Diagnosis: Danger

by Marie Ferrarella

  So where was he? she wondered. And why had he sounded so odd when he’d called? Why hadn’t he said anything more?

  Because she knew that Tolliver was waiting for a response she said, “Clancy was supposed to meet me for a gallery opening tonight.”

  “I’m afraid your friend feels that mundane things such as time do not apply to him,” Tolliver told her. She heard him give a dismissive snort. “He’ll turn up. If he doesn’t,” he added with an air of superiority that she found extremely offensive, “I’d consider myself lucky.”

  Hot words hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. “Well, you’re not me, Mr. Tolliver. And I’d say that was fortunate for both of us.” Natalya didn’t bother saying goodbye when she broke the connection.

  If she’d been moderately worried before, she was really worried now.

  Chapter 2

  “Hot date tonight?”

  Detective Michael DiPalma closed his locker door only to find his partner, Louis Rawlings, filling the space where, minutes ago, no one had stood. Considering the man’s portly build, he moved with the speed and quiet of a stealth bomber.

  At the moment, Louis was grinning wistfully, waiting for an answer to his question.

  “No,” Mike finally answered.

  Mike gave his locker a quick tug to make sure that the lock had taken. The PDA where he kept all his important phone numbers had gone missing for several days before it had been mysteriously returned. He was taking no chances this time.

  Like a puppy denied a favorite toy, Louis’s jovial expression sagged around the edges until it was almost hangdog in appearance. “But, Mike, it’s Friday.”

  Mike placed his motorcycle helmet beside him on the bench to fix the cuff of his jeans. “I’m aware of what day of the week it is, Louis.”

  “You always have a hot date on Fridays.”

  Mike straightened and got up. “Now you’re exaggerating.”

  Louis shook his head. Fringes of carefully preserved hair moved from side to side. “No, that’s for you to do. But you do it so well that it seems real.” Brown eyes looked at him eagerly. “C’mon, Mike, you’re the only fantasy life I have.”

  Lips that were just as quick to frown as they were to smile curved tolerantly as he looked at the shorter man. “You’re married, Lou.”

  “My point exactly.” The sentence was accompanied by a large, pronounced sigh.

  With a laugh, Mike zipped up his leather jacket. His motorcycle was waiting for him and all he wanted to do tonight was get on it and head for his one-bedroom apartment. “Jackie is supposed to fulfill all your fantasies.”

  Louis stared at him in wonder as they began to walk out of the locker room together. “Have you seen Jackie lately?” He stopped a moment, holding his hand up approximately five feet from the floor. “Small woman, surrounded by yelling kids?” He dropped his hand and sighed again. “I can’t even get near her.”

  “What you need is a night out with your wife, Rawlings,” Mike advised. He firmly believed that every woman needed a little romance in her life. Especially a wife. To allay the skeptical expression on Louis’s face, Mike offered his partner the services of his youngest sister. “Claudia would be happy to babysit for you some time.”

  Though he’d never been married, he knew what it was like to be in the center of a large family. His own had six, not counting his mother and father, or his grandmother when she’d lived with them. There were four boys in his family and two girls. And throughout all the ups and downs, good times and bad, his parents had managed to maintain a loving relationship.

  Which was why they had so many kids, he mused.

  His family was the reason behind his easygoing manner, as they had shown him by example that there was nothing that couldn’t be handled given time and the right approach. They were also responsible for his wanting to enjoy himself as much as possible before he finally settled down and committed to one woman.

  If he ever settled down and committed to one woman, he qualified silently. So far, none of the women he’d gone out with remotely filled the requirements he had for a life partner.

  Josephine and Salvatore DiPalma had married straight out of high school and become parents nine months to the day of their anniversary. Though both said they wouldn’t change a thing and regretted nothing, Mike doubted if that was a hundred percent true. They’d gone from being children to having children, never taking time to be carefree, to be young.

