Protecting Her Child Read online

  “You need to be tested for your baby’s sake,” Pete said.

  Meredith shook her head, not ready to absorb what he was saying. Every action and reaction in the past seven months had been to protect her child.

  Now a stranger on a street corner tells her about a woman to whom she may be related having a disease that could affect the precious life growing within her.

  Her husband had been murdered. The men who killed him were after her, and some guy wants to compound the situation?

  She couldn’t carry any more weight around on her shoulders.

  Books by Debby Giusti

  Love Inspired Suspense

  Nowhere to Hide

  Scared to Death

  MIA: Missing in Atlanta

  *Countdown to Death

  *Protecting Her Child

  DEBBY GIUSTI

  is a medical technologist who loves working with test tubes and petri dishes almost as much as she loves to write. Growing up as an army brat, Debby met and married her husband—then a captain in the army—at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Together they traveled the world, raised three wonderful army brats of their own and have now settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where Debby spins tales of suspense that touch the heart and soul.

  Contact Debby through her Web site, www.DebbyGiusti.com, e-mail [email protected] or write c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

  Protecting Her Child

  Debby Giusti

  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

  —Jeremiah 1:5

  This book is dedicated to my dear friend,

  Pat Rosenbach, who first told me about VHL,

  and to her friend, Eva, who had

  Von Hippel-Lindau disease.

  Although fiction, I hope the story has captured the

  courage and determination of all who battle VHL.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  ONE

  Meredith Lassiter’s throat ran dry and her pulse raced as the wind outside whistled through the tall pine trees. The old house moaned in protest, its creaks sounding like footsteps in the night. Ever so slowly, she eased back the edge of the curtain and peered into the darkness.

  The steel-gray pickup truck sat like a vulture at the end of the desolate beach road. Tinted windows in the extended cab and covered camper obscured her view of the thugs she knew were hunkered down inside.

  Men whose intimidation had forced her to flee her home six months ago and hide in this rental unit where no one asked questions about a woman on the run. Depraved, amoral men who had killed her husband and who now planned to kill her.

  Meredith glanced at the table where sections of the Georgia Coastal News lay scattered. Even in the darkened house, she could read the headline. Suspect Arrested in Payroll Loan Scam. Two additional men sought for questioning. The article mentioned a possible connection with her husband’s murder.

  Why had the overzealous reporter added Meredith’s name in the same paragraph with the unidentified police informant who had recently come forward?

  Be not afraid. The verse from scripture had comforted Meredith in the past. Tonight, the words did little to calm her pulse or the pinpricks of anxiety that scurried along her spine.

  The door of the truck swung open, and a man stepped onto the sandy road. He spoke to someone inside the vehicle before he pointed to the tiny cottage that had been her latest refuge.

  Her heart crashed against her chest.

  Run!

  Meredith stumbled into the bedroom and snatched the overnight tote from the closet, a bag she’d packed in case this night ever arrived.

  Adrenaline and fear pushed her forward. She reached for her purse and threw the strap over her shoulder. Three steps to the kitchen, and she was at the door. Her hand touched the knob.

  She paused for half a second, then raced back to where the baby quilt lay on the couch. Grabbing the fabric she’d patiently stitched over the last few months, she retraced her steps and unlatched the back door.

  Meredith peered into the darkness of the backyard. Seeing no one, she slipped into the night.

  Pete Worth adjusted the ocular on the microscope until the leukocytes and neutrophils swarmed into view. Eve Townsend’s blood smear confirmed that the woman’s condition had deteriorated since her last lab appointment at Magnolia Medical.

  Exactly as Pete had expected. Being right didn’t prevent the sadness that slipped like a dark pall over his shoulders.

  He steeled himself to the reality VHL patients eventually had to face. Von Hippel-Lindau disease. Seemed the more bizarre the name, the more convoluted the illness. Just like the twisted tumors that grew within Eve’s body.

  He hated VHL as much as he was intrigued by the secrets it held. If scientists could understand how to block the blood flow to the tangled cluster of capillaries that formed the tumors, they’d understand how to retard the growth of other malignancies as well.

  In time. Pete sighed. Something Eve didn’t have.

  He glanced up as Denise Ryan, Magnolia Medical’s secretary, entered the lab and headed for his workstation. Denise had a big heart as well as an insatiable interest in the personal lives of the technologists on staff.

  “Eve’s in the waiting room,” Denise announced as she neared. “She has a four o’clock appointment with Dr. Davis and wants to hand carry her lab results to his office.”

  “I thought she was Dr. Fleming’s patient.”

  “She was. But the VHL Institute encouraged her to switch physicians on Sheila Hudson’s recommendation. Remember, Sheila drove her son over from Savannah to be treated by Davis.”

  Pete raised his brow. “Brice died eight months ago, blind and riddled with tumors. That’s hardly a favorable recommendation.”

