by Jenna Ryan
Sam held her temper with difficulty. “I just don’t see how our going to West Valley Hospital is going to lead us to Mary. So what if she and Margaret both went there for some reason? And maybe Margaret did get treated better. Mary’s not likely to be prowling around the hospital grounds. So, I repeat, Aidan, what’s the real point of this little jaunt?”
He tolerated her restrained tirade with nothing more than a quirk of his sensual lips. “A good investigator never dismisses any clue, Sam. If it’ll help us to understand Mary’s resentment, then this trip will have been worthwhile.”
Sam made a face but offered no further argument. “Turn left,” was all she said, then held her tongue for the remainder of the journey.
The hospital turned out to be a lavish affair, similar to Oak-haven on the outside, and not a great deal different once they passed through the doors. And yet…
“It lacks the antiseptic touch,” Aidan observed as they walked across the carpeted…”lobby” was the only word that fit the wide entryway brimming with large plants and antique armchairs.
Sam nudged him, aware of an odd sensation sweeping through her. “Are you charmed, Aidan?”
He frowned. “Should I be?”
“I think we’re supposed to be, but it isn’t working on me.’ I keep thinking about the institute where Ingrid Bergman worked in that movie she did with Gregory Peck.”
“Spellbound,” Aidan supplied, glancing at a bored-looking orderly who was en route to the elevator.
Sam stared at him in profile. “You know Spellbound?”
“I like Ingrid Bergman.”
“Most men do.” She plastered a smile on her face as they neared the front desk and the stone-faced woman seated behind it “Hello. We were wondering if you could give us some information?”
The woman cut her off with a chilly, “Do you have a booking?”
“I beg your pardon?”
As if talking to a five-year-old child, the woman repeated each word with deliberation. “Do you have a booking?”
Sam, who despised superior attitudes, matched the woman’s cold tone. “As I think I explained, we want some information, not a room for the night.”
The woman bristled. “This isn’t the Waldorf. We don’t have rooms as such.”
She didn’t have manners as such, either. “Look—” Sam tried again, but she was neatly cut off by Aidan who seemed to realize that while this woman had no courtesy to spare for another female, she likely had plenty in reserve for a man.
“The information we’re after regards an actress by the name of Mary Lamont Do you know her?”
The woman’s stone-hard countenance melted at his smile. Sam was tempted to punch her, kick Aidan and forget this whole stupid idea.
“I’ve heard the name, of course,” she said.
“Has she ever stayed here?”
The woman’s smile faltered. “That information’s classified. I’m awfully sorry.”
Sure she was, Sam thought nastily. Why was Aidan wasting his time with this iceberg?
“Do you know if anyone on staff was also here after World War Two?”
“Dr. Coates was an intern back then. He’s not in today, but as I said—” a dimple appeared in her cheek “—all of our patients’ files are classified.”
Restless, and more irritated than she had a right to be, Sam left the desk. This place disturbed her on a fundamental level. It was too—something. Forbidding? Solemn? Spooky…
The last adjective seemed a bit extreme, but it did feel spooky, she decided. There were too many long shadows and dark patches behind the plants, too much black and white amid the greenery, too much artificial lavender in the air. For all its contrivances, this private hospital was no less sterile than L.A. General. Maybe, she thought in open distaste, that was precisely why she found it so repulsive. That, plus the fact that the woman behind the front desk had, in her opinion, all the personality of a corpse.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” the woman was apologizing loudly in Aidan’s wake. Sam felt his hand cup her elbow and presumed they were leaving. “I work weekdays till four if you’re out this way again.”
“I’d rather die on the side of the road,” Sam muttered uncharitably, endeavoring to pry her arm free of Aidan’s grasp. “What’s your hurry? Running to the car will save us about fifteen seconds. You can’t speed on canyon roads.”
Shoving open the door, Aidan cast a smiling glance over his shoulder. The woman waggled her fingers in response. “Goodbye,” she called after him.