  That wasn’t going to be the way he intended to play it. There were a whole lot of things in life he wanted to do and see before settling down and facing things like mortgages and pediatrician bills.

  Holding open the door that led to the stairwell, Mike glanced at his partner. Louis was obviously chewing on what he’d just said.

  “A night out, huh?” Louis echoed.

  Mike shrugged carelessly. “Night out, night in. You could check into a hotel with Jackie and pretend you’re not married.”

  “That would take a lot of pretending.” But it was obvious by the look in his eyes that Louis was warming to the idea.

  Mike laughed and clapped him on the back. “My money’s on you.”

  But Louis clearly didn’t want to dwell on his own humdrum life, even if a date with his wife was in the not-too-distant future.

  “So, what’s with you?” he wanted to know. “No Shelley tonight? Wait, it’s not Shelley anymore, is it? It’s Judith.” He shook his head again. “Or was that Lisa?”

  It was Elaine, but he wasn’t about to add another name to the mix. Despite all of Louis’s urgings, he was not the type who believed in disclosing intimate details of an evening. A lady deserved her privacy and he treated all the women he went out with like ladies. His upbringing demanded nothing less.

  “All history,” Mike told him.

  By design, after Brenda, his relationships were all pleasant and light. “Like a diet cookie with all the good things taken out,” his mother had once assessed in her concern that her secondborn would not follow in his older brother’s footsteps and find a woman to start a family with. “No substance, no flavor.”

  After nearly making a fatal mistake and reaching the altar with a woman who was all wrong for him, light and pleasant was just the way he wanted it. As far as he was concerned, his relationships had just enough substance. He and the women he dated never got too serious and enjoyed each other’s company until it was time to move on.

  And he moved on a lot. With no regrets. He enjoyed women’s company, and in turn, he made sure that they enjoyed his.

  Mike had a sneaking suspicion that they also enjoyed the danger he represented. The gun and his line of work generated that kind of aura. And women were drawn to it like the proverbial flies to honey. It was a double whammy, his other sister, Theresa, had once told him. If his tall, dark, handsome looks hadn’t been enough to draw women to him, the nature of his work sealed the bargain.

  He tended to make women feel safe at the same time that he took their breath away. And every woman in his life knew that her position was temporary. No lies were told, no promises given. And a good time was had by all.

  A good time that sent his partner’s imagination into overtime.

  But tonight he was tired. Tomorrow was his nephew Alan’s first birthday and Mike’s parents were going all out to celebrate it. They lived in Brooklyn, in the same house they’d moved into thirty-six years ago. It was located in the center of an Italian community where everyone believed in celebrating in a big way. He’d already given his promise to be there. Nursing a hangover was not the way he wanted to greet his mother for the first time in almost three weeks. The lectures about how he was wasting the best years of his life would be endless and unendurable.

  “So there’s someone new?” Louis asked hopefully. Like a junkyard dog, when Louis clamped down on something, it was hard to make him let go.

  “Not at the moment.” Reaching the first floor, Mike walked ahead of Louis to the door and exited the stairwell.
He looked over his shoulder at his partner and flashed a grin. “But you’ll be the first to know when there is, Lou. Until then, I’m—”

  And then he saw her.

  A vivacious-looking, petite woman with dark red hair that swirled about her like a cloud absorbing rays from a setting sun. At the moment, she looked frustrated and distraught.

  Not that he could blame her. She was talking to Mulroney, the desk sergeant, a man who was not known for his patient, understanding manner. Mulroney’s forte was paper, not people.

  Louis looked from his partner to the woman Mike was staring at. The woman who had stolen the second half of Mike’s sentence before it had a chance to come out.

  A knowing smile slipped over Louis’s small lips. “My guess is that I’m already looking at her,” he murmured under his breath.

  Mike heard only a buzz of words. His attention was suddenly riveted to the woman before Mulroney’s tall, scarred desk.

