No One But You

by Maureen Smith

  As she hung up the phone, she glanced over her cubicle wall and saw Damien striding purposefully toward her. He nodded briefly to the greetings that were called out to him by other agents in the bull pen, but his gaze never wavered from Althea. The determined set of his jaw and the glittering triumph in his dark eyes told her he was on to something.

  Something big.

  Her pulse quickened with anticipation. “I just got off the phone with the rep from MyDomain,” she said, swiveling around just as Damien reached her cubicle. “He gave me the 411 on COLTRANEFAN. His name is James Odem, and he’s a neurosurgeon from Baltimore. But something tells me you already know that.”

  Damien nodded, grabbing the visitor chair and nimbly straddling it. “Two weeks ago, Claire paid a visit to the owner of Charm City Investigations. She hired him to run a background check on a man she’d recently met online. She wanted to make sure he was who he said he was before she agreed to meet him in person. Everything checked out. His job, his credit, his home address, and, most important, he had no criminal record.”

  “So Claire and Odem set up a date,” Althea concluded. “On Friday night. While her parents were out of town.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “At least she had the sense to get him checked out.”

  Damien grimaced. “For all the good it might have done her. The P.I. said Claire seemed a little uneasy about the whole thing, kept saying she’d never done anything this risky before, hooking up with strangers online. Before she left the detective agency, she joked that if anything happened to her, the P.I. would know who was responsible. As soon as Mayhew and I walked through the door and showed him her photo, he turned white as a damn sheet. I think that’s the only reason he cooperated with us—he felt guilty.”

  Althea scowled. “Apparently not guilty enough to come forward when he first heard about the kidnapping,” she groused. “Damn it. Aren’t there laws prohibiting private investigators from taking on clients younger than eighteen?”

  Damien gave her awry look. “Not in the state of Maryland. And I don’t know of any P.I.s who would turn down a paying customer, especially one wearing designer clothes and pulling out a wad of dough from a $10,000 Hermès purse. Anyway, the police are bringing Odem in for questioning. I thought you’d want to ride with me to the station. On the way there, you can fill me in on your conversation with the MyDomain folks.”

  Althea was already reaching for her jacket. “Let’s go.”

  Dr. James Odem was a reasonably attractive black man in his late forties with close-cropped hair sprinkled with gray, a neat goatee that framed thin unsmiling lips, and fathomless dark eyes that betrayed no emotion as he sat at a table in the main interrogation room, his long, lean hands folded calmly in his lap. He wore a well-cut blazer, pleated gabardine trousers, and Gucci loafers that gleamed under the room’s bright fluorescent lighting. He was medium height with a trim, athletic build he’d probably honed at some exclusive fitness club.

  He seemed more annoyed than nervous at the prospect of being questioned by the police about his possible involvement in a high-profile kidnapping. While he waited to be joined by Detective Mayhew and Damien—who’d deliberately kept him waiting while they, along with Althea, observed him from the other side of the one-way mirror—Odem consulted his Rolex watch, heaving an impatient sigh every three minutes.

  Damien disliked the man on sight.

  And he could tell, by the way Odem watched him enter the room, that the feeling was mutual.

  Damien stood with his shoulder propped against the wall and his arms folded across his chest in a decidedly negligent pose, while Mayhew sat down at the table opposite their suspect. The detective was a stocky man of medium height with craggy features, shrewd blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled—which was rarely—and graying brown hair that seemed perpetually mussed. He wore dark slacks, a cheap pinstriped tie, and a rumpled sport coat that fit him a little too snugly across the shoulders.

  “How long is this going to take?” Odem demanded, addressing Mayhew. “I’m due in surgery in three hours.”

