What Echoes Render Page 13

  “I didn’t really think about it, and how did you find out anyway?” Jesse commented as they began to walk again.

  “David might have mentioned something to Ian.”

  “Might have?”

  Vivi inclined her head. “Did. He seemed very concerned. He was the one who brought it to Ian’s attention in the first place. Since Ian didn’t know about your appointment, he hadn’t made any connections. But when David suggested he look into it? Well, let’s just say Ian isn’t all that happy about it.”

  “It wasn’t something I intentionally kept secret. Obviously, not since David knew and anyone else I might have mentioned it to.”

  “We’ll get to that part later. But back to my original question. Have you received any letters or phone calls at work from people unhappy with you or the hospital?”

  Jesse had to laugh at that. “Yeah, all the time. I don’t actually see most of them. They go to our internal patient care review team. They do read them all, and if a letter warrants, they’ll look into the sender’s complaint and we have a whole process in place for handling it. If the team finds a complaint that might pose a high risk to the hospital or other patients, they’ll bring it to me and we’ll do a full scale investigation.”

  “And have you seen any of those kind of letters in the past six months or so?”

  “Maybe two or three. But they were specific to a physician or nurse. Nothing that blasted the hospital in general.”

  “Still, would it be possible to get a look at those letters?”

  Jesse wanted to say “Yes, of course.” But the reality was that some of those letters contained confidential information. They wouldn’t be considered protected health information, which was protected by federal law, but she didn’t want to run afoul of any other privacy laws that might be implicated by the letters.

  “I don’t have an objection, especially since you’re doing it because you seem to think someone might be out to harm me, but I’ll have to check with our lawyers. If we can legally give them to you, or Ian, really, we will. But if we need a warrant, I’m going to have to require one. I hate to be a stickler, but I don’t want to put the hospital at risk of a lawsuit or anything like that.”

  Thankfully, being a professor and a consultant with the government, Vivi knew a thing or two about privacy and the law, so she nodded.

  “Thanks, now let’s also talk about who might have known your movements so Ian can also start with that line of inquiry. Who knew you would be at the track meet?”

  “Only every parent of every other kid on the track team. We’re all at the home meets almost all of the time. And then there are the kids, and anyone at work who knows the boys run. And those at work who do know the boys run often ask about upcoming meets, so anyone who might have overheard those conversations would know,” she answered in a sardonic tone, knowing full well her response wouldn’t help.

  “That narrows it down.”

  Jesse could understand Vivi’s sarcasm, but it made her smile. Life wasn’t as clean as they liked to make it appear in the movies and there was no way she would be able to identify anyone who might have looked out of place eavesdropping on her conversations.

  “So how about Spin-A-Yarn? Who knew you’d be there?” Vivi asked.

  “I obviously don’t know everyone who knew I’d be there, but the boys knew, Danielle Martinez knew, most of my friends at the hospital, including my assistant, Kayla. I was talking on the phone to Julie when I saw David, which is how he knew.”

  “So again, anyone might have overheard you?”

  Jesse inclined her head.

  “What about this afternoon? Who knew you’d be on that road?”

  “Kayla, because she knows everything about my schedule. Again, the boys knew because I was making some dinners to freeze and take down to Carl and Angie. I had to buy some extra containers and had a little chat with Josie at the Extra Mart. And again, a lot of folks at the hospital. As you know, Carl was my predecessor. He still has a lot of friends there so folks dropped off a number of cards and small gifts for me to take, knowing I was going over there. And then again, David knew because he helped me carry the stuff out to the car.”

  They’d come back down the hill and were now adjacent to the house on the opposite side from where they started. They could continue on and loop down the front part of the property line, but Jesse was starting to feel a little sore. And maybe a touch nervous.

  “You up for a drink? I have some tonic water, decaf tea, and a bunch of other stuff,” she asked with a gesture toward the house.

  “I would love some tea. The days are generally warm now, but it’s still a bit chilly in the evenings.”

  They made their way inside, and Vivi sat at the breakfast bar while Jesse put the kettle on and laid out some teas for her friend to choose from. When Jesse slid onto a stool beside her, Vivi looked up.

  “So, maybe I should be a little more vigilant about using my alarm?” Jesse asked. “I was also just considering getting a dog. I was sitting outside and realized that in a few months Matt will be gone and James won’t be far behind. A dog might be nice.”

  Vivi snorted. “You can have Rooster.”

  “You love Rooster.”

  “Yeah, we do. But I had to get up early to drive into Boston yesterday, and Ian was trying to sleep in because he’d been up on a night call. Rooster, who has been even weirder than usual since the pregnancy, regressed into his puppy days and started howling at me. I couldn’t get him to shut up.”

  Rooster was by far the goofiest-looking dog Jesse had ever seen. His fur was gray and wooly, his eyes were the color of a wolf’s, and his ears were these enormous things that stuck straight out to the sides. And more often than not, his tongue was sticking out.

  “What did you do?”

  “The only thing that would shut him up was to put him in bed with Ian.”

  Both women were laughing now.

