Diagnosis: Danger

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Mr. Sommerville,” Mike began respectfully, “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

  “My marriage is important,” the D.A. replied tersely. One hand behind him, Sommerville urged his sons back into the living room as he began to close the door to his Colonial-style home.

  “This is connected to the homeless men who were killed in the park recently,” Natalya managed to blurt out before the door shut. “The case that the mayor’s so interested in,” she added quickly.

  The door stopped closing. After a beat, Sommerville pushed it open a little wider. His dark blue eyes took closer measure of her. “And you are?”

  “Dr. Natalya Pulaski.” Counting this as a victory, she put her hand out.

  Instead of taking it, Sommerville looked down at her face. His expression was utterly unreadable. There was no emotion in his voice.

  “All right, you have my attention.” He turned his head slightly so that his voice could carry. His sons were ready to launch a second assault on the door. “Boys, go play video games.”

  “Really?” Jake, the oldest, exclaimed gleefully.

  “Really.” Not wasting any further words on a debate, the D.A. eased himself out of the house, closing the door firmly behind him. “Their mother saves that for special occasions. It helps to have a secret weapon.” He sobered, but there was interest in his eyes. “All right, talk fast.”

  The man didn’t know what he was leaving himself open for, Mike thought, amused despite the gravity of the situation. He wasn’t wrong. Even as he began to explain the reason for their unscheduled visit, Natalya was interjecting her words into his narrative. He decided to retreat and leave the explaining to her, seeing as how it was the hunt for her friend that had initiated all this in the first place. Besides, even though she talked fast, every word was clear as a bell, not an easy feat in his book.

  In the space of less than five minutes, the D.A. was up to speed. In ten, he promised to get the wheels moving for the court order that they had come seeking. And then, he was advising them to leave. Quickly.

  The next moment, he’d disappeared into the house again.

  “Well, that went well. We got him to say yes and his wife isn’t divorcing him,” Natalya commented as she followed Mike back to his motorcycle.

  Mike caught himself laughing. He’d known Sommerville in his much-lauded bachelor days. Now, the six-foot-five D.A. was wrapped around the finger of a dark-haired woman who barely came up to five-one. How the mighty have fallen.

  “That we know of,” he underscored. “He might still be in hot water. In my experience, women have a sixth sense about these things.”

  Natalya frowned. She wasn’t entirely following him. “What things?”

  “Lines being crossed that they’ve drawn in the sand.” The D.A. didn’t look like the type to be kept on a short leash, but looks in this case were deceiving. He saw amusement filtering across Natalya’s face, but he’d be willing to believe it was for a different reason.

  “Had a lot of experience with that, have you?”

  In an attempt to divert her attention, he smiled seductively at her.

  “A gentleman never elaborates.” Reaching inside the saddlebag, he took out the spare helmet and handed it to her. “I doubt if that court order is going to come through before tomorrow at the earliest.” He deliberately let his eyes slide over her from head to foot. “What do you suggest we do with the rest of the day?”

  Desire rippled through her body, taking parts of her prisoner. Scenes from last night and this morning replayed themselves in her mind, adding fuel.

  Fastening the helmet, Natalya got on behind him. Secure, she tucked her arms around his waist. It took effort not to lean her cheek against his back. “I’ll leave that up to you,” she told him.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” With a laugh, he knocked away the kickstand. The next moment, they roared back into the street.

  This wasn’t like her.

  There were articles in at least the last three medical journals she’d promised herself to get to this afternoon. And there was a stack of charts she’d been meaning to annotate before having Vicki file them away. She’d had every intention of going into her office in the late afternoon to catch up on things that always seemed to get out of hand during the week. This seemed like an excellent time for it inasmuch as she had no small patients in the hospital to look in on.

  So what was she doing, lying here in bed beside this man, dressed in nothing more than a smile, a smile that seemed to have a life of its own? She had no excuse, no explanation.

  What she had was this overwhelming desire that refused to be quenched, refused to be sated. The only thing it seemed capable of doing was growing and it was doing that at a breathtaking rate.

  This was only making it harder on her, she argued silently, even as her body turned into his, harder to endure the inevitable when it happened. She’d never been one who stubbornly clung to a habit, never allowed herself to gain an addiction to anyone or anything. Nothing had ever had control over her. And yet, here she was, being led around by her emotions, her desires, and not trying to do a damn thing to save herself.

  Natalya propped herself up on her elbow. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she looked down at him.

  “You know, Detective, we have to stop meeting like this,” she quipped.

  “Why?” There was humor in his eyes. “Works for me.” And then he looked at her more closely. Something he saw in her face had him backtracking. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Back to the yes-no tug of war, she thought. There was no point in trying to be evasive about it. “What I am is confused.”

  He tried to tease her out of it. “What you are,” he contradicted, “is magnificent.” Cupping the back of her head, Mike gently brought her face down to his and kissed her. The kiss worked itself into his system, spilling out through his veins like maple syrup in July. Sweet. Delectable. “We both overthink things,” he told her after a beat. “Maybe for once, we should just let whatever happens happen.”

