A Madness of Sunshine

by Nalini Singh

  Will stared into the distance, but he was still there, just thinking. “Yes,” he said slowly before turning to look at her. “You’re going to have to trust me on what I’m about to ask you to do.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  62

  Will took the first step while Anahera was in the bathroom throwing water onto her face to wake herself up for their planned excursion. He wanted to keep her out of this and out of possible danger until he had an answer for better or worse.

  Picking up his phone, he input the call. “Evelyn,” he said when she answered. “I’m sorry to call so late, but I’m finalizing Miriama’s file and I didn’t want to bother Matilda or Dominic.” No lie there. “I was hoping you could help with some of the details.”

  “Oh, of course,” the gossipy but ultimately kind woman said. “Mattie’s in no state to talk to anyone and that poor young doctor’s gone to pieces. What do you need?”

  “It’d be useful if I could track down any X-rays Miriama might’ve had done recently. My guess would be that Dominic was no longer her doctor.”

  “Oh, that one’s easy. I ran into her once when she was catching the bus to go get a prescription for hay fever, I think it was—I asked her why Dominic didn’t just write her one and she said there were rules about doctors dating patients.” A quick breath. “Anyway, she told me who she was off to see and I was happy for her. Dr. Symon is a lovely man, saw my cousin through a bad bout of shingles.”

  “Do you have a full name for him?”

  “Roger, I think . . . No, wait, it’s Richard. Dr. Richard Symon.”

  That took care of the chain of evidence—as long as Evelyn’s information was correct. If it wasn’t, he’d have to go to Matilda after all. And he’d have to break her heart again—because she’d want to know why he was asking the question when Vincent had already been arrested.

  “Thank you,” he said, and hung up before Evelyn could burst out with her own questions.

  Now, to confirm the name without tipping his hand, or causing Matilda fresh suffering.

  “Ready?” Anahera stepped out of the bathroom.

  Will nodded. “Let’s go.”

  They walked to their destination: the Golden Cove doctor’s surgery.

  Breaking into it at night wasn’t exactly the Great Train Robbery. The only reason the place wasn’t regularly vandalized was probably because Dominic kept his drug samples locked up in an ancient metal filing cabinet so heavy you’d need a crane to lift it. The lock on the cabinet was all but impossible to pick.

  The same couldn’t be said for the front door.

  While Anahera stood as lookout, Will made short work of that lock and stepped inside.

  He went straight to the less-than-new computer that held patient files.

  This was where it could get tricky, but when he booted it up, it took him straight to the main page, no password required. That small-town mentality again. It was, however, to his advantage this time around.

  Quickly bringing up the file he wanted, he saw the words he’d expected to see: Patient file closed.

  Below that was an explanatory note:

  Miriama Hinewai Tutaia is switching to another general practitioner as she is in a personal relationship with me, the physician of record for Golden Cove. To be clear, she has never been my patient and I was not aware that she was on the practice’s roll at the time that we met. It appears she was enrolled at this surgery as a child, but has had no need to visit it in the past three years.

  To maintain ethical lines and give her access to a primary physician who can keep track of her overall health, I have referred her to a fellow practitioner in the nearest town. Referral letter annotated to file.

  That referral letter was to Dr. Richard Symon.

  He shut down the computer and made sure everything was as it had been, then exited the clinic, the door lock snicking quietly behind him.

  “You have it?” The oval of Anahera’s face looking at him from under the black knit cap she’d pulled on.

  He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  It wasn’t until they were back home and making themselves a midnight snack that Will said, “I’m going to have to go out of town tomorrow. I’ll leave before dawn so I can make the trip and be back by midmorning.”

  Anahera nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll use your computer to sort out a new passport for myself.” She finished stirring sugar into her hot cocoa. “I might swing by the cabin, too.”

  To reclaim it, replace the memories of Vincent’s violence with peace. “I’d rather you wait until I’m back,” Will said. “Or if you want to go alone, give me another twenty-four hours.”

  Dark eyes locked with his. “You think Vincent is telling the truth.”

  “I’ll know after my visit tomorrow morning.” Hit by a sudden cold that reached into his bones, he closed his hand over her wrist. “Come with me.”

  He knew she was a woman who valued her freedom, but after studying his expression, she said, “I need to buy some more clothes and a new laptop anyway. Will I be able to get those where you’re going?”

  Will exhaled silently. “I know a place.”

  * * *

  —

  They left the next morning in the misty gray time before true dawn.

  Anahera said only, “Good luck,” when he dropped her off at the small mall that held both an electronics store and clothing shops.

  The mall wasn’t yet open, but the café out front was doing a brisk business.

  Waiting until after she’d walked into the café, Will drove on to his destination. The visitor parking lot was empty at this early hour, but he spotted a couple of cars in the small staff lot.

  He rang the bell.

  The door was opened by a cheerful Indian woman with small daisy earrings in her lobes. “I’m afraid Dr. Symon isn’t starting for another fifteen minutes,” she said. “Do you have an early appointment? You’re welcome to sit inside where it’s warm.”

