by Lori Avocato
DECEPTION
A Mystery Anthology
~~~
Highland Press Publishing
Florida
Deception
Dr. Robin Hood ©2011 Lori Avocato
Quantum Roulette – Chris Holmes
The Ghost Within ©2011 Victoria Houseman
Cane Fu Grannies ©2011 Teryl Oswald
A Dangerous Haven ©2011 Susan Sweet
Cover Design 2011 Amber Wentworth
Published by Highland Press Publishing at Smashwords
Produced in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web—without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, please contact
Highland Press Publishing,
PO Box 2292, High Springs, FL 32655.
www.highlandpress.org
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, save actual historical figures. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
PRINT ISBN: 978-0-9833960-9-3
HIGHLAND PRESS PUBLISHING
Mystery
DR. ROBIN HOOD
A Romantic Mystery Short Story
Lori Avocato
1
“I do not, I repeat, do not want a baby. No job in the world could force me into motherhood,” I said, glaring at my sleazy boss, one Fabio Scarpello of Scarpello & Tonelli Insurance Agency.
He’d inherited the bossdom.
“Look, doll—”
I imagined Fabio biting his tongue, as well he should. I’d warned him a gazillion times about calling me that sexist name.
Right now I remained silent and glared at him.
Although a devout Catholic with an ingrained Catholic-School-Induced-Conscience or CSIC, I enjoyed a fleeting moment of nastiness, which, sigh, I’d feel guilty about the rest of the day.
Thank you very much to the nuns for my scruples.
“Sokol. I know you don’t want a baby.”
“And how the hell would you know that?”
“Well, okay, I don’t. But this is an easy case. You only have to pretend you want a baby.”
I leaned forward. “Obviously you’ve never had your feet in stirrups.”
He started to chuckle.
“Stop that. You know what I mean. In order to even pretend I want a baby, I have to go through...exams.” No amount of money was worth that if it wasn’t my yearly.
“This case should be cleared up in a short time. Slam dunk for sure...”
I know Fabio was still talking but whenever I’d heard the words, “Slam dunk” in the past, I often came close to dying.
Killed, usually. And my nemesis, the fantastic hunk of a guy who made my damn heart go pitter-patter, Jagger, was usually on the other end of those words.
“Make it worth my while,” I said with some conviction, which sounded better than I felt. Then I looked at Fabio, who was starting to look, well, miffed. A half-burned cigar hung out of his mouth while he chewed gum. Yuck. There were a lot of ‘yucks’ about Fabio. “By the way, can’t you just freaking call me Pauline?”
“You want the job or not?”
I merely stared.
He knew I had a damn good track record and I was the only female in the office who could pull off this job. One, I was a nurse. Two, I was the only one of childbearing age. The only female of childbearing age that is.
For a second, I wondered what it would be like to really have a baby. Then reality hit and I came to my senses. I had no money to even afford my own apartment. But the part that slapped me in the face of reality was—I had no boyfriend at the moment.
I’d recently ended my relationship with one ER Dano, who was a top notched Paramedic—but, alas, an emotionally crippled one, thus the ex part.
My thinking must have appeared to Fabio as clever stalling because he said, “Okay. Okay. I’ll add a five percent bonus—”
“Ten.”
“Seven.”
“Ten.” Was I nuts?
“Ten if you solve this case in less than two weeks.” He leaned forward and shoved a file at me. “Case number eight for you. Don’t mess it up, Pauline.” With that he gave me a dismissive look, which I was only too glad to comply with and get the heck out of this mess of an office.
Dried donuts were the décor along with stale butts.
I chuckled to myself at the pun while I walked out of the office with my nose in the file. Interesting.
“Woo!” I yelled as the file flew out of my hands and my legs flew out from under me after I’d bumped into something.
Before I could hit the moldy blue shag carpet, strong arms grabbed me from behind.
Make that someone.
“Investigators need to be on their toes at all times, Sherlock.”
I cringed at the moniker while secretly inside I gleamed.
“I’m fine. No, you didn’t hurt me. Oh, you’re such a gentleman. Thanks for the concern. See ya,” I managed as I scurried away, I’m sure looking as red faced as Adele, the receptionist’s, long nails. The French Canadian wore a two-piece red suit today, much like a newly washed fire engine and her nails matched. How she typed, I’ll never know. Then again, I’m not sure I ever saw Adele Girard type.
She looked up from her desk and winked at me. “You go, chérie,” she said in her adorable accent.
“Will do.” I didn’t stop to chat, knowing full well she meant my “interaction” with Jagger. Everyone, make that all females, reacted that way about Jagger. Before I turned into the office of my best friend and one of my roommates, I stole a glance down the hallway.
Jagger stood watching.
Oh...my...gosh.
The guy had gusts of pheromones surrounding him, longish dark hair, deep dark eyes, and a grin across his full delectable lips—not that I’d experienced them first hand.
But he also shook his head...once.
