Edge of Mercy (A Kate Reid Novel Book 11), Robin Mahle [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

The driver pulled to a stop at the main entrance. “Here you are, ma’am.”

“Thanks so much.” Kate opened the door. “I’ll be sure to give you 5-stars.” She closed the door behind her and headed into the building.

The man she’d been waiting for had also been waiting for her. Kate walked inside and spotted the doctor right away. “Dr. Schroeder.”

“Agent Reid,” He offered his hand. “Thank you for coming. Follow me. I’ll take you to see Holly.”

Kate followed him into his office. She noted the sign on the door. “Attending Physician.”

Inside, a slight woman, possibly only 5 feet 4 inches, who couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds, sat on a small sofa perpendicular to the doctor’s desk. She stood.

“You must be Holly.” Kate approached with her hand extended.

“Yes. I’m Holly Drier and you’re Agent Kate Reid. I appreciate your willingness to come here and so quickly. This isn’t something I would want to get out if you understand my meaning.”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t we have a seat over here.” The doctor pulled out two chairs at a small table near the center of his office. “Holly. Agent Reid.” He motioned for them to sit before he finally took his own seat.

“So, what is it you wanted to say to me, Holly? As you know, many people are out looking for Theodore Bishop. Has he contacted you?”

“Yesterday.” Holly looked away as if ashamed she’d waited to bring forward her information. “When I saw the news…”

“Did he say where he was?” Kate pressed on.

“No. I tried to, well I thought he was calling to ask for money or something. When I tried to get more details out of him, like where he was or what kind of help he needed, he refused to say.”

“Why was that?” Kate asked.

“I imagine he thought I’d run to him.” She pointed to Dr. Schroeder. “Which, of course, I did.”

“When were you and Bishop dating?” Kate asked.

“About a year into his residency here at the hospital. I’m a nurse and well, that was how we met. But here’s the thing, Agent Reid, I left Theo after all this stuff came up, you know? After what Dr. Schroeder said about the kid with the appendectomy, and what others had implied. It got to the point that I was afraid to even speak to Theo about it. Dr. Schroeder—David—told me you and another agent came here to talk to him and that was when I knew Theo must’ve really screwed up.” She looked to the doctor, who nodded for her to continue. “There’s something else too. I—um—I can’t be sure, but I think Theo might’ve been trying to poison me while we were together.”

“Did you go to the police?” Kate asked.

“No. I know that sounds crazy, but I couldn’t prove it. We’d been dating for about 6 months or so. I had just moved in with him. I thought we were going to get married. But a month or so later, I started getting terrible headaches. Migraines.”

“She thought it was just stress from the job,” Schroeder added.

“And of course, Theo tried to convince me that was the case. But I’d never had migraines before and there was nothing that had changed in my job to make me think it was stress.”

“So you thought it was Bishop? That he was, what, putting something in your food?” Kate asked.

“Something like that.” She eyed Schroeder. “I had heard the stories about him. The cases that were just too coincidental. I knew it was him. I just knew it. But I had nothing to take to the cops.”

“You left him after that?” Kate asked

“After a couple of more months. Yes, I left him. He then left the hospital, lost his license and that was when I started dating David.” She reached for his hand.

Kate jotted down notes. “Your migraines…did they stop?”

“Yes. Within a week or two of Theo moving out. They were gone.”

“I see. Does he know you and Dr. Schroeder are dating?”

“He does. I honestly don’t know why he called on me. It was like he was searching for a part of himself that just wasn’t there anymore.”

Kate nodded. “Does he have any family?”

“His mom. No one else that he’s ever mentioned to me. But I, apparently, didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

“Do you mind if I look at your phone?”

Holly retrieved it and opened it to the call. “That was him. I had long since deleted his contact from my phone, so when I answered, I had no idea it was his number.”

Kate examined the call log. “Unknown number.” She peered at them. “He was smart enough to block it.”

“Agent Reid, Theo is a very smart man. He’s gotten away with horrific things and I think if you suspect he’s done something awful, and he knows you suspect it, I doubt very much that you’ll find him,” Holly said.

“With your permission, I’d like to contact your cell phone carrier and request the tower logs from that line.”

“Of course. Anything I can do to help. I’m sorry I waited. It’s just that, well, I was afraid,” Holly replied.

“I don’t blame you. If we can find out where this call came from, it’ll help us a lot in figuring out where he was, and where he might be going.”

On the plane back to Charlotte, Kate viewed the email from the medical examiner in Nassau. A man who said he was a doctor, who went by the name Eli Parnell, injected a woman with what turned out to be a drug intended for heart patients. The resulting cause of death was heart failure. Kate had seen this before in another of Bishop’s victims.

According to the medical examiner, when Bishop had been questioned about his credentials by the doctor in charge of the triage unit, he claimed they had been in his hotel and he left to retrieve them, against the doctor’s wishes. Bishop, or rather, Parnell, never returned.

“Same guy. Same M.O.,” Kate said.

The