Black at Heart

by Leslie Parrish

  Lily wasn't holding her breath. "Until the very moment they realize he's there to confront them about their lies. Then they'll lawyer up and invite him to come back when he has a warrant."

  Though she could be wrong. Wyatt had a way of making women want to talk to him. Maybe it was his calmness, the sense that you could tell him absolutely anything and he would remain understanding, sympathetic, and controlled while coming up with a solution to any problem. It was a rare talent, one she found incredibly appealing. Though Lily had to acknowledge she also liked it when he lost a little of that control. Especially when he lost it with her, in his bed.

  Hoping Jackie didn't correctly interpret the satisfied smile she couldn't contain, she turned her head away and said, "I think I'll go get some coffee. Want some?"

  "Sure."

  Lily started to walk toward the kitchen, but got only a few steps when Jackie stopped her.

  "Wait!"

  "What is it?"

  Jackie was reading over a document on her laptop screen, her eyes narrowed, a frown line between them. "I was just going over this family history and something struck me. A name that looks really familiar."

  Lily walked over to stand behind her, staring down at the screen. Jackie moved the cursor to the name in question, highlighting it.

  "What does it mean?" she asked, equally surprised.

  "I don't know."

  "We should probably let Wyatt know " Lily said. She reached into the pocket of her shorts for her cell phone. "I'll try to reach him-"

  A squeal of tires from outside interrupted her. A door slammed; someone yelled.

  Jackie leapt up and hurried to the front window. "Oh, my God," she whispered, staring out at the street.

  "What is it?"

  "You've gotta get out of here." The woman spun around, putting her hands in the middle of Lily's back and physically pushing her so hard the phone flew out of Lily's hands. "Out the back door. Fast."

  "What?"

  "It's Anspaugh," the woman said. "It looks like he brought a whole posse, and I suspect he's gunning for you."

  As expected, Judith Underwood hadn't been pleased to hear he was waiting to see her.

  Wyatt didn't let that stop him. After informing the receptionist that he'd wait, despite the woman's claims that Dr. Underwood couldn't possibly squeeze in a meeting, he'd taken a seat in the waiting room. It had taken one conversation-just one-and he'd gotten the meeting he wanted. Apparently the grieving widow didn't like hearing that he was talking to the patients about being here to question one of the doctors about a crime.

  He was whistling as he followed the receptionist down the familiar back hallway. But he found it hard to maintain the cheery facade when he reached that T in the corridor and came face-to-face with Dr. Roger Underwood's portrait. Wyatt had to pause, stare at the man, search for any glimmer of insanity in his eyes or utter evil in his half smile.

  There was nothing. No hint that the man was the kind of depraved monster who would abuse young children. No malice in the smile to show he would gladly slaughter anyone who got in his way.

  "It was so sad. A real tragedy," the receptionist said. "Dr. Roger being so young and all."

  "Had he had a history of problems with his heart?"

  Wyatt asked, wondering so much more about Roger's death now that he knew just what a fiend he had been in life.

  "Never," she said. "It really was a mystery. He played tennis all the time, ate right, had regular physicals. Never sick a day."

  Very unusual.

  The receptionist, who was not the same one he'd seen on his last visit, meaning she might have been around long enough to know something, inched a tiny bit closer. Wyatt knew the move signaled a desire to spill a little more information. With the right prodding she'd do just that.

  "Did they do an autopsy?" he asked, trying to sound only mildly interested.

  "Uh-uh," said the woman-girl really, who was pretty in a vacant way. "They probably would have if the family hadn't been who they are. But I guess since there wasn't a mark on him, other than the tiny cut where he fell on the wine opener, they didn't suspect anything." She lowered her voice a notch. "There were some whispers, though."

  "Oh?"

  When she didn't elaborate immediately, Wyatt intentionally pulled his gaze off the portrait and stared down at the young woman, offering her a smile of encouragement. She lifted a hand to her throat, her cheeks turning a soft pink as she stared up at him. She wasn't the first woman to look into his blue eyes and see something she wanted to see there, and she almost certainly wouldn't be the last.

  "Well…" The girl looked quickly over her shoulder, then peeked past Wyatt down the other short hallway.

  Confirming they were not being observed, she continued. "I'm not one to speak ill of the dead."

  Everyone spoke ill of the dead. It just took them an hour or two.

  "Dr. Roger was a little hard to work for." She swallowed visibly. "And I don't imagine he was much easier to live with. Dr. Alfred loved him to bits, but other than that, he wasn't really well liked around here."

  "Not even by his wife and sister, or his stepbrother?"

