Change of Heart
by Dr. Cristina LePort
(A Miner & Mulville Novel)
Publication date: February 4th 2025
Genres: Adult, Thriller
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Enjoy this peek inside:
He examined the blood-smeared paper. Only one typed sentence: I donate my organs for transplant. Kirk stared at the illegible signature. Something begged for attention, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was…
“Any weapons or bullets?”
“This was on the driver’s seat between the victim and the door.” John produced an evidence bag from his backpack. “A Ruger. A woman’s gun. Small, concealable, and accurate.”
Kirk reached for the bag and wrapped his hand around the plastic covering the grip’s checkered frame. In his mind, the weapon’s light weight and John’s words triggered an image of a beautiful young woman, Amy Winter, with no future.
“The bullet,” John went on, “ended up embedded next to the ceiling, on the car’s front passenger side. No other bullets found in the gun.”
“Why next to the ceiling?” Kirk lifted his eyes from the gun.
“It must have hit her cellphone.” John handed Kirk a plastic-wrapped iPhone with a dazzling pink case. “She must’ve been holding the phone to her ear when the bullet exited. We found the phone on the car floor between the two back seats. Screen’s shattered, phone’s dead.”
Kirk examined the phone. The black screen bore a bloody diagonal fracture from top to bottom. That would have been the direction of the exiting bullet grazing a phone glued to the woman’s right ear. Who in hell would she be chatting with while killing herself?
“Who discovered the victim?” Kirk said.
“A man called the hospital ER and 9-1-1 at about the same time.” John extracted a smartphone from his sport jacket and scrolled through his notes. “The call to the ER was registered at 4:41a.m. I’m not sure how precise that is. The 9-1-1 call came in at 4:42.”
Kirk placed his index finger on the phone’s volume button. Nothing happened. Then his thumb pressed the reset button several times. After the third try, the screen lit up. A key piece of a puzzle fell into place, making Kirk feel almost giddy with excitement.
“I’m afraid we’re not dealing with an attempted suicide,” Kirk said, turning the face of the phone toward John, “but an attempted murder.”
“I agree.” John’s brows went up. “But how can you be so sure without any forensics?”
“Several things,” Kirk said. “The note was added later, after the shot. Smears of blood, instead of sprays. Poor attempt by the shooter to make us believe the note was on the seat before the bullet hit.”
“Yeah,” John said, “that’s been bothering me also. You’ve come a long way from your training over ribs and beer.”
Kirk smiled at the memory of their favorite pub. It seemed a long time ago when Kirk decided to leave the police force and John helped him get started as a private investigator. John was more than a mentor. He always cared about Kirk, but cared even more after Kirk’s near-fatal car accident years ago. John had become as protective as an older brother.
The image of the dark pub dissipated and Kirk refocused on the victim’s note.
“I’m no calligrapher,” he said, “but, from the slanting of the signature, I think the victim is right-handed. A right-handed person would shoot her right side.”
“If it’s actually her signature,” John said.
“The shooter could have forced her to sign at gun point,” Kirk said. “Either way, it would point to attempted murder.”
“What else?”
“We’ve got the exact time of the shooting,” Kirk said, waving the plastic-clad phone. “Here in this frozen, undead iPhone.”
John grabbed the evidence bag. He stared at the fractured, frozen screen.
His lips stretched into a grin.
“The bullet froze the time at 4:43,” Kirk said. “One minute after the 9-1-1 call. The man called before the shooting occurred. It’s unlikely someone would notice the shooter, figure out what he was going to do, call the police, and leave without talking to them.”
“The witness could have left because he was afraid the shooter would come after him,” John said.
“Or perhaps,” Kirk said, “the caller knew the shooting would occur because he himself was the shooter. And he wanted the victim to be found as soon as possible.”
John referred again to his notes. “The caller said that someone had been shot. Not someone is going to shoot, or is shooting, somebody. The woman had gun powder residue on her left hand, but the shooter could’ve placed the gun in her hand before throwing it in the car. We’ve got a few prints on the handle. I bet they’re all from her. But I still think you’re right.”
Kirk nodded. “The shooter made sure she would be rescued in time for her organs to be saved for donation and subsequent transplant.”
Kirk turned toward the hospital ER entrance. A vivid memory materialized. A plastic bracelet around his wrist, from six years ago, in a different hospital. The bracelet classifying him as an organ donor. After his prolonged coma, doctors had given up on Kirk. Luckily for him, he had woken up and retained his organs.
The woman who had crossed the ER threshold earlier that morning wouldn’t be so lucky. Someone wanted her organs badly enough to put a bullet in her brain.
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About Author Dr. Cristina LePort:
Dr. Cristina LePort was born in Bologna, Italy. She attended medical school at the University of Bologna and then completed her medical training at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn and at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases and has been practicing medicine for more than thirty years. Cristina is also the Chief Medical Officer and co-founder of Genescient, a biotech company devoted to genetic research on aging and the amelioration of chronic diseases. Medicine and fiction are her twin passions, and she is absolutely thrilled to be able to share her medical thrillers with the world.
Cristina LePort currently resides in Orange County, California, with her husband Peter LePort, a general surgeon. They have three children and three grandchildren.
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