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“Be reasonable, David. We can’t keep her prisoner inside the White House indefinitely.”

He looked at his aide. “No, we can’t. Not when her condition is worsening again.”

Their telepathy worked again to communicate Merritt’s message. Spence nodded his understanding and reached for the telephone. “I’ll call Dr. Allan to come immediately.”

Merritt took the receiver from him. “And have another heart attack victim on our hands? George assumes you’re dead. Better let me make this call.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Where the hell have you been?” Gray demanded as soon as Barrie came through the front door. “You were due back two hours ago.”

“I’ve been uncovering some very interesting information,” she said. “Relax. I’m okay. I had my tail for company all afternoon. He peeled off at the last corner. I’m starving.” She pitched her car keys to him. “Go get supper while I take a shower, then we’ll talk.”

An hour later, all three were clustered around the table in Daily’s kitchen, the remains of their carryout meal congealing in white pasteboard containers. The radio was blaring from the corner.

Barrie apologized for worrying them. “I didn’t call because I couldn’t have said anything significant. You’ll forgive me when I tell you what I found out.”

“From Ralph Gaston, Jr.?”

“Indirectly.” Keeping her voice well below the level of the radio, she described her meeting with the late nurse’s son. “What was strange, he kept insisting that his mother was an excellent nurse.”

“So?”

“So, nobody that I know of ever suggested otherwise. Why would he argue a point that hadn’t been raised? That struck me as odd, so after I left him I did some investigating, including a call to one of my sources in the criminal justice building, who fed her name into the NCIC. Voilà! An arrest record and an a.k.a. turned up.”

The two men quickly looked at each other, then back at Barrie. “For years following her marriage to Ralph Gaston, the nurse continued to use her maiden name professionally. Jayne Heisellman.”

“That rings a bell,” Daily said. “How come?”

“Because, a few years ago, a terminally ill patient died while in Heisellman’s care. Euthanasia was suspected. She adamantly denied the allegation, but the devout Roman Catholic family of the patient went to the D.A. and demanded an investigation. The grand jury no-billed her for lack of evidence. The patient’s death was ruled a consequence of pancreatic cancer and Heisellman was cleared of all suspicion.”

“I remember now,” Daily said.

“I should have,” Barrie replied with chagrin. “It was one of the first stories I covered for WVUE. I didn’t recognize her in the morgue. She had aged, and, well, the situation there wasn’t conducive to instant recollection.

“Even though she was cleared of any criminal activity, the accusation brought on enough stress to cause her a heart attack. This too was documented in the press. She recovered, and after six months was given the green light to return to work. But not so easily done.

“The investigation left an indelible blot on her previously flawless record. She had been forced to leave the health care facility where the incident had occurred, and even after switching to her married name she was turned down for job after job.”

“Let me guess,” Gray said. “Until she was hired by Dr. Allan.”

Barrie formed a pistol with her fingers and fired it at him. “Right on, sport.”

“They hired a nurse who had been suspected of mercy killing—”

“In the event that Vanessa died mercifully. Or, if she died by other means and the nurse intended to talk, she could conveniently succumb to a heart attack.”

“Which would’ve been feasible because of her history of cardiac complications.”

Their thoughts were so in tune that they could complete each other’s sentences. She finished by saying, “However it went down, they had an ideal scapegoat.”

“Good work,” Daily told her.

“Thanks,” she said, basking in his compliment.

“Do you think Dr. Allan killed the nurse and passed it off as another heart attack?” he asked.

Gray absently scratched his cheek. “Possibly, but I don’t think so. George is… I don’t know, weak. He doesn’t strike me as ruthless, as a man who could snuff someone in cold blood. He’s not like Spence. Or David.