Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Second Chances...At Love and Murder?
    Second Chances...At Love and Murder?
    Second Chances...At Love and Murder?
    Ebook366 pages6 hours

    Second Chances...At Love and Murder?

    By B.L Wilson

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Lieutenant Gwen Weston “meets” playgirl Dr. Angela Bennett when she investigates an attempted murder on the doctor’s life. Fifteen months before, a brutal assailant left Dr. Bennett to die on an isolated stretch of Harlem River Drive in New York City. The beating put her in a coma and Gwen is as surprised as everyone else that the woman could survive the extensive loss of blood and physical trauma.
    After her investigation reveals no suspects, Gwen closes the doctor’s case but maintains a monthly vigil at the coma clinic. When Angela regains consciousness and begins rebuilding her wounded body and chaotic personal life, Gwen reopens the case. Then, one of Gwen’s officers dies in a shootout. Angela becomes Gwen’s confidant, and providing comfort becomes the pretext for the two women to draw even closer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherB.L Wilson
    Release dateFeb 14, 2015
    ISBN9781310298158
    Second Chances...At Love and Murder?
    Author

    B.L Wilson

    B.L. has always been in love with books and the words in them. She never thought she could create something with the words she knew. When she read ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird,’ she realized everyday experiences could be written about in a powerful, memorable way. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that knowledge so she kept on reading.Walter Mosley’s short stories about Easy Rawlins and his friends encouraged BL to start writing in earnest. She felt she had a story to tell...maybe several of them. She’d always kept a diary of some sort, scraps of paper, pocketsize, notepads, blank backs of agency forms, or in the margins of books. It was her habit to make these little notes to herself. She thought someday she’d make them into a book.She wrote a workplace memoir based on the people she met during her 20 years as a property manager of city-owned buildings. Writing the memoir, led her to consider writing books that were not job-related. Once again, she did...producing romance novels with African American lesbians as main characters. She wrote the novels because she couldn’t find stories that matched who she wanted to read about ...over forty, African American and female.

    Read more from B.L Wilson

    Related authors

    Related to Second Chances...At Love and Murder?

    Related ebooks

    African American Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      My Secret Sex Diary

      Feb 25, 2022

      My Secret Sex Diary
      2 min read

    • Article

      Screen Queens

      Apr 6, 2021

      Screen Queens
      3 min read

    • Article

      Women Of The Year

      Apr 6, 2021

      Women Of The Year
      23 min read

    • Article

      A Love Letter To My Queer Female Friends

      Apr 25, 2021

      I’m a sociable person. I have huge amounts of love for the people in my life; the ones I’ve known forever, the ones I’ve met this year, the ones I turn to for advice, the ones who lead me astray. The list goes on. Before corona (BC), it wasn’t unusua

      4 min read

    • Article

      Don’t Mess With Texas.

      Jul 17, 2018

      One of the longest running LGBT film festivals has changed names for its 31st birthday. The Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival is now officially the All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival. Festival director Jim Brunzell s

      1 min read

    • Article

      Lez Get Visible

      Apr 20, 2020

      Lez Get Visible
      7 min read

    • Article

      DON WE NOW OUR Gay APPAREL

      Nov 19, 2020

      DON WE NOW OUR Gay APPAREL
      9 min read

    • Article

      Stop Telling “Straight” Girls Not To Kiss Each Other

      Oct 28, 2022

      Picture this: you’ve just taken a bite out of the most delicious apple, one that you’ve admired for quite some time, just for someone to slap it out of your hand and tell you that you can’t eat it. “What the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to lik

      2 min read

    • Article

      Love, Amber

      May 26, 2023

      Love, Amber
      6 min read

    • Article

      Visible Lesbian 100

      Apr 20, 2020

      Visible Lesbian 100
      18 min read

    • Article

      Friend Or Foe?

      Aug 24, 2023

      Sitting on the grass beside my girlfriend Grace, I spotted a familiar face approaching from across the park. ‘Can I join you?’ Chelsea, then 17, smiled, plonking herself down. It was March 2018 and I’d been with Grace, then 16, for six months. I was

      4 min read

    • Article

      Generation Q With The T?

