Critical Condition by CJ Lyons Read Free Book Online

on your hands. Always move the crutches and your injured leg first, then swing your good leg to catch up. Like this.”
    Jim demonstrated, taking a few steps, then handed the crutches to Mr. Olsen. Before taking them, Mr. Olsen turned back to his coworker. “Call Zimmerman again. Call the police, get him an escort if you have to. We must protect those penguins.”
     
     
    IT WAS A LOT TO TAKE IN ALL AT ONCE. LYDIA stood beside Janet Kwon, hovering over the laptop. “Do they say anything else about my mother? Where she was from? Any family?”
    “Not here. Now that we have a name, though, I can search for more information later. But right now we need to concentrate on the immediate threat.”
    “The man who almost killed Jerry.”
    “And who wanted to find you.”
    Lydia sank back into the chair, thinking hard. “How did the people responsible for my mother’s death find out that Jerry had reopened her case?”
    Janet’s frown corrugated her forehead. “You’ve always said the man who killed your mom was dressed like a cop.”
    “Jerry’s the first person I told that to. Ever.” She’d been too terrified to confide in either the L.A. police officers who’d found her standing over her mother’s body or the social workers who’d taken her into custody.
    “What if the killer kept looking for you after he killed your mom? Best way for him to keep an eye on anyone looking into Maria’s case would be to flag those fingerprint records.”
    “Which means he really was a cop.”
    Janet seemed to reluctantly agree. “Back then, before a flick of the computer could get you into records, it would have been hard. And even now with all the security clearances, virtually no one outside law enforcement could do it. In fact”—somehow her frown managed to deepen—“unless he works in the same jurisdiction where your mom’s murder took place, it’d be tough to pull off.”
    “So he must be LAPD.”
    “Or maybe L.A. County Sheriff.”
    “Why didn’t he just come after me while I was in foster care? What stopped him?”
    “As far as I can tell, since you had no ID or birth certificate, family services initially labeled you a Jane Doe until the lab tests confirmed your relationship to your mom, right? Way back then the records were pretty much all on paper—so even a police officer wouldn’t have had access without first knowing your name.”
    “And since Maria was labeled a Jane Doe as well, he’d have had no idea what name I was using.” Lydia never realized it before, but thanks to the foster care system, for the past eighteen years, she’d been as good as invisible to anyone looking for Maria or her. Including Maria’s killer.
    “Or what name you went by now—after eighteen years, you could have taken on an adopted family name, or been married, more than once, even. But he must have flagged your mom’s AFIS file as an early-warning system.”
    “So when Jerry reran Maria’s prints and got a match, the killer knew someone was looking into her case. Which meant that Jerry probably knew where I was.”
    “So the hit man was sent here to Pittsburgh, to get Jerry to tell him where you were.” Janet bolted upright, her feet slamming against the floor. “Eighteen years of law enforcement. He’s gonna be high ranking—or”—she paused, clicking her nails against the butt of her gun as she thought—“or maybe he’s gone federal. The AFIS system is run by the Department of Justice.” She shrugged, deflating a little. “Or he could just be a clerk in a cubicle somewhere with access to the database.”
    “But that still doesn’t answer the real question: What does he want from me? It’s been eighteen years.”
    That was the question that had kept Lydia awake for the past two and a half weeks. She’d been just a kid when she witnessed her mother’s murder—she doubted that she could identify the man’s face. Not that he’d even known she was there; she’d stayed hidden, just as Maria had told