“All right.” Xander looked at him. “Find her.”
Campbell headed farther into the woods near the river, cutting through the darkness with his flashlight. It occurred to him that he was getting dangerously close to where Mia O’Dell’s body was located—by Stefanie. This sent chills down his spine at the thought of the woman he’d fallen in love with suffering the same fate.
When he neared the trail, Campbell spotted the naked figure lying on the ground, motionless. Stefanie. He rushed toward her as his heart sank in seeing her so vulnerable—likely the victim of fentanyl mixed with carfentanil poisoning—and possibly dead.
Campbell put the flashlight in his tactical holster. “Stefanie,” he uttered her name in desperation, hoping for a response, while checking for a pulse.
There was one. She was still alive.
Not wanting to waste even one second waiting for paramedics, Campbell removed his blazer to cover Stefanie up as much as possible and then lifted her limp body to carry her back to his SUV or a waiting EMS vehicle.
“I’ve got you, darling,” he uttered mawkishly while getting nothing in return. “Don’t you die on me.”I won’t let you, Campbell thought. He prayed that he could keephis word to her and Stefanie would pull through. So that they could get the opportunity to have a wonderful life together, and then some.
Chapter Nineteen
Stefanie was groggy and disoriented, with a sore jaw after being hit, and thirsty, as she opened her eyes—surprised to see that she was still alive. She focused on the attractive oval face of a slender thirtysomething female with a blond balayage A-line haircut and blue eyes behind rectangle glasses standing over her in what Stefanie determined was a hospital bed—and obviously not the morgue.
The woman smiled and said softly. “You’re awake…”
“Yes, it appears so,” Stefanie quipped, thankfully, noting she was wearing a hospital gown and no longer naked.
“I’m Dr. Hennessy,” she told her, wearing a white lab coat. “You were brought into the ER after overdosing on fentanyl.”
“I remember all too well.” Stefanie made a face, not taking her eyes off the doctor. “So, how did I manage to survive?” She recalled Mia and Jasmine not being so lucky.
“Well, fortunately, paramedics were able to quickly administer naloxone to reverse in time the effects of the fentanyl poisoning or opioid overdose.” Dr. Hennessy glanced at a chart and back, smiling. “Aside from some bruising on your face and body and a mild concussion—all of which should heal—your vital signs are all normal. I’d say you can expect a full recovery.”
Stefanie nodded, counting her blessings. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“Actually, I’m not the one you should be thanking…” she insisted, and averted her eyes to the other side of the bed.
Stefanie followed suit and gazed at Campbell’s handsome face. He grinned at her, but she could see the strain in his features, despite his best efforts to hide it.
“Campbell…” she uttered weakly.
The doctor said coolly, “I’ll leave you two alone—”
After she left the room, Campbell moved closer. “Thought I’d lost you for a minute there,” he admitted caringly.
Honestly, I thought that, too, Stefanie told herself, against her best wishes. More importantly, she feared she’d lost him forever once the fentanyl and its deadly effects kicked in. She forced a smile. “Afraid you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Campbell chuckled. “That’s good to know. Especially when I wasn’t at all prepared for that to happen anytime soon.”
“Neither was I.” Stefanie swallowed into her dry throat and coughed. He handed her a cup of water, which, after sitting up, she happily drank. “So, how did you find me…?”And save my life, she thought, sensing that Campbell had come to her rescue. In spite of Bella and Juan’s plans to the contrary.
He sighed. “We were able to establish that it was Juan Barrientos who—in cahoots with his lover outside of the Braison Family, Bella Reston—gave Mia and Jasminethe deadly combo of fentanyl mixed with carfentanil. A license plate reader spotted Barrientos’s SUV headed toward Reston Hills Park. Something told me that he and Bella—whom you were visiting—had planned to kill you as well with a drug overdose…and, I suppose, sail off into the sunset afterward—if you could call getting away with murder that…” Campbell rolled fingers through his hair. “When Barrientos resisted arrest, he was shot. But he’ll live. And so will Bella, whether she wants to or not…”
Stefanie was pleased to know that her onetime friend, as well as Juan Barrientos, would face justice for what they had done. “I’m glad they were caught,” she said, gazing up at him. “Who knows what else they were capable of.”
“Right,” he agreed, a contemplative expression crossing his face. “Getting back to how I managed to locate you in the park… With no time to waste, I suppose I just let my instincts guide me…till I came upon you on the trail. You were unconscious, but had a strong enough will for survival that you were able to escape the fate that Bella and Barrientos had in mind—”
Stefanie pondered her brush with death—focusing on Bella’s role, in particular, and her dark family legacy. “Bella admitted to conspiring with Juan to kill Mia O’Dell, after Mia tried to blackmail her. This came about when Mia discovered from Stuart Reston’s journal—which she stole—that he poisoned to death his lover, Lynda Boxleitner, to prevent Lynda from making public their affair after he refused to leave his wife, Eloise Reston, for her. Mia, who was struggling to make ends meet, in spite of her involvement with the Braison Family, hoped to cash in on her knowledge.”
Campbell frowned and said matter-of-factly, “But Bella, wanting to protect her family heritage, rejected this—choosing to kill Mia instead…”
Stefanie nodded. “Bella wasn’t about to allow Mia to ruin everything her family stood for. Using the Braison Family angle, Bella tried to tie Mia’s fatal poisoning to the poisoning death of Lynda Boxleitner—to make it seem that both were orchestrated by the father-son cult leaders, Wendell and Kenneth Braison. Jasmine was poisoned with fentanyl after she asked too many questions and Bella panicked that the truth might come out. Also, it didn’t hurt if another drug-induced death could be connected to the Braison Family to further try and influence the investigation.”
Campbell took a breath, meeting her eyes. “Why did Bella want you dead, too?” Before Stefanie could answer, he said intuitively, “Let me guess… Bella felt further threatened by your interest in the investigation and how that might come back on her?”
