Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (12 page)

It felt good to be looked after.
"Okay."

And now, spotting Ryan playing with his
phone in the waiting room, my spirits lifted. No matter how tough I act, it's
wonderful to have someone else look after me once in a while.

Ryan smiled and stood, shoving his phone
in his back pocket. He kissed my cheek, lingering for a second longer than
necessary while his breath tickled my ear.

I held my breath. There was no denying
it, the man was good.

Just as I noticed the few other patients
staring at us, he reached for my backpack and unstrapped it with a practiced
gesture. I'd almost forgotten he used to do this, literally taking the weight
off my shoulders. "Thanks," I said.

"No problem." He pointed at the
sunflower, nested in a juice bottle, which I'd set on a chair while we
maneuvered the backpack. "Can you manage that?"

"Yep. I've been working out."
We both laughed and stepped out of the ER.

I took a deep breath of night air, cool
and less humid than during the daytime. Chalk up another reason to walk home.
Ryan slipped his hand in mine. "How was your day?"

His hand was warm and his fingers slightly
callused. I couldn't make myself release it. I ran my finger along his thumb.
"Better, now. How 'bout yours?"

"Interesting. Do you want to hear
the nitty gritty?"

"Okay."

He talked. I was too tired to grasp the
details, but he'd done some preliminary work on the computer models and
contacted some people for help. "I went through some websites. There are a
few books at the U of O that I'd like to check out. I doubt they'll be too
useful beyond the principles."

I tried to stifle a yawn as we stopped at
a light. No cars in sight, but Ryan is very law-abiding. "Thanks for doing
this."

"You're welcome." He squeezed
my hand and led me across before the walk sign came on. A good idea in
Montreal, where the lights go out so often, they often have little stop signs
attached to the posts, to make it easier for the cops to handle traffic.
"Now, about the apartment, Hope..."

His tone was a warning. I sighed. "I
didn't have time to clean up."

"It's not that." We passed Ste.
Justine's, the French children's hospital just around the corner from my place.
He said, "We've got to get you a better security system."

I had to laugh. "My landlord is so
cheap that when I pointed out that the window in my screen door was cracked, he
said he'd replace it. He came back two days later with a window that was
probably older than both of us put together. He rammed and rammed it until it
fit. Barely. I was surprised he didn't shatter it. There is no way he's paying
for a security system."

"Yeah, but it's not safe. There's no
lock on the outer building door, so anyone could just walk in and buzz your
apartment."

"Right, so they can get in the lobby
to buzz me or deliver the mail, but there's a lock on the inner door to the
building—"

"Don't make me laugh. This
afternoon, I just walked up and pushed it open. The last guy hadn't made sure
it latched behind him."

"I locked my apartment door," I
said.

"That's the only thing between you
and the street? A kid with a credit card could jimmy those locks."

I stared at my toes as we walked. Even I'd
noticed my wimpy security system.

"And you're only one story up.
Someone could jump up on your balcony and come in through your balcony door or
the windows right beside it."

I shivered. "Ryan. I don't want to
think about this right now, honestly. It's been a tough night."

He adjusted my backpack's straps.
"Look. I know you don't like hearing it. But you have to take care of
yourself."

"I know," I said in a low
voice.

"Tomorrow, we can go to the hardware
store and get some new locks, and at least put some wood braces in your windows
so people can't force them open from the outside. I saw a big hardware store on
Côte-des-Neiges. I'm sure they have everything."

He glanced across the street at the giant
steel-columned building for HEC, the business school of
l'École Polytechnique
. That's the same school where Marc Lépine
walked into a classroom with a loaded gun. He separated the guys from the girls
and yelled, "You're all feminists!" before he shot and killed
fourteen innocent women. That was over twenty years ago, but even so. There's a
memorial garden a few blocks southeast of here.

I stepped up the pace and squeezed his
hand so Ryan wouldn't notice the HEC signs and make the connection.
"Okay."

My apartment security was lax, but it did
have some Art Deco charm. I cleared my throat as we walked up the path.
"You like the lanterns?"

He nodded. "Nice. I wish they were
brighter, though."

True. I could hardly see my black shoes
against the dirt path, let alone any potential intruders lurking behind the
full-grown trees or hedges. Ryan grimaced at the street lamp, no doubt
calculating its wattage.

Ryan opened the outer door for me. It was
made of real, stained wood and there were nice frosted glass accents beside it,
but after Ryan's worrying I felt acutely conscious of the single bolt holding
the inner door closed. "At least it's locked this time," I said. I
didn't tell him that it lay open half the time, what with people moving in and
out of the building.

Ryan looked heavenward. "Probably
because I was the last one out."

"Probably." I glanced at the
mailboxes to my right. He turned around so I could dig the mail key out of my
backpack. I didn't bother telling him that the lock on the mailbox was acting
wonky. I just used the key and shoved the flyers and bills under my arm without
checking them.

"I hate to keep beating this horse,
but you've got H. Sze right on that mailbox and buzzer. It has your apartment
number, too. The least they could do is scramble the apartment and buzzer
numbers."

I pinched my nose. "Yeah. Okay."
These thoughts had flitted through my subconscious, especially after I almost
died last month, but I hadn't wanted to deal with them. We lived in Canada. We
were safe. Apartment hunting was such a pain in the ass, and since nearly all
the leases in Montreal ran until July 1, I wouldn't have much choice if I
started looking again now. "I don't know what I can do about that, though.
Would you be happy if I put just my initials on the mailbox or something?"