“Good riddance,” Sam retorted out of earshot. His hand pressed with arousing persistence into the small of her back. “Aidan, stop pushing me.”
“Keep your voice down and move.” He nodded to the Jeep. “We’ll drive out and park about a mile back.”
“What? Why?” Sam sidestepped his disturbing touch. She turned her head to glare at him, then suddenly realized what he had in mind and halted. “No way, Aidan. I’m not breaking in. There’s a million better things we could be doing—like searching for Anthea Pennant or harassing Rockland, Hollister and Wells. We could even try talking to that jealous makeup artist, Evelyn What’s-her-name.”
“Mesmyr,” Aidan told her. Opening the passenger door, he bulldozed her inside. “We’ll get to all of those people in time. First I want to see Mary’s hospital records.”
Exasperated, Sam stared at him. “Why? What is it you’re hoping to find?”
“Think, Sam,” he said patiently. “What did Mrs. Payne say about that last movie she mentioned? The post-war one.”
“I don’t know. Something about Mary’s face looking fatter than Margaret’s.”
“No, she said that Mary’s face got fatter than Margaret’s. She also said they had to change their clothes later in the film, that they’d been in uniforms at the start.”
Uncomprehending, Sam fastened her seat belt. “What’s so special about being in uniform in a movie?”
Aidan arched a meaningful brow. “Movie uniforms are tight-fitting. And Mary thought her face was getting too fat.”
“I still don’t…” As if pulled by an invisible hand, Sam’s head snapped around. “You think she was pregnant?”
“I think it’s possible they both were.” He leaned closer, until his hair and breath brushed tantalizingly across her cheek. “Mary might have a child, Sam. And that child might just know where Mary is.”
Chapter Seven
“This is dangerous,” Sam declared in a hiss. “And incredibly stupid. We’re going to get caught.”
“Don’t think about it,” Aidan suggested, his breath warm on her cheek.
He’d jimmied the lock on one of the basement windows at the West Valley Hospital and crawled in ahead of her. Straight into the morgue, she’d bet. But she sat down on the high ledge regardless, stole a final apprehensive glance through the shrubbery and jumped into his upstretched arms.
The mistake was obvious. It was also irrevocable. She held her breath to avoid inhaling the heady male scent of soap, shaving cream and warm skin. She couldn’t hope to avoid the arms that circled her waist or the fact that he would have to slide her body along the harder length of his own to set her down.
For a long, heart-stirring moment, he held her there, pressed tightly against him. She felt every part of him, right down to the bulge that burned into her stomach.
It required a visible effort, but he put her firmly away from him before either of them could get any foolish ideas.
Bad timing, Sam thought, shivering at the force of her desire. Eyes averted, voice tight, she managed to ask, “Are we in the morgue?”
“Storeroom,” Aidan said from the door. How had he gotten across the room so fast? And how dare he sound so unaffected when her insides had turned to liquid?
Eyes scanning the hall beyond the cracked open door, he held a hand backward for her. “It’s clear.”
It was also cold, damp and unpleasant. As she took Aidan’s hand, Sam wondered if this plac
e had been nicer in the mid to late forties. Most things in Hollywood probably had.
“Why don’t we just find a computer and go through the files that way?” she whispered as they crept along a poorly lit basement corridor.
Aidan’s eyes continued to dart around. “The files we want might not be on computer.” Pausing, he rattled one of the doorknobs. “Start checking doors. And keep your eyes open.”
She could have argued wisdom and logic again, but what would be the point? On top of which, she was curious. If Mary really had been pregnant—no hint of which had been printed in any of the articles she and Guido had dug up—then it was reasonable to assume that her child might know her whereabouts. At least it was worth a shot.
Machines whirred in noisy profusion as they moved from door to door. Central humidifiers, central air-conditioning, air filters, water purification systems—every mechanical device in the hospital appeared to have its roots down here.
