The Pediatrician's Personal Protector

by Mallory Kane

  “Get your stuff together.” He didn’t even bother arguing. “I’m going to check with Buford before he leaves, make sure he’s got CSI collecting trace from inside and out.”

  Christy quickly packed her suitcase, checked around the room to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and pulled her bag into the living room. She set the key in a dish on the coffee table and sat down to scribble a note on a sheet of Ella’s Victorian writing paper.

  Reilly came back inside. “Ready?” he asked as he grabbed her suitcase.

  She picked up the key and slid the note beneath it. “Yes,” she said.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Just a note to Ella to let her know how sorry I am for putting her in danger.”

  As they headed out to his car, she said, “I’ll drive my rental car.”

  “No,” Reilly responded flatly.

  “I can’t leave it sitting here in Ella’s parking lot.”

  “It’s been sitting here this long. It can stay for a few more days.”

  “But won’t it make the…make him think I’m still here?”

  Reilly looked at her thoughtfully. “Right. It could put Ella and Guerrant in more danger. I’ll call the rental company and tell them to come pick it up. I’ll pay any additional fees involved.”

  “That’s ridiculous and unnecessary. I can drive.” She dug in her purse for the keys.

  “Yeah. That’s the problem.” With a movement so quick she had no time to react, Reilly grabbed the car keys from her hand. “You can drive, but you’re not going to. I have no intention of letting you out of my sight. Now get in the car.”

  Christy’s ears burned, she was so angry. “You’re bossy and rude. This is tantamount to kidnapping.”

  Reilly’s eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “Tantamount?”

  Christy blew out her breath in a huff. “Bully,” she muttered as she got into the car and slammed the passenger door.

  CHRISTY HAD BEEN SURPRISED to say the least the first time she’d seen Reilly’s condo. The view of Lake Pontchartrain alone had to be worth at least six figures. She’d guessed he’d paid at least a quarter million for it. In Boston, it would have been worth four times that. Although she doubted there were any condos this large in Boston.

  Now as he led her down the hall to the guest suite, which was opposite the master suite, she revised her estimate of the condo’s cost upward. The place had to be twenty-five hundred square feet, and the guest bath included a spa tub, a separate shower and one entire wall made of glass bricks.

  Her amazement must have shown on her face, because he shrugged. “It came with the place,” he said, repeating what he’d said the day before about the professional kitchen.

  She just shook her head.

  Giving her a narrow look, Reilly backed toward the door. “I’ll let you—freshen up. If you need anything—”

  Christy looked around. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I could possibly think of that’s not already here,” she said.

  Reilly nodded. “I don’t suppose it would make a difference if I told you my cousin Cara Lynn furnished and decorated for me? I asked her to get whatever she thought I needed. Apparently she thought it would be funny to outfit the guest suite like some kind of luxury spa hotel or something.”

  She met his gaze, then glanced around the suite. There was a basket filled with bottles of water on a library table, alongside an exquisite silk arrangement in a bowl that probably cost more than the refrigerator in her apartment. A plasma TV was mounted above the marble fireplace opposite the bed.

  The marble of the hearth extended to the right to form the entrance into the bath and dressing area, where Christy could see sparkling mirrors and shiny chrome fixtures.

  “Apparently,” she said. When her gaze met his again, he looked sheepish.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “If you need anything, pick up the phone. It’ll buzz in my room and in the living room.”

  Christy uttered a short laugh. “Okay,” she said.

  Reilly’s gaze faltered as he backed out the door and closed it behind him.

  Christy frowned. Suddenly, he’d seemed ill at ease. Was it something she’d said? Maybe she’d embarrassed him about the opulence of the guest suite.

  He’d said his cousin had decorated and furnished his apartment. She must have thought he’d have lots of guests. Had his cousin been thinking of female guests? But if so, why would she have thought the females would be staying in the guest suite, rather than in the master suite with Reilly?