      Feb 21, 2020

      I loved The L Word so much. From 2004 to 2009 the gloriously soapy drama followed the lives of a group of aspirational gay and bi women living in LA. To see queer women doing anything on television was ground breaking in itself, but over those six se

      5 min read

    • Article

      Dating Over

      Oct 29, 2021

      Dating Over
      3 min read

    • Article

      The B Word

      Jan 27, 2023

      The B Word
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Lesbian Gaze

      May 18, 2021

      A Lesbian Gaze
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Rise Of Rosanny

      Oct 1, 2021

      The Rise Of Rosanny
      8 min read

    • Article

      MåNeskin

      Jan 20, 2023

      MåNeskin
      9 min read

    • Article

      Christmas Carol

      Nov 26, 2021

      Christmas Carol
      3 min read

    • Article

      Putting The “Ick” In Sapphic

      Mar 25, 2022

      Scroll through Twitter or TikTok, and you’ll see people talking about what gives them the “ick”: a gut feeling of disgust that turns you off potential dates. It’s the complete opposite of that delicious spark you get when you’re really into someone –

      3 min read

    • Article

      Daisy Alpert Florin Has Questions About Consent

      Feb 14, 2023

      Daisy Alpert Florin’s debut novel, My Last Innocent Year, is a rewind to the late ‘90s. Our protagonist, Isabel, is a young Jewish woman from New York pursuing a creative writing degree at a prestigious liberal arts college in New Hampshire. After Is

      6 min read

    • Article

      The 12 Best Queer Songs Of 2022

      Oct 25, 2022

      The state of queer music is bold and strong in 2022. With the amount of LGBTQ+ talent in the game right now, it’s a packed race for the top tier. Queer stars Lil Nas X, Steve Lacy, Brandi Carlile, Jake Wesley Rogers, and Lizzo put out purely great mu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Screen

      Nov 26, 2021

      Screen
      2 min read

    • Article

      Does Your Love Need a Label?

      Aug 10, 2022

      Does Your Love Need a Label?
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Second Chances...At Love and Murder?

    4/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Second Chances...At Love and Murder? - B.L Wilson

      SECOND CHANCES…at love and murder?

      by

      B.L. Wilson

      SECOND CHANCES…at love and murder?

      Brought to you by

      Patchwork Bluez Press

      Second Chances by B. L. Wilson.

      Copyright © 2015 by B.L. Wilson

      Smashwords Edition

      All rights reserved. This book or portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission of publisher except for brief quotations in a book review.

      Created in the United States of America

      Edited and formatted by bzhercules.com

      Cover design by LLPix Design www.llpix.com

      Cast of Characters

      Lieutenant Gwendolyn Weston is in charge of the unit investigating the assault on Dr. Bennett.

      Dr. Lemuel Weston is Gwen’s father.

      Shaun Weston is Gwen’s teenage son.

      Shelly Weston is Gwen’s teenage daughter and Shaun’s twin.

      Detective Andrew Drucker is part of Gwen’s best team of detectives.

      Detective Judith Eastman is part of Gwen’s team of detectives. She’s also Drucker’s partner.

      Officer Waters is one of the two young cops that arrested the doctor for trespassing.

      Officer Mullins is Officer Waters’ partner.

      Delilah Carter was Gwen’s first love.

      Dr. Angela Bennett is the surgeon that was viciously assaulted over a year ago.

      Jerilyn Perry is an old lover of Angela’s from her student days.

      Dorothea London is one of Angela Bennett’s lovers.

      Marilyn Fenton is another one of Angela Bennett’s lovers.

      Dr. Turner is the doctor who designed Bennett’s braces.

      Gary Sumpter is a physical therapist.

      Marcia Bennett is Angela’s mother.

      Fletcher Bennett is Angela’s father.

      Coretta Wright-Dobson is Angela’s aunt.

      Dr. Aaron Huston is a surgeon.

      Dr. Jackson Saunders is a surgeon.

      Dr. Clinton Bard is Angela’s vacation relief.

      Mrs. Stevens is the old lady down the block that Shelly helps.

      Mickey is Mrs. Steven’s bird.

      Detectives Lyle Webber and Woody Howe are part of Gwen’s team of detectives.

      Captain Lillian Quentin is the captain of a bordering precinct and a friend of Gwen’s.

      Sharon Douglas is a PAA receptionist for the 33rd Precinct in Manhattan.

      Santos is Angela’s former super.