  “I bet Ian loved that.”

  “I didn’t stick around to see the show. I skedaddled as fast as I could. Before either could protest anymore.”

  Jesse was laughing when she got up and poured Vivi’s mug of hot water. Even though she wasn’t looking for wedded bliss, she couldn’t be happier for her two friends. As she came back to her seat, her phone vibrated on the counter. Looking at the number, she was grateful it wasn’t David again. But the fact that Ian was calling her and not Vivi was curious. She hit speaker.

  “Hi Ian.”

  “Is my wife there?”

  Jesse glanced at Vivi.

  “Yes, I’m here,” Vivi answered

  They could hear him let out a deep breath. “I’ve been calling you. Where is your phone?”

  Vivi looked around like she might find it on the counter, then felt her pockets. “Oh, I must have left it in the car. Sorry.”

  “But you’re fine?”

  “We’re both fine, thank you,” Vivi answered smoothly. “We just went for a little walk and had a little chat about who might be doing some of these things that have happened.”

  “Any thoughts, Jesse?” Ian asked.

  “No, Vivi can fill you in. But my life really isn’t all that exciting. I have no idea who might be doing these things, or even if they are actually related. I have a hard time believing your suspicions, but I’m also not interested in being the proverbial virgin in a horror movie flick. I’m taking you all seriously, even if I’m not sure what to really think about it.”

  “Good,” he grunted.

  “Have you eaten dinner yet, Ian?” Vivi asked. When he said no, she turned to Jesse. “Do you have plans, Jesse?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ian, why don’t you stop by Station Pizza and bring some food up here. We can hang out for a while, eat, catch up. It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance,” Vivi suggested.

  Jesse wasn’t fooled. She knew her friend was trying to make this easier by not leaving her alone to think about all the things that go bump in the night. She
could have said no, but it was also true that she hadn’t had a lot of time to catch up with her friends lately. The end of the school year was always crazy.

  “Jesse?” Ian asked.

  “If you don’t mind sharing your wife after she’s been gone for a few days, I would love it.”

  “It’s a plan. I’ll get the usual and be up in about an hour?”

  They agreed and hung up.

  “It’s a plan?” Jesse repeated with a smile, making Vivi laugh.

  “I know, Ian always has a plan.”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jesse tapped an old, familiar business card on the kitchen counter and stared at her phone. The thought that she was overreacting had crossed her mind about a thousand times. But so had the thought that if she didn’t do this, she could end up regretting it later. With a sigh, she grabbed her phone and dialed the number on the card.

  “Wilton Dillard.”

  “Wilton, it’s Jesse Baker, Mark Baker’s wife—widow,” she corrected.

  “Jesse! How are you? I haven’t heard from you in, well, awhile.”

  She smiled at that. Her lawyer was too professional to say “since Mark died.”

  “Yes, it has been awhile. That’s why I wanted to call. I haven’t updated my will or taken a look at the trust since Mark died. I was thinking that maybe we should meet to make sure everything is still in order.”

  She knew this was the right thing to do. Whether or not someone was actually after her or not, it was something she needed to do for her kids’ sake, something she’d been meaning to do for a while but had just never gotten around to. Only, doing it now made her feel like she was tempting fate.

  “Yes, yes, of course. When would you like to come in? I can meet you tomorrow?”

  Leave it to Wilton to meet with her on a weekend. He was in his late sixties, still sharp, and had lost his wife almost ten years earlier. Jesse was pretty sure he went to his office every day just to give himself something to do. She was also pretty sure he didn’t have enough business to keep him all that busy, with Windsor not being that big of a town. But she could picture him there at his desk—reading the paper, maybe flipping through law journals.

  “This weekend isn’t good. The boys get home tomorrow afternoon and I’ll want to go through some of my paperwork first. How about Monday morning? Say nine thirty?”

  “Nine thirty it is.” He didn’t even hesitate. “I have copies of the will documents here, but why don’t you bring what you have as well as a list of your accounts, insurance, things like that, and we can make sure everything is taken care of?”

  She agreed and ended the call, still wondering if she was overreacting. The good news was, no one would need to know and she could overreact in private.

  Glancing at the clock, she decided to head to Stockbridge early and grab some tea before her massage. She was a lot sorer, not surprisingly, than she’d been the day before. Pretty much every muscle in her body ached, and her neck was so stiff it was giving her a headache. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t expected, but it still sucked.

  She paused, picking up her purse as her phone rang. She looked at the number then answered.

  “Hi Matty.”

  “Dash ran into Vivi this morning and she told him what happened yesterday. Are you okay?” Matty’s words came quickly, without so much as a hello.

  “Sore, but okay. I’m on my way out to get a massage now,” Jesse answered.

  “Good, I hope you get two. Come to dinner tonight, it will just be us and it will get you out and moving. I know that probably doesn’t sound all that appealing right now, but moving around will help.”

  “I know it will, but tonight doesn’t work.” She needed to get the paperwork in order for her visit to Wilton’s office on Monday. And she wanted to do it before the boys got home.