  “It’s up to you how long this interview lasts,” the detective answered blandly. “If you’re forthcoming with us, then we don’t have to spend all day in here. And if it’s all the same to you, Doc, I’d just as soon not do that. It doesn’t take long for this room to start heating up like a fucking sauna—pardon my French—and I don’t know about you, but I’ve never cared for those damn things. Of course,” he added with a self-deprecating grin, “on my salary, this room in the middle of summer is the closest thing to a sauna that I can afford.”

  Odem offered a thin, condescending smile. “Please spare me the inane small talk, Detective. I don’t need to be lulled into a false sense of security with your overworked-underpaid-public-servant-just-doing-my-job routine. Just get to your questions so that I can be on my way.”

  “Touché,” Mayhew muttered, pretending to be affronted as he withdrew a mini-cassette recorder from the breast pocket of his rumpled sport coat and set it down on the table. “Just trying to be hospitable. Oops. No pun intended.”

  Damien chuckled softly, drawing Odem’s gaze back to him. There was something in the other man’s dark eyes that put him on edge—a glimmer of malice tinged with something else, something indefinable.

  Had they met before? Damien wondered. He’d never stepped foot inside Mercy Harbor, the local hospital where Odem worked as an attending physician, and they sure as hell didn’t travel in the same social circles. So why did he get the uncanny feeling that Odem recognized him?

  As Damien returned the surgeon’s silent gaze, a ghost of a smile played at the corners of Odem’s mouth. As if he were privy to a joke Damien wasn’t.

  What the hell?

  “All right, gentlemen. Let’s begin, shall we?” With a dramatic flourish Mayhew leaned across the table; clicked on the recorder; then stated the names of everyone in the room, the date, and the time.

  “Dr. Odem, the reason we brought you in for questioning this morning was so that we could learn more about the nature of your online relationship with Claire Thorndike, who, as you know, has been missing since Friday. We understand that over the last month, the two of you have corresponded regularly via MyDomain.”

  “That’s correct,” Odem said evenly. “Miss Thorndike and I met online about a month ago. She was learning about John Coltrane at school, for her music appreciation class. She happened to stumble across my page one day while surfing the Internet, and she left a comment telling me how informative the page was, and how much she enjoyed it. Naturally I responded, thanking her for the feedback. She wrote back immediately, and as we began communicating, we realized we had a lot in common.”

  “You did realize, of course, that you were ‘communicating’ with a seventeen-year-old girl,” Damien drawled sardonically.

  “Of course I knew,” Odem said coolly. “But the last time I checked, Agent Wade, there are no laws against socializing online. That’s why they’re called social networking sites.”

  “Is that all you and Claire were doing?” Damien asked softly. “Socializing?”

  “Of course. Claire was interested in learning more about John Coltrane. I happen to consider myself a Coltrane aficionado. Claire also told me she planned to become a doctor. Again, this was an area I felt I could be of some assistance to her.”

  “It sounds like you had quite a lot to teach Little Miss Thorndike,” Mayhew observed. “You were developing something of a mentor–mentee relationship.”

  “You could say that. Claire is an extremely bright, ambitious young lady. It was refreshing to encounter such intelligence and poise in one so young. I told her she would make an excellent doctor one day.”

  “Assuming she gets that chance,” Mayhew murmured.

  Odem said nothing. His face was expressionless.

  “Did Claire ever suggest that the two of you should meet in person?” the detective asked.

  “As a matter of
fact, she did. After we’d been corresponding for two weeks, she hinted that maybe I could give her a tour of the newly remodeled surgery wing at Mercy Harbor. She said that might help her decide on a specialty to pursue.”

  “And how did you respond to her suggestion?”

  “I told her that since her father’s generous endowments over the years had made the new wing possible, she could probably ask him to arrange a private tour of the entire hospital, if she wanted.”

  “You knew that Spencer Thorndike had donated money to the hospital?” Damien interjected.

  Odem looked over at him. “Of course. He’s one of our biggest donors.” He paused. “There’s not an employee at Mercy Harbor who doesn’t know that.”

  Damien held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged dispassionately. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  There was a barely perceptible tightening of Odem’s lips, but he didn’t respond.

