by Linda Howard
"Well, I guess I'll excuse you," Piper grumbled, returning the hug. "I'm sorry, honey. It had to be rough, even though I know you weren't close to your father. What happened?"
"He was murdered. Shot."
Piper gasped, shocked, and the two other nurses at the station turned around with arrested expressions on their faces. Karen swallowed the lump in her throat. "It was a street shooting. There weren't any witnesses."
Piper blew out a breath. "Jeez, that's tough. Maybe you should have taken off another couple of days."
"No, working is easier." It always had been. If she could keep herself occupied, she could handle anything.
"Why don't you come stay with me for a few days—"
Karen rolled her eyes, then laughed. "You work days; I work nights. What would be the point?"
"Yeah, guess you're right." Piper pondered the situation. She was big-boned with a mop of short black curls and the most friendly face in creation. Just looking at her could make a patient feel better, not because she was a great beauty but because her good humor literally shone out of her. Her love life, unlike Karen's, was more active than Mauna Loa volcano. "Until you transfer back to days, you're on your own."
"Gee, thanks." Karen chuckled at the blithe callousness and hummed a familiar tune.
"I'll be there for youuuu," the two nurses behind her sang in unison.
Piper picked up a stapler and brandished it at them.
"You can be attached to those chairs for another shift, you know."
Judy Camliffe walked up, her stride brisk. "Hi, guys. Karen, you all right?"
Only a few days before, such concern, even from Piper, would have made Karen uncomfortable. Now, however, there didn't seem to be much point in trying to wall herself off; her defenses already had been breached. Despite all her caution and efforts, Marc had slipped through them like a hot knife through butter. And despite all the years she had spent building a wall of anger against her father, she had learned that she wouldn't have been so angry if she hadn't loved him.
She smiled at her friends. "I don't know if I'm all right, exactly, but working is better than not working." She paused. "Thanks for asking."
Judy nodded her dark head, then turned to the pile of charts. "Okay, what's cooking?"
Karen filled her in on Mr. Gibbons's worrisome fever, which was now up to a hundred one point three. Lab hadn't called with results of the blood tests, and Dr. Pierini was due to start his rounds in half an hour.
"I'll goose them a little," Judy said, reaching for the phone. "Oh, I found out what was wrong with Ashley."
"Diarrhea, you said."
"Yeah, but what caused it." She turned her attention to the phone. "Oh, hi, this is Judy on the surgical floor. Do you have anything yet on the Gibbons culture? Sure." On hold, she turned her attention back to them. "She thought it was food poisoning the first time it happened, and she raised hell in the cafeteria, but no one else had been sick, so they ignored her. This time, she narrowed it down. Jelly beans."
"Jelly beans?" Piper looked aghast. She loved popcorn Jelly Bellies.
"She's on a diet, so she bought some sugar-free jelly beans for a snack when she went to a movie. Four hours later, the runs started." Judy snuggled the phone more comfortably between her neck and shoulder. "She went shopping yesterday, bought some more jelly beans, the same thing happened. This time, the jelly beans were all she had eaten. She said she bloated with gas and the cramps were awful."
"On the other hand," Piper said practically, "she probably did lose weight."
They all laughed. "Yeah," Judy said, "but she said it wasn't worth it." She turned her attention back to the phone. "Look, is there anything you can do to rush this along? The patient's temp is climbing. This may be staph. Okay. Thanks. I'll call back." She hung up and said to Karen, "They promised to have the results in another fifteen minutes."
"It usually takes them double the time they promise. They might have the results before Dr. Pierini starts his rounds, if he's running late." Karen glanced up the hallway as a doctor appeared, frowning as he studied a chart. It was the elusive Dr. Dailey, appearing for all the world as if he had been working hard all night. "What brand were those jelly beans?"
"Karen, honey, you don't want to go there," Judy warned.
"Oh, they're not for me. I was thinking of giving some to Dr. Dailey—for therapeutic reasons, of course."
"Of course," they all chorused, smiling, because the unanimous diagnosis among the nursing staff was that Dr. Dailey was full of shit.
Karen looked at her answering machine as soon as she entered the apartment. The little red light wasn't blinking. Well, it wouldn't be, she scolded herself. Marc knew she worked nights. If he hadn't called earlier, he certainly wouldn't have called in the middle of the night.
Sighing, she locked the door and headed for the shower. He had no reason to call, anyway, unless he wanted to swear at her some more. It was over. It had never even really started. There hadn't been any comments about seeing her again, only that relentless seduction. He had achieved his purpose, and now she had to let go of it, stop worrying the situation in her mind. It was over, she told herself emphatically.
But it didn't feel over. Marc had changed her view of herself. Standing in the shower, she was acutely aware of her body, in a way she hadn't been before. She felt… sensual. Female. Her nipples beaded under the pelting water, and she thought of Marc's mouth on them. She remembered the way his hard, callused hands had curved around her waist, her bottom, effortlessly lifting and turning her, positioning her for his pleasure, and hers. Her insides clenched on the swell of sexual arousal, and she could almost feel him there, thrusting into her.
Wow. She blew out a breath. Every woman should have a lover like him, just once in her life.
