by Gayle Wilson
“I’ll tell Paul you came by.”
“It’s okay. I promised to call him after I tracked you down.”
“Tell him I’m fine. And thanks again.”
“You’re very welcome. You take care, now.”
Although that sounded like a farewell, Jenna didn’t close the door. Apparently she was watching the guy leave. Maybe that was considered polite behavior down here. It wouldn’t be in Michigan. Not this time of year.
After an eternity, he heard a car start out front. Jenna waited until the sound of its engine had faded down the drive before she finally closed the door. Then she took time to turn the dead bolt and to slip the chain back into its slot before she turned her head to look at him.
“You think your boss really sent him?”
“He must have. That would be too easy to check out.”
“What do you know about the guy?”
“Not a lot. He joined the practice a couple of years ago. Maybe a little less.”
Well before the last murders in San Diego.
“Although we all see a pretty wide variety of patients,” she went on, “Gary’s specialty is posttraumatic stress disorder.”
“Where’s he from?”
Jenna shook her head. “He probably told me at some time, but I honestly don’t remember.”
“From the lack of a discernible accent, I’d guess the Midwest.”
“That’s possible. I can find out on Monday if it’s important. You’re surely not thinking…”
“Why not?” he asked when she hesitated.
“Because Carlisle, Levitt and Connor hired him. He’s definitely credentialed. Paul would have verified that. So would the insurance carrier. And he undoubtedly came highly recommended as well. The practice is extremely selective. It can afford to be.”
“You wouldn’t be biased about that.”
“Maybe. But I also know Paul. We’re only as good as our reputation. And that’s something he guards closely.”
“What kind of relationship do you have with him?”
“With Paul?”
“With the guy who just left.”
“Other than a few general, semiprofessional conversations, I don’t think I’ve exchanged more than two dozen words with Gary Evers. Until yesterday.”
“When you talked to him about your car.” That was obvious from the conversation he’d overheard.
“He saw me looking at the writing. It was probably obvious I was bothered. He suggested I was reading more into it than I should.”
“How about your relationship with your boss? Isn’t it unusual that he’d be checking up on you on a weekend?”
“Technically, Paul isn’t my boss.”
“Yeah?”
“I tend to think of him in those terms, as well, but…that’s not how a group practice is supposed to work. But to answer your question, I would classify my relationship with him as excellent. Professional. Mutually respectful. He’s let me know that he values my work and that he’s glad I’m a member of the staff. And he’s encouraged me all along to tell the police about everything that happened. He hasn’t made me feel as if I were overreacting to anything.”
She hadn’t said it directly, but then she didn’t have to. She had drawn a contrast between the two men and their responses.
“You like him?”
“Paul? Very much. Probably more this week than at any time I’ve worked for him. Of course, we’ve interacted on a more personal level than ever before.”
“And Gary?”
“Up until yesterday, I would have said that I didn’t have a basis for feeling anything at all about him.”
“And after tonight?”
“I guess that it was thoughtful he’d come over personally to see about me.”
“That didn’t seem strange to you at all.”
“That a co-worker would be concerned enough to do that? Not really. Should it have?”
The question had that same frosty attitude she’d adopted that first day in his office. As if she were talking to someone who didn’t quite understand the way her world worked.
“With what’s going on in this town right now, what kind of guy would be crazy enough to show up unannounced at a woman’s door? Especially when he knows that woman believes she’s being stalked.”
“I’m not sure he knows that.”
“Me, neither. Still…It’s a good question. One I’d like to put to ‘Gary.’”
She smiled at his emphasis on the name. “In any case, you’ve earned your keep already.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She must have read his tone. “I’m just trying to say—badly, I’ll admit—that I’m glad you were here. Thank you.”
“We’re operating on my terms now.”
“Your terms?”
“You aren’t hiring me. You aren’t paying me. And you damn sure aren’t running the show.”
He could tell by the flash of anger in her eyes that she wanted to protest, if not his conditions, his expression of them. She was the kind of woman who was used to being in charge. Of her life. Of her practice. Of her world.
What he needed her to understand was that she was no longer in control of any of those. The sooner she understood, the easier his mission would become.
Fifteen
“I need to pick up my things from the motel,” Sean said as he navigated the winding drive from the complex.
He drove with the same sure confidence he brought to everything he did, Jenna thought. To every movement. Every decision.
Maybe that came from years of commanding men, but she would be willing to bet that much of it was inherent in his personality. He obviously had no problem taking charge. If he ever second-guessed himself, she’d seen no evidence of it.
It had been his decision to take his SUV and leave her Honda in its usual place in front of the apartment. He had even guided her out the back and down the slope to the parking lot rather than going out through the front door.
