A Woman Worth Waiting For

by Meredith Webber

  Was she signalling an end to the previous conversation? It seemed so, and Sarah didn’t want to push so didn’t reopen it. But a huge gap remained between the spoken subject and the one she’d thought Ginny wished to discuss.

  Sarah asked how the day had finished, and Ginny chatted happily about the final patients of the day.

  ‘I’ve heard we’re getting another male doctor when you go,’ she told Sarah. ‘Brad will be pleased to get off night duty.’

  ‘Do you mind night shifts?’

  Ginny smiled.

  ‘I quite like them, especially weekends. You’re usually so busy you don’t have time to think, and the night is gone before you know it.’ She paused, then added, ‘Sometimes I even feel I’ve done some good.’

  ‘A and E staff always do some good,’ Sarah reminded her, then she chuckled. ‘Do they still teach students that old lesson when they come into A and E—”First do no harm!” I can remember my old professor repeating it as a kind of daily prayer. I know I’ve repeated it to myself many a time.’

  ‘It’s very true,’ Ginny said. ‘When you see what terrible wounds we can inflict on people in the guise of saving their lives—often they’re so badly traumatised they die anyway.’

  ‘But so many live,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘And a lot of them owe their lives to prompt action by A and E staff.’

  Ginny chuckled.

  ‘Thanks for the pep talk! I did need one tonight, though usually I’m Miss Positive herself!’

  ‘You’ve had a fairly traumatic time yourself, this last week and a bit,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘Emotions have a way of knocking us down when we least expect it.’

  She waited but it seemed Ginny had finished talking for the night and, tempted though Sarah was to ask about the woman called Sally, she didn’t want to upset the delicate balance of trust existing between them.

  ‘So, Dr Lonely Hearts, what did you learn?’

  Max must have been up at dawn, for he was fully dressed and obviously listening for Sarah’s door to open. He fell into step beside her when she left her flat, and as they approached the road asked his question.

  ‘Aren’t you already in trouble for talking out of turn?’ Sarah reminded him. ‘Don’t expect me to join you in your crime.’

  ‘So you won’t tell?’

  Sarah turned to him.

  ‘I can’t, but Ginny’s deeply troubled by something, and I don’t think I came near to finding out what.’

  She saw Max frown, and read the pain in his eyes.

  ‘It’s the woman at the funeral—Sally,’ he muttered. ‘It has to be. But what’s the connection?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about it all night and not got anywhere,’ she told him. ‘So either ask Ginny straight out or forget about it. I’d suggest the latter.’

  She glanced at her watch.

  ‘You work your own hours and she’s not on duty until late today. Why don’t you grab some Danish pastries from the canteen and invite her to breakfast? Talk about other things, anything, as long as you start talking.’

  Max leaned forward and pressed a kiss on Sarah’s cheek.

  ‘You are a wise and wonderful woman,’ he said. ‘I’ll do just that.’

  But buying pastries and carrying them home with rising excitement was one thing—actually knocking on Ginny’s door to invite her to breakfast was slightly harder.

  In the end, he just did it.

  She opened the door in the short nightshirt she’d been wearing the previous week. In his mind he felt the firmness of her skin as he ran his hands up the long legs so tantalisingly revealed.

  ‘Join me for breakfast?’ The dryness in his mouth made the words sound huskier than he’d intended.

  ‘Breakfast?’ She made it sound like something foreign. Then a tiny smile began at the corner of her lips. ‘Yes, Max, that would be lovely.’

  ‘Don’t forget your keys,’ he told her, mumbling the words in a sudden attack of breathlessness.

  But breakfast was forgotten when he shut the door of his flat behind the two of them.

  Overcome with all the anguish of the last few days, he took her in his arms, breathed her name and held her close.

  She seemed content enough, even did a bit of a snuggle thing, and his blood thinned and heated, raced to various extremities. When she raised her lips to his and sighed at the touch of his fingers on her breast, he knew they’d miraculously bridged the huge gap that had divided them since Friday.

