“Now isn’t a good time.” Holding one hand against her stomach, she stood up. To her relief, her left leg didn’t give out as she’d feared it might. “Maybe later, after I finish the Campanero procedure. I should have a preliminary report around noon. I can fax it to you.”
He moved back to let her exit the pew but he didn’t give up. “Why don’t we talk about it over lunch?”
“I’m sorry.” She edged past him. She needed to get away from those piercing eyes. She needed to think. “I have plans.”
“Coffee afterward, then.”
He followed as she headed toward the chapel door, his long legs bringing him close enough behind her that she could feel the warmth from his skin. The sensation was pleasant and she found that reaction oddly irritating.
“In addition to the Campanero case,” he said, “I still need to get your statement on what happened to you. You ducked out on me before, Dr. St. Clair.”
Censuring now, his tone implied that she owed him the interview. Maybe she did. After all, he wasn’t just a cop on this case. Brian had been his friend too.
Her irritation with him caved beneath sudden guilt. “All right. I’m meeting a friend downtown at Rodolpho’s at twelve-thirty. Do you know the restaurant?”
“I know it.”
“Meet me there at one-thirty and you can ask your questions.”
“I’ll be there.”
He followed her out of the chapel and along the corridor. The control door to the autopsy area opened as they approached it and Skitch stepped through. The young man’s curious eyes darted from her to the detective and back again.
“Sorry I took so long.” Skitch lifted a file folder. “I had to dig it out from under a pile of candy wrappers. When I got back, you’d disappeared on me, Doc. And I heard that security guards are looking all over the place for some woman you said was in the autopsy suite.”
Detective MacKenzie frowned. “Is that the woman you were asking me about?”
Emma tangled her fingers together. If she really had just imagined the woman, she didn’t want anyone else to know. “Yes, she must have wandered in there by mistake.”
Skitch frowned too. “No one can get back there without a card key.”
“Well, she seems to be gone now.” She fumbled her hands into the pockets of her scrub pants and then pulled them out again. “Um, Detective Jason MacKenzie, this is Skitch Reid. He works with me.”
“Yeah, we’ve met a few times.” The detective offered his hand to the younger man. “Nice to see you, Skitch.”
The curiosity in Skitch’s eyes brightened. “Detective MacKenzie.”
Backing away, the detective inclined his head toward Emma. “I’ll see you later.”
“Goodbye.” As he walked away, Emma resisted the urge to watch him. With effort, she grabbed the handle of the door to the inner corridor. It wouldn’t open.
“I’ll get it.” Reaching around her, Skitch swiped his card key through the reader and then opened the door. “I guess Security will be reviewing all our systems this afternoon, trying to figure out how someone got into the autopsy suite.”
“Yes, I guess so.” Emma stepped through the doorway, crossed the narrow corridor and entered the locker room. She felt bad that the security team would have extra work because of her but she couldn’t admit that she had imagined the woman. Fists clenched inside her pockets, she favored her aching leg as she passed the rows of lockers and entered the prep room.
Skitch followed her. “You’ll see him later?”
“Him?”
“Detective MacKenzie?”
“Oh. Yes.” Emma quickly donned a clean lab coat, shoe covers and a hair cap. Then she washed up for the second time that morning, avoiding her assistant’s eyes as she did so. “He has some questions about the Campanero case.”
Stepping to the other sink, Skitch washed up again too. He whistled quietly as he scrubbed his hands and arms, not questioning her further. But Emma could tell that curiosity was eating him up. Skitch was a confessed gossip. But there was nothing for him to gossip about here. As long as he didn’t find out she’d been seeing things. Or dreaming about a certain handsome detective.
Stop it, she warned herself. Focus on what’s more important.
Turning off the faucet with her elbow, Emma shook the loose water from her hands and headed for the autopsy suite. Still whistling, Skitch finished his scrubbing and followed her. His long legs brought him to the swinging door first.
