The revelation had come to me last night as I’d been showering, too exhausted after a day of waiting tables and a night of Hunk-a-rama to string together a coherent thought. As hot water needled my body, I just stood there in a blissful daze, letting images drift disconnectedly across my mind. The sculpted bodies of the Hunk-a-rama dancers … the tall cowboy who’d done the personal strip for Magenta … the way he’d simply assumed Magenta was a woman … the cigar jerk who assumed Magenta was just a helpless piece of fluff … but Magenta was about as helpless as Rocky Balboa…
At that moment, under the torrent of water, something had fallen into place.
“Tippi Lennox never walked out of that drugstore,” I said triumphantly to Labeck, “because she never went in.”
Frowning, Labeck took the iPad from me and enlarged Tippi’s face to just short of the point where it became a blur of pixels. “If that’s not Tippi, who is it?”
“I think it’s Alex Petrov. He’s wearing Tippi’s clothes. He’s on the skinny side—he could easily fit into her clothes.”
“In that photo you showed me, he had a goatee.”
“He does now. But three years ago he might not have. He’s got Tippi’s light-blue eyes, he’s got the cap pulled down and the muffler pulled up. All he’s got to do is use a falsetto voice to tell the taxi driver where he wants to go, then keep his mouth shut. Inside the drugstore, he could change back into his own clothes in the ladies’ room, stash Tippi’s stuff in that tote bag, and walk out of the store as a guy. That’s why there’s no tape of Tippi leaving the store.”
“Why would he do that? What happened to the real Tippi?”
“I think she’s probably dead,” I said. “And I think her disappearance is connected to Rhonda’s murder.”
“Clutching at some pretty slim straws there, Mazie.” Labeck wrapped an arm around me. “You’re shivering. C’mon—I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”
The tree elf was selling paper cups of hot cocoa out of a Crock-Pot plugged in to his van’s power outlet. Labeck fished change out of his ratty jeans and bought us each a cup. I took a sip and nearly gagged. It tasted like warm, brown evaporated milk. How could you take two perfectly delicious foods—chocolate and milk—and make them taste so awful?
Labeck, who didn’t share my high standards for chocolate, chugged his down. “I know I’m going to regret asking,” he said, “But how are Rhonda and Tippi connected?”
“What if they were at the clinic on the same day? What if Rhonda wanted a new, I don’t know, a new thymus gland or something—”
Labeck snorted. “So this Petrov killed the girl and then transplanted something into Rhonda? Mazie, we’re not talking Dr. Frankenstein’s lab here. This was a modern clinic. You’d need doctors, nurses, technicians, and probably ten layers of lawyers. Anyway, you don’t have one shred of proof that Rhonda was in that clinic at the same time.”
“I’m going to find out,” I said stubbornly.
I tilted my cup to pour the vile concoction into the snow, but Labeck took it from me and drank it. “How can you stand that stuff?” I asked.
Labeck wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m hungry.”
Major guilt pangs. I should have brought Labeck a care package of food, blankets, flashlights, and first-aid supplies. “Are you still staying at that paintball camp?”
“Yup. Lake Waupoose. All the charm and comfort of a pit toilet. But the raccoons fight the rats off, so it isn’t all bad.”
“You can’t stay there, Ben. You’ll catch pneumonia. Or bubonic plague.”
“It’ll only be another couple of days. My lawyer is arranging for me to turn myself in after Thanksgiving.”
“We could go to my family’s farm for Thanksgiving.” I hadn’t planned on going home for the holiday, but now it occurred to me that the farm would be the perfect place for Labeck to hide out.
“A Quail Hollow Thanksgiving,” Labeck said, smiling. “Sounds like a Hallmark movie. Does your family sit around the fire cracking hickory nuts and sharing warm memories?”
“We sit around the TV, fighting over whether we watch the Lions game or the Charlie Brown special.”
“Would they let us sleep in the same bedroom?”
“My brothers wouldn’t care. But Grandma Maguire would come after you with the turkey-gizzard knife.”
