His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) (29 page)

"I know. But the forms are standard for anyone entering the hospital. It's not that the hospital is saying her heart's going to stop or her breathing will deteriorate to the point where she'll need a ventilator. Someone from the hospital will explain all of this to you."

"All right. Thank you."

"Oh, one more thing I noticed when I was gathering a few of her things to bring with her to the hospital," the aide said. "In her nightstand was a big envelope with your name on it."

Shelly was so caught off guard she just stood there, staring at the envelope in the woman's outstretched hands.

That was her name, written in Charlie's handwriting. She finally managed to take the fat envelope with a trembling hand.

"I need... Would you excuse me for a moment? I want to look at this."

"Of course," the woman said.

In a daze, Shelly walked to the end of the hall and sat down on one of the benches in the hallway.

She turned the envelope over in her hand, opened the flap and pulled out the thick wad of papers—soil and water analyses for a couple of construction projects the firm was involved in. She checked the date—a few months before Grant left the firm, and he'd been the project manager on these jobs.

The first report was done by a Miami-based subcontractor the firm had hired to test for possible contamination at a hotel site across town. No, now that she looked more closely, it was two sets of reports, one showing the site was fine under Environmental Protection Agency standards, and the other showing problems in the soil and water.

They were expensive problems to fix. The work could easily run a half million dollars or more.

So this is what Grant had done. He'd seen a problem with the samples and made a new report showing everything was fine. He'd turned that report over to Williams Engineering's client.

Shelly felt sick as she shoved the reports back into the envelope and walked down the hall. She had what she needed. Grant had been falsifying reports, and Charlie must have found out about it. Grant had killed him for it.

Chapter 18

Brian spent the morning in a battle with himself, trying to keep his mind on the puzzle of what had happened with Charlie, Grant Edwards and the firm. His goals were clear. Solve the problem, end the danger, and then get Shelly back.

Maureen showed up in his office doorway. "Do you know what time Shelly's coming in?"

Brian pulled his head out of the papers in front of him. "She's not. She's going to be out of town for a few days. If anything on her desk needs to be handled right away, you can bring it to me."

"Oh, dear," the woman said. "Do you know if Marion's nursing home got in touch with Shelly before she left?"

"What?" he asked.

"Someone from the nursing home called this morning about a problem with Marion. I told them to try Shelly's cell phone."

"What time was this?" he asked.

"A little after nine."

A little? It was the kind of description that left an engineer incredibly frustrated. Time should be measured in minutes and in seconds, not vague quantities like "a little." Time mattered, especially right now.

He knew he'd left Shelly at 8:18. He'd wanted to put her on the plane himself, but he had to meet the lawyer.

By a little after nine, she should have been on her way to the airport or already there. He'd begged and bullied her until she'd promised to go. Right now, she should be safe and sound, headed for Tallahassee.

"Maureen," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and even, "I bought a plane ticket in Shelly's name for a flight leaving this morning at ten for Miami, with a connection to Tallahassee. Call the airline for me, please, and see if they'll tell you if she picked up the ticket."

"Of course." The woman headed for the door.

"Come and get me as soon as you find out," he called after her.

He got up and shut the office door. He wanted to call Marion's nursing home, but he blanked out on the name. He did a quick internet search and scanned the listings.

There it was. At least, he thought so. He clicked on the place's website and dialed the number. As he waited for someone to answer, he glanced at the website again. The place promised privacy, seclusion, a room that's not just a room, but a home away from home.

Home
?

The place had been Marion's home for years.

How could he have overlooked that? It was the only place they hadn't searched for whatever Grant Edwards wanted so desperately, and probably one of the few places Grant hadn't searched, either, unless that was why the place had been trying to contact Shelly.

No, she would have told him. She'd have called him and never gone there by herself. Grant hadn't been there yet. Brian was sure of it.

"Brian?" Maureen said. "The airline wouldn't tell me anything, so I called back and got a different agent. I claimed I was Shelly and asked if they still had a ticket waiting for me. They said they did, but I'd have to fly stand-by to use it, since I'd missed the earlier flight."

He swore silently.

And suddenly, Brian knew. He felt it like a knife in the gut.

That's where the records were.

That's where Shelly was, too. She'd figured it out, somehow.

He prayed Grant Edwards wasn't there already, as well, even as he grabbed his keys and ran for the door.

* * *

Shelly walked down the hallway, looking for a quiet spot to call Brian.

She heard footsteps coming up behind her. Before she could get out of the way to let the person pass her, an arm reached out and grabbed her from behind, pulling her into one of the patient's rooms, an empty one.

Shelly shouldn't have been surprised to find herself face-to-face with Grant again. After all, she had what he wanted so desperately. It was right there in her hand. And she hadn't had time to tell anyone what she'd found.

Grant threw her against the wall, then stood there in front of her, nervously tapping his foot on the tile floor while his eyes darted all around the room.

