Free Heartless: a Derek Cole Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thriller Book 1) by T Patrick Phelps Page B

O’Connells grave? No need to send a reply. I’ll stop over to collect your answer.’ He signed it just ‘AB.’ I actually figured it was him knocking on my door when you showed up.”
       
    “Aren’t you going to take precautions in case he does show up?”
       
    “Precautions about what? About saving my life? Hell, no. I will get what I deserve.”
         
    Derek had seen unexpected reactions from hundreds of people. Some were his clients, and some were the targets of his client’s displeasure. As he sat across from Doctor Rinaldo, Derek genuinely felt that Rinaldo truly had no interest in taking any precautionary steps to keep himself safe from whomever had killed the three in Piseco Lake and all but said “you’re next.” Derek understood that he was having a conversation with someone who had already given up.
       
    “Can you confirm that the story I’ve been told about Alexander is true?” Derek asked as Mark Rinaldo finished and poured another tall glass of scotch.
       
    “Not sure what you heard. But if you’re asking if Alexander Black was born without a heart and that we screwed up and sent him to that asshole William   Straus out in Long Island to cover our asses; if you’re asking if that is true, then yes. It’s all true.”
         
    Derek sat in silence at the confirmation. He wanted to believe the story that Thomas had given him but found it nearly impossible to do so. As he sat across from Mark Rinaldo, the man who started the entire series of events in motion with his decision twenty-two years ago, he began to see how that decision had worn on the doctor.
       
    “Not a day has passed that I didn’t regret what I did. What I regret most is that I included other people in my decision.” Mark stopped, slurped in the final drops of scotch left in his glass, then sat the glass down on the table next to the near empty bottle of blue. “And now, my decision has killed three people. Three people, dead because I panicked and chose the route of a coward.
         
    “I hope that Alexander Black or O’Connell, whatever he wants to call himself, does come and pay me a visit. I’ll tell him that everything was my fault. Everyone was doing what I told them to do.”
       
    “If his recent actions are any indications, you know that he will try to kill you?”
       
    “I hope he does.”
       
    “I can get you somewhere safe.”
       
    “You believe in heaven, Mr. Cole?”

    The question took Derek by surprise.   “I suppose. I hope so, anyway.”
       
    “Well, I do. And I also believe that unless I pay for my sins, for what I did to Alexander, to his family and every doctor I got involved in this mess, that I won’t be headed to heaven. My wife is there. I know that to be true, and I’d like to see her again.”
       
    “Doctor Rinaldo,” Derek said, “back twenty two years ago, when Mrs. O’Connell gave birth, you are certain that one of the babies, Alexander, had no heart and only half of a lung?” Derek needed to be certain that he was very clear about the bizarre birth.
       
    “Three doctors, myself included, all determined that the baby did not have a heart and was not breathing. Skin went blue then turned a horrible shade of gray. No color at all, that gray. Death gray.”
       
    “But the baby was still alive?”
       
    “Depends on how you define being alive. Damn thing was moving around, eyes opened, kicking its legs. Kept gasping for air like a damn fish thrown onto the beach.” Mark Rinaldo reached for the bottle of blue. He paused, looked at Derek, then returned his empty hand to his lap. “We had no idea what was keeping that child alive. No idea. And I had no idea what to do in a situation like that. How could I have any idea? There wasn’t a policy in place about how to deal with a heartless baby that was still alive. I made the only choice I could think of.
         
    “Now, I didn’t know what the hell was keeping it alive and really