  “Why didn’t you want to give Claire a tour of the surgery wing?” Mayhew asked.

  Odem pulled his gaze from Damien to look at the detective. “I didn’t think Claire was really interested in a tour,” he said.

  Mayhew arched a brow. “You thought she was only using that as an excuse to hook up with you?”

  “That’s correct. My suspicion was confirmed a day later when she came right out and asked me if we could meet sometime. She said she’d really enjoyed getting to know me online, and she thought it would be nice if we could get together in person.”

  “And what did you say?”

  Odem looked Mayhew in the eye. “I told her I wasn’t comfortable with that.”

  “Why not?” the detective pressed, sounding vaguely amused. “Because you didn’t want to meet her, or because you were afraid you’d wind up the victim of some Dateline sting operation?”

  Odem smiled grimly. “You must think I’m stupid, Detective. I’m well aware that the legal age of consent in Maryland is sixteen. You and I both know that if I had wanted to meet Claire, I wouldn’t have been breaking any laws.”

  “Then why were you uncomfortable about meeting her?”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Silence fell over the table as the two men stared at each other. After a moment, Odem let out a measured sigh between his teeth. “If you must know,” he said, seeming to choose his words with care, “I was concerned that Claire was developing feelings for me.”

  Mayhew exchanged meaningful looks with Damien. “What kind of feelings?” the detective asked.

  Odem frowned in exasperation. “Do I have to spell out everything for you, Detective?”

  Mayhew chuckled dryly. “Afraid so.You’re the brain surgeon in the room, not me.”

  “Fine. I believed Claire was falling in love with me.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words, but I knew what was happening. She told me constantly how much she admired me, how special I was becoming to her. She said the highlight of her day was coming home and reading messages from me.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “Claire is a very sensitive, misunderstood young woman. Despite how wealthy her father is, and no matter how many expensive gifts he showers upon her, what she craves more than anything is attention. I don’t think Spencer Thorndike realizes just how lonely his daughter is, how starved for affection and approval.”

  Mayhew grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Hey, that’s pretty good, Doc. For a second there you really had me thinking I was talking to my old shrink.”

  Odem’s lips compressed in an expression of disgust. “You asked me to explain myself,” he said tersely, “and then you ridicule my response?”

  “I’m not ridiculing you, Doc,” Mayhew said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “No, sir. I wouldn’t dream of it. I can definitely understand how Claire might have become infatuated with you. A smart, successful, good-looking doctor who took such an interest in her life, her dreams, her goals. If what you say about her is true—that she craved attention—then it’s no wonder she wanted to meet you in person. It sounds like you were giving her all the attention, affection, and approval her father wasn’t. You’re, what, thirty years older than her? Maybe she saw you as a father figure.”

  “Perhaps,” Odem murmured, but something in his expression conveyed his displeasure with the notion.

  “So what you’re telling us,” Damien drawled, “is that you never agreed to meet Claire in person? The two of you weren’t planning to get together on the night she disappeared?”

  Odem met his gaze unflinchingly. “No. We weren’t.”

  “Then why did she tell her best friend otherwise?” Damien lied with a straight face.

  The surgeon didn’t so much as blink. “I can’t imagine why Claire would have told her best friend something like that, because it wasn’t true. We never made any plans to meet.”

  “So you had no problem chatting with her online, but you drew the line at meeting her in person?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how did Claire feel about that? Did she get angry? Did she think you were rejecting her by refusing to meet her?”

  Odem hesitated. “She may have felt that way. The tone of her next two messages to me was noticeably cooler, briefer. She didn’t say she was upset, but I could sense it.”

  “Did that give you second thoughts about seeing her?” Mayhew asked.

  “No. But it did make me wonder whether or not I should continue our online correspondence.”

  “Is that why you closed your MyDomain account?”