  If only. But she had been raised to believe that every action had a consequence. And the consequences of what she was allowing herself to do here with him were extremely steep. “That’s not very responsible,” she pointed out.

  His response surprised her. “Maybe I don’t always want to be a grown-up.” He slid his finger along her collarbone. “I’m a grown-up on the job. In my private life…” He let his voice trail off. His smile alone was enough to make her blood sizzle.

  It took effort to rein herself in. Effort not to just throw him flat on his back and have her way with him. Damn, but he had turned her into a completely different person. “Is that where all those women come in?”

  His expression was innocence personified. “What women?”

  “The ones you said you had all that experience with,” she reminded him.

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I said.” And definitely not what he wanted her to think. The women who had come before her had begun to blur the first time he kissed her. And had all but faded from memory the moment they’d made love. “Is that what you want to do with the rest of this afternoon?” He underscored the question by pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. It was followed by another. “Talk?”

  Heat was springing up, taking hold. Clouding her brain. “Talking is good,” she managed to get out thickly, already losing the battle she hadn’t really believed she could win. He was touching her, caressing her. Making her crazy.

  “This is better,” he countered, raising her hair from her neck so that he could kiss that side, as well.

  She was dissolving right in front of him, she thought. Any willpower she’d hoped to summon had dashed away like a newly freed deserter. Her limbs felt heavy, languid. “You don’t play fair,” she protested.

  “Never said I wanted to be fair.” His breath feathered along her skin as it preceded his lips.

  She could feel herself melting and heating at the very
same moment. If she’d been a candle, she’d have long been nothing more than just a puddle of color.

  “No,” she acknowledged hoarsely, her voice barely above a whisper, “that you didn’t.”

  Okay, tomorrow she’d tell him. Tomorrow. Monday, when things began fresh for the week. When everything moved along at a faster clip. Tomorrow she’d find a way to let him know that she couldn’t have children. And then, the next move would be his.

  Now was for enjoying this wild, wonderful feeling that he created, for savoring it as she struggled to keep from falling over the brink into an abyss.

  With effort, she turned her body into his and began to strum her fingers along his torso, her tempo increasing as needs and wants hammered through her, growing ever more frenzied. When she touched him intimately, she heard his sharp intake of breath, felt his desire for her surge. She would have laughed in triumph if she’d had the strength for that. She was saving what little was left of her strength for the ultimate culmination and joining. That would make the third time in as many hours.

  Whatever regrets she felt were waiting to pounce on her she managed to keep in abeyance. All she wanted in this moment was to be his and to pretend that this wonderful sensation could last.

  Tempted to stay the night again, Natalya forced herself to return to her apartment. He insisted on bringing her back. It was late, he’d reminded her, and the city that never slept wasn’t always as savory as everyone would have wanted it to be.

  She came in so late, she was able to get to her own room without encountering Kady or any of Kady’s knowing looks. The following morning, still yawning, she quickly got ready, pausing only for a moment when she went to select her underwear from the drawer. The colors were still together, but the types—sexy, functional—were not. Kady, she thought. It had to have been Kady, rummaging for something sensual to put on. She was going to have ask her about it when she got the chance.

  It wasn’t far to her office and she decided to walk instead of taking the bus or her car. She was hoping to walk off some of the excess tension that was vibrating through her.

  For once, her schedule wasn’t full. There was a large break between her first two appointments and her third one, a highly unusual occurrence. Especially on a Monday when parents who’d spent the entire weekend debating whether or not those sniffles their child was exhibiting were actually a sign of something more serious called.

  Sitting at her desk with that same stack of files that she’d neglected yesterday, Natalya drummed her fingers on her desk. She hadn’t heard from Mike yet, which could mean that he hadn’t heard from the D.A. Or, she supposed it could just mean that he was too busy to call. It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do. Cases came in, right and left, hardly leaving any time for him to breathe.

  Still, you’d think, because they had a special connection…

  Natalya stopped herself. She had to remember that she couldn’t expect too much from Mike, other than a good time. And even that was finite. To expect more was leaving herself open to disappointment. A man like Mike was faithful to the moment. When it left, so would he.

  She forced herself to think of something else, which brought her mind back around to Clancy and the photographs. While they were waiting for the court order, Mike had told her that he was going to look into putting names to those bodies.

  Maybe, she suddenly thought, she should be looking in to where they came from. Ellis Brothers handled funeral arrangements for people from all the five boroughs, not to mention the hospitals in the area that shipped their nameless dead to them. She didn’t have the time to contact all the hospitals, but at the very least, she could explore one avenue. Patience Memorial sent their unclaimed deceased to Ellis Brothers with the county footing the bill.

  Were any of those people in the photographs Clancy took from Patience Memorial?

  Her head began to ache. She needed answers to questions she hadn’t completely formed yet. Rummaging around in her middle drawer, she found a bottle of aspirin. Natalya swallowed it dry, then reached for the telephone on her desk. She had to start somewhere.