  Denise sighed. “A tragedy for sure. Still, if I were Eve, I’d try anything or any physician who offered hope. Which is probably why she made the switch. Besides, she told me Davis was a close friend of her parents. Since their deaths, she’s stayed in touch.”

  Davis’s treatment protocol was costly and questionable. Pete hated hearing that Eve had succumbed to the hype. She needed hope, but not false hope.

  “Tell her I’ll send the results to his office electronically.”

  Denise’s eyes softened. She touched his arm. “You know Eve’s here to see you.”

  Pete glanced back at the blood smear. Cells didn’t make comments he chose to ignore.

  “Eve considers you the son she never had,” Denise continued, oblivious to the emotions that swept through Pete, his eyes trained on the array of cells. “If you weren’t so fiercely independent and focused on making your own way, you’d accept her love.”

  “And her money?”

  “That’s something your father would have said.”

  She was right, but then, Denise had known his dad.

  Despite working for Eve’s parents and living in the caretaker’s lodge on their vast estate, Pete’s father had been bitterly vocal about his disregard for the wealthy Townsend
family. A by-product of the jealousy he felt after Pete’s mother’s untimely death, no doubt.

  “I’ve got her lab slips.” Pete pointed to the printouts, lying next to the microscope. “Tell Eve I’ll be out after I finish her CBC.”

  As Denise left the lab, Pete turned his attention to Eve’s test results. Chemistry profile, urinalysis, CBC.

  An unexpected and unwelcome lump filled his throat. Clinical lab tests didn’t lie. One kidney surgically removed two years ago. Renal cell carcinoma in the remaining organ. Dialysis might help initially, but the eventual prognosis was kidney failure and death.

  Grabbing the slips off the counter, Pete squared his shoulders and walked purposefully toward the waiting room. His resolve melted when he caught sight of Eve.

  Fragile. Frail.

  His gut tightened. This was the part of medicine he didn’t like.

  She sat on the edge of the straight-back chair, her arms draped with one of the quilted stoles she stitched to occupy her fingers while the disease ate through her body.

  Forty-two on her next birthday, she was meticulously groomed in silk pants and a matching jacket. Her hair and tasteful makeup accentuated her green eyes and high cheekbones, camouflaging the sallow skin and pale complexion hidden underneath.

  Critically ill, she looked older than her years, yet her smile when she glanced up and saw Pete was anything but melancholy. For half a heartbeat, he longed to go back in time to when he was a little boy wrapped in her embrace.

  Clearing his throat, he forced the thought to flee and held out the lab slips. “Denise said you’re seeing Dr. Davis today.”

  Eve raised her brow as she took the forms. “From your tone of voice, I take it you don’t think I should have changed physicians?”

  “You don’t need my approval, Eve.”

  “But I value your opinion.”

  “Evidently you value Sheila’s more.”

  Her face clouded momentarily, making him regret his hasty retort.

  “Sheila founded the Institute as a source of information for VHL patients and their families. I trust her judgment, Pete.”

  “Of course you do.” He softened. This wasn’t the time to open old wounds.

  When he had started working at Magnolia Medical a few months back, he knew Eve would be one of the patients the outstanding research and clinical lab facility served. What he hadn’t expected was the raw emotion he felt each time he saw her.

  “Sheila stopped by to see me when she came to Atlanta last week,” Eve said.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Managing to put up a good front. Brice was twenty-one, but she still considered him her baby.” Eve shook her head and tried to smile. “I remember when she told me she was pregnant. It was at your fifth birthday party.”

  The extravagant event Eve had thrown for him, open to the estate staff and their children. “A celebration your parents weren’t happy about when they returned from Europe,” he reminded her.

  “My parents didn’t approve of a lot of things I did.”

  “Like befriending the caretaker’s kid?”

  “You needed love, Pete, and I needed a child to dote on. Seems we were good for each other in spite of what they thought.”

  “Bucking authority is never easy. I owe you my thanks.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. You know that. Although I wish you’d let me help. At least with funding for your research.”

  He held up his hand, palm out. “Eve, please. We’ve had this conversation before.”

  Her purse sat on the floor. In an obvious attempt to change the subject, she bent and searched the contents before pulling out a photograph. “I told you I wanted to find my daughter. The private investigator I hired located her.”

  Eve had always been forthright about her past. Unmarried and pregnant at seventeen, her only recourse—or so her parents had insisted—was to put the baby up for adoption. Struggling with the pain of giving up her child, Eve had found comfort in the Lord.

  A testament to His healing grace, she often claimed.

  Not that Pete fell for the religious hype. Eve could keep her God. He would depend on his own abilities to get through tough times.

  She held up the photo. A bleached blonde with widespread eyes, flat nose and an underdeveloped upper lip.