      Dr. Norman Ridell is the GYN/OB for Gwen’s mother.

      It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

      Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts.

      ~Sherlock Holmes from: A Study in Scarlet~

      Table of Contents

      Cast of Characters

      CHAPTER 1…Something is wrong with this picture.

      CHAPTER 2 … Aunt Cory and Jeri.

      CHAPTER 3 … Meet the women.

      CHAPTER 4 …The second interview.

      CHAPTER 5 … Taxi, anyone?

      CHAPTER 6 …My favorite professor.

      CHAPTER 7…A death in the family.

      CHAPTER 8 …At the precinct.

      CHAPTER 9…Park Chin.

      CHAPTER 10 …Looking for dirt.

      CHAPTER 11…Can you see me?

      CHAPTER 12 …Going shopping with the girls.

      CHAPTER 13…Searching for more dirt.

      CHAPTER 14…Make it a kiss to last.

      CHAPTER 15…The warehouse.

      CHAPTER 16…Need any help with that?

      CHAPTER 17 … Family; everybody needs one.

      CHAPTER 18…Breaking up is hard to do.

      CHAPTER 19…Missing you.

      CHAPTER 20 … Where is everybody?

      CHAPTER 21 …Reunited and it feels so good.

      EPILOGUE

      Excerpt from Buildings, a New York love story…

      Also by B.L. Wilson

      CHAPTER 1…Something is wrong with this picture.

      As soon as he opened the door to their little apartment, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it. Usually, his wife greeted him with a quiet hello and a kiss on the cheek, and then asked how his day had gone. For the last month or so, he’d found her in bed when he got home at night. He thought she wore the same nightclothes as when he left her in the morning to go to his backbreaking, minimum wage job.

      Sometimes, when he’d come home and find her in the bed, there’d be old pictures of the two of them together on the beach or hiking, or some other outdoor activity, scattered across the bed. When she’d turn around to look at him, she’d be crying. If he looked closely, he could tell she’d been crying for a long time. Usually, he’d just sigh heavily and then open his arms. She’d crawl into them. He’d reassure her that it didn’t matter to him what she looked like. She was still the best thing that ever happened to him. He wished they’d had children. Kids had a way of taking your mind off your own problems to help them with theirs.

      Yeah, that’s what she needed. After this was all over, she’d let him make love to her again just as they used before her operation and she’d get pregnant.

      He snapped back to the reality of the moment.

      Today felt different.

      When he put his key in the lock, he got a warning of something bad. He opened the door cautiously and entered the apartment quietly. He was afraid to awaken his wife. The kitchen looked just the way he’d left it this morning. The gas jets were off and so was the oven. He breathed a ragged sigh of relief.

      Tiptoeing into the bathroom, he glanced at the tub. Nope, it was empty.

      He exhaled slowly. So far, that was so good.

      He peeked into the bedroom and found his wife lying on her side, facing away from him. He crept into the room. That was when he saw the pills and the empty fifth of vodka. God, he found the few little white pills she missed, on the nightstand, the floor, and the bed. He’d remember the sound of those tiny pills crunching under his heavy boots until the day he died. He rushed to the bed and tried to shake his wife awake.

      In a daze, he called 911 and explained what he’d found in the bedroom.

      Oh God, no! Why did you do this, baby? I love you just the way you are. You don’t need it. The man cried as he tenderly shook his wife and tried to awaken her limp body. Why?

      He heard the wail of the police sirens, but he remained holding the woman in his lap. He rocked her lifeless body until the cops kicked in the front door and rushed into the apartment. Even then, he refused to allow the emergency medical technicians to take his wife’s lifeless body. He struggled with them and the three police officers accompanying them until one of technicians managed to get a needle full of tranquilizer into his arm. After the shot, he slowly crumpled to the ground like a life-sized paper doll that someone had grown tired of and thrown away. The technicians threw him onto one of their gurneys and rushed to bring him and the dead woman to the same hospital. They carted the husband off to the ER to sleep off the shot. His dead wife went to the hospital’s morgue. They left the body for him or someone else to claim after the medical examiner finished the compulsory autopsy.

      Ten days later, the dead woman’s husband stood over her gravesite with flowers in his hand. The minister and all their friends were gone, so he stood alone, watching the grave workers lower the casket into the earth. He had two white roses in his hand. He held up one to his nose and smelled it, then tenderly tossed it into the grave.

