Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner Read Free Book Online

foreign body. That should help matters.”
    D.D. leaned against the nurses’ station. Now that the nurse’s body language had relaxed slightly, it was time to press the advantage.She glanced at the woman’s name tag. “So, Terri, did you hear what Patrick did to his family?”
    “Some kind of domestic incident.” Nurse Terri regarded them seriously. “Maybe he didn’t like his wife’s cooking. If you ask me, we see too much of that around here. More men need to start liking burnt food.”
    “Ah, but there was a bit more to it than a spat with the missus. Kids were involved. Three kids. He got ’em all.”
    Nurse Terri hesitated, showed the first glimmer of interest. “He killed his own kids?”
    “Nine, twelve, and fourteen. All dead.”
    “Oh Blessed Mary…”
    “That’s what we think happened. It would be a good thing to know , however. I mean, there’s a little difference between four people slaughtered by a family member than, say, by a deranged maniac who’s possibly still wandering free. Really, it would be good to dot our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s here. As Patrick’s the lone survivor…”
    Nurse Terri sighed heavily, seemed to finally relent. “Look, I can’t make the unconscious conscious, not even for Boston’s finest. I can see, however, if Dr. Poor is still around. He was the admitting doc in the ER. He might have something to offer.”
    “Perfect.”
    “Might as well make yourselves comfortable. Doctors answer only to God, not charge nurses, so this could take a while.”
    “Somehow, I bet you have your ways of making a doctor hustle.”
    “Honey, don’t I wish.”

    D.D. and Phil grabbed coffee from the basement cafeteria and made themselves at home. The waiting room chairs were low slung, the kind that were tempting to position three across as a makeshift bed. D.D. focused on her coffee. She’d slept well last night. Apparently, that would be it for a while.
    She thought briefly of Chip, felt a pang of longing for the great sex she still wasn’t going to have, then returned to the matters at hand.
    “What did you think of Professor Alex?” she asked Phil.
    “You mean my new shadow?” Phil shrugged. “Seems all right. Smart, keeps out of the way, speaks mostly when he has something useful to say. So far, that puts him ahead of half our unit.”
    D.D. smiled. “Have you looked him up?”
    “I’ll make some calls in the morning.”
    “Okay.”
    They lapsed into silence, Phil blowing experimentally on his coffee, D.D. already sipping hers.
    “And your plans tonight?” Phil finally asked.
    “Don’t ask.”
    He grinned. “Hey, wasn’t tonight the big date with Charlie’s wife’s friend?”
    “I’m telling you, don’t go there.”
    “You went to dinner first, didn’t you? Come on, D.D., you should know better by now. You get a night off, you can’t be wasting time on fine dining. Cut straight to the chase before the pager finds you.”
    “What? Drag a stranger through my door and bang his brains out? Hi, hello, the bedroom is down the hall.”
    “Trust me, guys won’t complain.”
    “Men are pigs.”
    “Exactly.”
    D.D. rolled her eyes. “You and Betsy have been married, what, ninety years now? What would you know of twenty-first-century dating?”
    “Oh, but I hear things.”
    D.D. was spared further heckling as a harried-looking doctor blasted through the double doors. His hair stood up in brown tufts, and he had both hands shoved deep in the pockets of his white lab coat.
    “Detectives,” he called out.
    “Dr. Poor.” D.D. and Phil stood up.
    He waved at them to follow, so they fell in step as he dashed across the waiting room, through another set of double doors, then made his way through the maze of sterile hallways. “Gotta get some coffee. You need any more? It’s pretty good here. For a hospital and all.”
    “We’re all set, thanks,” D.D. replied. She and Phil had to work tokeep up with the doctor’s rapid strides. “So, Doctor, we