  It took her over an hour, with so many transfers and lost connections, but she finally had a name. The doctor who was in charge of handing off the bodies of the unclaimed John and Jane Does was Dr. Ralph Jessop. Funny that Clancy had never mentioned him by name, although he had grumbled several times about “the pompous ass” he’d had to deal with at P.M. Still, being a pompous ass didn’t immediately mean that a person was capable of breaking the law.

  She’d seen Jessop around, even exchanged a few words with him once at one of the fund-raisers the hospital periodically held, but she really knew very little about the man. What she knew hadn’t been flattering. Rumor had it that Jessop was a player, a wealthy man, thanks to his family, who wanted to be wealthier.

  Did that automatically mean that he was willing to cut into bodies in order to excise organs that would find their way to the black market?

  She didn’t know. She needed to talk to Jessop, to feel him out, before she came to any sort of conclusions.

  Natalya hadn’t a clue what she was going to say to the doctor when he answered his phone. His field was radiology. Maybe she could tell him that she needed his professional opinion about one of her patient’s X-rays. But she had nothing outstanding to offer.

  And then she remembered that Sasha once had a patient who’d required an emergency appendectomy only to discover that the pain was being caused by a cyst pressing on the organ. A very particular kind of cyst, with hair and nails all wrapped up inside it. In effect, the patient discovered that she was supposed to be conjoined twins, except that the second twin hadn’t developed. That might whet Jessop’s appetite—if things medical still moved him.

  She knew Sasha kept the X-ray in an old box of archived files. Her sister wouldn’t mind her stealing the X-ray for a good cause. Sasha’s nurse, Lisa, would undoubtedly know where to locate the file…

  All plans of intercepting Dr. Jessop with the unusual X-ray came to an abrupt halt for the moment. The receptionist in radiology informed her that Dr. Jessop was out for the day. The physician had taken a personal day to pay a visit to his tax accountant about setting up another SEP account.

  Natalya could tell by the woman’s tone what the receptionist thought about that. There was obviously no love lost between the two. Natalya had a suspicion that perhaps the good doctor rubbed more than one person the wrong way.

  Still didn’t make him a grave robber, so to speak. Well, she wasn’t about to find out one way or another today, Natalya thought, replacing the receiver.

  So near and yet so far.

  She took a breath, trying to calm herself. But it was all so damn frustrating.

  For a moment, Natalya thought about putting in a call to Mike to see if he’d made any progress with either the names or the court order. She had both his cell phone and his number at the precinct. She debated satisfying her curiosity at the risk of being thought of as pushy or just hanging tight.

  But she was pushy, she thought. No reason to hide it.

  But she never got to make the call. Vicki was knocking on her door. The next moment, the nurse peeked into the room. “Mrs. Russell is on the phone, frantic. Ryan pushed navy beans up his nose.”

  “Enterprising little guy,” Natalya quipped. Obviously, quiet time was over. “Tell her to calm down and bring him in. And to count herself lucky that it’s not pussy willow season.”

  Vicki laughed as she withdrew.

  He needed names. The judge that Sommerville had called had granted the court order that would allow them to exhume the bodies of the people in the photographs, and only those.

  The problem was, they didn’t have any names. They did, however, thanks to Natalya’s OCD friend, have times and dates. That narrowed down the time frame considerably. They could locate the names via Ellis Brothers’ files.

  That meant that he, and Louis, had to go back to Tolliver a third time. They needed the man to han
d over the names of the people who had come through his doors during the time in question.

  Mike knew that they were going to get an argument from the mortuary director and that, most likely, a warrant would have to be issued. But being around Natalya had its effects. It had made him into an optimist, or at least partially so. He decided to give Tolliver the benefit of the doubt and ask him first.

  “You never know,” Mike theorized, using Louis as a sounding board as they drove to the mortuary, “the guy might only be guilty of having a really bad personality. The threat of scandal makes a lot of people more cooperative.”

  Louis stopped at the light and looked at his partner. Mike had never been on the gloomy side, but there was an odd positive bounce to his step this morning.

  “You seem pretty chipper today,” he commented, slanting another look at Mike. The light turned green and Louis stepped on the gas.

  Mike kept his eyes on the road, even though he wasn’t driving. “Looks like we might be clearing three cases, why shouldn’t I be chipper?”

  But Louis shook his head. “This isn’t a clearing-three-cases kind of chipper. You seeing someone new?” Even as he asked, the answer seemed to dawn on him. “That doc?” Reaching the mortuary, he eased the car into the lot behind the building. “The one with the dead friend you found? Pretty classy stuff, DiPalma.” Getting out after Mike, Louis locked all four doors. He lengthened his stride to keep up and was almost skipping by the time they reached the front entrance. “Sure you’re not out of your league?”

  Mike walked into the building. “I’m not even going to answer that.”

  “You don’t have to.” Louis laughed shortly. “I can read you like a book.”

  The receptionist wasn’t at her desk and things appeared quiet in the funeral parlor. “Well, stop reading and start being a cop. It’s time to flex a little muscle and scare Tolliver into cooperating.”

  Moving ahead of him, Louis peered into one of the viewing rooms, looking for the director. “Um, Mike, I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that.” He turned around to look at his partner. “Looks to me like the guy’s past scaring.”