  Pete stared at the picture. “I thought the lawyer who handled the adoption died years ago.”

  “That’s right. But the P.I. located the records. The Collins family, who adopted my baby, lived in Augusta at that time. They named her Dixie. She currently lives in Craddock Sound.”

  “About eighty miles south of Fort Stewart.”

  “You know the area?”

  “I spent three years at Fort Stewart with the army after my tour in the Middle East.”

  Eve averted her eyes. Absent during that portion of his life, she didn’t comment, but returned instead to the subject at hand.

  “Sam and Hazel Collins received their baby girl on November sixteenth, the day I delivered. Dixie’s driver’s license and social security card verify she’s who she says she is.” Eve pointed to the woman in the photo. “I’m sure Dixie Collins is my daughter.”

  Who doesn’t look a thing like you, Pete wanted to add. Besides, there was something unsettling about the blonde.

  The photo’s resolution wasn’t the best, still…?

  He had never known Eve to touch alcohol, yet the woman who claimed to be Eve’s daughter had the facial characteristics of a person born to a mother who drank excessively. Fetal alcohol syndrome.

  Not that he’d mention it to Eve. Not now. Not until he learned more about the unlikely daughter. A phony driver’s license and social security card were easy enough to come by. The vast fortune Eve’s rightful heir stood to inherit could make a number of people claim to be the missing daughter.

  “Of course, my attorneys insist on DNA testing to confirm that she’s my daughter.”

  Thank goodness for lawyers.

  Eve glanced at her watch, then back at Pete. “I need to head to Dr. Davis’s office before the afternoon traffic.”

  For a moment, she searched his face as if she, too, were remembering the past. Then she adjusted the stole around her shoulders, grabbed her purse and stood.

  “You lived on the estate for twelve years, Pete. It’s still your home. Don’t be a stranger.”

  Flashing a smile that touched the depths of his soul, she walked away, her heels clicking against the polished tile floor.

  A chunk of his defensive armor began to crumble. He pulled in a fortifying breath. Eve and her parents had turned their backs on him years ago. Despite their actions, he wanted to help Eve and people who suffered the way she did, but relating to cells in a petri dish was different to dealing with someone face-to-face. Bottom line, he wouldn’t open himself to rejection again.

  A door slammed. Magnolia Medical’s research department manager walked toward him, a file folder in her left hand.

  “I had a call from Jamal Washington.” Veronica Edwards’s smile grew as she approached. “He wanted to brag about his favorite graduate student. Your use of antiangiogenic drugs to stop blood flow to VHL tumors is impressive, Pete.”

  His cheeks burned. As much as he appreciated Veronica’s praise, he needed help with his funding more than adulation.

  “I took your request to the board. Magnolia Medical can provide some assistance.” She opened the folder and handed him a form with a five-digit figure highlighted in the top paragraph. “A start, although I know it’s not enough to cover all your research. No doubt, the VHL Institute will provide additional support.”

  “I’m not applying for their grant.”

  “Eve isn’t the Institute’s only contributor. There are others.”

  “Whose donations pale in comparison. I won’t accept her help.”

  “Look, Pete, I don’t know the whole story. Denise mentioned something about your father. But whatever happened was a long time ago.”

  �
��Please, Veronica.”

  She held up her hand. “Just don’t let your pride get in the way of saving lives. Applications for the Institute grant are due Tuesday. At least think it over. I’m giving you Monday off so you can use the long weekend to weigh your options.”

  Without waiting for his response, Veronica turned back to the lab, leaving Pete to stare out the large windows that overlooked the parking lot.

  His eyes focused on Eve scurrying toward her car. Her shoulders slumped forward ever so slightly, as if the effort of walking was almost more than her sickly body could manage.

  Heaviness filled Pete’s heart. His father had cared more about the estate grounds than he had for the little boy who yearned to be loved. Eve had been Pete’s refuge. She’d showered him with affection. As a child, he’d responded in kind.

  Love, connection, a sense of family was what they both had needed then and, if the truth were known, probably needed now.

  Although Pete never told Eve, he’d gone into medical research because of her, hoping to find a cure for the disease that would eventually take her life. But he couldn’t change Eve’s lab results, and no matter how quickly his research proceeded, he wouldn’t find answers that would help her in time. Yet he could ensure that she didn’t give her heart and her fortune to someone who didn’t legally have a claim to either.

  Craddock Sound? He had three days. Enough time to do a little reconnaissance. Hopefully, Pete would find out the truth about Eve’s supposed daughter.

  TWO

  Pete downed the last drops of the thirty-two-ounce cola he’d bought at the gas station as he turned off the highway and glanced at his BlackBerry sitting on the console. Thank goodness for mobile technology and the fact that Dixie Collins’s phone number had been listed in the phone book, along with her address. MapQuest provided the missing link.