“So insanity runs in the family. I can’t wait to meet them.” When Ben Labeck was happy, his irises seemed to fizz, as though they contained sparkling champagne. They were fizzing now.
“I’ll drive out to Lake Waupoose after work tomorrow to pick you up. I told Eddie and Rico I’d go to their stupid tournament. We could watch for a couple of minutes, then leave for the farm. It’s about a three-hour drive from Milwaukee.”
“Deal. I’m going to give you directions to get to the paintball camp. It’s tricky, so pay attention or you’ll get lost.”
“I won’t get lost.”
“Sure. I’ll alert the search parties now, to save time tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
A man who likes peanut butter is a man you can trust.
—Maguire’s Maxims
The Kennison Clinic was a modern split-level structure designed to fit into the curve of a low hillside on East Mason Street. It was pale brick with a Mediterranean-looking tile roof and lots of windows. The client parking area was dark and deserted at this time of night, but it was the staff parking area that concerned me. Slowly, I drove into the lot. If there was so much as an oil spot on the pavement where Petrov parked his scooter, I was out of there. But only one vehicle was in the lot—Jared Kennison’s SUV. He must be here, working late.
My stomach flopped around like a beached fish. I didn’t want to be here, but my conscience had been jabbing me ever since I’d learned about Petrov. I had to let Jared know he might be harboring a murderer. Parking as close as possible to the clinic’s entrance, I got out of Pig and hurried to the front door. Locked. I pressed the call button at the side of the door.
A surveillance camera was mounted high above, probably the same camera that had recorded Tippi Lennox leaving the clinic three years ago. Tippi would only have had to walk about ten feet between the clinic’s outer door and the curbside pickup area where her cab awaited. Except it hadn’t been Tippi who got in that cab.
A metallic-sounding voice blared from the speaker grill. “Yes?”
“Is Dr. Kennison there?” I looked up at the camera, its small red eye blinking at me.
“Is that you, Mazie?” The tone abruptly changed from annoyed to friendly. I recognized Jared’s voice. “Hold on, I’ll buzz you in.”
I caught the heavy outer door as it unlocked and let myself in to the lobby. A few seconds later, Jared strode out to meet me. He smiled. “Well, this is a surprise. What’s the occasion?” He didn’t appear quite as GQ-suave as usual. No suit jacket, sweat stains under his arms, rumpled shirt, tired eyes.
“I wouldn’t have come so late, but it’s urgent,” I said. “I left a message with someone on your staff earlier today. She said she’d have you call me back.…”
Jared ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that. I meant to get back to you, but it’s been a loony bin here today. Everyone wants to get Botoxed for the holidays. Come on back to my office, we can talk there.”
He led me down a flight of stairs to a room on the lower level. Probably his private office, I thought. It had a no-girls-allowed vibe: heavy wood furniture, bookshelves full of antique medical journals, leather chairs, bronze cowboy figurines, a stuffed lynx in a glass showcase.
“Ten o’clock at night, and I’m just getting around to having lunch,” Jared grumbled. “That’s the kind of day it’s been. I was just fixing myself a sandwich. Want one?”
“Sounds great.”
I followed him into the kitchenette that opened off his office, a compact galley with a sink, fridge, and microwave. A loaf of whole-wheat bread sat out on the counter, along with a container of peanut butter and a jar
of jelly.
“Peanut butter?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“My guilty little secret.” Jared actually did look a trifle embarrassed.
I’d figured him for the type who snacked on brie and caviar, and washed it down with vintage sauvignon. The fact that he ate something as lowly as peanut butter made him seem somehow more boyish, trustworthy, and likeable.
“Crust on or off?” he asked.
“On.”
“Good girl. Puts hair on your chest. Get comfy, take off your things.”
I tossed my coat and handbag over a stool and joined him at the counter.
“Hope you like crunchy,” Jared said.
“Is there any other kind?”
“Okay, then. You’re in charge of the jelly.”
