LIAM SENSED PEYTON was ready to bolt even before she stood up. But she’d asked to see him for a reason, and he didn’t intend to let her run without divulging what had prompted her call.
“Please, Peyton,” he said softly. “Something spooked you. I can see it in your eyes. And I don’t think your bruise was just an accident. Tell me what’s going on.”
Her soft sigh reeked of worry, and indecision played on her face. But she gave a small nod, then sank back into her chair. She sipped her wine again, and he simply waited, allowing her time to put together her thoughts.
“I want protection for my mother,” she said in an earnest tone. “That is the deal. Twenty-four-hour around-the-clock protection.”
That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “Your mother is in danger?”
She nodded. “Someone almost killed her today. She’s in the hospital now.”
Liam narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand. Why would someone want to hurt her?”
“To punish me for talking to you.”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. God, she was frightened, but she was also so beautiful that his gut clenched.
“But you haven’t told me anything.”
“I know that, and I did everything he said. But he thinks I talked, and he warned me and now he tried to kill Mama.” Her voice cracked and tears blurred her eyes.
Liam inhaled. “You were threatened?”
She nodded again.
He covered her hand with his. Hers felt cold, another sign of nerves. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? Who threatened you and why?”
She wiped away a tear. “The truth is, I don’t exactly know what happened with Gloria Inman in the ER, and I don’t know who set the hospital fire.”
“Then what is this about?”
“I have suspicions. But I want to clarify that I wasn’t covering for anyone, at least no one that I knew of specifically.”
Liam squeezed her hand. “Just tell me what happened in your own words.”
She blinked, then sighed again. “Like I said before, Mrs. Inman was in cardiac distress when her husband brought her to the ER. Mr. Inman was distraught. We began to work to save her immediately. Following protocol and Dr. Butler’s orders, I gave Gloria a shot of epinephrine to jump-start her heart. We tried CPR, and the paddles, but all our efforts failed.”
“But you thought something was wrong?” Liam asked. “Why?”
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Peyton said. “But Dr. Butler seemed concerned. I saw it in his eyes. When I asked him about it, he acted strange, then he showed me the log report we use to record every medication and form of treatment we use on a patient.” She hesitated, her brows furrowed. “That log report showed that I took morphine from the cart and administered it to Gloria Inman.” She implored him with her eyes. “But I didn’t give her morphine or take morphine from the cart.”
Liam frowned. “But the log had your name on it?”
“Each nurse has an individual code for the crash cart which stores all the medications needed in an emergency, at least enough for a first round of treatment. It’s part of our system to avoid mistakes or mix-ups. Dr. Butler didn’t order morphine. But my security code showed up as the one used to remove it from the cart.”
Liam chewed over that information. Butler had lied to him. “What did he say when you told him this?”
“He said the paperwork would prove otherwise, so I should keep quiet about it, that he would investigate and find out if someone had used my code.”
“Did he?”
“The next time I asked, he told me that if I didn’t want to lose my reputation or my job, I should stay quiet.”
“But he never explained about the log?”
She shook her head. “I was going to talk to someone else, go to the hospital administrator, but then I received a threatening message to keep my mouth shut or my mother would end up like Gloria.”
Anger knifed through Liam. She could be lying about the threat, although the fear in her eyes was very real. And the wording of that threat suggested that Gloria Inman’s death might have been intentional.
“What happened then?”
“A week later, a couple of days after your father questioned me about Gloria Inman’s death, the hospital caught fire. I didn’t know it was related, but my mother was in the hospital and almost died.” She hesitated. “But I got this sick feeling in the pit of my