But she didn't want it to be just once. She wanted him again, every night for the rest of her life.
The question was, what should she do about it? It was hell, not knowing where she stood. She had doubts about his motives, about his feelings, about everything concerning that night except her own emotions, and in her experience emotions weren't a stable foundation on which to base important decisions.
Her experience—hah! Her experience in this man/woman stuff was nil. She had never loved a man before Marc.
The water had been getting progressively less warm, but all of a sudden there was nothing but cold water pouring from the showerhead. Stifling a shriek, Karen jumped out of the spray. She didn't know how long she had been standing there mooning over Marc, but it was long enough to exhaust the hot water supply. Hastily, she turned off the water, then wrapped a towel around her. She shivered as she dried off and hurried into a robe.
The inadvertent cold shower had dispelled her sleepiness, which was good; she handled night shift better if she waited several hours after getting home before she went to bed. She could watch the morning news, catch up on her mail, pay bills, do all the normal stuff. And just for fun, she might paint her toenails a daring scarlet, instead of the discreet pink she normally used.
Carl Clancy wasn't in any hurry. He had checked further than the phone book this time. Hell, how was he to have known the Whitlaw woman had sold the house but the new phone book wouldn't be issued until December with her corrected address in it? But he had found where she was living now, even discovered that she was a nurse at one of the local hospitals.
The question was, was she at home or not? Hospitals were twenty-four-hour operations, but he hadn't been able to find out what shift she worked, not without bringing a lot of attention to himself. People tended to remember someone asking specific questions about a particular person.
He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. If she worked first shift, she was now at the hospital. If she worked second, she should be getting up; third, going to bed.
He called the hospital, asked for her. He didn't have enough information about her, didn't know what floor she worked, but it didn't matter. The bitch who answered the phone replied in a
frosty voice that nurses weren't allowed personal phone calls while on duty, except in case of an emergency. That was bullshit. Every floor had its own number, and the nurses made and received personal phone calls all the time. But rather than make a stink, he apologized and hung up. Dead end.
Next, he called her. After the screw-up in burning the wrong house, he had checked with the phone company and found that the number in the book was still the correct number; her new digs were within the same exchange area, so the number had simply been transferred with her. She might have the phone turned off so it wouldn't disturb her if she was trying to sleep, but that was a chance he had to take.
The rings sounded in his ear.
Karen's head came up when the phone rang. Her heart leaped, and she started to grab the phone, but then she remembered Marc knew she worked nights. He wouldn't be calling now, would he? Or maybe he would, thinking this was a good time to catch her at home, and it was still early enough that she might not have gone to bed yet.
She hesitated long enough that the answering machine picked up. Almost immediately, the caller hung up, and the message stopped. Not Marc, then. He would have left a message. Disappointment made her sick, but she shrugged it away. She wasn't going to spend her life waiting for him to call. If he hadn't called by tomorrow, she would call him. By running out the way she had, she had put herself in this quandary of not knowing if they'd had a simple one-night stand or if there could be something more between them. It was her fault, so she shouldn't balk at taking the first step.
Modern courtship was the pits, she decided, assuming this even was a courtship. Things had been much simpler when men declared their intentions, and the women then stepped out with them or not, signaling their own acceptance or rejection of the suit. She liked the orderliness of that, the emotional safety. Women's liberation had been great in terms of opening up jobs and beginning to equal out pay, but darned if the old social rituals didn't seem a lot better than the confused mess they had now.
Karen regarded her toes. Scarlet polish just did something for a woman's feet, she decided. A woman with red toenails wouldn't hesitate to call a man if they had an important, unresolved situation. Tonight, she decided. She didn't want to call him now and get all upset or excited, then not be able to sleep. If he didn't call today, she would call him tonight. And if he told her to take a long walk off a short pier—well, at least she would know and would be able to move on with her life.
Carl Clancy sighed. Okay, she hadn't answered the phone. She was either gone or asleep. If he had another day, he would be able to find out everything he needed to know, but Hayes was pushing him to get the apartment searched now.
He hoped she was at work. If she was at home, he would have to kill her.
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
"You Antonio Shannon?"
Shannon looked up from his desk at the big, homely man who stood in front of him. "Yeah, I'm Shannon. What can I do for you?"
"My name's McPherson." He reached into his jacket and produced a leather ID folder, snapping it open with the practiced flip of the wrist that said Fed. Shannon took his time studying the ID. It looked official, but why would an FBI agent want to talk to him?
"First off," McPherson said quietly, "I'm not here in any official capacity. This is purely personal. A friend of mine got killed in Mississippi, and you put in a request for information about him. Rick Medina. Do you have any leads on who might have killed him?"
Shannon rubbed his jaw. Whatever response he might have expected to his request about information on the Mississippi murder victim, he sure hadn't expected an in-the-flesh visit from a Fed. That meant his little request had set off alarms somewhere. McPherson might or might not be acting in an official capacity, regardless of what he said. The victim in Mississippi might or might not have been this man's friend. It didn't matter. Rick Medina, whoever he had been, had some hot-shit connections.