  ‘No questions this time?’ she asked, looking up so he was drawn into the green depths of her eyes—drowning in the love he felt for her.

  ‘I’ll think of some,’ he promised, and let his fingers linger against the soft flesh of her breasts. ‘Relevant ones,’ he murmured, ‘about liking and pacing and what feels good for you. This?’

  He slid his fingers through the opening of her shirt, took the weight of one breast in his hand and gently cupped it, stroking fingertips towards her nipple, teasing at its nubby point.

  A breathy gasp was answer enough, but still he lingered, teasing the nerve endings in her sensitised skin, demanding responses both physical and verbal as he undid buttons and slipped the nightshirt low over her shoulders, then trailed kisses down her neck, feeling her shiver of response when his tongue tickled at the smooth skin in the little hollow above her collar-bone.

  He’d worked slowly but deliberately towards the swollen orbs so his tongue could tease where his fingers had been earlier, while his fingers sought more intimate places.

  ‘This?’

  A nod this time, and an escalation in the teasing she was doing, so trying to go slowly, to not rush her into bed, became more and more difficult. But this was Ginny, his very precious love, and he knew he needed to show her just how special she was with actions, not just words.

  So Max’s fingers played across her skin, his lips kissing and murmuring husky promises of love, until she joined him in a chorus of ‘sweetest love’ and ‘darling mine’, endearments pressing into ears as their kisses pressed against each other’s skin.

  ‘You’ve still got the packet from the pharmacy?’

  The question, whispered though it was, made his head spin, but somehow he managed to convey that, yes, he did indeed still have it. Then they were in the bedroom, on his bed, and finally, six years after he’d fallen in love with her, Ginny was finally and irrevocably his.

  Perhaps not irrevocably, he realised some time later when she sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers trailing over the bare skin of his back and thigh, explaining about her ‘date’.

  ‘So, you see, just this evening, I kind of can’t get out of it.’

  He frowned at the woman who’d so recently sworn undying love for him.

  ‘You can’t get out of going out with Paul Markham for dinner?’

  He shook his head, sure that love must be affecting his auditory nerves and he had it wrong. His heart had stopped beating, his blood was icing over, his brain was yelling at him, shrieking not to let her go, but he acted cool—he had to!

  At least he’d learnt enough to know he couldn’t tell Ginny Willis what—or what not—to do.

  ‘It’s not going out with him so much as going to his place. I think he wants to go through Isobel’s things—ready to give them away. Well, he doesn’t want to do it himself, you can understand that, but he’d like me to do it because he doesn’t want his sister-in-law wearing the clothes.’

  Max propped himself on one elbow and did a little skin-trailing himself, though not as much of Ginny’s skin was visible as she was hurriedly scrambling into clothes and making panicky noises about being late for work.

  ‘I must have missed some bit of that conversation,’ he said. ‘If I meet you at the canteen for lunch, will you tell me again?’

  She looked down at him, her green eyes huge in her face, her hair swinging forward to frame the smile.

  ‘I knew you’d understand,’ she whispered. ‘I think that’s why I love you.’

  ‘Which
is why,’ he told Sarah some time later, ‘I think I agreed she should go out with another man.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Sarah asked.

  Max nodded glumly.

  ‘Insane, aren’t I?’ he said, but Sarah didn’t seem to be considering his sanity, or lack thereof. Rather, she was frowning—first at him, then at her watch, then back at him.

  ‘Where’s Ginny now?’ she asked.

  ‘Here. At work. We’re meeting for lunch.’

  ‘And where’s your cousin, the policeman?’

  ‘Brent? Why would you be interested in his whereabouts?’

  ‘I think we should talk to him,’ Sarah announced. ‘I’ll see if Ginny and I can both get the same time off for lunch—it will be hard, but the intern can page me if I’m needed, or someone from Outpatients could cover. And if you get Brent there—’

  Max threw up his hands in horror.

