Page 74 of Diagnosis Attraction

He returned to his seat, and she pulled up a chair next to his, reading the message he’d started writing.

“From Matthew Delano to Detective Thomas Harrison.

You may be aware of a murder and fire in Harford County at a mansion which was being used by mob boss Derek Lang as a house of prostitution.”

He paused and looked at Elizabeth as she kept reading. “An investigation of the scene will determine that Lang was shot by one of his men, someone named …”

“Tony,” she supplied.

“No last name?”

“Not that Lang said.”

“Okay.”

She went back to reading. “Tony was shot in turn by another one of Lang’s operatives, a man named Southwell, who subsequently ran into the basement. I also believe you will find, when you examine Southwell’s gun, that it was the same weapon used to kill Polly Kramer, who was sheltering Elizabeth Forester, the woman known as Jane Doe when she was brought into Memorial Hospital suffering from amnesia.”

He stopped and looked at her. “All right so far?”

“Yes.”

“As a social worker for Baltimore City, Elizabeth Forester had uncovered a pattern of abuse involving Derek Lang. When he realized she was investigating him, he sent men to apprehend her. As they were pursuing her through the city, she was involved in a one-car accident. She was taken to Memorial Hospital, suffering from amnesia. When she could not be identified, a nurse at the hospital, Polly Kramer, volunteered to take Elizabeth home. I became involved in the case because I was the physician on call. Lang’s men tracked Elizabeth down at Mrs. Kramer’s house. Elizabeth was able to escape, but Mrs. Kramer was unfortunately killed by Lang’s man, Southwell. We are confident that the results of the ballistics test will clear up the questions about Mrs. Kramer’s murder.”

He stopped again. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes.”

“Now comes the tricky part.”

“Because there’s no way we’re going to betray Donna Martinson and the women we rescued,” Elizabeth supplied.

Matt nodded.

“Lang was trying to kill Elizabeth because, through her job as a social worker, she had discovered that he was forcing women into prostitution, and he wanted to keep her from acting on that information.”

He signed it Matthew Delano, MD.

“I guess we have to wait for a response before we can do anything else,” he said.

“Do you think that will get us off the hook?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

He continued silently.

The problem is that we can’t give away the location of this safe house or the women's identities.

Yeah. That could be a deal breaker.

Luckily, they can’t trace the location of your computer through your e-mail.

Damn lucky.

They didn’t have long to wait for a reply. A demand came back quickly that Matt and Elizabeth surrender themselves.

They politely declined. And the detective must have expedited the ballistics test because it was only six hours later that they were given confirmation that the same gun had killed both Polly and Tony. And only Southwell’s fingerprints were on the weapon. Once that was established, Harrison asked to meet with them at a neutral location.

“He could be lying to us,” Elizabeth said. “On the TV shows, the cops don’t have any compunction about saying whatever it takes to get people into custody—or to confess.”

---