“Maybe he had his badge in a different pocket,” Sydney speculated. “I didn’t go through his pants very thoroughly.”
Jack shrugged. “We’ll know shortly. I’ve also got them running down any calls from the pay phone at the gas station. There are lots of ways to route calls to defeat a trace, so it’s probably a dead end, but it’s worth a try.” He pulled a chair over near the bed and motioned for Sydney to sit. Then he perched on the corner of the mattress so they were facing each other. “I want you to tell me again everything you remember about today.”
Sydney took a deep breath and told him the story again from the beginning, covering every detail she could recall. It took more than an hour, and he interrupted her often, asking follow-up questions, and forcing her to flesh out every possible detail. When she was done, he was left shaking his head, much as he’d been after the first time she’d told him the story. He frowned as he thought about the man who’d attacked her.
“And once the attack began, this guy didn’t say anything to you? He didn’t ask for anything, or make any threats, or anything like that?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Just then the phone rang. He went over to the dresser and picked it up. “Cassian here,” he said. He listened as the voice on the other end came over the line. Sydney could hear the voice, but couldn’t make out any of the words. After a moment, Cassian said, “Okay, Deter, thanks for your help.” He hung up the phone and looked at Sydney.
“What is it?” she asked.
“My guy at the office came through. He ran a check on the ID. There’s no one named John Marine at the FBI. Also, the identification number’s a fake.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the man who attacked you isn’t working for the feds. He probably has the IDs so he can intimidate people. Some private detectives use ploys like that to make getting answers easier. There was a PI’s license in the wallet as well, with the name Lee Salvage on it. Mean anything to you?”
“No, should it?”
“I don’t know. According to my guy, that’s a name that checks out as real, so we’ll have him run down back in D.C. If this was him, though, my guess is he won’t be at his home or office anytime soon.”
Sydney looked at Cassian, her eyes wide and searching. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
“The first thing we do,” he replied, “is go back to the Institute and do some poking around.”
T
HE RIDE FROM THE MOTEL
to the Institute the next morning took a little over a half hour. With Sydney on the back of Jack’s mo
torcycle, clinging to his midsection as the machine raced along the highway, conversation was nearly impossible. That was fine with Jack for the moment; after the awkwardness in the motel room that morning, he was afraid of what he might say—and terrified of how she might react. Silence between them was welcomed for the moment.
It wasn’t his fault, he told himself. They’d spent another hour the night before going over everything Sydney had seen at the Institute, and everything that had been said in her conversations there, until both of them were exhausted and she was emotionally spent. Then he’d taken the bedspread and laid it on the floor, stealing one of the pillows off the bed and settling in for sleep on the stained carpeting, allowing Sydney sole occupancy of the queen-size mattress. He was just starting to nod off when she’d spoken to him.
“Jack?”
He fought off slumber as he opened his eyes. “Yes?”
He could sense her struggling with her emotions. “I know this is going to sound pathetic, but I’m freaking out a little.”
“It doesn’t sound pathetic at all. After the day you’ve had— the week you’ve had, in fact—most people would have completely broken down by now.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but I’m pretty close to losing it at this point.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and Jack could hear her breathing. Finally she spoke again. “Would you mind sleeping on the bed with me?”
“You sure?”
“I am. Don’t worry, I’m not going to take advantage of you or anything,” she joked nervously. “I’ll just feel better if I know there’s someone here with me.”
Cassian got up off the floor with his pillow and walked over to the bed. He pulled up a corner of the sheet and slipped under it, making sure to keep his body as close to the edge of the mattress—and as far away from any temptation he might have with her—as possible. He wedged his pillow behind his head and kept his eyes focused on the ceiling.
“Thank you,” she said, her body turning away from him and her face toward the wall.
“No problem,” he replied, the muscles of his throat tense with the warring impulses of his body.
He lay there for several minutes, listening to his heart pounding in his ears, afraid to move at all, lest the momentum of rolling over should break his will and carry him toward her. And then, as he lay there wondering whether his mind would ever clear sufficiently for him to function, it happened: she rolled onto her stomach and her leg slipped across the invisible boundary between them, her foot brushing against his calf with neither fear nor apology.