  ‘Sarah! You must be off your head. I’ve just spent an agonising few days at odds with Ginny because I brought her and Brent together over something. Now, when I’ve finally won her back, you’re suggesting I repeat the dose. Forget it.’

  ‘It might be important,’ Sarah told him.

  ‘Why?’ Max demanded, not bothering to hide the belligerence in his voice.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Sarah spoke slowly. ‘But I know there’s something there. In between what we know and what we’ve guessed and other little coincidental things. If we could talk in front of Brent, we might be able to pull it all together.’

  Max shook his head.

  ‘Sarah, I’m not just being pig-headed about this. I know my—and Ginny’s—happiness would be a small price to pay to save someone’s life, but Brent’s a busy man. He’s lead detective on the task force for this killer at the moment, but he still has other duties. If you had something definite I could tell him…’

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘But I know there’s something there,’ she said stubbornly.

  In the end they compromised. Ginny was going out with Paul so wouldn’t be available, but Max would ask Brent if he could stop by the flats later in the evening. Maybe the three of them could find the loose thread Sarah was so certain existed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LUNCH as a shared meal, failed to materialise, as pressure of work kept both women busy.

  ‘I hope you’re satisfied, finally seeing some real stress in this place,’ Sarah muttered to Max as she whisked past him, clutching a drip stand while orderlies guided a patient-laden gurney towards the lifts.

  But it was enough that he caught occasional glimpses of Ginny, saw the wide flash of her smile and the shared excitement in her eyes.

  Sarah finished first, and he acted as escort for her, walking her back to the flats.

  ‘So breakfast worked, then,’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Come to think of it, we didn’t get around to the Danish, but is the result so obvious?’

  ‘Only to someone who can read the varying degrees of bliss in foolish grins,’ Sarah said, then she changed the subject. ‘Did you get on to Brent?’

  ‘He should be here soon,’ Max assured her, ‘and because I was less busy than you today, I ducked out and got in some food.’

  ‘You’re a kind and thoughtful man,’ Sarah responded, but she spoilt the compliment by chuckling at him. ‘Also mad, I’d say. Letting your girlfriend have dinner with the handsome Paul Markham.’

  ‘I could hardly have stopped her. He wanted someone to go through Isobel’s clothes and organise to send them to a charity. As an excuse to get a woman to have dinner at your house, it’s hard to beat.’

  ‘An excuse to have dinner at your house?’

  Sarah repeated the words in a voice that sent a shiver up Max’s spine.

  ‘Do you think the young women all had dinner at some-one’s house?’ he demanded.

  Sarah shrugged, unlocked her door and led Max inside.

  ‘They weren’t seen in any restaurant, so it seems a logical conclusion. And the drug, whatever it was, could be put into the food—makes things simple. Be thankful it’s someone we know that she’s dining with!’

  ‘Fat chance!’ Max muttered.

  She ignored his comment, frowning as though caught up in her own thoughts, then she said, ‘You know, the toxicology reports on the last young woman probably aren’t back yet. But because she was found so quickly and was still alive, there’s a good chance the drug, even one with a very short half-life, will be detected.’

  ‘But it would have to be something effective, because they didn’t struggle,’ Max reminded her.

  ‘But would they necessarily struggle?’ Sarah asked. ‘Think about it. You’ve had dinner with someone, so there’s an element of trust. Your host or hostess perhaps offers coffee, gets up and walks away for a few minutes, then returns, coming from behind presumably with coffee, slips a scarf around your neck and tightens it. It doesn’t take much to render a person unconscious, and mild sedation would make it even easier.’

  Max nodded. ‘That makes sense, particularly the “coming from behind” scenario. Even if that were the how, it still doesn’t bring us any closer to the who.’

  ‘Is that why you’re really here?’ Sarah asked, when they’d moved from her flat to his and he’d heated and served them each a plate of curry and rice. ‘To find the who?’

  ‘Brent asked me to help because I had access to the hospital—legitimate access. He had no specific orders for me, just thought I might hear something. The state police have a profiler in Brisbane they use, so that part was done, but he felt any additional information about Isobel might help—and looking at crime from the victim’s side was right up my alley.’

