conversation with Pierce today, he’d examined today’s patient after she was placed in the ICU. She had blond hair and pale blue eyes, like his late wife. Similar build. But she was, of course, not his wife. Her face was different though there were definite similarities. Shoe size was wrong. Her fingers weren’t as long as Mrs. Pierce’s had been.
Not that there had ever been any question. The point was that someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to find a woman who, on first look, greatly resembled Cara Pierce.
“You were able to speak with her.” It wasn’t a question. Victoria had told Bella as much. She simply wanted to watch his reaction as he answered.
“Briefly. She claimed not to know her name or mine. She couldn’t say where her home was or what had happened to her.”
“Which could be as a result of her injuries,” Bella suggested.
“It’s possible but doubtful, in my opinion. There are also certain drugs that can produce the same effect. We’re running new screens for those substances.”
“Did you tell the police?” Bella knew he had not. She’d spoken to a contact at Chicago PD and nothing else had come in about the accident. As far as the police knew, the woman hit the guardrail. The accident was her fault. No alcohol in her blood. She would survive and the only property damage was her own.
“No, I haven’t spoken to the police about the matter.” He crossed his arms over his chest in a classic defense gesture. “Since the situation is obviously very personal, I intend to conduct my own investigation first.”
Bella wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t the sort of man to turn over control of something so extremely personal unless he had no other choice. “You do realize that legally you have an obligation to inform the police about the patient’s situation.”
Another of those long staring sessions came next. Finally, he said, “I do and I will, when I’m ready.”
“This is your dime, Dr. Pierce, so we’ll play your way until I am compelled to take a different tactic. If at any time I feel the woman in that hospital room is vulnerable to the situation in some way, I will go to the police myself.”
“I’ve assigned security to her room,” he said, his tone flat. “She’s completely safe.”
“As long as we’re clear on that point.”
“We’re quite clear, Ms. Lytle.”
She straightened her back, squared her shoulders. “Is there anything else you should tell me before we begin?”
He shook his head, the move so slight she would not have noticed had she not been watching him so closely. “Nothing at all.”
Something else Bella had learned during ten years of investigative work, seven at the ABI and three with the Colby Agency, was that when a man could look you straight in the eye and lie without a single tell, he was dangerous.
“Tell me about your enemies, Dr. Pierce.”
“When I first began the development phase of the Edge, two years before my wife was killed, I had a couple of partners. Jack Hayman and Richard Sutter. Both eventually fell off the project.” One corner of his mouth lifted as if he might smile. “Jack knew basically nothing about what I was doing. He simply wanted to invest part of his vast fortune in something useful.”
“What about Richard Sutter?”
Pierce lifted one shoulder in a negligible shrug. “Our parting was less than amiable. He filed several lawsuits but all were dismissed as frivolous.”
“Less than amiable” was a vast understatement. “He suffered tremendous financial losses when the two of you severed your business relationship.”
A single nod. “Our visions for the project turned out to be vastly different. Severing the relationship was his choice, not mine.”
Bella held back the laugh that tickled her throat but she couldn’t completely hide the smile. “My assessment of those events is that you left him no other choice.”
He stood. “There are always choices, Ms. Lytle. Perhaps limited, but choices nonetheless. I think I’ll have something stronger than the coffee. Would you like a drink?”
“The coffee is fine.”
She watched as he crossed the room, then opened a cabinet that revealed a bar lined with mirrors and glass shelves. He reached for a bottle of bourbon and poured a significant serving into a glass. His every move was measured, elegant, like the suit he wore.
Bella had read many articles about Pierce before tragedy sent his life on a different path. She’d even watched a couple of television interviews. Dr. Devon Pierce had been a real Chicago hero at Rush University Medical Center. He’d smiled often in the interviews. He’d spoken like a man determined to help others...determined to do good. He and two partners were developing a new kind of ER model. He had been a man with a mission. A happy man.
This was not the same man. He’d resigned from his position as head of surgery at Rush. He’d become completely obsessed with his mission to create a better ER. He’d withdrawn from society beyond the necessary appearances at fund-raisers. But he had completed his mission. His prototype, the Edge, was an unparalleled emergency department dedicated to his late wife.
When he’d taken his seat once more, she asked, “Assuming his goal is to ruin you or perhaps worse, do you believe Mr. Sutter would go to these extremes to have his vengeance?”
“Richard is an extremely intelligent man with vast resources. He certainly possesses the means to carry out such an elaborately planned plot, but I would prefer to think not. Yet here we are.” He sipped his drink.
Bella watched him savor the taste that lingered on his lips. Her throat parched and she had to look away. “You knew the man—like a brother, you claimed in one of the interviews I watched. Would he want to simply damage your reputation? Or is he capable of far worse?”
That blue gaze trapped hers once more. “Powerful men rarely have set boundaries, Ms. Lytle.”
She didn’t have to ask if he fell into that same category. “Would he overstep the bounds of the law? Risk criminal charges and perhaps jail time?” As Pierce pointed out, setting up a woman who resembled his wife, complete with similar physical injuries, and delivering her in such a way as was done today was not a small thing. And certainly not one that was legal under any circumstances.
“I believe that may be the case.”
“Was a lack of resources why he didn’t come after you before? Five years is quite a while to wait for revenge.” Sutter and Pierce had broken their partnership five years ago. Sutter had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth until about eighteen months ago. Bella had tracked his return back that far. He stayed out of the public eye these days.
“His resources took a hit when our association ended but he was far from devastated financially,” Pierce explained. “It was likely the failed legal steps and the cancer that kept him from making a move like this before. Rumor is he found a private hospital in some country not burdened by the FDA’s restraints to seek treatment. I have no idea how long he was out of the country.”
A near-death experience