He scowled. "Would that really make
you feel safe?"

I knew he was right. I also knew that I
sincerely could not deal with it tonight. I gave him a look.

His lips softened. He ran his hand
through his hair.

I unlocked the inner building door and he
opened it for me, following me up the stairs closer than a friend-only would. I
was very conscious of his warm body behind me and, I had no doubt, his eyes
checking out my rear view. Despite my exhaustion, my pulse leaped.

Ryan closed and locked the apartment door
behind us, not just twisting the main latch but dropping the tiny bolt into the
floor as I set down my sunflower and my mail.

He hung my backpack neatly on a peg in
the closet. "I'm staying with you tonight."

I tried to laugh. "Don't be
ridiculous."

He looked at me with those intelligent,
gorgeous, and oh-so-stubborn brown eyes. "Hope."

"You came to Montreal to be with
your friends."

"Yeah. You."

That stopped me for a second, but I
plowed on. "I'm no more unsafe here tonight than I was last night or any
other night. The only difference is that you've sussed it out and—"

"And I wouldn't leave a cat alone in
this apartment, let alone you."

I knew that voice. He was not going to
change his mind. It was a complete pain when we were in-fighting, but the truth
was, I could use some company tonight. I sighed. "I won't be a barrel of
laughs."

"That's okay. I like monkeys better
anyway."

It took me a second to get it. I laughed.
"You're awful."

"I know you. You want to take a
shower, right?
 
And eat. Why don't you
get cleaned up while I get you some dinner?"

I eyed him suspiciously. Ryan always
enjoyed taking advantage of me after (or during) a long, hot soapy shower.

He exhaled. "Your virtue is
safe."

"Too bad." It just slipped out
of me. I hurried off to the shower before he could respond.

Chapter
12

The
girl turned out to be more complicated than I thought. No wonder she was in
therapy. Needy, screamy, "Do you love me as much as I love you,"
"I'll die if you ever leave me," et-fucking-cetera.

I
don't need that shit. There are easier ways to get laid.

But
I stuck around a little longer because there was another woman in that therapy
group. Long black hair, long brown legs, pretty, but stand-offish. As soon as
she met my eyes, I recognized an intelligence and a will as strong as my own.

I
was sick of easy marks.

Let
the games begin, Dr. Laura.

***

First, I checked my five voice mail
messages. They were all hang-ups, which was strange enough to make me check my
pager. Someone had paged me twice, but left only a single number: four.

Huh. That didn't seem like Tucker. Not
that I was thinking of him or anything.

I paused before I deleted the nonsensical
pages. They bothered me, but like I said, our incompetent locating team is
legendary, especially at night, when the regular operators go home and leave
the switchboard to the security guard.

Before I stripped down for my shower, I
paused a long moment. Then I pinged the lock closed.

Ryan had raised a few more specters in my
mind.

Part of me wanted nothing more than to
wind myself around his warm runner's body and forget the past few years had
ever happened. I was almost certain he wouldn't turn me away. Almost.

But we weren't twenty years old anymore.
I was a doctor. Tucker was...well, I had no real idea what Tucker was. Yet.

I turned up the hot water and glanced
around the tiny bathroom. Not exactly romantic, what with the grimy grout and
the slight gap in the blind in the window next to the tub. Well, at least the
square mosaic tile floor was charming. And with any luck, Ryan would
concentrate on me instead of the décor.

As I drew the translucent shower curtain
closed and luxuriated under the spray, I grew fully conscious of the fact that
I was naked with just a thin wooden door between myself and Ryan. A man who
knew my body extremely well and wasn't afraid to use it.

I ran my hand over my breasts.

I was on a man-moratorium. A
manbbatical
.

That just made me want Ryan even more.

What about Tucker?

Tucker wasn't here. Although, frankly,
the thought of him, too, made me arch toward the water.

I could hear Ryan in the kitchen on the
other side of the bathroom. I had a teeny galley-style kitchen, so narrow that
you could touch the fridge with your left hand and the oven with your right
hand (and the broom closet with your right elbow). The counter top that ran in
a U between the appliances met in a sink by the window at the base of the U. I
could imagine Ryan boosting me up on that counter. Hmm.

On the other side of the kitchen doorway,
I'd crammed a table, to make it an eat-in kitchen, and a metal shelf for my
cereal boxes. The shelf barely fit between the built-in ironing board and the
door to the interior fire escape stairs, so there wasn't as much room for
shenanigans, but the table still had possibilities. I wondered if he'd ever
done it on a kitchen table with Lisa.

Lisa.

I grimaced and lathered up my hair. I was
a jealous woman. No denying that. But from all signals, she was now out of the
picture.

For all I knew, Ryan really did just want
my DSL with a side order of apartment security. And Tucker might only want what
he couldn't have.

But my entire body hummed the opposite
tune. I bent from the waist, the water sluicing through my hair and flowing
over my back. My skin was warm and wet.

Ryan and I had been virgins when we met.
Because I had good girl hang-ups and he'd been indoctrinated by the church, we
held off on the main event for almost a year. Which meant we specialized in
foreplay. We could have taught a night course in kissing, a weekend lesson in
massage, and given college credits in oral sex. And once we finally got around
to full-blown sex, we'd read and talked and nearly done it so many times, we
turned it into an honours degree,
summa
cum laude
.

Now he was right outside my door, waiting
for me.

Oh, God, I might not be able to wait for
him. My hand drifted between my legs, dipping again and again. Maybe it was
better this way, release myself so I could think more clearly...