At first he thought she was asleep, and that she was unaware of the contact—that it was inadvertent and unfelt. But as he listened to her breathing, he sensed a change. What had been shallow gulps broadened into deep, relaxed waves rolling one into another with a rhythm that was at once natural and full. And as he felt her body collapse into comfort with the connection she’d made to him, he noticed his own body releasing the tension that had been building since he’d first received her call earlier that evening. One by one the muscles in his arms and legs unwound and the weight of his body settled into the mattress, his leg pushing ever so slightly into her ankle.
Finally his neck relaxed and his head fell fully into the pillow, lolling to the side toward the center of the bed. He looked at the silhouette of her back, only inches away, smooth in its definition as it rose and fell with her breathing underneath the thin cotton T-shirt. Then he closed his eyes and they both fell asleep.
When he woke in the morning, it took a moment to orient himself. He was no longer on his back, but had turned in his sleep onto his side toward the center of the bed. One arm was tucked under his pillow, and the other one, he noticed with some surprise, was draped over Sydney’s torso, her own body folded neatly into his in unison with his shape. He had no recollection of the incremental shifts that had brought them together, and he wondered how she would react—whether she would think he’d taken advantage of the situation somehow. He lay still for a moment, enjoying the feeling of their bodies breathing together even as he wondered how to extricate himself, until he realized from her breathing pattern that Sydney was awake as well.
Neither of them moved for several moments, until Jack rolled toward his side of the bed, swinging his legs to the floor and heading toward the bathroom. He did it in one fluid motion to avoid any uncomfortable morning greeting, and by the time he’d reemerged, freshly showered, both of them seemed willing to behave as though nothing had happened.
Nothing
had
happened, Jack reminded himself as his motorcycle glided up the long driveway to the Institute’s main building. It wasn’t as though they’d shared a passionate night of lovemaking, after all. And yet, somehow, the connection they’d made seemed more intimate than sex, and it unnerved him.
He parked the bike and headed up the front steps with Sydney in tow. Rounding the corner into the main foyer, she pointed him around toward the hallway that led to Dr. Mayer’s office. One of the orderlies behind the main desk rose to stop them. “Excuse me, ma’am, sir, you can’t go back there!” He was hurrying around the desk as he spoke.
Jack pulled out his badge and flashed it at the man. “Yes we can,” he said. “This is police business, and unless you want to personally get hit with an obstruction charge, you’ll sit right back down.”
The orderly hesitated, looming over the desk in indecision. “Don’t you need a warrant or something?” he asked.
“Don’t sweat it,” Cassian replied, already guiding Sydney down the hallway. “We’re just going to talk to the man in charge.”
At the end of the hallway, they turned left into the small waiting room outside Dr. Mayer’s office where his secretary had her desk. The room was empty, and the two of them walked through it toward the door on the far wall that led to Mayer’s office. The door was open, and Cassian could see a prim little man in his early fifties sitting behind the desk. There was an older woman sitting in the chair in the center of the room, across from him.
The man looked up as Jack and Sydney walked through the door. “Ms. Chapin!” he exclaimed in surprise. He looked at her for a moment longer, noting the scratches on her face and the bruises on her neck. “My Lord! What happened to you?”
“She was attacked after leaving here yesterday,” Jack answered for her, taking control of the conversation.
Mayer looked up at Cassian. “Excuse me,” he said in an offended tone. “Who are you?”
Jack took out his badge and flipped it open. “Detective Cassian,” he said. “I’ve been investigating the murder of Ms. Chapin’s sister, Elizabeth Creay. Now I’m also investigating Ms. Chapin’s assault.”
“I see,” Dr. Mayer said slowly. “Well, I don’t see how we can possibly help. This can’t have anything to do with this facility, or anyone on this staff.” He said the words, but there seemed to be little connection between them and the tone of his voice. He sounded instead to Cassian like a man clinging desperately to a lifeboat, afraid that if he let go he’d be dragged under.