“Have you met Detective MacKenzie before?” he asked, nudging the door open with his foot.
Stopping on the threshold, Emma looked at the body at the third workstation. “No,” she answered quietly.
Her gaze shifted around the suite, found nothing in the shadows and then settled on the corpse again. It lay as she’d left it, with the sheet drawn down below its neck. Even from this distance, she could see the terrible wound in the woman’s head.
It was a hallucination. A stress-induced hallucination. That’s all.
“I’ve heard stories about him from the gals upstairs,” Skitch went on. “He has some reputation, you know.”
“Does he?” She searched the shadows again.
“He likes the ladies and the ladies like him. Or so I’m told. You might want to watch out for him, Doc.”
Realizing at last what he was implying, she looked back at him. “Skitch, please.”
“You’re fresh meat for a guy like him. Fresh and sweet.” He grinned down at her. “He’d eat you alive.”
Just like my ex-husband, she thought. Then she took a deep breath and pushed Jason MacKenzie out of her mind, along with the strange incident with the woman. She’d simply had a hallucination brought on by nerves and lack of sleep and if she wanted to do her job, she knew she’d better come to terms with that.
And her dreams… Well, they were just dreams.
“Let’s get to work, Skitch.”
“You got it.” He followed her inside. “We wouldn’t want to keep Ms. Campanero waiting.”
* * * * *
Crossing the hot blacktop of the parking lot, Jason shoved a hand through his hair. He’d visited the morgue several times but the place had never caused his gut to tighten as it had today. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that two of his friends had recently passed through there.
Or maybe it had something to do with Emma St. Clair.
Don’t get distracted, he warned himself.
A breeze off the bay carried the tang of salt to him but it didn’t cool his flesh or his mood. Shoving his left hand into a pocket of his jeans, he dug out his car keys and headed for his Mustang. He had intended to read Emma St. Clair the riot act for leaving the state in the middle of his investigation. But she’d been Brian’s friend too. And when she’d run into that chapel looking so terrified, he’d lost the ability to be the tough cop. He’d always had a soft spot for the ladies and ignoring that soft spot wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. But was it all ladies or just this one? Even now it was hard to recover his perspective, to forget the way she’d clung to him, the way she’d looked at him.
Flexing his left arm, he felt a bruise where her fingers had dug through the fabric of his shirt and into his flesh. In his mind, he could still see the sheen of fear that made her blue eyes shimmer. He could still smell the scent of gardenia from her gleaming auburn hair.
Scowling, he unlocked the driver’s door of the dusky green classic and forced his mind back to more practical matters, like wondering what might have disturbed the lady. According to Brian, she had a reputation for being cool in the face of anything. Why would she get so upset about a woman who had wandered accidentally into a restricted area?
Pausing with his hand on the door handle, Jason gave the parking lot a quick glance. His was the only car in the visitors’ lot. The coroner’s staff parked at either end of the building, near secured doors that led straight into the back area of the morgue. Whoever the mysterious elderly woman had been, she wa
s nowhere in sight.
He thought again of Emma St. Clair’s eyes. She’d been more than concerned about an old woman’s welfare. She’d been terrified. Maybe her reaction resulted from the fact that she was just back from a lengthy recuperation. Maybe it came from the fact that she’d nearly died, herself, so recently. Working on dead bodies after an experience such as hers couldn’t be easy.
Whatever the reason, Jason had found himself wanting to comfort her instead of interrogate her. Such consideration was more in Charlie’s line than his. Up to now, he’d figured it was best to force a witness into dumping her information all at once, kind of like purging the stomach of a poisonous substance.
Jason’s gut clenched as he yanked open the car door. When Emma St. Clair had turned those teary blue eyes up at him, when she’d gripped his arm as if he was the only floating debris in sight of where her ship had just gone down, he’d forgotten all about questioning her. Instead, he’d wanted to hold her, soothe her, protect her.