  Will showed her his identification. “I’d like to talk to Dr. Symon. It shouldn’t take long.”

  The woman’s eyes widened, but her tone remained professional. “Come inside. I’ll go fetch him.”

  A slender man with graying brown hair appeared from a back room less than a minute later, crumbs of toast on his tie. “Detective,” he said, holding out his hand. “How can I help you?”

  “Perhaps we can talk in your office,” Will said after they shook.

  “Of course.” The other man held up his mug of coffee. “Would you like one, too?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  They were soon seated in the doctor’s office with the door shut behind them. “I’m going to ask you about a patient,” Will began after taking a generous sip of the hot liquid.

  “I’m sure you’re quite aware of medical privilege,” Dr. Symon began.

  “The patient is dead. Murdered.”

  Richard Symon put down his coffee with a dull thud. His eyes skidded slightly up and to his right before landing on Will again.

  Will went motionless; this was why he hadn’t called ahead. “You know exactly who I’m talking about.”

  The other man made a game attempt to recover. “Hard to miss, what with her death being linked to a serial killer. It’s been in the news nonstop.”

  Will put down his coffee on a clear spot on the doctor’s desk. “You and I both know you were aware of her death long before then. Is Dominic de Souza a good friend?”

  “A colleague.” Dr. Symon pulled at the knot of his tie. “We—the doctors who work on the West Coast—try to keep in touch, help each other out when we can.”

  “He referred Miriama Tutaia to you.”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in confirming that. I am, after all, her physician of record.” A short pause. “Do you need medic
al data to verify her identity, is that it?” He smiled shakily. “I’ve never been in this position before, but I can’t see any problem with such a request.”

  Will locked his eyes with Dr. Symon’s. “What I’m about to ask you is tied directly to Miriama’s murder. Think carefully before you answer.”

  63

  Anahera asked Will to drop her off by her Jeep when they drove back into Golden Cove. It was still parked in front of Matilda’s house. “At least this didn’t go up in flames,” she said as they transferred over her clothing purchases.

  “You heading to the café?” asked the cop who’d somehow become more to her. “Passport application?”

  “No, I managed to finish that at the mall.” After setting up her laptop, she’d used her phone hot spot to start the process of obtaining new travel documents; it helped that she’d scanned and backed up all important documents in the cloud. “I’m planning to call Jemima, see if she’ll see me.”

  The police had taped off the Baker estate as a crime scene. Jemima and her children were currently staying in the guesthouse on Daniel’s estate, but neither Daniel nor Keira was in residence. They’d left the country the day after Vincent’s arrest, after Keira’s Canberra-based grandmother had a severe seizure and was placed in intensive care.

  Jemima kept the gate locked and wasn’t answering calls. The police had gone to her for interviews, rather than force her to come to the station—probably because they knew the circus that would follow should she leave the May estate.

  You’d think Golden Cove’s remote location would help protect Vincent’s family from the impact of his notoriety, but the media were camped out at the gates. Some would no doubt have jumped them by now if the police hadn’t stationed a patrol car there and made it clear that anyone who stepped onto private property without permission would be arrested.

  While certain journalists might’ve shrugged off the possibility of a trespass conviction in their determination to get an exclusive, the bloodsuckers were smart enough not to take on the vicious dogs currently roaming the property. Matthew Teka had quietly offered Jemima the dogs when a reporter managed to reach her front door, and she’d accepted.

  That was the only communication anyone had had from her since the arrest.

  “Be careful.” Will’s gray eyes held her gaze. “Matthew’s dogs took a chunk out of a cameraman’s leg yesterday.”

  “He shouldn’t have been trying to sneak up to the house.” Anahera had no sympathy for those who preyed on the pain and heartbreak of a woman who’d had nothing to do with her husband’s horrific crimes. “If she doesn’t want me there, I won’t go.” Simple as that.

  “You realize she might blame you for what happened to Vincent?”

  “Yes.” She touched her fingers to his jaw. “Go be a cop, Will. I’m going to be a friend if she wants one.”

  He left her with a hard kiss and a silent warning she heard as clear as day: Don’t let down your guard. Jemima might not be as innocent as she appears.

  That, of course, was what the media hounds were baying. They wanted to scream at Jemima, ask her if she’d known. If she said no, they’d ask her how she could’ve possibly not known.

  Anahera wasn’t naïve. She didn’t think Jemima was innocent in everything. The other woman had known about Vincent’s affair but helped him create the image of a perfect family man nonetheless. But Jemima wasn’t involved in murder, of that she was certain. Vincent hadn’t valued his wife enough to bring her into his psychopathic daydreams.

  After placing her new laptop bag on the passenger seat of the Jeep, she brought up Jemima’s number and made the call. She’d already tried once, but Jemima hadn’t responded. Not wanting to put further pressure on a woman already trapped in a nightmare, she’d left it at that, sure that Jemima’s wealthy family would swoop in and rescue her. But either they were total assholes, or Jemima had frozen them out, too, because no strangers had come through the Cove except for the reporters.

  Once again, the phone rang and rang. She was just about to hang up when Jemima picked up. “Ana?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” she said. “You want company? I can bring up coffees.”