Once meant he was merely perturbed at me in an almost entertaining way. Entertaining for him, that is. Damn him. Two or three times and I was a cooked goose in the Jagger department. I never wanted to be a cooked goose.
A cooked goose was not sexy.
Jagger made me want to feel sexy.
I knocked on the office door and heard Goldie say to come in. I shoved open the door, hurried inside and collapsed on the zebra couch beneath the growing palm tree.
Scarpello & Tonelli was located in Hope Valley, Connecticut. And, it was fall. Palm trees. Now I shook my head at the New Orleans native.
Goldie, today he wore his Madonna blonde wig, tight but slenderizing gray pinstripe skirted suit, spike heels of black-patented leather, and the most natural makeup as if sprayed on by a movie star makeup artist. Ever so Goldie, he even wore what I knew were false eyelashes (yet no one would every guess), He looked at me. “I see Jagger’s in the building.”
I shut my eyes.
“What’s the file?”
I opened my eyes to see him stand, go over to the counter and fix me a fantastic hazelnut coffee with extra cream, three packets of Splenda and take a homemade chocolate chip cookie out from a lovely Baccarat crystal dish.
Goldie was pure class.
“Some highfalutin doc down in the Gold Coast. OB/GYN who is doing the infertility work for the rich and beautiful. Some red flag has gone up. Seems he does deliver an awful lot of babies, yet he also does an awful lot of...wel
l, suspicious procedures too.”
“Ouch.”
“No. I don’t mean he does weird stuff to his clients. But something isn’t kosher here, Gold.” I took the coffee and set it on the edge of the desk and bit down on the cookie. “Yum. Miles make these?”
A smile crossed Goldie’s face. I could see the love he had for our other roommate, nurse Miles. They’d had their civil ceremony awhile back and no one was more fitting for each other than these two guys. Miles was a Scarpello, too. Nephew of my sleazy boss, but thank the good Lord, Miles was adopted into the family.
“He’s a winner.” I took a sip of coffee. Perfect. He knew exactly how I liked it. “Where’s the case?”
“Down near Greenwich. Place called Ulverston.”
“Ooo. Snooty, old money, new money, any kind of money. It’s a small place with oodles of rich. Lots of stars and entertainers of all sorts.”
Goldie fixed himself a cappuccino, took a sip, then sat down across from me. “What’s the file say?”
I opened it and read, “Doctor Adrian Dupre.” For a few minutes I read silently then said, “Apparently the patients are always high-class, beautiful, and in want of a baby.”
“And you’re going undercover there,” Goldie said then looked at me.
“What? You don’t think I can pull it off?” I growled at him. Literally like some crazed lioness.
He laughed. “Relax, Suga. Relax.” He paused, looked closer and said, “I know you can...with my makeup, wardrobe and lessons on how to act as if you have a stick up your butt like the lower Fairfield county women do.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
He leaned closer. “Don’t you need a husband?”
~ * ~
“Puleeze, Miles,” I begged propping my feet up on yet another white pillow. Miles had fantastic decorating taste but it always bordered on snow shades in our condo.
Goldie shrieked and yanked the pillow away. “Do you know how much these cost to have cleaned, Suga?”
I shook my head. “Please, guys, give me a break here. I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning with Dr. Dupre. The slip says to bring my husband.” I flopped onto the couch so near our joint-custody Shih Tzu poodle mix, Spanky, he hopped up onto Miles’s lap. I glared at the little traitor. “Thanks for the support.” He merely snuggled under Miles’s arm. “And you both know I ain’t got no husband material available,” I said in a determined whine.
“Pauline, you know I love you and would do anything you need—” Miles said.
I jumped up ready to hug him. “Fantastic!”
“But—”
I fell back onto the sofa very much in purposeful, dramatic, feeble dramatic that is, fashion. “I don’t like that word. But. Sucks. And your tone doesn’t help.”
“Look, Suga, Miles would do it. You know that. But he’s got that big surgery case tomorrow and needs to supervise it.”
Like a little kid, I said, “Can’t someone else do it?” Then I waved my hand. “Listen to me. I’m pathetic. Of course you need to be at work, Miles and, Gold, I know you’re in the midst of that big case.” I bit my nail.
They both looked at me.
I know they were going to suggest someone. Someone I could have go undercover as my husband. Someone whose name began with ‘J’ and if he did go along with it—I’d die dead in the doctor’s office.
“Don’t even think it,” I warned, got up and headed upstairs. “I’ll go myself and say my husband had to work. Then I can see what I can find out.”
They both looked at me and when I turned to go up the stairs I know they were staring at me in some pathetic fashion.
“Stop it, you two. I’m not going to ask him!” With that I went into my bedroom, collapsed on the bed, pulled out my appointment card from my pocket. Adele had given it to me for a consultation tomorrow at 11 a.m. I read it, and decided I would sink or swim on this case all by myself.
And, damn it, I was going to swim!
2
“Mrs. St. Cyr,” the nurse called, standing in the doorway of the doctor’s office.