  Christy stepped past the marble fireplace and entered the bath. Her glimpse of chrome and mirrors and marble had been the tip of the iceberg. The bath was as large as her bedroom in Boston. The shower enclosure was clear glass. The spa tub was gigantic, with an unopened basket of bath accessories sitting on the wide tile ledge around it. The toilet was behind a half wall, and beside it was a bidet.

  A bidet.

  Christy chuckled softly. She’d love to meet his cousin. She was sure she’d like her. The first thing she’d do would be to thank her for giving Christy the first laugh she’d had in a long time. Then she’d thank her for the spa tub.

  Her smile faded. All this opulence didn’t fit with the Reilly Delancey she knew. Of course, all she knew was what he’d allowed her to see.

  She sighed. She wasn’t going to solve the dilemma of who Reilly was tonight.

  She eyed the spa tub longingly. Maybe she could relax in the tub for a while. Maybe hot water and some fragrant bath salts would wash away the fear and tension and grime of the evening.

  She quickly set her suitcase on the antique luggage rack in the dressing area and dug out fresh underwear and pajamas and her favorite gardenia-scented bath salts, then went into the bathroom and closed the door. A brand-new, snow-white bathrobe hung behind the door.

  “Wow, all the amenities for Reilly’s guests,” she murmured. As she reached to turn on the hot water in the tub, she heard an unfamiliar chiming sound. She stopped. Was it a clock? A phone?

  Phone. Her heart pounded. It was Autumn’s phone.

  Christy hurried over to her purse and upended it onto the bed. Where was that phone? It rang again. There.

  She grabbed it with shaky hands. Who could be calling this number? Laurie? D.B.? Autumn’s killer?

  Finally, Christy got the phone turned around in her hand and was able to see the display. It was Laurie. She answered.

  “Is this Christy?”

  “Yes. Yes it is. Laurie?”

  “I’m sorry to be calling so late—”

  “It’s not a problem. What is it, Laurie? Did you remember something?”

  “Maybe. Did you say one of the names in her phone was Glo? G-L-O?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I think that might be a girl who went to high school with us. Her name was Gloria Soames. I didn’t know her very well. She was really into Goth. You know, black clothes, black fingernails and lipstick. All that stuff. She dropped out before senior year.”

  Christy searched through the spilled contents of her purse, looking for a pen. She glanced at the bedside table. Of course there was a fancy, Victorian desk set complete with pen and notepaper. She grabbed the pen, holding it gingerly in her right hand—the one with the cast.

  “Gloria Soames. Can you spell that?”

  “I think it’s S-O-A-M-E-S.”

  Christy wrote quickly. “What else do you know about her? Parents? Brothers and sisters? Where she lived?”

  “She had a brother. He was older than us. His name was Jason or Jackson or something like that. Christy…” Laurie’s voice faded. She knew something else. Something she didn’t want to tell.

  “Laurie? What is it?”

  “You need to know. Glo was into drugs. Bad drugs—you know, needles and all that. And—” Laurie paused and Christy could hear her shaky breathing.

  “And what?” Christy held her breath, afraid of what Laurie was about to tell her, but certain she knew what i
t was.

  “Everybody talked about Glo. They all said she’d do anything to get money. Anything, you know?”

  “I know,” Christy said, rubbing her temples.

  “I know that’s not much, but—”

  “Laurie, do you have a yearbook?”

  “Um, sure. Somewhere.”

  “Can you look at it? See if you can find Glo and her brother, or the boy who played soccer. Was it Danny?”

  “I guess so. Sure.”

  “Could you do it now? While we’re on the phone?”

  Laurie sighed. “I’m not sure where the book is.”

  Christy waited without speaking, hoping to guilt Laurie into finding it. She heard rustling sounds on the other end of the phone.

  After a few long moments, and some huffing and puffing, Laurie said, “Here it is.” She sneezed. “No, that’s our senior year.”

  Another minute. “Okay. This is junior year.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” Christy said.