      I swear on your grave, the insurance company will pay for what they did to you, baby. On my life, I’ll make them pay.

      He stuck the second rose in his suit lapel and strode off, careful not to walk across the old, embedded tombstones near the entrance to the cemetery. He headed towards the small downtown area.

      * * *

      The newspapers announced it first. ‘Dr. Angela Bennett, trauma surgeon, found comatose from a severe beating by person or persons unknown.’ Lieutenant Gwendolyn Weston knew the article almost by heart. The article went on to say that the assailant had left the doctor severely battered and bleeding profusely on the side of a snowy roadway. It was a dark road with plenty of places to hide, she mused as she spotted the remnants of yellow police tape and slowly pulled onto the shoulder heading in the opposite direction. It’d been over a year since the assault on the doctor. The case had gone into the cold case file. What was she doing out here on a spring morning, reviewing a case she’d never solve? She was here because she wanted to solve this case. It bugged her that it went to the cold case unit. She shrugged as her mind flipped back to the past.

      My guys were all over the case within the first twenty-four hours of the doctor’s admittance to Memorial Hospital. They’d dredged up several likely suspects but no witnesses. The short list of suspects never panned out. All of them had alibis. As the investigation wore on, they eliminated each suspect one by one, until they had nobody left except the comatose victim.

      Gwen viewed the crime scene from the highway. Whoever had chosen this spot to vent their rage on the doctor had chosen the location well. The attacker knew few cars stopped late at night to help a stranded motorist, so the chances of witnesses were zero. She shook her head in disgust. She stepped out of the unmarked patrol car and strode across the isolated road to the crime scene. She stood with her hands on generous hips and studied the gravel-filled shoulder, glancing down at the computer-enhanced map of the crime scene she carried with her. Pictures taken at the scene showed the impression the doctor’s bloody body had made in the freshly fallen snow, so she knew this was the exact spot but the wrong time of year. She remembered how horrified she had been by the amount of blood at the scene and the battered condition of the doctor’s body later at the hospital. It was hard to believe anyone could have survived such a beating, but the doctor did, despite the fact that she wound up in a coma.

      The attempt on the doctor’s life had happened on Harlem River Drive South, just before the exit for 155th Street. As a resident of Harlem, Gwen remembered when the Department of Transportation renamed Harlem River Drive as 369th Harlem Hellfighters Drive in honor of the all-black regiment that fought in World War to defend France. She was a stickler for interesting details that the average citizen of Harlem might not know from bothering to read one of several plaques posted on the drive announcing the new designation. A strip park called Highbridge Park ran along the southern end of the Drive from 155th Street to Dykeman Street. It consisted of many rocky outcroppings and ledges that popped out unexpectedly among the trees and the undergrowth of weeds and wild flowers. The ledges extended throughout the three-mile stretch of park, or so the report said.

      The police report went on to note that the park and river provided a quiet, peaceful refuge to the residents of upper Manhattan in a busy, noisy city. It was also the perfect place to commit a murder without risking discovery. She smiled at her own words. She must have been feeling poetic that day when she used the flowery language to describe the area surrounding the crime scene. It continued to note that a quarter of a mile from the drive’s exit, if one glanced up and then looked straight ahead, one could see a bridge looming above one in the shadows. To the right of the gravelly uneven shoulder was an old service road blocked off by a security swing gate.

      Gwen walked over to the service road gate. She noted the waist-high wooden gate was barely standing upright in place. A rusty padlock held it shut. However, anyone walking down from the service road could easily turn sideways to get through the space between the gate and guardrails running along both sides of the narrow road. Or they could simply jump the low metal guardrails to gain entry to the service road. The summer’s lush green undergrowth of weeds, brushes, and trees partly covered the service road that wound around the park.

      She closed her eyes, remembering how she and her detectives searched through the snow, looking for footprints of the doctor’s attacker but couldn’t find the right ones. There were footprints all over the service road. Some prints looked old and some were clearly new with dog paws next to them. At the time, Gwen and her men camped out for several days, waiting for the neighborhood’s dog owners to make their usual walks in the park so they could eliminate them as suspects. Her men interviewed fifteen to twenty regular dog walkers, but none of them saw the assault or knew anyone who’d seen it.

