Page 33 of Hidden Hero

“Thanks for everything tonight, Cora,” he said, his voice low but steady. He smiled, letting the corner of his mouth quirk into a playful smirk. “And for the record, you make a mean dinner.”

Her laugh was soft but genuine, hitting him like a shot of adrenaline. “You’re welcome. And thank you for not just pretending to like it.”

“Are you kidding?” he said, straightening but keeping his eyes locked on hers. “I’d have thirds if I weren’t already full. Next time, though, I’m bringing dessert.”

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, her smile deepening. “Next time?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said with a wink. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

She shook her head, but her grin lingered, lighting up her face in a way that had his pulse kicking up a notch. “Good night, Jeremy.”

“Good night, Cora.” He stepped back, closing the door.

As he walked to his front porch, he felt the strange but welcome warmth blooming in his chest. When her taillights were no longer visible, leaving him in the darkness of the night, he opened his door and walked inside.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Jeremy wasn’t rushing headlong into something. And with Cora, he didn’t want to. She was worth the wait.

14

“A call just came from the ER.”

Cora looked over as Janice walked to the board on the wall and wrote the name of the body heading to the morgue. Her hospital cell phone rang almost immediately. “Mortuary. Dr. Wadsworth speaking.”

“Cora? It’s Dan Lyles in the ER. We’ve got a situation with the body being sent to you. Sixty-nine-year-old man. Farmer. According to the wife, her husband was dead in the kitchen when she got home from shopping in Virginia Beach with her daughter. He was transported here by ambulance. He was declared DOA by me. According to his wife, there was no documented history of cardiac abnormalities or dysfunction. The wife is distraught, and the son has already called the funeral home. The man’s sister came in and approached me privately. She wants an autopsy. She says there’s something fishy going on. And those were her words.”

“Thanks, Dan. I’ll deal with it. I know you’ll document the sister’s concerns. Once he gets down here—” Her attention darted to the door where a gurney was being rolled in. “Looks like he’s here.”

“Christ,” the ER doctor groaned. “The sister and wife have just started yelling in the ER waiting room. Security is stepping in.”

“Tell security to deal with them and keep them away from my area. We won’t open the door to anyone without an invite. I’ll check the medical records and talk to his physician.”

It didn’t take long to get the local general practitioner on the phone. He verified that the patient didn’t have a history of heart disease. “But then he was sixty-nine. His wife kept telling him the farm would kill him.”

“Do you have any concerns about the cause of death?” she asked.

The physician hesitated. “Well, there was a ruckus when they were here last month.”

“A ruckus?”

“When I gave him a clean bill of health based on just an annual physical exam, he told his wife that he was going to keep farming. She got angry and started yelling about him going back on his word to sell the farm. It got so bad that my receptionist had to threaten them to take their argument somewhere else or she’d call the police.”

After obtaining a little more information, she thanked the doctor and disconnected the call. Dialing Dan, she said, “I’ll start the postmortem immediately.”

“You can get to him now?”

“I have no other postmortem on the board now. I won’t be able to say that if I wait. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Thanks, Cora. My notes are now in the electronic chart.”

Disconnecting, she typed on her keyboard to pull up the records. Dan and she had gone out to dinner several times after she’d moved to the shore, but there was no spark for either of them. They remained friends, and they worked efficiently together.

Scanning through the information, she absorbed the notes. Possible myocardial infarction. Dan added that the man’s sister claimed he’d never felt better when he celebrated his birthday last month. She stated someone wanted him dead because he’d also said he was keeping the farm instead of retiring and selling it. The sister also claimed that news upset his wife.”

Cora looked at the blood work, and while nothing showed up on the typical panel, she knew secrets wouldn’t stay hidden from the toxicology she ran.

Dan was an excellent ER physician, and she understood his position. He wasn’t able to say definitively that there was a suspicious death, but with a family member voicing her concerns, he easily turned the decision over to Cora. And she had never shied away from doing what was necessary to ensure the questions surrounding death were answered.

“What do you think?” Carl said, moving to stand beside her as she looked over the results an hour later.

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