“I’m not surprised Daisy needs to be fit. Looking after two children is hard enough. She does it with twenty, or more, all day, every day.” Flora placed her hands on the small of her back and stretched. “Maybe I should ask her for some workout tips.”
“I think you should start easy,” Leon said. “How about a slow walk back to the car, followed by pizza for dinner?”
She grinned. “Dr. Leon, that sounds like my kind of workout.”
The next few days fell into a pattern of near normality. For Flora, having Leon working alongside her didn’t feel awkward or unusual. They slipped into an easy routine. Dropping the twins at daycare together, they then traveled to the Ryerson Center, went about their separate working days in the same building, and met up again at the end to collect the boys.
Flora had a horrible sense of playing by the killer’s rules, waiting for his next move. Leon’s presence close by reassured her, though. She’d passed the point of questioning whether he was the right person to make her feel safe. He did, and that was what counted. The fact that he made her feel a whole lot of other things? Right now, she was going with the flow, feeling her way around all these new emotions. Her heart and her head both had a lot to deal with.
Although she didn’t want to get inside the mind of the person who was doing these awful things, she couldn’t help wondering about the motive behind the murderer’s actions.
“It’s like he wants to frighten me and make me look bad,” she said to Laurie when the police chief called at Leon’s house with an update on the investigation.
They sat on the porch, watching the twins play on the lawn with their toy cars. Leon had gone into the kitchen to make coffee, and the peaceful domestic scene jarred with the subject of their conversation. No one should have to talk about murder on a summer evening. Flora grimaced. No one should have to talk about murder entering their lives, ever.
Leon came out of the house carrying the coffee, which he set on the table. He took a seat next to Flora.
“The break-in at my house, the vandalism to the twins’ planters and my car, the fire, the attempt to run me off the road—” Flora ticked them off on her fingertips. “They could be intended to scare me off.”
“But you said he wants to make you look bad as well,” Laurie said.
“This is going to sound weird.” Flora had turned the idea over in her mind several times, becoming convinced it made sense. Crazy sense, if there was such a thing. “Joy and Lilith were my patients and they were killed soon after they’d seen me. The ‘Doctor Death’ page came right out and said it was because they’d seen me. And Jennifer’s body was moved to my shed.”
“You think he’s killing them, so he can taint you?” Laurie asked. “Blame you for the murders, or at least use them to blacken your name?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Flora said. “And I wonder if that could be his motive.”
“It’s been on my mind as well,” Leon admitted. “But I suspect there could be another target. One we haven’t considered.” Both women turned inquiring looks his way. “It occurred to me that this could be about the Ryerson Center.”
His words were followed by silence. Flora swallowed hard. “You mean because of Jennifer?”
“Partly. We couldn’t see where her death fitted with the others. Maybe this explains it,” Leon said. “But what really got me thinking was the ‘Doctor Death’ page. Specifically, the way it twisted the newspaper article about the opening of the Ryerson Center. That reporter really focused on you, Flora. He made you the face of the new center.”
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “That wasn’t the way I wanted it. I even contacted the editor of the Stillwater Sentinel to protest about the tone of the piece. I was not responsible for the way the article criticized local doctors.”
He smiled reminiscently. “I know that now, but it stung at the time. And Alan was furious.”
“You think this brings us back to Alan as a suspect?” Laurie asked. “That he was enraged by the article and targeted Flora and the Ryerson Center because of that?”
“I’m not sure I would go that far. But Alan didn’t keep his feelings to himself. He was angry, and he talked about how he felt. He also told anyone who would listen that the Ryerson Center would kill off the Main Street Clinic,” Leon said. “What I am saying is, that, even before she arrived in town, Flora was on the radar of anyone who had a grudge against the Ryerson Center. That newspaper article put her in the firing line.”
“So he wants to drive me out of town and discredit the center? By killing our receptionist and patients?” Flora shivered. Could Leon be right? It was the closest thing they had to an explanation for what had been happening. “All because that article was critical of local doctors?”
Laurie was flipping open her notebook. “Who, apart from Alan Grayson, was going to lose out when the Ryerson Center opened?”
Leon held up a hand. “That would be me.”
“You were with Flora when Joy’s body was found and when Lilith was killed. You were also together when Jennifer was moved to Flora’s shed. That means we can discount you as a suspect,” Laurie said.
“Thank you.” Leon gave her a wry smile.
Laurie appeared not to notice the trace of sarcasm. “Is there anyone else?”
“There would have been Tegan Jackson, the receptionist at the Main Street Clinic, but she’s just taken another job,” Leon said. “Although she has always been loyal to Alan, I can’t see her carrying that over to the point where she would kill to protect his business.”
“You’d be surprised what people will do when they