      She recalled thinking how fresh the snow looked on the rocks and how cold the night of the attack on the doctor must have been with the icy wind coming off the nearby Harlem River. One of the dog owners mentioned that homeless people sometimes lived in the shelter of the rocks and trees along the footpaths further into the underbelly of the park. She and her people interviewed the homeless people they found during the months following the assault, but nobody had seen anything.

      Gwen opened her eyes and sighed as she glanced up at the face of the gray rock foundations. She decided to walk one of the dirt trails she and her detectives found. With luck, she might find some evidence along one of the trails that would tell her who the attacker was or at least lead to more information about him or her. She climbed halfway up the steep service road, then veered off to the right to take one of the main foot trails that overlooked the site where the assault occurred. She searched the ground for anything that seemed out of place in the natural surroundings.

      The seven-minute walk took Gwen nearly an hour and ten minutes to complete as she meticulously searched the path and the surrounding undergrowth. She found nothing as she finally reached the end of the path, which put her on Edgecombe Avenue. If I were on Edgecombe Ave, looking down on the crime scene, I’d be somewhere between 165th Street and 170th Street, Gwen muttered while she looked down at the Harlem River from her perch on the foot trail.

      It was hard to match the exact spot of the assault on Harlem Drive to the same spot on the hill with all the leafy trees, rocky overhangs, and wild spring weeds in the way. At certain bald spots on the footpath where the trees left an opening, she could see Harlem River Drive traffic moving in both directions, but she couldn’t see the crime scene. When she looked through the trees, she saw new construction sites along the river on the Bronx side with their long-necked cranes standing at attention. The cranes resembled giraffes. Gwen imagined them in the city’s construction wildness, scanning the city for their enemies before they’d felt it was safe to swoop down and eat another bite of earth. Gwen smiled at her unpoliced thoughts as she stared across the river from her advantage point on the footpath.

      She sighed with disappointment at not finding any new clues. She turned around to walk back on the same path she used to arrive, still hoping to find something, anything that didn’t belong. The crime scene looked different from that day today. Since the assault happened in the winter, there was no undergrowth blocking the view of the road’s southern shoulder as there was now. She remembered climbing through this same area and standing on rock foundations made slippery from ice. At the time, she wondered if the assailant had used one of the rocky ledges to hide as he waited for the doctor. The assailant must have waited for hours in the icy cold for the doctor’s car to appear unless he or she knew the doctor’s schedule. Even knowing the doctor’s schedule was no guarantee that the doctor would be driving on this stretch of road and have a tire go flat in the exact spot. How did the assailant know where the doctor’s flat tire would happen? That simple fact puzzled Gwen from the beginning of the investigation. She was no closer to solving the question now than she was a year ago.

      Gwen looked at the early summer undergrowth of weeds covering parts of the gravelly shoulder and started another search. She snapped on latex gloves and passed her hands over the loose gravel of the shoulder. She was looking for anything out of place among the small stones. As far as she knew, this was a fruitless search because the Crime Scene Unit had been over the area a million times and so had her detectives. The high-profile case had gotten the department’s time and attention for months, but neither group found anything. Her chances of finding something today were minuscule, but a good detective was detailed, methodical, and patient. That was her nature anyway, she thought, smiling as she peered down at the gravel again. The first two passes made by her gloved fingers didn’t yield anything, but the third one did.

      At first, she didn’t see the dirty, rusted button because it blended in so well with the surrounding dirt and small stones. The third swipe must have scattered the small stones away and loosened the button from its original foundation in the dirt, allowing her to see it. She planted a yellow flag next to the button and then drew a quick sketch of the location. She placed a quarter next the flag, then she snapped several pictures of the button and the surrounding area. She removed it with a pair of tweezers and took pictures of the impression the button left in the dirt. She looked at the button closely with a pocket magnifying glass. It was then that she realized a tiny piece of rotting fabric, threads, and dirt remained attached to it.

      If this is what I think it is, CSU is either gonna hate me for showing them up or love me for bringing them another piece in the puzzle. Gwen shrugged. Either way, it was their job to examine the evidence and tell her if it belonged with this case or not.