  “I had her name right. It’s Gloria Soames. She was in our class. And here’s Danny. His name is Danny Leader. I didn’t think his last name began with a B. Now—” Laurie sneezed again. “Let me look at the seniors. Glo’s brother was a year ahead of her—”

  As she wrote down the names Laurie had given her, Christy could hear her turning pages.

  “Okay. Gloria’s brother’s name is Jasper. Jasper Soames. He had tattoos and pierced ears even in high school.”

  Jasper Soames, Christy wrote. “Is there anyone else you can think of that she hung out with?”

  “Not that I know of. I need to go. I have to pick up Aynsley at day care.”

  “Okay. Thank you so much, Laurie. I hope if you think of anything else, you’ll call me and tell me. But let me give you my cell phone number. I don’t know how long I can keep this phone.” And she wanted the line open in case D.B. called.

  Laurie took down her phone number and promised to call back if she thought of anything else.

  Christy hung up. She folded the piece of stationery with the names on it and slid it into the bill pocket of her wallet. Tomorrow she was going to have to figure out how to find Gloria—Glo.

  But tonight—

  She went back into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, then began to undress. As the bathroom filled with steam and the scent of gardenias, her mind drifted back to Reilly and his cousin’s superb taste in guest suites. She could get used to this kind of luxury.

  That thought started a faint warning bell chiming in her mind. The more she considered Reilly’s story about his cousin buying all his furniture and accessories for him, the more it unraveled.

  Yes, it was plausible that he’d rented the place and then realized he didn’t know anything about decorating. But for his cousin to have gone to all this trouble—all this detail and expense—was a little odd.

  Yet wouldn’t it be even more odd if Reilly had done all this himself? And therein lay the problem. This guest suite was designed and outfitted to wrap a woman in sensuous luxury. But what woman?

  Had his cousin really done all this as a joke? Or was he just using her as an excuse? What if he’d bought and furnished this apartment with a woman—his wife or his fiancée?

  What if he’d outfitted himself an ultimate bachelor pad?

  Of course, it didn’t matter to her. Or it shouldn’t anyway.

  She knew nothing about Reilly Delancey. For all she knew he had a veritable parade of women through here, each of whom doused herself with expensive bath salts and wrapped herself in decadently fluffy bathrobes.

  Be careful, she warned herself. Reilly seemed like an unpretentious, down-to-earth kind of guy. But looking at his condo and trying to imagine the kind of money he’d spent on it and its furnishings, Christy wondered which was the real Reilly Delancey—the protective, concerned lawman or the wealthy, self-indulgent Delancey heir?

  Chapter Nine

  Reilly got almost no sleep. Images of what could have happened to Christy kept swirling in his head.

  Christy standing in front of the dresser, the bullet impacting her in the side and knocking her to the floor, her lifeblood seeping into the hardwood boards.

  The faceless killer taking aim, squeezing the trigger then escaping through the vacant lot, leaving telltale DNA in the form of droplets of blood on the sharp twigs and briars.

  He must have drifted off a few times because occasionally those horrific nightmares morphed into sensual dreams.

  Christy sinking into a steaming tub of water, bath oils and perfumes glistening on her skin, her black hair pinned up but falling.

  Him holding a soft white towel out for her as she rose from the steam, rivulets of glistening water running down between her breasts, down to her waist and hips, her belly and farther.

  Finally, around five o’clock, he got up and took a shower—first cold because he had to, then hot. He threw on a pair of comfortable jeans and made a pot of coffee.

  With mug in hand, he spread Autumn Moser’s case file out on his dining room table and started reading, occasionally pausing to input a note or an impression into his mini-notebook computer.

  He’d made it almost through the case file and was on page eleven of his notes when he heard the door to the guest suite open.

  He looked up as Christy walked into the living room and squinted at the glass wall, where the sun was just beginning to light the sky. She had on pink satin pajamas that matched the cast on her wrist and left her arms and her slender ankles bare.