"We don't know anything about that murder," he said slowly. "We were actually looking for something that would help us with one of our murder cases." He stood. "I think you need to talk to Detective Chastain."
Marc was on the phone with the ME. The child's autopsy was scheduled in an hour. His stomach tightened with anger at the thought of it, at the memory of the child's frail little body and matchstick bones. This was one of the times he wished he didn't have to adhere to the law; he would like nothing better than to kill the child's father with his bare hands, slowly, bone by bone and burn by burn, as he had tortured that child.
He had just hung up when Shannon entered with a tall, lanky, middle-aged man who nevertheless looked in remarkably good shape for his age. "This is Mr. McPherson with the FBI," Shannon said.
Marc shook hands, feeling the strength in the older man's grip. "I doubt it," he said mildly.
Shannon looked startled. McPherson gave a faint smile. "I have an ID that says so."
Marc shrugged. "I imagine you do. But if I call the local FBI office and have you checked out, what will they tell me?" If this man was an FBI agent, he was the first one Marc had ever seen who lacked that spit-and-polished look, an image the older agents clung to even more strongly than the younger ones. The differences were subtle: a haircut that wasn't quite short enough, a tie that was a little too individual and stylish. And his shoes were black Gucci loafers, which was a little out of the price range of most FBI agents. On the other hand, he was wearing a shoulder piece, though the cut of his jacket was good enough that it almost hid the bulge of the weapon.
The smile on that homely face grew to a grin. "I would tell you to go ahead and make that call, but hell, you'd probably do it. What gave me away? The shoes?"
"Among other things. The shoes were the clincher."
"It was worth a shot. Most people, even cops, aren't going to notice the shoes."
Shannon was looking in bewilderment at the shoes in question. "What's wrong with them?"
"They're Guccis," Marc explained.
Shannon still looked bewildered. "They're expensive," Marc enlarged. "Federal agents normally couldn't afford them." He looked back at his visitor. "So who are you, and why are you impersonating a federal agent?" He didn't add that doing so was against the law; this man already knew that quite well.
"My name really is McPherson."
"Then you won't mind if I check it out."
The older man sighed. "Son, have you always been such a bulldog? Do you mind if I sit down? I can see this is going to take longer than I planned."
"Please, have a seat," Marc invited, with a sardonic bite to his tone.
"Thanks, don't mind if I do." He folded his long length onto one of the chairs.
"You too, Antonio," Marc said. "But shut the door first."
Shannon shut the door and took the other seat, but he positioned it so he was at an angle to McPherson. He was sharp; he might not know Guccis, but he had definitely spotted the weapon.
"Okay, I'm not with the FBI," McPherson said easily. Marc noted that he didn't seem worried—grimly amused, maybe, but not worried. "But I do work for the federal government, and the rest of what I told Detective Shannon is the truth. He requested information on the murder of Rick Medina in Mississippi, and that made me think he might know something about the case that the cops there weren't telling me. Rick was a friend of mine. I'm not here in any official capacity. It's personal. If you have any information concerning his murder, I'd appreciate it if you would tell me what it is."
Picking up a pen, Marc turned it end over end while he considered what the man had said. If he wasn't worried about impersonating a federal agent, which was a crime and he had just admitted doing so to a cop, then likely he did indeed work for the federal government in another capacity, one that he was certain would give him immunity from prosecution. National Security Agency, maybe, or CIA.
"Which agency?" he asked, still watching the pen.
The man smothered a curse and a sigh. "You know, this isn't something that
generally comes out in conversation."
"No, I don't expect so. Satellites or pickles?"
"Are you speaking English?" Shannon wondered aloud.
McPherson answered. "What he means is, he thinks I must work for either National Security or the CIA. The National Security Agency deals mostly with satellites, that kind of stuff. The CIA is known, sometimes affectionately, as the pickle factory. He knows a lot, for a local cop."
Marc waited. He didn't have anything to tell McPherson about his friend's murder, and he did think McPherson was telling the truth about Medina being his friend. But something was niggling at him, an uneasiness or maybe even an awareness, as if he were about to put a piece of the puzzle in place if only he could turn it the right way.
"Was Medina one of you?" he asked.
"In a way. He did some jobs for us. He wasn't, however, working for us when he was killed."
"You would say that anyway." CIA, then, Marc figured. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered making a point about the victim not working for them at the time, since he had been murdered in the States.
"Of course I would. But it's true. We're in the dark on this, and Rick wasn't just a friend, he was a good friend." McPherson's eyes darkened. "It's damn hard to believe some punk wanting some quick cash for drugs could have gotten the drop on him like that and then not even take the car. It just doesn't feel right."
No, it didn't. Medina had evidently been very good at his job. Marc thought of what he had learned from Dexter Whitlaw's military records: Whitlaw had been a Marine sniper in Vietnam, and he had evidently been very good at his job, too.
"Did you," he said slowly, watching McPherson's face, "also know Dexter Whitlaw?"
McPherson stiffened, his eyes going flat and unreadable. "I know him. Are you saying you suspect him of killing Medina?"
"No. He was killed over on St. Ann the same day as Medina. Whitlaw was shot with a twenty-two. Did Medina and Whitlaw know each other?"