  “Then brunch tomorrow,” Matty insisted. “Kit is coming over and might bring Caleb, her brother, if he bothers to show up—her words not mine. Although, to hear her talk of him, brunch might be too civilized.”

  The mention of Kit brought back the memory of their conversation last week. “Did you know she was thinking about setting me up with him?” Jesse laughed, still in disbelief. Matty hooted.

  “That would be interesting. I’m picturing a male version of Kit, and if he’s that, he’s probably a good fifteen inches taller than you. Hmm, I’d almost like to see that. You know, if I were a voyeur, of course.”

  Jesse laughed even harder. “I know! That’s what I said to her. We wouldn’t fit. Honestly, I don’t know what she was thinking.”

  “Given that she seems ambivalent about him herself, I’m not sure what she was thinking either. So, will you? Come to brunch?”

  In a flash, Jesse ran through everything she needed to get done to prepare for the coming week—from pulling things together for Wilton to getting some work done Sunday to make up for the hours she would miss in the office Monday morning. It would be tight, but she thought she could do it all without too much headache.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there. What can I bring?”

  “Nothing but yourself, you have enough going on right now. We’ll take care of it all and if you do bring something, I’ll retaliate and seat you beside Kit’s brother. If he comes,” Matty added.

  It was hard to imagine that with her life, her friends, her kids, and her job, there would be someone out there that could hate her enough to want to hurt her. It really just didn’t make sense.

  But still, that didn’t mean she was going to take Vivi and Ian’s opinions lightly.

  ***

  David pulled his phone from his locker and looked at the time. It was nine a.m. on a Sunday. He wondered if Jesse was up. She was a parent, so he’d guess that she’d lost the ability to sleep past eight or eight thirty once the first baby had come along. On a whim, he jogged down the stairs and stepped outside with his phone. He needed to shower and change—he smelled like smoke—but he found he wanted to talk to her first. He’d spoken to Ian late last night and had heard the tone of growing suspicion in the sheriff’s voice. And now, well, he just wanted to know she was okay.

  “Hello?” Her voice was heavy with sleep. He could hear sheets rustling, like she was rolling over in bed. His body reacted with a jolt at the thought of her in bed and it crossed his mind that maybe he shouldn’t have called.

  “So this is what you sound like when you’re sleepy. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  It took a second for her to respond, if she hadn’t checked the number before she’d answered she was probably still sorting out who he was.

  “Good morning, David.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Yes, this is what it sounds like when I’m sleepy, but no, you didn’t wake me. I’ve been lying here for about thirty minutes just enjoying the coziness of it all.”

  Listening to her voice just then, he suddenly really understood the appeal of phone sex.

  He cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better than yesterday, that’s for sure. I had a massage.”

  He’d just been imagining her in bed and now he had to picture her on a massage table? Sheer torture, he thought.

  “And went for a nice walk.” She continued. “I’m still sore, but definitely on the mend. How are you?”

  “We just got in from a call. No one was hurt and everyone got out of the apartment building, so I’m doing fine. So, did, uh . . .” He didn’t want to kill this easy sense of intimacy, but he needed to know she was being careful.

  “Did Vivi and Ian talk to me? Yes, they did. Vivi came over after I got home the other day and then Ian ended up coming over and joining us for dinner. We talked through a couple of scenarios, and while I’m not dumb enough to discount the intuition of three investigators, it all seems so unreal.”

  He could understand that. In fact it didn’t make much sense to him either. She seemed to lead the life of a normal working mom. Not the kind of life that attracted violent people. But even so, his gut told
him there was something to it.

  “I’m sure it does. Did you guys talk about the possibility of it being someone associated with the hospital?” He heard her moving around more in the sheets and even the topic of conversation couldn’t keep his mind from going where it wanted to.

  “Yes, we did. I’m happy to have Ian look at the letters we’ve received, but I’ll have to clear it through our lawyers on Monday first. He also wants to be able to talk to some of the nurses and doctors to see if there was anyone that was particularly unhappy or upset recently that might not have sent a letter, so we’ll make sure to get everything in place for him to do that, too.”

  “Lawyers?” He knew all about legal procedure from his work, but having it applied in a way that slowed down an investigation meant to protect Jesse, well, it pissed him off.

  “I know, can’t live without ‘em, can’t kill ’em.”

  He chuckled. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day? When are the boys home?”

  “They’ll be home around one. I’m headed over to see my friends, Matty and Dash—they invited me to brunch at their place with our friend, Kit and maybe her brother, too. It’s not clear if he is going to be in town or not, but I hope so since we’re all kind of dying to meet him. Kit holds things very close to the vest and seems to have a love/hate thing going on with him so it could be interesting.”

  Jealousy reared its ugly head for a moment and while he wanted to say, “have fun,” he couldn’t quite bring himself to.

  “Well, at the very least, it might be interesting,” he managed to say.

  “If he shows up. We’re not sure he will. But even if he doesn’t, it will be good to see Matty, Dash, and Kit. And Matty is a phenomenal cook, so I’ll be well fed, too.”