      Gwen’s intuition said that the doctor had torn off the button, trying to evade her attacker, or at least that was the theory that she developing. She placed the button in an evidence envelope, sealed it, labeled it with the case number, and then taped it. She wrote her signature across the sealing tape with the date, time, and the location of the item and slipped it into an inner pocket of her jacket. She pulled out a large paper bag, then dropped the tweezers and the gloves into it. It was important not to contaminate evidence from one part of the crime scene with another part. She hoped to find more evidence today. She stepped back to survey the terrain again, looking for further clues. She must have stared at the landscape for the next hour before she realized the time. The land is only giving up one clue today, she mused, heading for her unmarked patrol car.

      She’d scheduled an interview with the victim in twenty minutes at the Coma Rehabilitation Center. A quick glance at her watch made it fifteen minutes and counting. If she hurried, she could catch the doctor after her physical therapy session and before her dinner. As she was driving, Gwen remembered the first time she’d seen Dr. Angela Bennett. It was in the ER’s trauma unit. A passing motorist and his friends saw her car’s headlights shining in the snow. They stopped to investigate and found what they thought was a corpse until the doctor moaned. The men decided not the wait for the ambulance and sped off to the hospital with the doctor in the backseat. Experts said not waiting those extra minutes saved the doctor’s life.

      However, the men’s good intentions played havoc with the crime scene. The good Samaritans tracked the doctor’s blood through the middle of it. There were bloody footprints everywhere. They had to track down the Samaritans and do casts of their footprints to eliminate them as suspects. That alone was a monumental task since only one of the men gave a name to admissions and it was a fake one. Her captain told her to send detectives do a deathbed interview because the doctor wouldn’t live through the night. She didn’t think a person could lose as much blood as found in the doctor’s clothes and the crime scene and still survive.

      According to the ER doctor, there was livid dark purple, blue, and black bruising all over the doctor’s body from her legs, thighs, and hips to her head. Her neck looked red and raw except where the attacker’s glove left an indentation. The doctor was barely conscious when they brought her in and continued to slip in and out of consciousness over the next few hours. Her medical chart said the assault fractured her skull in two places, dislocated her shoulder and several fingers, broke a wrist, cracked several ribs, bruised a kidney, and damaged both of her legs.

      After speaking with the ER doctors, Gwen figured the doctor’s shoulders, fingers, wrists, and ribs were defensive wounds. She’d tried to cover up with her hands, then probably balled up into a fetal position to avoid the blows. The lab people said the damage to the doctor’s skull, legs, and right wrist were the result of using the bloody tire iron and the heavy metal jack found at the crime scene. The assailant was bold enough or careless enough to leave the weapons at the crime scene. He wasn’t worried about the police catching him or he wanted police to catch him. Time would tell which one was true.

      Gwen tried to speak with the doctor, but she was clearly out of it. One large, light brown eye was filled with blood, opened wide, and staring at her. The other eyelid looked dark purple and swollen shut. For a minute, the woman struggled to speak, but the pain combined with the severity of her injuries took over. The doctor moaned loudly. Her body suddenly relaxed and the heart monitor flat-lined and then beeped loudly. The doctors pushed Gwen away to start CPR. They finally resorted to defibrillation to get her heart started again. She waited for several hours in the waiting room, hoping to speak with the victim again. When that didn’t happen, she assigned a detective to collect postmortem evidence from the body and the clothing if she died or to get a statement if she survived the surgery. She ordered a rape kit as well. The results of the rape test were negative. That made it even more difficult to trace the identity of her assailant.

      The next time Gwen saw the doctor, she was in ICU. By then, she’d been unconscious for several days. Her doctors were reluctant to label her condition comatose. It meant they’d given up on her. When they discovered she was one of their own, the doctors in charge of her case weren’t ready to do that yet. The doctor’s survival remained possible. That being the case, Dr. Bennett still hadn’t been able to tell the detectives what had happened or identify her attacker. In summary, the first investigation was a cold hit…a case with no suspects. Now, she was reopening the case to take a second look.

      Lieutenant Gwen Weston strode into the rehabilitation center’s entrance. This time, it was going to be different. She’d stake her career on it.

      * * *

      Angela Bennett lay exhausted on the exercise mat. She’d just finished cursing out the big, muscular physical therapist and his ancestors, starting from the Stone Age and moving forward. The big blond man with the strawberry beard looked like he wanted to pummel something. The angry woman glaring up at him from her perch on the exercise mat was the most likely candidate. At least, it looked that way to Gwen from her position in the hallway.

