Scared to Death. Debby Giusti

licked the logs, sending sparks dancing like fireflies in the air.

      Once again, the memory of Olivia’s declining health swirled around him. Both of them had skirted the real issue of a Hollywood lifestyle gone amok.

      Alcohol. Drugs.

      Olivia had been so good at explaining away her symptoms that he’d turned a blind eye to the truth, especially when she’d promised the unexpected trip to India would be her last.

      A fact-finding expedition for a documentary on the plight of India’s poor who sold their organs to rich foreigners—a transplant tourist racket she’d wanted to explore.

      Nolan shook his head. Organs for a price.

      For Olivia Price.

      Only later, he’d learned the truth. She hadn’t gone to India to gather information. She’d gone to buy an organ.

      He’d never suspected liver disease.

      Nolan threw another log on the fire. To Olivia, time was money and too precious to be spent waiting for a donor through normal channels in the States.

      So she’d found another way. The unscrupulous physicians at the Beverly Hills Specialty Center had claimed the procedure was as safe abroad as in the U.S. Olivia’s mistake had been to trust the upscale medical facility that catered to the rich and famous. Too late, she’d learned they covered up the high rate of complications that often led to death, just as it had with Olivia.

      Fisting his hands, anger swelled up in Nolan anew.

      Why hadn’t she told him the real reason for her trip? Probably because by that point their marriage had been a sham.

      On the exterior, they had looked like the perfect family. Except he and Olivia had been living a lie.

      Nolan shook his head, sorrow overwhelming him. Justice. That was what he’d expected. Sanjeer Hira and the other physicians at the Beverly Hills Center had preyed on Olivia’s fear of not finding a donor in time, but no illegality could be found. Bottom line, the authorities’ hands were tied. Despite the dangers, private citizens were free to undergo medical procedures abroad.

      Fingers pressed against the mantel, Nolan stared into the fire. When Olivia had told him about a pre-op stop she had made in Georgia, Nolan had realized he might have a way to bring down the Beverly Hills operation and the physicians involved.

      A limousine had picked Olivia up at the Atlanta airport and had driven her to a VIP suite in a rural mountain clinic. There she’d received a special IV treatment exclusively for liver patients to increase the rate of recovery. Twelve hours later, she’d been whisked back to Atlanta and had boarded her flight to India.

      The fact that the Beverly Hills physicians had insisted she use an alias during her Georgia layover raised a red flag in Nolan’s mind. A legit medical procedure wouldn’t require cash up front. Nor a fictitious identity for the patient.

      Carrying a hefty load of grief and guilt, Nolan had moved to Mercy after Olivia’s death. If he couldn’t get to the Beverly Hills Center through the front door, he’d go in the back way. Surely, someone in the small Georgia town had made or would make a mistake, exposing a crack in the seemingly flawless Beverly Hills facade.

      With dogged determination and hours of surveillance, pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, but the picture appeared more corrupt than he had even imagined.

      Now Tina had died.

      And her old friend was sleeping in the guest room.

      Probably a mistake to offer Kate lodging. Although it had been the Christian thing to do. Besides, where else would she have gone? To a hotel in Summerton? The pass had closed, and the last thing Nolan wanted was an innocent woman out on her own.

      Dropping into the leather chair, he pulled the Bible to his lap and let his fingers slide over the page.

      Maybe he and Heather should shake the dust of Mercy from their feet and move on.

      He sighed. Who was he trying to fool?

      He couldn’t leave until he found a way to expose the transplant tourist racket that had led to Olivia’s death.

      His eyes focused on a scripture verse.

      “‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.’”

      A warning?

      Nolan stared into the fire.

      Lord, I need your help to find the wolves. All of them.

      

      Kate nestled down in the bed and pulled the comforter up around her neck. How could a quick trip to Mercy, Georgia, to retrieve her grandfather’s cross turn into such a disaster?

      Tina was dead. The cross was still missing. And Kate was holed up in a house that lacked electricity, tended to by a kind and attractive man.

      Not that she wasn’t grateful. Better here than out in the cold. Or in some lonely hotel room. Although as she recalled, Dr. Samuels had said Mercy didn’t have a hotel.

      Small town. One physician.

      And what about the doc? He insisted a woman she’d known forever had died of a long-term condition Kate had never heard Tina mention.

      Add cremation to the mix. The idea of Tina—a live-for-the-minute type of gal—planning her funeral left a bad taste in Kate’s mouth.

      Cremation…fire…

      Kate’s stomach tightened. The memory of that horrible night three years ago returned unbidden. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out all that had happened.

      Trusting and gullible, she had put her faith on the line…faith in a man who’d professed to love her…faith in a God who, she thought, would bless their love.

      Only to have her hopes and dreams go up in flames.

      Stupid to believe she and Eddie would live happily ever after. She’d learned the hard way fairy tales don’t come true.

      She’d been blinded by love. Or had she ignored the signs, not wanting to believe the truth? Living a lie was so much easier.

      Until she’d come face-to-face with the reality of his addiction.

      The man she’d loved—had thought she’d loved—had transformed before her eyes into a junkie needing the next fix.

      The cabin had been Eddie’s private retreat, but he’d begged her to drop by just this once. He’d promised to throw steaks on the grill and have her home by nine so she would be ready for work the next day.

      That night with candles flicking in the darkness and the cloying, sweet smell of incense hanging in the air, she’d discovered the true Eddie.

      She’d entered a den of evil. The words he’d screamed. The names he’d called her.

      He’d mocked her values and her morality, calling her a stupid prude who needed to be taught a lesson.

      When he’d grabbed at her dress, she’d fought back, needing to escape.

      Kate clenched her teeth, eyes scrunched shut as once again she relived the struggle.

      Fear gripped her anew.

      “Run, Kate, run,” an inner voice warned just as it had that night.

      In her mind’s eye, she tripped, a table overturned. She crawled forward, struggled to her feet.

      Somehow she found the door and ran. Ran from the cabin, from his shouts of protest. Ran until her lungs burned and her muscles ached and she gasped for air.

      In that instant, she looked back.

      The explosion ripped the night in two.

      “Oh, God, no!” she cried into the folds of the comforter. The memory too real, too painful.

      Tears