Sam spied a sign that read Morgue, and avoided it studiously, so much so that she almost blundered straight into a roomful of technicians. Whether medical or mechanical, she wasn’t sure. She heard a puzzled voice ask, “What was that?” as the door clicked quietly closed, then a growled, “Nothing. Give me a smoke and deal.”
Must be an early lunch break, she decided, pressing her ear to the next door as a precaution. “Any luck?” she whispered to Aidan.
“No…Yes.” His tall, rangy frame disappeared across the threshold. “There are cabinets and boxes in here.”
“Body-size?” Sam asked.
“Could be,” he replied blandly.
She pushed past him for a look. “You have a morbid sense of humor, do you know that?”
“It’s the Irish. We drink, dance and sing like birds at funerals.”
The door marked Morgue evidently hadn’t escaped his notice. Sexy he might be, but his wicked Irish humor was entirely too well-developed. She wondered how one would go about buying arsenic, then felt Aidan move past her and shoved the unwarranted speculation from her mind.
“Those look like filing cabinets,” she noted, working her way discreetly out of range of the door. She blew a layer of dust from one of the wooden tops. “Old, too. They’re made of metal now.” She started to kneel then caught a glimpse of a battered photo album and picked it up. “Here’s Lana Turner. And Jimmy Durante. And the Marx Brothers.” She glanced doubtfully at the flaking cover. “Someone must have been a fan. I wonder if celebrities still come to this hospital for—whatever it was they used to come to places like this for…God, this is a great shot of Errol Flynn.”
“Drawers, Sam,” Aidan reminded.
“You have no romance in your soul, do you?”
His enigmatic eyes caught hers. “I like candlelight,” he said. “And wine.”
Sam masked a shudder and clapped the scrapbook closed.
They rummaged in silence for a time. Once Sam detected voices, but it was only a pair of orderlies wheeling a gurney toward the elevator.
“Charming,” she murmured, and returned to her task.
It seemed they must be in the right place. Some of the files dated back as far as nineteen twenty-seven. Unfortunately, discarded information required little organization, and none of it had been stored alphabetically.
“Here’s Margaret’s file,” Aidan remarked finally, drawing out a slender folder.
Sam turned a file sideways to mark her spot and went to peer over his shoulder. “She looked a little like Gene Tierney, didn’t she?”
Aidan glanced back at her. His mouth was disturbingly close to hers when he said, “There’s no picture here, Sam. What made you think of Gene Tierney?”
“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Laura. Her picture was in the scrapbook. I just think they had similar features, that’s all, but then that was the ‘in’ look at the time. What does Margaret’s file say?”
“That she had her daughter—” he flipped to the front page “—in nineteen forty-eight”
“Five years before she left Hollywood,” Sam recalled.
It crossed her mind as she skimmed the contents of the medical file that she should probably be experiencing a poignant pang or two. After all, her natural grandmother had appeared out of nowhere. Search as she might, however, the pangs refused to strike. Blood notwithstanding, Grandma Lena in Baltimore was and always would be her maternal grand-mother.
“Margaret showed me copies of these records,” she said at length and calmly closed the folder. “It’s Mary’s records we need to find.”
Aidan’s guarded gaze told her nothing. “None of this upsets you then?” he asked in a shrewd tone.
“Honestly? No. I have a family, Aidan. They’ve been there for me my whole life. Someone who pops out of the woodwork at this stage interests me, but I don’t consider myself a different person because of it.”
“That’s a very practical attitude.”
“Really? I’m not usually a practical person. It’s funny how you react to different things, isn’t it?”
Smiling vaguely, he stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Not really. You’re practical when it counts, that’s all. Like when it comes to birth families and infiltrating hospital files.”
He leaned closer, and anticipation rippled through her. Was he going to kiss her? Did she want him to? Silly question. She held her breath and refused to acknowledge the disappointment that washed through her when his lips merely grazed her cheekbone.
She returned to her digging, irritable and oddly unenthu-siastic. Damn Aidan Brodie for making her want him. Damn herself for responding to whatever it was about him that she was responding to. Damn everyone and everything, including Mary Lamont and Margaret Truesdale, for tossing old skeletons out of their closets and into hers.