  “Lady, I already told you—come back in forty-eight hours.” Dismissing her, the hulking sergeant looked down at the stack of papers before him.

  If he meant to get rid of her that easily, he was in for a surprise, Natalya thought. Not her mother’s daughter for nothing, she dug in. “It’s ‘doctor,’ not ‘lady,’” she corrected him tersely. “And I’m telling you that I know Clancy. Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t just disappear this way.”

  Mike drew closer. Ordinarily, he tried not to get into Mulroney’s face. He had enough cases to work, enough on his plate not to look for one more serving. Mike knew he should just keep moving until he reached his motorcycle and the beginning of his weekend.

  But he liked the way the woman wasn’t letting Mulroney intimidate her. And she did sound genuinely concerned. He was good about first impressions and his first impression of her was that she wasn’t rattled easily.

  “Something I can help with?” he offered mildly, looking from the desk sergeant to the woman standing before him.

  The woman was dressed with neither precision nor carelessness. It struck him that her clothing adhered lovingly to her form, as if trying to please herself and not with the intent to catch attention. But she did anyway. He saw the way Louis was eyeing her. As if she were a fantasy being served up hot on a plate.

  Mike moved his six-foot-one frame between the woman and his shorter partner, blocking Louis’s view. And his unabashed stare.

  “She’s trying to file a missing person’s report, but the guy’s only been missing a few hours, if that,” Mulroney complained, irritated. “I told her that she had to come back when it was official. He could have just stepped out for a beer,” Mulroney added, looking at Louis since it was obvious that Mike wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying.

  Mike’s attention was fully focused on the woman. She had green eyes he noticed. He’d always liked green eyes.

  “Husband?” he guessed respectfully. But even as the word was out of his mouth, he glanced down at her left hand and saw that there was no band there. No engagement ring, either. He felt his interest sharpening. What was her connection to the missing man?

  Natalya shook her head. “Friend.”

  She’d come down to the precinct because she knew that calling the police would have been futile. They would have just told her to call back. Apparently coming in person was yielding the same results. When she’d become concerned about Clancy, her initial thought had been to call Sash’s fiancé, Tony. He was a detective with NYPD and she knew he would help.

  But Sasha had taken a rare day off and gone with Tony to Atlantic City for a short three-day holiday, something she’d never remembered her sister doing. Of all of them, Sasha was the most intense one. The one who had been most driven. And now she was making a conscious effort to enjoy the good moments that life sent. Her first fiancé had been killed right in front of her, and since luck and love had smiled on her a second time, her older sister was putting nothing off until tomorrow.

  Which was wonderful for Sasha, but didn’t help her any.

  In her gut, Natalya knew, just knew, that something was wrong. That Clancy was in trouble and needed rescuing. But explaining something like that to the burly sergeant behind the desk was something she knew would fall on deaf ears. Maybe she’d have more luck with this good-looking knight in shining armor. She’d always had luck with good-looking men, she thought, hoping that it would hold.

  The surly desk sergeant was making his case to the man who had asked if he could help. “She said the guy had called her just a little while ago, croaking out some message.”

  Incensed at the dismissive manner in which the sergeant repeated her words, Natalya turned toward the tall newcomer.

  “He didn’t croak, he sounded as if he couldn’t talk. Like he was hurt and forcing the words out,” she emphasized. “I know something’s happened to him. We were supposed to go to this art gallery opening tonight. He was very excited about it. Clancy wouldn’t just miss that.”

  The dark-haired man nodded, his expression thoughtful. As if he were listening to every nuance. “Have you tried him at home?”

  “Yes, I’m not an idiot—” Natalya stopped herself abruptly as her words replayed themselves in her ears. She sounded like a shrew. But then, that was because she was so worried. “Sorry, that came out too short. I went over to Clancy’s apartment,” she continued in a voice she struggled to keep calm. “I have a key. He wasn’t there.”

  “Were any of his clothes gone?” the man she assumed was a detective asked.