Scowling again, he dropped into the sun-heated interior of the Mustang and slammed the door. This proved one thing—he’d been a fool to restrict himself from intimate female contact this past year. He should have known that doing something so contrary to his own male nature would backfire in a big way. He needed to get control of his urges. So she was pretty. So she was soft and sweet-smelling. So were a lot of other women.
Shoving the key into the ignition, Jason admitted to himself that Emma St. Clair ranked way above “a lot of other women”. Even now, away from her, he knew that those blue eyes had gotten to him. No matter how angry he’d been when she’d left town two months ago, he would treat her gently when they finally did get together this afternoon.
And that bugged the hell out of him.
Chapter Four
Although it was still early June, summer had taken dead aim at the Texas coast. Escaping the bright heat, Emma stepped inside the cool, marinara-scented interior of Rodolpho’s Restaurant. Relief shook her when she saw her best friend seated at a table near the back and she quickened her step.
She’d covered about half of the busy restaurant when Marta Zamora rose from her seat and rushed forward. At the last instant, Marta slowed and then tugged Emma into a hesitant hug.
“I won’t break,” Emma said as her friend’s fingertips fluttered against her back.
“You already did.” Marta’s normally cool voice sounded thick and she hugged Emma tighter before stepping back to give her an appraising look. Concern slashed her dark, tapered eyebrows. “You look like hell.”
Understanding her friend’s blunt style better than anyone, Emma caught Marta’s hands and gave them a squeeze. “Hello and I’ve missed you too.”
“I only meant that you look tired.”
Marta led Emma back to her table. Gesturing toward the nearest chair, Marta returned to her own seat. A couple of hanging ivy plants and a potted sentry palm gave the table a sense of seclusion that Emma appreciated. She hadn’t decided yet if she would tell Marta what had happened. If she did, she didn’t want anyone to overhear the crazy story.
“I told Edgar not to push you your first week back,” Marta said.
“He didn’t.” Sitting, Emma chose a crispy breadstick from a basket on the table. But instead of eating it, she drummed it against the tablecloth to hide the quiver in her hands. She wasn’t tired. She was edgy. The Campanero autopsy had gone on without further incident that morning but the memory of the event preceding it clung to her. The elderly woman had seemed so real and yet without substance. Emma could almost imagine she’d seen a ghost. But that was impossible.
For a moment, Emma considered the possibility that she might be losing her mind. She wouldn’t be the first in her family. Great-Aunt Victoria heard voices and saw people who weren’t there. Partly as a result of that, she now lived in a nursing home. Such things could be inherited so Emma couldn’t help wondering if what had happened today could have been a similar psychotic episode. Maybe some mental screw had jarred loose during the accident.
Looking up from drumming the breadstick, Emma found Marta watching her with a puzzled frown. She sighed. “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh. What’s that old saying about a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs?” Leaning forward, Marta covered Emma’s free hand with her own. “You’re jumpy. You should have taken more time off before you tried to tackle your job again.”
“I wish people would stop telling me that.” Emma remembered the way Jason MacKenzie had looked at her when he’d startled her in the chapel—as if she really was some kind of fruitcake. “I’m fine. Really,” she said again.
“Uh-huh. My Mexican browns have been reading your French-country blues since we were five. Don’t tell me those pupils are the right size for this amount of light.”
Drawing her hand back, Marta waved it to indicate Rodolpho’s well-lit interior. “And your skin is too pale. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
The breadstick snapped in Emma’s hand.
“You need a glass of wine.” Marta beckoned to a passing waiter. “Two glasses of the house red, please.”
Emma shook her head at the young man. “I have to go back to work this afternoon.”
“And you’ll do so in a better mood if you have a little wine in your blood.” Marta gestured to the waiter. “Bring it.”
As the young man hurried away, Emma swept the scattered breadcrumbs into a pile.
“Oh, sweetie.” Marta’s dark eyes searched Emma’s face. “I was so worried about you. What happened with you and Brian must have been devastating.”