  She frowned, shaking her head. "Sometimes it seemed like all three of them were united in hating him, others like they were fighting over a boyfriend they were crazy about. It was really weird. Dr. Judith and Dr. Angela sometimes act the same way now about Dr. Kean."

  Dr. Kean. Angela Kean's angry husband? What must it be like for him, working down the hall from his domineering wife, across from his overbearing father-in-law?

  And right beside his stunning, widowed sister-in-law?

  Somewhere nearby, a door closed, and the young woman stepped back, guilty and nervous. "I think I've said enough."

  Wyatt moved forward, staying close, maintaining that intimate air that silently told her she could trust him. "Dr. Roger's death… do you suspect someone did something to him?"

  She pulled her lips into her mouth, as if clamping down on them to keep herself from saying something she shouldn't.

  He persisted. "You don't think he had a heart attack?"

  After a brief hesitation, she shook her head once, keeping those lips sealed. As if as long as she didn't say the words aloud, she wasn't really talking about her employers.

  "His sister?" Jealous of their father's attention, perhaps?

  No response.

  Wyatt zoomed in on his own favorite suspect. "His wife?"

  The eyes flared briefly, confirming it. The receptionist believed Roger Underwood's wife had done something to him. Having met the woman, he thought it highly possible. She was beautiful, brilliant. How difficult would it be for a woman with so much to offer to find out her own husband had such vile preferences? A blow like that could drive any woman to a sudden rage. No doubt about that.

  Had she found out about her husband on that very night-perhaps figuring out Roger had stolen the car and was involved in the planned attack on two young children? What possible excuse had he given her for disappearing for those couple of nights? Might he actually have admitted what he'd done?

  A sound penetrated from just inside the closed office door to their right. Without hesitation, Wyatt put the tips of his fingers on the receptionist's shoulder, turning her and pushing her forward, so she appeared to be leading him. A second later, the door swung inward and Dr. Judith Underwood appeared there.

  She stared at the receptionist, her pretty eyes glacial, her face as cold as a mask carved of pure ice. "I was beginning to think you got lost."

  "Sorry," the young woman said.

  Wyatt interrupted. "It was entirely my fault. I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting."

  He offered her an intimate smile, extending his hand. Judith took it, her eyes widening as he kept her fingers clasped in his own for a moment longer than was technically necessary. "Once again, I've interrupted your workday," he murmured.

  "You'll have to make it up to me sometime," she replied, her tone intimate, matching his. The
icy expression melted as she gently tugged him inside, seeming to forget all about the receptionist, who had already scurried away.

  "How should I do that?" he asked, stepping aside as she shut the door behind him.

  "Lunch?"

  She might not be hungry after their meeting, but he merely offered her a noncommittal shrug. As if he were instead silently saying. Dinner?

  "Please, have a seat." She didn't go to her own, behind the desk, instead gracefully lowering herself to a small love seat in the corner, grouped with two comfortable chairs. He assumed the coffee-klatch setup was designed to make skittish patients feel more at ease before submitting their laugh lines or extra chins to the knife.

  "Thank you," he said, taking his time, as if keenly interested in the office. He glanced around, noting the degrees, the awards, the thank-you letters from grateful patients. There was only one photograph, the same huge portrait of the Underwood family in front of their beach house that hung in the outer hallway. He recalled it also graced one of the walls in Dr. Kean's office-the senior Dr. Underwood's contribution to the building's decor, perhaps?

  He also realized one more thing. There was no photo of Roger Underwood. Not a single snapshot to remind the grieving widow of her dearly departed.

  That was all right. He had something else that would bring the man to mind.

  The understated flirtation had relaxed her. She had correctly interpreted the intimacy in his smile and that second-too-long handshake, felt comfortable and mildly flattered at his attention. Meaning it was time to pull the rug out.

  Wyatt unceremoniously pulled the digital recorder out of his pocket and set it down on the coffee table, hitting the play switch even as he sat down across from her. Roger Underwood's voice emerged from it.

  The color dropped from Judith's face. "What is that?"

  Lifting a brow, as if confused by the query, Wyatt replied, "I believe it's your husband's workshop on a new piece of laser equipment, isn't it? From a speech he gave in 2007?"

  The woman moved as if to stand, but Wyatt put a hand on her arm, not restraining, still intimate. And he threw her off balance again. "Judith, I understand," he said softly.

  She hesitated.

  "Of course you would want to protect your husband."

  She didn't settle back in her seat, but she did at least stop trying to get up.

  "You loved him."

  The muscles beneath his hand tensed.

  "Or at least you wanted to protect his reputation. For the sake of the family, of the business."

