being here.
On the other hand, Casey had also instructed Madeline to be up front about who her FI “plus-ones” were. Much to their chagrin, Forensic Instincts team members had been interviewed too many times by TV media sources to assume that no one would recognize them. Candor was their best defense.
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” Casey said, quoting Mark Twain. “In this case, you’ll just tweak the truth to make it work for us. Explain that while you were a nurse in Bethesda, you treated Marc for an injury he sustained, and that, ironically, you ran into each other again in New York. And tell them that Claire and I were both recently patients in this hospital. We received excellent care and wanted to support the facility with a donation.” Casey stopped right there. The reasons for hers and Claire’s hospital admission were not things she wanted to discuss, nor did she need to. The details were no secret. The media had made sure of that.
“As for Emma,” Casey had concluded, “she’s fascinated by the medical field, and she loves helping people. She was hoping that by meeting someone in hospital administration, she could land a candy-striper job.”
Emma hadn’t blinked. She knew her dual roles in today’s visit.
Madeline didn’t, but she’d accepted Casey’s strategy at face value. “So, when you heard Marc was coming, you all opted to join him, each for your own reasons.”
“Exactly. We gave you a call, you offered to bring us as your guests, and that’s that.”
“Okay. That works.”
And it had. No matter how fascinating Forensic Instincts was, the crowd of hospital employees was far more interested in hearing about Madeline’s misfortunes and the severity of her injuries.
That gave the FI team the access they needed.
Their agendas had been laid out by Casey.
Emma headed off to begin her search for the right target.
Claire, keeping a low profile, moved about and stopped here and there to hover near clusters of people. Sipping her sparkling water, she