Another group of passersby forced Aidan to douse the lights. Sam heard creaking wheels coming from the morgue again but wisely chose not to look. She was hot and tired and growing hungry when she spotted Mary Lamont’s name inside the third from the last box on her side of the room.
“Got it,” she said, wedging the file out. “It’s a lot fatter than Margaret’s.”
It was Aidan’s turn to peer over her shoulder. She felt the warmth that emanated from him even when he didn’t touch her.
“What year?” he asked.
“Nineteen forty-eight. Same year and month as Margaret. Odd coincidence.”
A frown marred Aidan’s forehead as he skimmed ahead. “Mary probably would have preferred the term ‘curse.’ Read on.”
Sam followed his gaze lower. “Mary did have a baby!” she exclaimed. “A girl called…” She searched for a name but found none.
Aidan swore softly. “She didn’t give it a name, Sam. Mary’s child was stillborn.” He tapped the bottom line. “She was detained at West Valley for psychiatric evaluation after the birth,” he continued. “Margaret was packing to leave the hospital when Thurman Wells brought Mary in in labor.”
Sam fanned herself with an empty file folder. “Were Thurman and Mary together then?”
“Looks like it” Still crouched next to the cabinet, Aidan indicated the admission form. “His signature’s here under ‘Next of Kin’ and as the person to notify in case of emergency.”
Sam bit her lower lip. “Mary had to deal with the loss of the child at birth. Do you think that’s why they kept her on here?”
“Partly, but as far as I can tell, Mary had been having severe emotional problems long before she gave birth.”
“On top of which, Margaret’s baby lived. Chalk up another grudge.” Sighing, Sam started to close the file; however, a name on the birth form caught her eye. “Stan Hollister!” She stared unblinking, prompting Aidan to frown.
“What about him?”
“Mary put his name down as the father.” Brow knit, she lifted her head. “Who did Margaret list as the father of her child?
“She didn’t,” Aidan told her. “She left that space blank. I was surprised you weren’t more curious earlier.”
&
nbsp; A blush rose in Sam’s cheeks. “I explained that, Aidan. Until a few days ago, Margaret Truesdale had no part in my life. I’m sorry if that offends you, but I can’t think of her as anything other than a reclusive old movie star who’s being stalked by a crazy woman with a music box fetish.”
More gently than she would have expected, Aidan removed Mary’s file from her fingers and tucked it into his waistband. “It doesn’t offend me, Sam. I’d probably feel the same way in your position.”
She accepted the hand he offered to pull her up. Dusting off, she murmured, “I wonder how Stan Hollister felt? Or Thurman Wells, for that matter, since he was married to her at the time. It must be hell knowing your wife’s carrying another man’s baby.”
“Assuming he knew before the fact,” Aidan said, aggra-vatingly logical. “It might have come as a complete shock to him.”
“Whatever. They divorced in nineteen forty-nine, four years before Margaret went into hiding.” Easing the door open, Sam checked the corridor in both directions, then hastily pulled her head back into the room. “Damn,” she gasped. “It’s Alis-tair!” She leaned on the door to close it, flinching as the latch clicked loudly. “He’s coming down the hall, and ten to one he’s not heading for the morgue.”
Aidan muttered an oath and grasped her wrist “We’ll have to duck behind one of the cabinets.”
Maybe he wouldn’t come in here, Sam thought, trying not to bang into any of the precariously stacked boxes. But of course he would, because he was undoubtedly after the same information as they were.
“Stay down,” Aidan ordered, pulling her to her knees in front of him. It was not a position she cared to be in.
He tucked her against him, so securely that when he spoke, his lips grazed her temple. “He’s coming in.”
Sam held her breath and watched as the doorknob turned. The shadow that was Alistair Blue slipped soundlessly across the threshold, closed the door and began groping for the light switch. When he located it, Sam had to swallow another gasp, this one a blend of surprise and panic.