“Thank you.” Neve cradled the bouquet in her arms and pointed toward Reece. “He’s filled me in a little bit, but there are huge chunks of the story missing.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here, then.” Shane’s grin broadened. Reece pondered hitting him over the head with the flowers until it occurred to him that Neve wouldn’t have any flowers then. Reece had been too busy getting her to the hospital and making sure they took good care of her to even consider flowers.
A nurse flitted in—a pretty one this time, not the growly guy—and relieved Neve of the bouquet. “I’ll get these in water for you so you can take them home. We’ll have you discharged in about an hour.” She took Neve’s vitals while Shane made himself comfortable in Reece’s chair.
Asshole.
After she left, Neve nearly pounced on Shane—figuratively speaking, or Reece would have had to kill him. “What have you found out, Shane? Was Dr. Bunting the one who stole my meds and wrecked my pharmacy? And whyme?”
Reece felt the tug to smooth away the hurt in her voice, but Shane got there first. He covered her good hand with his and squeezed it. “I’ll tell you what I can, but we still have a lot to unravel.” Shane acknowledged Reece with a side-eye and settled in. “Most of what we know comes from a journal and a slew of emails we found when we checked her computer. The bulk of those is between her and her family members. We’reinterviewing those people now and uncovering more details about who she was and what might have driven her to do this. In the meantime, here are a few things we do know: She comes from a family of doctors, judges, and lawyers back east, and it sounds like there was a lot of pressure to outdo each other, whether it was in their academic or professional lives, the parents included. Sort of a dog-eat-dog mentality.”
Neve raised her gaze to Reece. “That lines up with the comments she made over the phone.”
Shane continued his narrative. “After vacationing in Colorado, she decided this was where she wanted to live and start up her practice. It looks like part of her reason was to escape the family, and she took a lot of heat for it. Among other digs, they called her choice of locale a ‘nothing town in the middle of nowhere’ and predicted she’d turn out to be as big a loser as the place she chose to settle. They gave her zero chance at success.”
“Wow. Nice family,” Reece chuffed.
Shane ignored the snark, his focus on Neve. “They might have had a point, if the expectation was instant success. You know how hard it is to make ends meet, and you’ve been at it much longer than she was. Plus, as a local, you have an advantage she didn’t.”
Neve did that wiggly thing with her mouth again, a sure sign her mind had leaped elsewhere, but didn’t interrupt.
“Some of the emails were between her and her banker, and they point to a mess of financial trouble—no surprise there. Her operation looked big and successful on the outside, but it was nothing but smoke and mirrors. The business was hemorrhaging money, and she couldn’t stop the bleeding. She also couldn’t ask her family for help because it would be admitting she’d failed. No bank would loan her money because she’d dummied up her financials and convinced a different lender she was in the black. When she missed payments, they realized they’d been duped and put the word out. That’s when she got creative.” Shane air-quoted the last word.
Neve cocked an eyebrow. “More creative than faking your financials?”
“Oh yeah.” Shane leaned back in the chair and crossed his ankle over his knee, finally letting Neve’s hand go. “She started billing clients for services she never performed. She overcharged for meds. She didn’t pay staff. And she became a thief.”
Reece folded his arms over his chest and leaned against a wall. “I assume this is when she targeted Neve’s clinic.”
“Yep. The vendors she’d been using to get her meds cut her off for nonpayment. She was desperate. In her journal, she admits to hitting a few small pharmacies before Neve’s, like trial runs. This is about the time things got a little twisted.”
Alittletwisted?Reece held himself in check. “How so?” he asked instead.
“She wrote that she got a rush from breaking and entering, from getting away with stealing stuff.” Shane fastened his eyes on Neve. “She started hearing complaints from clients. I’m not sure of the details, but she did overhear a couple of folks mention driving farther out of their way to the Fall River Vet Clinic to haveyoutake care of their pets. She was already on that slippery slope of sanity, and thatreallypissed her off. She seems to have shifted all her focus on you then, even complaining about you to family members, blaming her slow business on you. You were stealing her clients, spreading lies about her—”
“But I never did!” Neve cried.
Shane reached over and patted her hand. “We know that, honey. This was all in her head, a way to make her feel justified for targeting you. In her own handwriting, where she admitted to trashing your clinic, she followed up her confession with, ‘Fair is fair.’ Bullshit like that. From there, her writing becomes even more unhinged. Therage amps up, and so do the delusions. Somewhere in her rantings, she decides it’s a great idea to ‘save the community’ by confronting you. I think ‘confronting’ turned into kidnapping.”
Neve’s mouth dropped open. “It wasn’t evenhercommunity.”
Shane leaned back once more. “Like I said, delusions fueled by lunacy.”
Reece pushed off the wall. “Did this journal say what she planned to do with Neve or what she hoped to gain by abducting her?”
Shane shook his head. “She never mentions abduction. Only that she planned to confront Neve and get her to confess.”
Reece seethed. “By injecting her with ketamine? Did she think it was fucking truth serum?”
“But the truth is I didn’t do any of those things!” Neve choked out. “What did she expect me to confessto?”
Shane traded a look with Reece that broadcast he was holding back. “I’m not sure, Neve. To sabotaging her, I guess. The journal and emails drop off and end the day before she put the grab on you.”
Neve’s expression was one of incredulity. “This is like a bad movie.”
Shane’s gaze softened. “I know, honey. But you’re here, in one piece, and I’m damn glad about that.” He rose from the chair. “I need to get going, and it sounds like you need to get ready to go home. Why don’t I check in with you in a few days?”
Neve stared out the window, her gaze a million miles away. “Sure.”