      Look, doc, all the cussing in the world isn’t gonna get your legs and arms in shape. Let’s get to it. I said ten more for each leg and I meant ten more. He stood over her with his arms crossed.

      For a minute, when she looked up at him again, he saw fear in her lovely hazel eyes. He shrugged sheepishly, stroked his beard, and then squatted down. Sorry, doc, I forgot. I’ll just stand over here at the edge of the mat and watch you do them. He patted her shoulder in a comforting way and grinned. Come on, doc. I know it hurts like hell, but you can do it. Show me what you got! The big man glided over to the edge of the blue plastic mat and watched his client struggle through the last ten exercises.

      Gwen quietly watched from the doorway as the doctor did ten leg lifts, using each leg with the ankle weights attached. Dark lines of perspiration streaked her gray sweats down the front between her breasts and at the crotch area when she finished the routine.

      The big man threw the doctor a towel and gave a thumbs-up sign. Way to go, doc! I knew you could do it.

      Like hell you did! I think your greatest joy in life is trying to kill me with these Goddamn exercises, Eddie, the exhausted woman on the mat gasped.

      Eddie smiled at her and then winked. One of these days, you’ll thank me for what you just did, doc.

      Angela wiped the sweat from her face. Sure I will, Eddie! I’ll be sure to do that when pigs fly or when the devil serves strawberry ice cream in hell!

      Eddie laughed. You always did have a way with words, doc. Do you need help getting up?

      Angela waved him away. No, just let me sit here for a minute and gather my thoughts. She sighed. Eddie, do you think I’ll ever be able to walk without this?

      Gwen saw the doctor point to the cane hanging on the exercise bar and noticed a brace on her wrist.

      The big man stared at his client. Yeah, doc, I do, he said softly. By all rights, you shouldn’t be here. But you are because you got guts, doc. That’s what’s going to have you walking out of here under your own steam—your guts and my exercises. Just remember that the next time you start defaming my relatives, okay? He grinned as he looked at her.

      It’s a deal, Eddie, the tired woman on the mat remarked and returned his smile.

      Gwen cleared her throat and they turned to look at her.

      Oh no, Angie; it’s the cops! Eddie exclaimed, pretending fear as he wrapped a towel around his damp neck. He chuckled as he caught Gwen’s attention. I’m out of here. Are you sure you’re all right down there, doc?

      Angela nodded. If I need help getting up, I’m sure the SERGEANT can help. Won’t you, sugar? She smiled sweetly and fluttered long eyelashes at the big woman.

      Gwen sighed. The term victim was the wrong one to use to describe the woman on the floor mat who was pretending to flirt with her. Afternoon, Ed. She nodded to the big man as he left the physical therapy area.

      See you, lieutenant.

      For the past six weeks, the hospital staff or the doctor herself gave her the runaround. The staff thought they were protecting the doctor. That was understandable, but the doctor’s behavior mystified her. If their roles were reversed, Gwen knew she’d help the cops investigate her own case.

      Dr. Bennett, if you need help getting up, it’s not a problem. Gwen approached the doctor cautiously from the front. She made sure not to move suddenly or to loom over her.

      Dr. Angela Bennett’s medical file described how disturbing and frightening that could be for her. The first time it happened, doctors sedated her overnight before she calmed down. Gwen remembered being curious about the doctor’s reaction, so she spoke to the police psychiatrist. He said Angela Bennett was suffering from flashbacks about the assault.

      Gwen wanted to know whether forcing the flashbacks might be a useful interview technique, but the psychiatrist said it was too risky. He thought it could push her over the edge emotionally. But he noted without examining the patient that he couldn’t accurately diagnose her state of mind.

      Would you like me to help you? Gwen knelt down at the far edge of the mat, putting herself on the same level as the doctor’s face. Her dark, almost black eyes stared into hazel eyes for a half-second.

      No, Sergeant Weston! I believe I can manage to stand up if you’ll just hand me my cane, Angela responded sharply. It embarrassed her to flirt with a woman who didn’t seem the least bit interested in her.

      Gwen reached over, handed the doctor her metal cane, and then stepped back. She watched as the doctor painfully struggled to make her body obey her commands. Now that’s a stubborn woman. She watched the doctor’s battle of mind over matter. Angela

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1