"Hello, Shelly," he said finally, his voice shaking, his body, too. Nerves? Or something else? Something he'd done? Or maybe something he'd taken? If it was to calm him down, it hadn't worked.

"Grant," she said, searching the room herself. Personal items were scattered all around, and the bed had been slept in, though it was empty now.

The patient might come back anytime. Or one of the nurses might come. Shelly needed anything to distract the man, to draw his attention away long enough for her to do something.

She could do it. She could get away from him. She had before.

Grant pulled out a gun, again. He flicked a switch with his thumb, and aimed the weapon right at her.

"I know how to use this," he said, the sweat beading on the strip of skin above his top lip. "That sound was the safety coming off. I kept it on last time, because I really didn't want to hurt you. But I will if I have to."

Shelly looked for something she could grab, anything she could use against him, but saw nothing. He had her back against the wall, literally.

"I didn't want to hurt anyone, Shelly. You've got to believe me. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

"I... " She had to pause long enough to take a breath. "I'd like to think you didn't, Grant."

"I didn't. That thing with Charlie... I never meant for that to happen. I swear."

"All right," she said, ready to tell the man anything at this point. "What happened, Grant? What went wrong?"

"I just... I got into some trouble. I have a little gambling problem, hit a dry spell where I couldn't hit anything, and when I tried to fix it, to get out, I got in even deeper."

He was close enough now that Shelly could smell his breath. He'd been drinking, and it wasn't even eleven o'clock in the morning. The hand holding the gun on her wasn't steady at all.

"I owed some people money," he said. "Lots of money. Bad people."

Shelly nodded, seeing again the records he'd altered. "So you did them a favor."

"Exactly," he said. "That's all it was. A little favor. Is that so bad?"

"No," she said, trying to soothe him.

"Exactly. I lost a little more money, did these guys a few more favors. Everything would have been fine. I was getting myself out of it, I swear. Then Charlie caught on to what I was doing."

"And he didn't like it?"

"No, but I knew he was in bad shape himself. He needed the money to keep his wife where she was. So he looked the other way for a while, and I passed a little of the money on to him."

Shelly had to look the other way herself then. She was so damned mad at them both. She'd had no idea Charlie was so desperate and Grant had such a gambling problem.

"Then Charlie wanted out," Grant said, waving the gun along with his hands as he talked. "I said no way, and the next thing I knew, he fired me. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to do. I thought I'd just go to work somewhere else. Then I could keep doing what I needed to do to get the money."

"I thought you went to work in Miami."

"I did, but... I've been drinking a little lately," he said.

Shelly was surprised he would admit it. Maybe he wasn't as far gone as she thought. "So what did you do then?"

"Decided I had to get Charlie to take me back. He wouldn't do it. He said he had records, proof of what I'd done, and he told me he was going to turn me in."

So, in the end, Charlie had tried to do the right thing.

"I couldn't let him do that," Grant said. "All I wanted to do was scare him into letting me come back to work. That's all. That thing with the plane—all I wanted to do was scare him a little. Get him to take me back. I never meant for it to crash, and I never thought you might be in it when it happened. I just... I can't let my family know what happened with the money. I can't. You don't know what they're like, Shelly. They would never understand."

One more mystery solved, she thought. This man had snapped.

"I like you, Shelly," he said, apparently in all sincerity, but the gun was still pointed at her. "I started to worry about you, because I really didn't want you to get hurt in any of this. That's why I called you, to warn you. You should have listened to me."

"Look," Shelly said. "It's not too late. If Charlie's death was an accident, the way you say it was, you can explain that to everyone. I'll help you, Grant. We'll make them understand."

"No." He shook his head. "It won't work."

"It might. What else are you going to do?"

"I don't know," he said, sweating and shaking.

Shelly thought she might be getting somewhere with him. Then a nurse walked in.

"Ahh!" the woman screamed, dropping the patient chart with its heavy metal casing to the floor.

It clattered. The sound echoed around the little room, startling Grant and giving the nurse a chance to escape back out the door.

Shelly heard the nurse running and yelling for help as she went. Shelly stayed there, frozen to the spot, with Grant between her and the door, wondering if she'd just blown her best chance of escape.

The nurse would call the police, Shelly told herself. They would be here in minutes, and they'd get her out of here, if she didn't find a way out by herself first.

Grant liked her. He didn't want to hurt her. She believed he was telling her the truth about that, in his own twisted way. Of course, intent wasn't the most important thing here. He hadn't intended to hurt Charlie, either.

And Charlie was dead.

* * *

Brian dialed Shelly's cell phone and got no answer. He tried the nursing home, where he found out Marion and Shelly were at the hospital.

He raced toward the northeast side of town and the hospital.

Grant Edwards was there. Brian knew it as surely as he'd known he had to get Shelly out of Naples this morning. The nursing home had told him a man fitting Grant's description had been there already, asking for Marion's room.