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Then I heard a noise that stopped me in my tracks and I held my breath, waiting. There it was again…Some sort of panting coming from somewhere. Was it one of the bedrooms? I tiptoed as quietly as I could to the hallway. The panting grew louder, and then a woman moaned! Oh. My. God! I stood listening.
“Yes! Yes, big daddy! Giddy-up cowboy!”
The door to our master bedroom was partially ajar and storming forward, I threw it all the way open. There, in front of me, was Edward’s bare butt, shining like a full moon in the moonlight coming through the uncovered window. Below him was a blonde woman with extra-long acrylics digging into my husband’s back as he bucked on top of her.
I’d never heard the cry of a banshee, but the scream that emitted from my throat was probably similar.
“Holy crap!” yelled Edward, jumping off the ho and scrambling for his pants, which lay crumpled by the side of the bed.
“Uh-oh,” said the ho, pulling the sheet up over a pair of humongous breasts that were no more natural than her nails.
“So, this is the reason you’ve been avoiding me!” I shrieked. “You’ve been having an affair, you lousy bastard!”
“It’s not what you think,” he said, zipping up and hurrying over to me.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelled, backing away and running out of the room, tears springing to my eyes. I ran down the hall and into the kitchen, where I hung my head over the sink, gasping. Edward followed me.
“I’m sorry, Ainsley,” he said. “Look, it just happened, okay? This was the first time.”
I heard the sound of footsteps and then the front door opening and closing.
“Who was she?” I asked bitterly. “When did you meet her?” I didn’t give him time to answer. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. What I do want to know is, why?”
He shrugged. “I have needs, Ainsley. You’re working a lot now at the hospital, and well, those scrubs are pretty nasty. You’re not exactly the sexiest thing to look at when you get home from a shift.”
My mouth dropped open. The traitorous rat! Looking around wildly, I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which was a dirty frying pan left in the sink and clocked him over the head with it.
“Ow!” he grunted, taking a step back and reaching up to rub the point of contact.
The pan dropped from my hand, and it clattered onto the stone tile with a thud. I ran towards the back door leading out to the narrow-covered porch that overlooked a hill sloping down to the edge of a small lake. It was raining harder now, and I took some deep breaths in the chilly night air, the warmth of my exhales forming shadowy wisps that dissipated like smoke in front of me. Finally, I felt recovered enough to go back inside and continue the conversation. I’d ask Edward to leave the house for the night at least, after that who knew.
I opened the back door again and let myself into the kitchen. Edward wasn’t there.
“Edward?” I called. Had he taken it upon himself to leave? I hadn’t heard his truck start up.
I moved around the kitchen island and there, lying in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, was my cheating husband, flat on his back.
“Edward!” Dropping to my knees, I bent my ear to listen for breath. There was none. I pressed my fingers to his carotid artery. No pulse. My training kicked in, and I immediately began CPR. I don’t know how long I performed the series of breaths and chest compressions, but I didn’t stop until I simply couldn’t keep going.
Sitting back onto my heels, I gulped. Edward was dead. This was definitely not my night.
Chapter Two
Logan
Gus Wainwright, Zeke McCullough, Jacob Randall. I toggled between the three files on my computer screen, searching for connections between the heart attack victims. It was one thing to have a hunch that some sort of foul play had led to their deaths, but it would be quite another to prove it.
All three were male, roughly the same age, and single. Each held blue-collar jobs, and all had rap sheets that included basic bad behavior as well as illegal drug use. Was it possible the three of them had gotten their hands on an illicit substance laced with something particularly potent they hadn’t been aware of? I propped my elbows on the edge of my rickety desk at the station and rubbed my temples. My head was throbbing. Trying to get to the bottom of this was giving me a migraine. I was no idiot—I was aware that the folks of Hideaway Hills were starting to whisper. The last thing we needed was a panic. I had to find out what was going on as quickly as possible.
The clock on the far wall of my private office ticked away the seconds as if mocking me. Swiveling on the squeaky castors of my chair, I gazed through the open slots of the blinds over my window morosely. Twilight was descending and a light rain was falling. My office was located at the back of the station house, and I was treated to a view of the forested hills. On a clear day, I could even see the snowy peaks of the mountain range in the distance. Today was not one of those days, however, and gray cloud cover sat over the area, obscuring everything beyond the tree line. Soggy brown and yellow leaves covered the ground at the back of the property.
I leaned back in my chair, considering the possibilities. What if the three deaths weren’t related at all? Those guys didn’t exactly live cleanly, and I highly doubted any doctor would have given them clean bills of health. Still, the coincidence of all of them suffering heart attacks within a matter of days stood out like a neon light. What was I missing?
I ran a hand through my hair, realizing I was overdue for a cut and turned back to my computer screen to read through the incident reports again. Wait a minute…I sucked in my breath and checked the time logs to confirm. I’d overlooked something after all—Ainsley Adams was the paramedic at all three of the scenes. She’d been the one who had performed life-saving measures on each of the victims, and those measures had failed. Why? Did she do something wrong? Didn’t keep going when she should have? It wasn’t something I didn’t necessarily wanted to believe, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility that she’d made some type of grievous mistake.
Just who was Ainsley Adams, anyway?
Reaching for my smartphone on the edge of my desk, I typed in the number for the hospital. The automated system answered my call. When prompted, I selected the extension for human resources.