“That’s what I’m here to figure out,” Cassian said. “Ms. Creay visited here a week before she was murdered. Then Ms. Chapin was attacked less than an hour after she left the premises. It would seem that this is one dangerous place to visit.”
“You were attacked?” the woman in the chair asked, speaking for the first time, with bewilderment in her voice. She looked lost to Cassian, and he thought perhaps she’d been crying.
“Yes,” Sydney responded. “On the highway. Someone tried to kill me, Sandy.”
The older woman looked back and forth between Jack and Sydney, an expression of total incomprehension and shock blanketing her face.
“I still don’t see a connection,” Mayer muttered. It sounded like he was losing his grip on the lifeboat, though.
“Then you’re not looking hard enough,” Cassian said. “Now, I want to talk to everyone Ms. Chapin spoke to yesterday.” He looked down at the woman in the chair. “I assume you’re Dr. Golden?” he asked. She confirmed his suspicion with a nod of her head. “So, I want to talk to you and Dr. Mayer, here, as well as Dr. Zorn. And then I want to spend some time talking to the handyman, Willie Murphy. If you all cooperate, this shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”
“You can’t talk to Willie Murphy,” Mayer objected.
Cassian shook his head. “I don’t think you understand what you’re dealing with, Doctor. This is a murder investigation. One woman is dead, and another woman was almost killed. You don’t have any options, and if you try to hide behind some sort of medical privilege, I’ll have our prosecutors crawling so far up your ass, you’ll smell their briefcases every time you pass gas.” He looked at Dr. Golden and shrugged. “Pardon the language, ma’am.”
“You’re not listening, Detective,” Mayer said with more conviction. “What you’re asking for isn’t possible.”
“I’m willing to let a judge decide what’s possible and what isn’t, Doctor, if that’s the way you want to go with this.”
“No, no, you don’t understand,” Mayer stammered, losing his composure. He tried to continue, but the words seemed to get caught in his throat. His head fell into his hands, and he rubbed his forehead.
“What don’t I understand?” Cassian demanded.
No one spoke for a moment as Cassian’s glare penetrated Mayer. Finally, it was Sandra Golden who answered the question. “What you don’t understand, Detective, is that Willie Murphy is dead.”
z
Lydia lay on her bed, above the covers. She hadn’t slept. At all.
The house was quiet now, in the morning, as it had been the night before. Amanda was still sleeping under the influence of the pharmaceutical aids Lydia had given her the night before. She’d been tempted to take some herself following the tele
phone call with Sydney, but thought better of it. After all, she needed a clear mind to determine what must be done.
The call with her daughter had bothered her in so many ways. Not least of which was the clarity with which it had demonstrated how fully she’d lost the ability to control her only remaining daughter. At one time, when Lydia was younger and stronger, she’d been able to hold final sway over both her children, indeed, over her entire family. Now her power over them was gone.
She was so lost in her own thoughts, and so used to the silence that blanketed her home, that she jumped when the phone rang. She rolled over toward her bedside table, sitting up as she grabbed the phone. “Hello?” she said, almost afraid of whomever she might find on the other end of the line.
“Good morning, dear Lydia. Consider this your wake-up call.”
She paused, her anger growing as she recognized Leighton Creay’s voice. “What are you talking about?”
“Tonight. I get my money tonight.”
“Why are you calling me here, for God’s sake? Are you really stupid enough to screw both of us?”
“Careful, old girl. I expect civility from you. I’m calling from a disposable phone—untraceable, so you need not worry. I just wanted to make sure you were still planning on showing. Otherwise, I have to start moving pieces around the board.”
“I told you you’d have your money. No reminders are necessary.”
“It’s just a friendly phone call.” Leighton chuckled.
“I’m not talking about the phone call, and you know it.” She could barely control her anger. “The attack on Sydney was unwise.”
“Sydney?” Lydia thought she heard a lilt of overconfidence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”