Page 33 of Her Devoted HERO

“What do you mean bad?” Kenna asked.

Patsy started to cry. “Abby said she was tortured. Doctor Larkin took her home and gave her a sedative.”

Kenna couldn’t comprehend what Patsy was saying. It made no sense. Jean Baldwin was her friend. She just finished her residency last year. She was thinking about moving to Philadelphia to be close to her dad. She was not dead.

“Patsy, are you sure?”

The elevator opened and the charge nurse for the oncology floor came out, along with two men Kenna didn’t recognize.

“Kenna, do you have a moment? I saw you walking in from the parking lot. I wanted to catch you before you came up to the floor. These two police detectives want to talk to you.”

Kenna looked at her boss and then at the two cops. “Okay,” she said slowly.

Please, let this be a bad dream.

“Why don’t you take them to the cafeteria,” the woman suggested gently.

“This is about Jean, isn’t it?” Kenna said staring at them.

“Ms. Wright, let’s discuss this over a cup of coffee, all right?” The smaller of the two men smiled at her.

Kenna nodded. She pointed toward the hallway. Her hand was trembling. “The cafeteria is down there.”

“We know this is difficult. Please take a seat.” They allowed her to take a few moments to settle before they introduced themselves. Detectives Warren and Sanchez were working the murder of Dr. Jean Baldwin.

Detective Warren went and got them coffee, and when he returned Kenna looked at the two men and asked the question that was on her mind.

“But I don’t understand, are you having coffee with all of the nurses who worked with Jean?” Kenna asked.

“We wanted to ask you about an e-mail that she forwarded to you. It was from a dating site.”

“Do you think I might be of help in solving her murder?” she asked.

“Right now, we’re investigating everything. Any information, any insights, that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.”

Kenna stirred her coffee and thought about the e-mail. Then she looked at the detectives. “Why are you asking me about it, you’ve read it, haven’t you?”

“What Clive meant was, what did Jean have to say about the guy? She must have said something. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have forwarded the e-mail to you,” Detective Sanchez clarified.

“She wanted my take on him. I said surface-wise he seemed okay. I looked at his profile. But his e-mail seemed like he was trying too hard for somebody who was supposedly an attorney. I told her to use caution. Will this help you in finding out who killed her? Do you think it could have been him?” Kenna took a sip of her coffee and tried hard not to wiggle in her seat as the two men examined her.

“How were you able to look at his profile? You don’t have a profile on CaliSingles.”

“I did at the time she sent me the e-mail. I’ve taken it down since then. You didn’t answer my question.”

“We really can’t answer your questions. This is an ongoing investigation, and we’re just following up on any and all leads.”

Made sense.

Kenna nodded.

“If you told her to proceed with caution, would it surprise you to learn that she continued to correspond with him?”

“No,” she answered.

She watched as Detective Warren made notes. “Why didn’t it surprise you?” he asked.

“What I meant when I said to proceed with caution was that she needed to do a lot of questioning. Hopefully, if you read through her e-mails, you’ll see where she was trying to see if he was for real or not.”