Grape jelly, a bit clichéd, but a starving person can’t be picky. Jared took out four slices of bread and placed them precisely on the counter, like patients ready for surgery. He gouged a big gob of peanut butter onto his knife and began spreading it on the bread. “Much as I’d like to flatter myself that this is a social call,” Jared said, glancing sideways at me, “I assume this is business. So what’s up, Mazie? Questions about the skin graft?”
“No.” I cleared my throat. “It’s about Alex Petrov.”
Jared frowned. “You royally pissed him off yesterday. He came to me demanding to know who you were. Something about his bike being stolen—”
I took a deep breath, then let it rip. “I think Alex Petrov killed Rhonda.”
Jared looked at me as though I’d suddenly smashed him in the face with a bedpan.
“Christ, Mazie.”
I hadn’t planned it, but there was something about the coziness of the setting, the way our shoulders brushed, and the innocence of the peanut butter that worked on me like truth serum. As I slathered jelly on the bread I told him the whole story—about how I’d spied on the man ripping out Rhonda’s hard drive, recognized the same man yesterday in the clinic’s parking lot, and discovered his name was Alex Petrov.
Jared’s voice sounded strained. “You must be mistaken.”
“No, I’m not—and there’s more. Three years ago, you and Petrov did a procedure on a college girl—”
He groaned. “This isn’t about Tippi Lennox again, is it? The police already went over that whole thing a million times.”
“I think Petrov did something to that girl. Hurt her, maybe killed her. Then he put on her clothes and had himself driven to that Walgreen’s store, changed his clothes inside the drugstore, and walked out in his everyday clothes. And I think Tippi’s disappearance is connected to Rhonda’s murder.”
“For God’s sake, Mazie!” Jared tossed down his knife and turned to face me, scowling. “Where’d you get this stuff—from a third-rate spy novel? You glimpsed some junkie ripping off Rhonda’s hard drive, then saw Petrov later and imagined there was a resemblance—”
“It was Petrov,” I said stubbornly. “And I can prove it. I snapped his picture.”
A deep, angry flush crept up from Jared’s neck to his cheeks. His eyes grew hard and his jaw clenched so tight his dimple creases disappeared. “You’ve got a photo? Any idiot can fake a photo. Do you have any idea how damaging this claptrap could be to my practice if it got around?”
He looked so furious, so unlike his usual unflappable self that I actually took a step backward, suddenly aware that coming here might not have been such a terrific idea. Nobody knew I was here. I hadn’t mentioned it to Labeck when we’d met at the tree lot earlier today because I figured it would only have set off another you’re-a-disaster-magnet rant.
Jared took a deep breath, seemed to get himself under control, and turned back to the sandwiches. His knuckles were white, and he spread the peanut butter so roughly the bread tore. “The police already know who killed Rhonda. That Labeck character, the one she was screwing the night she died.”
“Now you’re the one being ridiculous,” I snapped, still mechanically spreading jelly on the bread, going over and over the same square inch of bread, my own hands shaking now. “Ben Labeck did not kill Rhonda.”
“Well, of course you’re going to defend him, aren’t you? Someone told me he’s your boyfriend. You ought to be careful, Mazie. There may be a dark side to this guy you don’t suspect.”
“What about Alex Petrov? Maybe he’s got a dark side, too. How well do you know him?”
Jared’s mouth tightened. At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but finally he said, “Alex Petrov is Latvian. He came to work for me about five years ago, just as my clinic was getting off the ground. He’d gone to medical school in Riga, he had all the proper credentials, but …”
A note of doubt crept into his voice. He opened the mini-fridge and took out a carton of milk. “Maybe I should have had him checked out more thoroughly,” he admitted.
Relieved that Jared seemed to be himself again, I found two glasses in a cupboard, set them out, and watched as he poured. “What if I’m right?” I pressed. “What if Petrov is unbalanced—what if he tries to do something to one of your patients?”
Jared blew out a breath. “You’re wrong, that’s all. If it were anyone else coming up with this garbage, I’d be offended, but since your imagination is part of your charm, Mazie, I forgive you.”
Lucky me. I looked him in the eye and said, “You told me Rhonda Cromwell was never a patient of yours. But I think she was.”
“My patients are none of your business,” he said coldly.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Was she a patient at the same time as Tippi Lennox?”
We stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment, and I could see the heat rising in his face again. Finally, obviously making an effort to get himself under control, he said, “I really don’t remember. I have hundreds of patients. You can’t expect me to recall all of them.”
“But you can check, can’t you?”
He set the milk back in the fridge, his movements slow and abstracted. “Have you gone to the police with what you know?”
“Not yet. But I plan to.”
“I’d appreciate your keeping this quiet for now. I don’t want any rumors leaking out until I can investigate on my own. Even the hint of scandal would be enough to—God, they’d close me down. Who else knows about this?”
“Well, I told Labeck, but he happens to agree with you. He thinks I’m way off base.”
“So you’ve been in contact with him?”
I shrugged. I wanted to say that was none of his business.
“You know, Mazie, I think I’m getting into this playing-detective thing. Tell you what. I’m going to run upstairs, plug a cross-referencing search into my computer, and see what comes up on Doctor Petrov. Better safe than sorry, right?”
“Look up Rhonda, too, could you?”
He did the deep, sucking inhale of a man driven to the limits of his self-control by an unreasonable woman, then exhaled. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “It’ll take a couple minutes to bring up the program. You stay here and eat, doctor’s orders. You’re far too thin.”
He hurried out. I stood there eyeing the PBJ. It looked delicious. I tore off a big chunk, but then discovered that my mouth had gone dry and there was no way I was going to be able to choke it down. I spat out the bite, chucked the whole sandwich in the wastebasket and covered it up with a fistful of napkins.
The hairs on the back of my neck were doing the heebie-jeebie prickle, and the feeling that I had to get out of here was so strong that I snatched up my things, scurried out into Jared’s office, and beelined for the door.
Then I came to a screeching halt. This was stupid! Why was I being so paranoid? Jared was being perfectly polite; in fact, he was being a lot nicer than I deserved after the way I’d water-bombed him about Petrov. And he was looking up the Rhonda information, right? If I left now, I wouldn’t get to hear it. And I wanted to hear it, wanted very badly to hear Dr. Dreamboat admit that yes, there did seem to be a connection between Rhond
a, Petrov, and Tippi Lennox.
Torn between my need for vindication and my screaming meemies, I wandered over to the case displaying the lynx, a superb specimen with speckled golden eyes and fur that begged to be touched. Had it come from an interior decorator who threw in a taxidermied animal with every recliner purchase, or had Mr. Thin-out-the-herd shot the lynx himself? And what kind of person would kill such a gorgeous creature, anyway?
The door opened and Jared returned, smiling. “Started the search program,” he said. “It’ll take a few minutes before we have any results.” He came over and stood next to me. “I see you’ve met Kitty.”
“Kitty? Is it a female?”
“Yup. A beauty, isn’t she?”
“Better looking when she was alive, though.”
He glanced down at me. “She reminds me of you, Mazie. Soft and beautiful, a little wild …”
Uh-oh. This was kind of weird. One minute we were discussing a possibly homicidal psychopath, and the next we were in flirty fandango mode. Jared wrapped an arm around my waist and drew me toward him, his other hand dipping into his pants pocket.
If he was fishing around for a Ready Eddy in that pocket, he was going to get a rude shock. Because the only use Dr. Dreamboat was going to have for condoms tonight was drawing faces on them and using them as finger puppets.
He drew me closer. The lids lowered over the deep blue eyes. “Mazie, you have no idea how completely smitten I am with you.” His voice was a low, seductive murmur, but for some reason—maybe because I was giddy from lack of sleep—I thought of Pepé Le Pew, the over-amorous cartoon skunk who was always trying to seduce Penelope Pussycat. I am gompleetely smeeten wiz you, poozycat. Your eyes, your leeps…
I giggled, quickly trying to disguise it as a cough.
“Ever since I’ve met you—”
Avair seenze I ’av met you…
No use; a snorting guffaw burst out.
Jared stared at me, eyes going cold. “You find me amusing?” His hold on my waist tightened.
“No, I—will you please take your hands off me?”
Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 19