  Chagrined, Natalya mentally cursed herself for the oversight.

  “I didn’t think to look.” She looked up at this new person on the scene, waiting for some criticism. When it didn’t come, she glanced at the shorter man beside him. His partner? She had no idea, but the more people she got on her side, the faster Clancy could be found. “He wouldn’t just run out on me,” she protested, wanting the taller man to know the reason for her concern, “especially without an explanation—”

  “Did you have an argument?” Mike pressed. A lot of people just overlooked the obvious, allowing their emotions to carry them away and create mountains when there weren’t even any anthills in sight. “Sometimes a lovers’ quarrel can—”

  “We’re not lovers,” Natalya interrupted. “I already told you that Clancy’s my friend.” Natalya took a breath. “We’ve been friends since elementary school. I’m probably the only friend he has,” she added.

  It wasn’t something she would have readily admitted. Saying as much was being unfair to Clancy. It allowed others to know how difficult it was for Clancy to make any friends. For the most part, he turned people off. She was very protective of him, but the uneasiness she felt about Clancy’s state overruled things like secrets and maintaining his right to privacy.

  “He called me on my cell phone and when I answered, his exact words were ‘Come. Please.’ That’s all.” She looked from one detective to the other. “It sounded as if he was pushing the words out, as if he was having trouble talking. Trouble breathing,” she added for emphasis.

  Her eyes never left the taller of the two men. He looked neither amused nor annoyed. She took heart that maybe she’d found the right man to help her.

  “Is he prone to playing tricks on you?” the man asked.

  “No.” It was a lie, a small white lie. Clancy had played a few tricks on her over the years, but for the most part, they’d been inconsequential. This was no time to drag up feebly executed practical jokes from the past. She knew that all her concerns would be summarily dismissed if she did. “I just know something’s happened to him.”

  Although she wasn’t looking at Mulroney, she heard the desk sergeant utter a dismissive huff. She began to get desperate. Just the way Clancy had to feel when he made that call to her, she thought. “Look, don’t you people have ways of tracking a cell phone if it’s on?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was the first time she heard the man beside the tall detective say anything and she looked to this new
avenue of hope.

  “Who do I have to talk to in order for that to happen?” she wanted to know, addressing him. An urgency had slipped into her voice. She just couldn’t get herself to shake the feeling that, for Clancy, time was running out.

  “You don’t,” Mike told her. She looked at him sharply. He could see that she was about to protest. He’d bet she could hold her own in an argument. “I do.”

  Mulroney leaned over the desk, “I thought you were off the clock,” the desk sergeant reminded him. Raising one stubby forefinger, he deliberately pointed to the clock on the far wall.

  “You know better than that, Sergeant,” Mike told him pleasantly. “A New York City policeman is never off the clock.” Before Mulroney could say anything further, Mike turned toward the woman who had initiated all this. His helmet in the crook of his left arm, he put out his hand to her. “I’m Detective Michael DiPalma.” Because he heard Louis shift beside him, he added, “And this is my partner, Detective Louis Rawlings.” He spared a glance toward the shorter man. “It’s okay, Louis. I can take it from here. Go home to Jackie and the kids. Tell them I said hello.”

  Louis’s face fell. But it was late and he’d already confided to Mike that he’d promised Jackie not to stop off for a beer before going home. Since he lived in Queens, under perfect conditions, his journey home would take him approximately a half hour. Jackie tended to be aware of the clock.

  He leaned in to his partner before leaving. “Call me,” he instructed Mike. And then he nodded at the woman he would have bet a month’s pay was destined to be his partner’s newest love interest. She was far too well put together, with long, shapely legs, for Mike to simply ignore once he did what he could to help her.

  Louis inclined his head in her direction. “I hope you find your friend.”

  Natalya smiled. The man sounded genuine, not like the desk sergeant. Mentally, she crossed her fingers. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe this was all a tempest in a teapot and Clancy would turn up. But somehow, she doubted it.