  A pause before Jemima said, “Can you get hot chocolates for the kids, too? More milk than chocolate? They’re going stir-crazy cooped up in the house.”

  “Consider it done. Should I push the buzzer at the gate when I arrive?”

  “No, call me on your phone. The reporters kept pushing the buzzer so I disabled it on this end, and someone’s smashed out the security camera so I can’t see who’s at the gate.”

  Probably an unscrupulous reporter hoping to sneak up without being spotted. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  Once in the café, Anahera placed the drinks order with the temporary barista Josie had hired—one of Shane Hennessey’s groupies. It turned out the girl had been a barista in Wellington before she came to Golden Cove. And she was good. But it was unsettling to see another beautiful, lissome girl behind the counter.

  “How’s the job going?” Anahera forced herself to ask.

  Dark eyes shone at her. “It’s a little weird. People keep asking me about the girl who died, and I didn’t know her. But mostly, it’s nice. Super busy with all the out-of-towners—I’m glad I’m not having to manage alone.”

  “Tania’s good company.” Josie had hired Tania Meikle to wait tables at the same time that she’d hired the barista; Josie herself was now out of commission. Her ankles had been heavily swollen yesterday when Anahera dropped by to see her before heading to Will’s place.

  “Yeah, she is. She’s just popped out to deliver an order to the B&B.” Frothy steamed milk poured onto the reduced amount of chocolate.

  “She got the sitter situation sorted?”

  “Her husband’s mother—lady’s kinda prune-faced, but Tans says she’s nice to the baby.” She put the lids on the children’s drinks, then began on the coffees. “You want some cake, too?”

  Memory slammed into Anahera. Of another girl and another piece of cake.

  “Yes,” she said. “Box up six cupcakes.” The kids would enjoy them and Jemima could probably do with a little sugar and comfort, too.

  She managed to get everything to the Jeep in one trip, as the barista had put the drinks into a cardboard holder that proved stable, and the cakes were in a small carry box. Drinks balanced on the passenger seat and kept from falling by the cake box on one side and her laptop bag on the other, Anahera pulled out into the street.

  She made sure all her windows were raised and her doors locked before she turned into the drive of the May estate. Halfway along and her upward momentum turned into a crawl; the sides of the drive were lined with TV vans from both national and international networks, large SUVs with radio station logos and satellite dishes on the top, even a small bus.

  Vincent’s arrest had made news headlines around the world. He’d visited a lot of towns and cities, and all those towns and cities were currently combing through their missing person files, looking for women and girls who fit the profile of Vincent’s known victims. So far, the authorities had revealed five possible matches.

  Every single face had sent a chill up Anahera’s spine.

  All those faces, all those women, they could’ve been her sisters. Different races, different cultures, but there was something eerily similar that tied them together.

  Able to see the knot of reporters up above, she kept her eyes on her goal. The vultures swarmed around her the instant she got within reach. Honking her horn, she continued to move forward. The instant she stopped, the rabid mob would take it as a cue to keep her locked in place until she gave them something.

  That’s what they’d done after Edward’s death. It hadn’t been this bad, of course. There’d been no questions around the nature of his passing, but the media had still wanted a sound bite from the “grieving wido
w” of “a dramatic genius taken before his time.”

  Anahera had given them nothing then and she’d give them nothing now.

  Lighting flashes through the windscreen, the photographers taking her image in the hope of somehow being able to use it. Someone would eventually identify her, but it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. This wasn’t London, a city she’d first inhabited as Edward’s “ingénue bride,” the “unspoiled” young woman who’d stolen his heart right under the noses of society beauties.

  Everyone had wanted to meet her.

  Anahera had never been comfortable in that role, but the glamour and attention made Edward happy so she’d gone along with it. It was a small sacrifice, she’d thought, when he loved it so much. Then her music unexpectedly caught the attention of a record executive and her identity was reshaped again—from ingénue to “gifted pianist.” Edward had gloried in that, too, in being part of one of London’s “reigning creative couples.”

  He’d been proud of her skill, had spent hours lying on the couch on Sunday mornings listening to her play.

  That had been no illusion.

  Right then, as she fought the media, she was unexpectedly glad he’d had those moments in the sun, her flawed, talented, lying, loving husband.

  Camera crew jostled for space, trying to get better shots of Anahera’s face. She didn’t attempt to hide it—she’d be in court sooner or later as a witness anyway.

  Finally halting, with her bumper only an inch from the sliding gate, she waited until one of the patrol officers reached her, then lowered her window. “Mrs. Baker is expecting me,” Anahera said. “She’ll open the gate when I call.”

  The cop said something into the radio at his shoulder, listened as he received a message back. “Give us two minutes to clear the horde from the gate. And look out for the dogs—they’ll come running the instant the gate begins to open.”

  As Anahera watched, the cops got on with the job. The reporters didn’t resist much—probably because the memory of that dog-mauled cameraman was still fresh in their minds. Ana made the call after the officer gave her a nod. “Jemima, I’m at the gate.”