  “That was a big part of the reason, yes,” Odem admitted, with a look of mild discomfiture. “The other reason was that I didn’t have as much time to update the page, and I was beginning to receive a lot of unwanted friend requests. I just decided it wasn’t for me anymore.”

  “So you intended to stop corresponding with Claire altogether. Just like that. Cold turkey.”

  “Yes. MyDomain was the only means by which we communicated. We didn’t exchange e-mail addresses or phone numbers, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “We know. We already checked her computer, and there are no e-mails to or from you on any of her personal accounts.” Damien paused. “Did you tell Claire you were deleting your MyDomain page?”

  “I told her I was thinking about it, but I didn’t feel it was necessary to go into all the reasons.”

  “You wanted to spare her feelings.”

  “You could say that.”

  “When was the last time you sent a message to her?”

  “Wednesday, I believe. In the evening.”

  Damien waited a beat. “Are you sure?”

  Odem held his gaze for a prolonged moment, then shrugged dismissively. “It could have been Thursday. I’m not sure. I’ve been on a grueling surgical rotation at the hospital, so the days tend to run together for me.” He paused. “Now that I think about it, yes, it was Thursday. Around ten-thirty.”

  “Did Claire respond to your message?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “How did you think she would react on Saturday morning when she went to your page and saw that it was gone?” Damien probed.

  “I didn’t give it too much thought, to be honest with you. I assumed she would understand since I’d already told her I was thinking about deleting the profile.” Odem glanced at his watch and frowned. “Is this going to take much longer?”

  “Just a few more questions, Doc,” Mayhew chimed in, clasping his hands on the table as he leaned forward in his chair. “Where were you on the night of October 3 between the hours of five-thirty P.M. and two A.M.?”

  “At home. I left the hospital at seven-thirty, stopped at the store to pick up a few things, then went home, where I remained for the rest of the night.”

  “Can anyone vouch for that?”

  “I don’t know, Detective,” Odem said levelly. “I’m single and I live alone, and my neighbors know I work long, crazy hours. It was Friday night. Mos
t of them had probably gone out for the evening. If I had known I would need an alibi, believe me, I would have made plans with someone or volunteered for another shift at the hospital. As it was, all I wanted to do when I got home was take a long, hot shower and crawl into bed. And that’s exactly what I did.”

  “You didn’t make or receive any phone calls? Get on the Internet?”

  “No.”

  How convenient, Damien thought. “There’s something else I’ve been wondering about, Dr. Odem. Maybe you can clear it up for me. I noticed that on Claire’s MyDomain page, all comments and messages from you had been deleted from her file. It was almost as if she was going out of her way to make sure no one found out about your correspondence. What do you have to say about that?”

  “Nothing. I can’t speak for Claire. I won’t presume to know her reasons for deleting my messages. She told me her father had the password to her account. Maybe she thought he’d get the wrong idea if he read the messages.”

  Mayhew snorted out a laugh. “I sure as hell would. No offense, Doc, but there are a lot of perverts prowling around on the Internet. If I found out one of my teenage daughters was getting real friendly with some guy she met online—a guy who’s thirty years older than her—you’d better believe I’d get the wrong fucking idea. And then I’d get my twelve-gauge shotgun and go hunting for the son of a bitch. But, hey, that’s just me.”

  Odem smiled narrowly. “I suppose I should consider myself lucky that Spencer Thorndike hasn’t come hunting for me.”

  “Not yet, anyway.” Damien regarded the surgeon in silence for a moment, his head tipped thoughtfully to one side. “Aren’t you wondering how we found you if Claire dutifully deleted all her messages to and from you?”

  Odem said nothing.

  Damien smiled. “She left one message, dated September 19. She must have forgotten to delete it, or maybe she left it there on purpose, as a clue for the police should anything happen to her. It was a brief message. Cryptic. Almost deliberately so, my partner noted. You said, ‘I hope you liked it.’ That was it. Do you remember what that was about?”