  ‘You say the profile was already done. Can you tell me what it showed?’

  Max didn’t reply immediately, pondering instead what he’d heard from his cousin and what he’d read in the various reports he’d seen.

  ‘Problems with it?’

  He felt a frown tugging at his eyebrows.

  ‘Not so much problems as discrepancies. No, not even that. The thing was well done, but the chap who did it—I spoke to him in Brisbane—felt an instinctive uneasiness that he was missing something, and after reading it I had to agree.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Boy, do you put a man on the spot!’ He paused, marshalling his thoughts. ‘It was too neat.’

  ‘I assume you’re not talking about the man’s presentation here, his margins and punctuation, but something in the picture the profiler pulled together.’

  Max nodded.

  ‘It was as if the murders were being staged to look like the work of a serial killer, although, of course, the work of an organised killer has a big element of stage management, if you can call it that. The victims were too displayed, if you know what I mean. And serial killers, particularly organised ones, usually take trophies, something that belongs to the victim. In this case, the women’s handbags were all missing but, though that made identification difficult, handbags are impersonal—not the kind of trophies killers usually take. The women’s underpants were also taken, but as they weren’t raped, and there were no signs of violence, that detail seems more like stage management. Or perhaps a precaution to stop identification of a drug from their urine.’

  ‘You make it sound as if someone was following the “rules” of a serial killer. Someone clever enough to think it all through, right down to those kind of details. Why?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Max suggested, then he watched her think it through and saw colour drain from her face as she reached a conclusion.

  ‘To cover the murder of a single, chosen victim? Oh, Max, what if that victim was Isobel? She’s the one who didn’t fit. That’s one of the things bothering me—she’s older than the others, and worked in a different type of environment, didn’t have a meal first.’ She raised anxious eyes to Max. ‘Is Ginny safe?’

  ‘Ginny’s safe!’ Max assured her. ‘I made darned sure of that. I happened to cross paths with Paul and let him know
I knew that’s where she’d be. She won’t come to any harm when we all know where she is.’

  ‘But that sounds as if you’re thinking of him as a serious suspect,’ Sarah protested. ‘My concerns are more negative—intuitive stuff rather than facts and figures.’

  Max sighed.

  ‘Most of it’s negative though, if you look at the idea of a single targeted victim, he has to be considered, doesn’t he? Along with anyone else who may have wanted Isobel dead, and the enemies, associates or even lovers of the other victims.’

  ‘There’s the money motive with Paul, though it’s not all that strong. He has a tremendous earning capacity and, being married to her, could have shared her wealth anyway.’

  ‘That’s exactly how the police figured it out,’ Max reassured her. ‘As far as Paul’s concerned, for the reasons you’ve pointed out, the motive’s not as strong as it first appears.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad about that,’ Sarah said. ‘With Ginny having dinner out at his place, I’d not have had a peaceful moment. The woman in the suit seems the most likely suspect. If we’re thinking of specific victims, I wonder if one of Isobel’s sisters-in-law— No, that’s way too ridiculous!’

  ‘I imagine the police have checked anyone with reason to benefit from any of the victims’ deaths,’ Max said, although his mind was on Ginny, and her dinner with Paul.

  ‘They’re usually very good about the little details,’ Sarah assured him. ‘Shreds of evidence are meticulously pieced together, which is another point in Paul’s favour—there can’t be any evidence. If there was, he’d be under far more pressure.’

  Max smiled at her.

  ‘You keep bringing him in then trying to exonerate him,’ he said, and Sarah gave a little chuckle. ‘Because Ginny’s there?’

  ‘No. It’s because he’s the only one we know so, playing detectives, which is all we’re doing, we tend to look more at him. And Isobel didn’t fit with the other young women, which bothers me. Then you have Paul shifting into these flats—just when you and I arrive. Why? I can’t help feeling I’m missing something, so talking about anyone or anything connected with it might help whatever it is to surface.’