  Pink pajamas. He smiled. That was interesting. He didn’t think she’d had time to go shopping, so the pajamas must have been packed in her suitcase. And that meant, despite her grousing about the cast, she did in fact like pink. What else was she hiding under her crisply tailored clothes?

  He let his gaze slide over her body. The tips of her breasts were clearly outlined by the slinky material, and the way it draped left little doubt as to how shapely her slender body was. He felt like a voyeur. She obviously had no idea he was sitting there.

  He held his breath and didn’t move as she turned from the window toward the kitchen. It was rude not to announce himself, but he wanted to watch her a little longer. It was the first time he’d had a chance to really study her at leisure. One or both of them had always been busy when they’d been together before.

  Her hair was glossy and black. It caught and absorbed the dim early morning light like velvet, and cast enticing shadows along the elegant curve of her neck and shoulders.

  He clenched his jaw against the heat that rose in his groin at the sheer womanliness of her.

  She started as if he’d made a sound and her gaze darted to the dining table where he sat.

  “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know you were up.” Her hand fluttered to her chest as if to try and shield her breasts from his eyes.

  “Morning,” he responded. “I was beginning to think you were sleepwalking.”

  She uttered a little sound, like a soft harrumph. “I don’t sleepwalk.” Her hand still hovered over her breasts, but finally she reached up and pushed her hair back. “Do I smell coffee?”

  Apparently modesty lost out to the need for caffeine.

  “Yep. It’s been there a while. Want me to make fresh?”

  “No. It’ll do.”

  “The mugs and sugar are there, next to the pot. Cream’s in the refrigerator. What are you doing up?”

  She shook her head as she poured coffee and sweetened it. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept dreaming about gunshots.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said wryly. “I’ve been going over your sister’s case file.”

  Christy came over to the table and sat down beside him. “Autumn’s case file?” she echoed. “How long have you had that? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just got it day before yesterday. This is the first chance I’ve gotten to look at it. Plus, we’ve been a little busy.”

  She acknowledged the truth of his statement with a no
d. “So what have you found out?”

  “Nothing I didn’t already know from Ryker’s notes. Basically, it looks like the detective who caught the case wrote it off as a mugging without really looking into it.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

  She waved a hand. “I already knew that. What I don’t understand is why.” She took a breath. “I mean, she was shot point-blank in the chest, three times. How could anyone think a mugger would do that? Even if the detective wrote it up that way, aren’t those reports reviewed by someone?”

  Reilly shrugged. “It was right after Katrina. The police were overworked and exhausted. I know it won’t make you feel better, but your sister’s case was probably not the only one that got swept under the rug.”

  “You’re right. That doesn’t make me feel better at all. It makes me angry. Why didn’t the police have more help? Katrina was a national—an international disaster.”

  “Hey.” He held up his hands. “You’re preaching to the choir here. Even now, there are still dozens of people missing, dozens of unidentified bodies. Scores of lives ruined.” He stopped, clenching his jaw. “Sorry. I’ll put my soapbox away.”

  She acknowledged his frustration and his apology with a small nod. “What about that detective?” she asked, moving the conversation back to her agenda. “Who is he? Can anything be done about him?”

  “Name’s Samhurst. I doubt it. But what we can do is look further into the case. It’s a long shot, but maybe we can find a witness, or a friend of your sister’s, who can give us a clue as to what happened.”

  Christy wrapped both hands around her mug and looked into its depths for a few seconds.

  Reilly watched her. Her body language told him she was unsure about something. Or trying to decide what to do about something. But what? He thought about his last words. A friend of your sister’s. Did she know someone? If so, why not tell him?

  He stayed quiet while she finished her internal debate.

  Finally she took a deep swallow of coffee. “Mmm, chicory coffee?” she asked.

  Disappointment slid through him. Her evasive comment convinced him that she had information she wasn’t telling him.

  He took a long breath. “Yep. Maybe later I’ll boil some milk and make us a café au lait.” He made a point of glancing at his notes. “Nobody ever asked you or your dad about Autumn’s friends?”