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“Everyone out of the way, I’m a doctor.” Rang the familiar voice of Dr. Paolo Raffaele Bellini.

Jess looked at him as he walked toward them.  “What are you doing here?”

“You’re all over Twitter.”  He looked at her hand and pulled off his polo shirt to wrap around it, leaving him in his khaki’s and a wife beater t-shirt.  “You watch that little ass hole. Keep him down until the police get here.”

She smiled.  “It’ll be my pleasure.”  She walked to where the slime ball was doubled over holding his family jewels and put the five inch stiletto heel of her shoe against his throat.  “In case you’re wondering, that’s your carotid artery.  Move and I’ll show you what a real stiletto can do.”

“Freeze, Police.”

Jess turned her head to see Detective Lila Crane standing a few feet away, gun drawn and pointing in her direction.

“Detective Crane.  I never thought I’d be glad to see you.”

Jess moved her foot from the stalker’s throat.  He rolled over to look at her.  “You married him.  You don’t get to be happy, Kit.”

She’d had about all she could take.  She wasn’t Kit Hart and she wasn’t Kate Hart and she wasn’t married.   Jess looked at the little slime ball lying on the ground.  She stomped her foot.  “For the last time, I did NOT get married.  My mother married Ben.”  She said in a low voice that was barely controlled.

Lila looked at Jess.

“Your mother married Ben?”

“Yeah, last night.  We told the paparazzi last night, but they still broadcast that I got married.”

The paparazzi were still taking pictures at a frantic pace, and now an audience who had gathered had cell phones out and were all taking video.

“No, that can’t happen.  I broke them up.”  Lila shook her head.  She still had her gun out but had pointed it at the stalker.

“A little hard to do.  First of all, he loves her and secondly, they’re having a baby.”

Lila pointed her gun toward Jess again.  “No, if anyone’s going to have his baby it’s going to be me.”

God, this chick was a nut case.  And the murder investigation from last month was suddenly crystal clear to Jess.  Carol Anne Woods was an ex-girlfriend of Ben’s and she’d been killed.  Jess and her brothers had found out that Carol Anne was in town to get someone to be a sperm donor.

“So, I’m guessing you killed Carol Anne so she couldn’t have his baby.”  Jess shook her head and laughed.  “Carol Anne wanted Ben’s brother Tony to be the sperm donor, so you killed her for nothing.  You’re not a very good detective, Sherlock.”

Jess knew she should shut up.  She knew you should never antagonize crazy, but she’d been running and hiding from crazy for days now and she wasn’t going to run or hide any more.

“In fact, Sherlock, I’d make a better detective and all I’ve ever played on TV cop shows is the dead person.”  She laughed again.

“Then life really does imitate art, because now you can play a dead person in real life,” Lila said as she took aim at Jess.  “Your mother gets to have my baby so I’m taking hers away.”

Yes, Jess knew that she shouldn’t antagonize crazy and antagonizing a crazy person who held a gun on her was crazy itself, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Yeah, right.  You had to use a golf club to kill Carol Anne.  You probably don’t even know how to use that gun.”

Someone yelled for Lila to drop her gun, but she pulled back the slide to chamber a round.  It was the last thing she did.  Her partner, Adam Hunter, fired twice and Lila fell to the ground just as the ambulance skidded to a stop.

“Over here,” Pauli said.  “Start an IV and get him loaded.”

Joey looked at Pauli.  “And the old man brought me here to protect her.”

Lila Crane lay on the ground blood pooling around her.  Jess looked around.  The stalker was gone.  She looked to Detective Hunter.  “Where’d he go?”

“Who?”  His concentration was completely on his fellow officer.

Pauli looked at Detective Hunter, as he grabbed Jess by the elbow.  “She needs stitches.  You can meet her at Shawnee Mission to get her statement.”  He pushed her into the ambulance behind Joey and followed her in.

“Don’t worry, Bro.  You’re going to be fine.  I’m pretty sure the asshole missed everything important, but I need to get you to the hospital to be sure.”

Jess pulled out her phone and called Lane.  If Pauli was right about the incident being all over Twitter, then she’d better call her mother before Lane heard it from someone else.

“Mom?  Can you meet me at Shawnee Mission?  I’m all right.  Joey was stabbed.  Pauli’s with him.  And Lila Crane is dead.”

“Jess, you aren’t making any sense.  What are you talking about?”

Jess took a deep breath.  “Just meet me at the ER, Mom.  I’ll explain everything there.  I’m okay, though, don’t worry.”

Chapter 19

wasn’t I just here

Lane walked through the maze of paparazzi, who weren’t allowed inside the hospital, and into the ER.  Wasn’t it just two days ago that she was here?

Detective Adam Hunter approached her.  “Mrs. Parker?”

She nodded, “Mrs. Bellini now.  I’m here to see my daughter Jessica Parker.”

“I’ll take you.”  He motioned for her to follow him down the hall.

“She said something about Joey being stabbed.  Can you tell me what happened?”  She was calm.  No matter what emergency the kids had over the years, she was always calm – at least until it was over.

“I understand your daughter had been bothered by a stalker in L.A. and that the stalker followed her here.  Apparently he was waiting for her and Mr. Bellini in the mall parking lot.  He attacked them, stabbing Mr. Bellini.”

He stopped outside a curtained area.  “Your daughter’s hand was cut, but she’s fine.  When my partner and I arrived at the scene, the assailant was on the ground and your daughter was standing over him.  Mr. Bellini was on the ground with his brother, the doctor attending to him.  I’m still going to need statements from everyone, but go in.”

Lane thanked him and pulled the curtain back.  Jess was sitting on the gurney holding her hand out, while the same doctor Lane had seen earlier in the week finished wrapping it.

“Hi, Mom.”

Lane smiled.  “Hi yourself.  Dr. Bohnam, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“I imagine not.  I’ll leave you alone to talk,” the doctor replied.

Lane hugged her daughter and nodded toward Jess’s hand.  “That doesn’t look fine to me.”

“No big deal.  Just a couple of stitches.  Joey’s in surgery.”

“Adam Hunter told me some of it, but why don’t you start at the beginning.”

“Joey and I were at the mall.  I only grabbed a couple of things when I left L.A., and I needed clothes.  When we came out, Joey was carrying the bags; and as we approached the car, the stalker was standing there.  He called me Kit and started in by calling Kit, me, a slut.  Joey stepped in front of me and told him not to call me names.  That was when he stabbed Joey.  Well, that really pissed me off, so I pushed the blade out of his hand, kneed him in the balls and slammed his head into my knee.  I think I broke his nose.”

Lane laughed and shook her head.  That was her daughter, always jumping into the fray.  Thank God Ben had convinced her to enroll Jess in those self-defense classes years ago.

“Then Pauli showed up, and was taking care of Joey while I stood over the nut case.  That’s when Detectives Hunter and Crane showed up.”  Jess looked at her mother and gave a half smile.  “The slime ball said I married Joey and I lost it.  I said I didn’t get married, that you married Ben.”