Emma wanted to tell her friend what had happened that morning. But just blurting it out didn’t feel right. She needed to ease into the story. If she could summon the courage necessary to say anything.
“Don’t worry anymore,” she said with false cheerfulness. “I’m getting better every day.”
“As your best friend, worrying about you is my job. I can tell something’s wrong.”
Emma looked down at the table. “Maybe I just feel guilty.”
“That would make sense. Brian died. You didn’t. Well, technically you did but you came back again.” Marta drummed her well-manicured nails against the checkered tablecloth. “What happened must have affected you deeply.”
Emma continued sweeping up the breadcrumbs as she quietly said, “I keep wondering why he died but I didn’t.”
“Maybe there is no answer. Maybe it was just his time.” Marta covered Emma’s hand again. “Stop beating yourself up.”
Emma nodded. “I’ll try.”
Releasing her hand, Marta sat back. “So tell me about a certain police detective you’ve been seen with.”
Emma blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Detective MacKenzie?”
“I understand he paid you a visit this morning.”
“How do you know that?”
Marta’s lips curled upward. “I have my sources.”
“You mean ‘spies’?”
“Call ’em what you will.”
“I’ll call ’em Skitch Reid.” Emma frowned again. “My assistant has a very big mouth.”
Marta’s brief good humor faded. “All kidding aside, you’d better keep your guard up with MacKenzie. He’s been through all the single women on the police force and half the female lawyers in town. He’s a shark with a big appetite for sex and since your divorce, you’re a vulnerable little angelfish.”
Long buried, physical need sparked deep inside her. “I sound like a real wimp,” she managed to say without wriggling in her chair.
Marta tempered her tone. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again, sweetie.”
“Don’t worry about that. Skitch already warned me about him. Besides, Detective MacKenzie’s interest in me is purely professional. As is mine in him.” In spite of the jolt he gives my libido.
“I thought that ER doctor brought you back to life.” Marta shook her head. “He may be a wolf but any woman who doesn’t appreciate goo
d looks like MacKenzie’s must be dead.”
“Marta, please.” But she couldn’t help remembering those golden-brown eyes gazing at her with concern. Nothing wolfish there. Well, maybe a little. Just enough, in fact. But whatever the expression meant, the last guy who’d looked at her like that had taken her on a honeymoon to Barbados. And to divorce court a few years later.
“I’ve given him a look or two, myself,” Marta admitted. “But he likes playing the field too much for my taste. He has trouble restricting himself to one woman at a time. At least, that’s the word in the ladies’ room.”
“If he’s anything like Alan, then I know he’s bad news.”
“You might know it but can you resist it?”
Emma went very still. Her friend had hit upon her greatest fear—her lack of trust in her own ability to make judgments about men as well as life. Alan had done that to her. And after today could she trust herself to know what was real and what wasn’t?
She picked up her menu. “I’m starving and I don’t want to talk about my health, work or philandering men anymore.”
Marta wrinkled her nose as she grabbed her own menu. “With what you do for a living I don’t see how you can eat at all.”
“Being a district attorney is a more palatable occupation?” Emma opened her menu. “You’re the one with the strong stomach.”
“And right now it’s gnawing at my backbone. Where’s that waiter with the wine?”
* * * * *
Jason crept up behind Charlie and eased the grease-stained paper bag over the older man’s shoulder.
Lifting his fingers off his computer keyboard, Charlie sat back and eyed the bag as it landed on his desk. “You brought me a cheeseburger?”
“And fries.” Jason perched on a corner of Charlie’s desk. “You wanted lunch but we need to save time. I figured we’d work while we eat. Are those the Campanero crime scene photos?”
“You promised me a real meal.” Charlie’s unforgiving gaze locked on Jason. “I followed you through three greasy body shops this morning on the promise of a decent lunch and you bring me a greasy cheeseburger and fries to eat at my desk. You’d better have brought me an autopsy report to go along with this.”
Final Words Page 4
