Protecting Her Child

Meredith shook her head, not ready to absorb what he was saying. Every action and reaction in the past seven months had been to protect her child.

Now a stranger on a street corner tells her about a woman to whom she may be related having a disease that could affect the precious life growing within her.

Her husband had been murdered. The men who killed him were after her, and some guy wants to compound the situation?

She couldn’t carry any more weight around on her shoulders.

is a medical technologist who loves working with test tubes and petri dishes almost as much as she loves to write. Growing up as an army brat, Debby met and married her husband—then a captain in the army—at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Together they traveled the world, raised three wonderful army brats of their own and have now settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where Debby spins tales of suspense that touch the heart and soul.

Contact Debby through her Web site, www.DebbyGiusti.com, e-mail [email protected] or write c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

—Jeremiah 1:5

This book is dedicated to my dear friend,

Pat Rosenbach, who first told me about VHL, and to her friend, Eva, who had Von Hippel-Lindau disease.

Although fiction, I hope the story has captured the

courage and determination of all who battle VHL.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Meredith Lassiter’s throat ran dry and her pulse raced as the wind outside whistled through the tall pine trees. The old house moaned in protest, its creaks sounding like footsteps in the night. Ever so slowly, she eased back the edge of the curtain and peered into the darkness.

The steel-gray pickup truck sat like a vulture at the end of the desolate beach road. Tinted windows in the extended cab and covered camper obscured her view of the thugs she knew were hunkered down inside.

Men whose intimidation had forced her to flee her home six months ago and hide in this rental unit where no one asked questions about a woman on the run. Depraved, amoral men who had killed her husband and who now planned to kill her.

Meredith glanced at the table where sections of the Georgia Coastal News lay scattered. Even in the darkened house, she could read the headline. Suspect Arrested in Payroll Loan Scam. Two additional men sought for questioning. The article mentioned a possible connection with her husband’s murder.

Why had the overzealous reporter added Meredith’s name in the same paragraph with the unidentified police informant who had recently come forward?

Be not afraid. The verse from scripture had comforted Meredith in the past. Tonight, the words did little to calm her pulse or the pinpricks of anxiety that scurried along her spine.

The door of the truck swung open, and a man stepped onto the sandy road. He spoke to someone inside the vehicle before he pointed to the tiny cottage that had been her latest refuge.

Her heart crashed against her chest.

Run!

Meredith stumbled into the bedroom and snatched the overnight tote from the closet, a bag she’d packed in case this night ever arrived.

Adrenaline and fear pushed her forward. She reached for her purse and threw the strap over her shoulder. Three steps to the kitchen, and she was at the door. Her hand touched the knob.

She paused for half a second, then raced back to where the baby quilt lay on the couch. Grabbing the fabric she’d patiently stitched over the last few months, she retraced her steps and unlatched the back door.

Meredith peered into the darkness of the backyard. Seeing no one, she slipped into the night.

Pete Worth adjusted the ocular on the microscope until the leukocytes and neutrophils swarmed into view. Eve Townsend’s blood smear confirmed that the woman’s condition had deteriorated since her last lab appointment at Magnolia Medical.

Exactly as Pete had expected. Being right didn’t prevent the sadness that slipped like a dark pall over his shoulders.

He steeled himself to the reality VHL patients eventually had to face. Von Hippel-Lindau disease. Seemed the more bizarre the name, the more convoluted the illness. Just like the twisted tumors that grew within Eve’s body.

He hated VHL as much as he was intrigued by the secrets it held. If scientists could understand how to block the blood flow to the tangled cluster of capillaries that formed the tumors, they’d understand how to retard the growth of other malignancies as well.

In time. Pete sighed. Something Eve didn’t have.

He glanced up as Denise Ryan, Magnolia Medical’s secretary, entered the lab and headed for his workstation. Denise had a big heart as well as an insatiable interest in the personal lives of the technologists on staff.