When he’d arrived in response to her call, he’d left the SUV at the front of the apartments one level down from the crest. Despite that precaution, he had taken time to visually check the area before they’d even approached it. She wasn’t sure whether to be reassured by his diligence or worried by the paranoia it seemed evidence of.
Maybe having to identify your sister’s body did that to you.
“I thought you said you were moving today.”
That had obviously been a ploy to make her back away from calling the police. One she’d fallen for.
“The unit wasn’t ready.”
“Were you seriously going to rent an apartment here?”
“Why not? There were six available when I called. I took the one closest to yours. Now I’m wondering who took the others.”
She thought about that, deciding she needed him to put that cryptic pronouncement into some kind of context. “You think he might be moving in here, too?”
She’d tried to keep her tone light, but the truth was the suggestion he’d just made had shaken her. It still did, even though they were leaving the lights of the complex behind.
“The manager showed me the vacant apartment using a passkey.”
“So?”
“I wonder if he does that for everyone. And I wonder if he’s still got it.”
“The passkey?”
“The killer’s been inside your apartment. There was no evidence he broke in. Sounds like a key to me.”
“One he ‘borrowed’ from the resident manager.”
Coldness settled in the pit of her stomach. The thought of the man who’d tortured those women walking through her rooms, examining her things, maybe touching them, sickened her.
“I’m not saying he knew about it. I’d be curious to know if one is missing.”
“Why not ask?”
“I plan to.”
She let the silence build for several seconds before she returned to her initial concern. “Do you really think it’s possible he might
try to move in here?”
“We still don’t know how he makes his approach to the victims. Friendly neighbor is as good a hypothesis as any. Or someone who needs help moving in. Maybe because he’s got a broken arm.”
That had been one of Ted Bundy’s methods which was obviously where Sean had gotten the idea. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t right about the Inquisitor. Still, Bundy had used the scenario over and over again, changing his act to fit the situation, even in locations where he’d killed before.
Despite knowing that, she knew instinctively she, too, would probably have rushed to the aid of anyone with some visible handicap. To move furniture. Open an apartment door. Fix a flat. The possibilities were endless.
“Or he might already be living there,” Sean said. “Provided he’s wealthy enough.”
He had glanced into the rearview mirror, checking the traffic behind them. Before he looked back at the road, he met her eyes.
“Those apartments are close to the office. That’s why I chose them.”
“Right. That and the view.”
The sarcasm had been clear. And it bothered her.
She’d never spent a lot of time thinking about the privileges she’d grown up with. Her friends had all come from similar backgrounds. She realized that most of her personal contacts, other than those she had with her patients, had been limited to people from the same socioeconomic group. Even the men she’d dated.
And they’d never included anyone like Sean Murphy.
“I’m sorry to say there’s not much of a view from my room,” he said. “For obvious reasons, however, you’re still going to have to come in.”
While she’d been thinking about her social circle, Sean had left the interstate and was now pulling into the lot of one of the inexpensive motels that dotted this exchange. Though only a couple of exits removed from the area where she lived, this represented one of the seedier sections of the city. A place she would have advised a visitor to avoid.
Although neat and well kept, it was obvious by the cars parked in front that the motel’s clientele wasn’t affluent. Sean’s rented SUV was one of the more expensive vehicles in the lot.
“This is it,” he said, stopping in front of a room on the bottom floor of the two-story structure. He shut off the motor and turned to her again. “Not the Hilton.”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Especially since she’d been thinking something very similar. And feeling guilty about it.
“I never believed you came to town for the amenities. Or for the view.”
“It’s got a coffeepot. That’s the only ‘amenity’ that’s ever mattered to me.”
“I don’t know. Hot water’s high on my list. Other than that…”
She let the sentence trail. If Sean wanted to win “Whose accommodations are the worst,” she’d play along. She wasn’t going to apologize for her home, no matter how he had tried to make her feel.
Without answering, he opened his door and stepped out of the car. She watched as he made the now familiar scan of the area.
She couldn’t imagine that he really believed the killer would try to snatch her in a place this open, but she couldn’t fault him for his diligence. Not given the stakes.
She’d been waiting for him to give her some kind of signal that it was okay to get out. Instead he walked around the front of the SUV to open the door for her.
It was the kind of old-fashioned courtesy she’d been raised to expect. And she realized with another flood of guilt that she’d been surprised he’d done something that she would have taken for granted from any other man of her acquaintance.
He held out his hand. After a slight hesitation, one she hoped he had been unaware of, she put hers into his. Hard and slightly callused, his fingers closed around hers with a strength that created a shiver of awareness in her lower body. A sensation that was definitely sexual in nature.
Hiding that unexpected bit of self-discovery by looking at the door to his room rather than at him, she released his hand. Despite the cold, it seemed she could still feel his fingers, warm and supportive, around hers. She couldn’t remember the last time a man’s touch had so completely disconcerted her.
