Page 129 of Healed Heart

I run to Henry.“Jason.Where is he?”

Henry swallows dazedly.“Front… Front door.”

I rush to my front door, and Jason is standing there holding a man I don’t recognize in a headlock.He’s wearing a brown UPS uniform, and his nose is bloody.He’s struggling to break free from Jason’s grip.

The man’s gray eyes meet mine, and he stops moving.My heart skips a beat.

I know those eyes.

The hospital.

He was there.Not in brown.In scrubs.He was the nurse who came into Ralph’s room when I was visiting him.When he tried to convince me that Jason was the one who murdered his wife.

Recognition must have flickered across my face when I saw him, because his lips twitch into a cold smile.He elbows Jason right in the gut and breaks free of the headlock, lunging toward me.

But Henry has followed me back to the front door, and he charges at the man.Jason straightens himself out just in time to duck a swing from the man, grab his wrist, and slam his forearm against the doorframe.He cries out in pain and raises a leg, bringing his foot down on Jason’s instep.Jason lets go but lands an uppercut right to the man’s jaw.

His eyes roll back in his head, and he slowly slinks to the floor.

Henry pats down his uniform and pulls out a gun from his pocket.

“Holy shit, Jason, you were right.He was about to shoot us.”He holds the gun in front of himself, and it catches the light of my patio sconces.“How did you know?”

Jason points to the street.“The car.I recognized it from the night I was scoping Ralph’s apartment.This guy must be his muscle, the guy who kept him informed while he was in the hospital.”

“Yes, I saw him once disguised as a nurse,” I say.“He must be the guy that Ralph hired to beat him up.”

“And I bet he orchestrated the deaths of the Chapman brothers, too,” Jason says.

I raise an eyebrow.“What?”

He rubs the back of his neck.“I didn’t get a chance to tell you.I think Ralph had them killed as well.Steve Chapman, his old friend from school.This guy”—he gestures to the unconscious man on my front stoop—“must have been able to hack my search history on my computer or my phone or something, because I was looking for information about Lindsay and, after I finally got Steve’s number, I called, and he had just died an hour before I called.”

I place a hand over my heart.“My God.”

“But you said there were two brothers,” Tabitha says, walking up from behind me and out onto the porch.“What happened to the other one?”

“He was found dead early this morning,” I say.“Gray Eyes over here figured out that he had been helping me, despite the fact that his brother had just died.So he had him killed, too.”

“Holy shit,” Tabitha says.

Jason nods.“Steve had a prior brain injury, and Tom had some preexisting heart condition.Their deaths were easily explained away.”His lip trembles.“Just like Lindsay’s was.”

Slow clapping.

“Very good, Dr.Lansing.”

I turn around, and my heart turns to ice.Ralph is up, his entire face covered in blood from the gash in his forehead, holding the knife from my kitchen.

In a flash, he pulls me to him, the cold steel of the knife against my throat.

“Ralph, don’t!”Jason cries out.

He presses the knife against my neck.“Don’t move, Lansing, or your tight little girlfriend gets her pretty little throat slit.”

“Why are you doing this?”Jason asks.“Lindsay’s gone.It’s over.”

Ralph shrugs.“It’s over when I decide it’s over.How the hell could she choose you over me?You’re a fake, Lansing.Poor doctor can’t do surgery, can’t even teach anymore.”