I sat there reading Parents magazine (to avoid the stares of the Barbie doll women in the waiting room. They all looked alike in a Stepford fashion and all had on clothing I could never afford in a million years) and marveled at the adorable babies. I wanted one of those. I wanted a little doll like the blond one I was staring at—but not right away.
“Ma’am?”
I looked up to see the nurse standing in front of me. “Are you Mrs. St. Cyr?”
“Oh...um—” I felt someone take my arm and lift me up. I’d been so involved in the baby pictures I readied to shove the help away.
A male voice. A deep male voice...that was all too familiar said, “Yes, she is Mrs. St. Cyr.”
I swallowed and stared at Jagger standing beside me. Before I could ‘come to reality’ I swatted his arm away—and readied to die dead.
The nurse looked at me oddly, drooled openly over Jagger, who today wore black jeans and a black tee shirt and his worn black boots and carried his black leather jacket. No great surprise. She then turned and I think she said to follow her, but I was too busy cursing at Jagger under my breath.
“Get the hell out of here,” I whispered.
He merely took my arm and smiled at the nurse when she looked at me—oddly.
She showed us into an office. Not just any office. Big Bucks was the first thing I thought of. Mahogany this. Mahogany that. Marble here. Marble there. A gigantic window overlooking a terrace and the furniture was a deep burgundy leather. Softer than Spanky’s little tummy. Very masculine yet showy.
Only a guy into money would have his office decorated like this.
Jagger guided me to a couch near the desk. I gave him an ‘are you nuts?’ look. “I’m not sitting with you,” I said softly.
“Any investigator worth their salt has to bite the bullet sometimes. You have to be my wife today.” He nearly pushed me down.
Well, it was more a gentle ‘helped’ me down.
Then he leaned closer and said, “Get over it, Sherlock.”
I shut my mouth since my comeback would have sounded childish. The thoughts that ran through my mind were not that I have to play Mrs. Jagger St. Cyr (thank you, Adele, for the French name), but, as a nurse, I knew what lie ahead.
Both partners would need to go through the infertility workup. Workup. As in the works.
The nurse looked at Jagger, “Dr. Dupre will be here soon. Can I get you something?” I think she winked at him. “Coffee?” she asked him.
In all my years of coming to the GYN doc, no one ever even offered me a glass of water. They only gave me a pee cup but never any refreshments.
Jagger gave her a smile and shook his head.
I could feel him next to me.
His shoulder touched mine.
His arm touched mine.
His thigh touched mine.
Show me the stirrups. Anything to get the hell away from my ‘hubby!’
Once the nurse left, I shifted as far as I could so we wouldn’t be touching.
“Nice move, Sherlock. The doc will already know why we don’t have kids if you keep acting like that.”
My face burned. Heat from a blush rose up faster than the elevator in the Empire State building. “I was only getting comfortable,” I lied, not sure why. Jagger knew me better than myself. I could never lie believably to him, or anyone for that matter.
“We need to get to see his records.”
Gulp. That was true. I was so flustered about the upcoming ‘exam’ that I hadn’t really made a plan of action.
Someone cleared their throat and I swung around to see—yikes—a male model for sure. But he had on a white lab coat—was it really tailored?
Geez. In all my years of nursing, I never saw a doctor with a tailored lab coat.
This guy was a freaking hunk. Blond. Scandinavianish/ Beach Boyish.
Suddenly, a jab to my side made me turn to see Jagger’s finge
r pulling away. I made a face at him—nothing I’m proud of, but when you come from a family of five kids, it is an art despite the fact that your mother always says, “Do you want God to freeze your face like that?”
I turned mine into a smile and looked away from Jagger—partly because I always believed my mother. Once words came out of Stella Sokol’s lips—watch out.
The doc approached us with an outstretched hand, so we stood. Jagger shook first with a polite, “Nice to meet you,” but the doc took my hand between two of his, looked at me (I was never so glad that Goldie did my makeup today and he and Miles dressed me!) and then he pulled me close!
He actually touched my bottom!
Within seconds, Jagger had his arm around me and the doc was walking to the other side of the desk. Whether it was job related or not, I chose to think that Jagger’s actions were personal. Protective. Yeah, protective because he was jealous.
Right.
I did a lot of my own interpretive thinking in the presence of Jagger. That’s what got me through most cases. Sad but true.
“So, Mrs. St. Cyr...”
The doctor smiled at me as if Jagger wasn’t in the room. Now he could see what that felt like! It’s what always occurred with other women when Jagger and I were together. Nonperson Pauline. Ha! Not today!
“I see by your chart that you two have been married four years and trying to conceive for the last three.”
Creative imagination going wild. I couldn’t help picturing us in the throes of passion—trying to create a little bundle of joy.
Me in the comfort of Jagger’s arms. Mrs. Jagger St. Cyr.
His lips on...mine. His hands on my—
Again, a poke to my side.
“Stop that!” flew out of my mouth.