Only a few minutes ago she’d been thinking of him as someone outside her realm of experience. Alien to who she was. And then she had reacted to him on the most primitive level at which a man and woman could connect.
Apparently unaware of her reaction, he put his hand around her elbow. Maybe the gesture was intended to urge her forward, since her realization of her attraction to him had literally stopped her in her tracks. Or maybe it was again the same kind of gesture any of her other escorts would have made to help her safely onto the curb.
No matter his motive, she reacted, not so much to his hand on her arm as to her acknowledgment of how fully aware she was of it. And of him.
She pulled her elbow sharply forward, removing it from his grip. Although it hadn’t been the message she’d intended to send, she realized belatedly there was no way what she’d done could be construed as anything other than rejection. Of his touch and his solicitude.
Sean made no comment, stepping past her to lead the way to the door of his room. As he did, he began to struggle to remove his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, causing a flashback to that afternoon in her office.
Almost the first thing she’d noticed about him was how well he filled out that nearly threadbare denim. Her training had told her then her awareness of that was clearly sexual in nature. So why had her response to the feel of his hand on her arm taken her by surprise?
Because he’d been a blank slate the first time they’d met? And now…
Now she knew enough to know he was outside the realm of her experience. And enough to fear her inability to deal with the things that set him apart from the other men she’d known.
Still trying to cope with what had just happened, she watched the movements of those long brown fingers as they slipped the key card into its slot and then turned the handle. Sean pushed open the door and, holding it, stood within the frame waiting for her to enter the room.
In order to do that, she would have to pass very close to him. She started forward, edging toward the other side of the doorway.
As she brushed by, she was once more conscious of his size. Not only his height, but the width of his shoulders and muscled chest. Something else she’d noticed during that first encounter. Something she had almost forgotten in the animosity of their next few meetings.
Those had generated a very different kind of heat because she had decided by then that he was the enemy. Now she knew he wasn’t—
“This won’t take but a minute,” he said.
Leaving her standing just inside the door, which had closed behind her, Sean walked across the room to drag a duffel bag from the top of the closet. He tossed it onto the bed, and then, as she watched, he began to take things out of the drawers of the dresser. Methodically he rolled each item of clothing—underwear, jeans, T-shirts—and stuffed them inside the canvas bag. He worked with an efficient rhythm, emptying the drawers in a matter of minutes.
When he was done, he moved over to the closet, sliding open the mirrored door. A few shirts and a couple of pairs of khaki pants hung on the motel’s wooden hangers. He lifted all of them off the rack and repeated the process he’d used on the rest of his clothing, filling the bag.
“The other stuff is in the bathroom.”
She wasn’t sure why he’d bothered with the explanation. He barely glanced at her before he disappeared inside the other room.
Leaving her alone in what was essentially his bedroom.
Her eyes automatically tracked back to the duffel bag. She could hear the occasional clinking noise, indicating that he was cleaning off the counter.
As she listened, she was aware of the queen-size bed that suddenly seemed to dominate the room. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a motel room with a man. College, maybe. Spring break.
> If so, the natural tension created by the situation had probably been eased by having had too much to drink. Or by a long friendship. But this…
She was acting like she was eighteen and had come here for a one-night stand. The last thing on Sean Murphy’s mind was having a physical relationship with her. As far as he was concerned, their connection was for one purpose and one purpose only. To bring down the man who had killed his sister.
“I think that’s everything.”
His comment brought her gaze up. Sean was standing just outside the door to the bathroom. There was no doubt in her mind that he’d been watching her. And for the few vital seconds it mattered, she couldn’t think of a response because she knew that what she’d been thinking was probably written on her face.
“You okay?”
“Of course,” she said, trying to gather her composure.
He nodded, still holding her eyes. “I did warn you, you know.”
Stupidly, she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “About what?”
“Shall we say the inelegance of the establishment?”
“Coffeepot. Hot water. A bed. What else could anyone need?”
There was a hint of amusement within the clear blue eyes. His lips twitched, but instead of answering, he walked across and pushed the black Dopp kit he’d held in his hands into the duffel bag. Then, with what seemed to be a single motion, he zipped it and hoisted the strap onto his shoulder.
“Ready?”
For some idiotic reason, she wanted to suggest that he might want to look under the bed. Take another glance into the bathroom. Check the shower enclosure. All the things she did as a matter of course when she was ready to check out of a hotel. Apparently he didn’t feel the need for any of those activities.
“Of course.”
He gestured toward the door, and since she was still hovering in the same spot she’d occupied the entire time she’d been in the room, she was much nearer to it than he was. She turned and took the three steps that would take her there, opening the door to the cold.
She stepped across the threshold, her eyes focusing on the SUV parked almost directly in front of the room. In the light from the motel’s security lights, its black hood gleamed as if newly waxed.