  She finally leaned back in the chair. Which was when he knew he had nailed it.

  Wyatt let go of her arm and sat back himself, eyeing her with sympathy. "It can't have been easy."

  "What is it you want?"

  "I mean, knowing what he had been planning to do.

  It must have been so difficult. How long had you known the truth about him?"

  Blinking, she simply stared and he could almost see the wheels turning in the intelligent mind. How much does he know? What is he asking? What do I say?

  Wyatt tipped the balance again, intentionally leaving her to wonder. "Forgive me; we can discuss that later. Let's talk about the night in question. The night he took your sister-in-law's car. Did you notice he was missing?"

  Judith hesitated before finally admitting, "Yes. Right before the banquet."

  "He hadn't told you he was going anywhere?"

  "He mentioned something about having to make some calls."

  "Did you find that strange?"

  "Of course. Roger usually made an effort to keep his daddy happy, even though Alfred would forgive him absolutely anything." Judith glanced out the window, staring at the blue sky beyond. "I later wondered why he didn't just claim he was sick, but I suppose Ben already had the corner on faking illness to cover what he was really up to that night."

  "Ben?

  She pulled her attention back to his face. "Benjamin Kean. Angela's husband. He backed out of the entire conference at the last minute, claiming illness."

  Wyatt suspected he knew the answer, but he still asked the question. "Do you know why?"

  "Of course. He was down here screwing the little receptionist who just escorted you back here and filled your head with lots of rumors and speculations."

  Wyatt didn't try to deny it, staying on the offensive. "Was that a frequent occurrence?"

  "Ben's a slave to his own penis and his own legend. He nails any woman who will say yes, singing the poor-put-upon-husband song to anyone who will listen."

  "Including you?"

  The woman shrugged. "Occasionally. If I was bored or was angry at my husband for some reason and wanted to punish him."

  Wyatt allowed himself a second to process it-Ben Kean sounded like a slime; the condition obviously spread like a cancer in this family. But he did not sound like a man who shared his late brother-in-law's tastes. That didn't mean the men hadn't been friends, and he hadn't helped Roger in his moment of utmost need, but Wyatt doubted it. He couldn't see Underwood turning to a man who'd had an affair with his wife. Men like Roger tended to dislike it when other people played with their possessions.

  "When did you next see your husband after the night of the banquet?"

  Judith met his eye directly. "About forty-eight hours later, on Monday night. He showed up at the house looking like he'd been at a Roman orgy."

  "You hadn't reported him missing?"

  She shrugged, as if to say it had not been the first time. Probably it hadn't.

  "Any explanation as to where he'd been?"

  "None."

  "Did you have any suspicions?" he asked, making no insinuations either way. He wasn't sure how much Judith knew, and didn't want her to clam up now by his bringing up the one subject she wouldn't touch.

  To his surprise, she didn't just touch it; she hit it with a sledgehammer. "Sure. He was probably out at some sick party where rich perverts paid lots of money to partner swap, to see someone being tortured, or to have sex with helpless little children."

  Wyatt didn't react with as much as a blink. She might have thought she was going to shock him, might have worded her answer to do exactly that. But it hadn't worked. "So you did know."

  She nodded once. "He'd gotten tangled up in a role-playing Web site a few months before and I found him acting out the kinds of fantasies that would land most people in a mental ward."

  Satan's Playground.

  "You hadn't known before then?"

  She finally rose, her slim body graceful and elegant, innately sensuous. How on earth had she ended up in Roger Underwood's bed? "His cruel streak was a thing of legend, though of course nobody filled me in on it until after we were married." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't know if I can explain it. Some people are just… magnetic. Sadistic-you can see it in their eyes-but seductive just the same. They become almost an addiction."

  Wyatt began to see the answer to his own unasked question. For a while, anyway, Roger had been her obsession.

  "He cared about no one and could be utterly vicious, which just made you want him even more."

  Underwood had obviously been a charming sociopath. Wyatt had met a few like him. Manson, so they said, had possessed that same quality to inspire utter devotion to the point of insanity, his cruelty never driving away those who were madly in love with him.

  "There was no depravity too low. I found out things about him after we married____________________" She shook her head, glancing toward the door, then back at Wyatt. This time, she lowered her voice, visibly shaken for the very first time since she'd opened up. "No one was off-limits if he wanted that person. You understand? No one."

  He understood. It made him sick, but Wyatt understood.

  "How long had it gone on, do you think?"

  "Oh, years. I know he started in with his stepbrother, Philip, when the boy was eight years old and Roger was in medical school. Philip's teenage sister, too."

  And his own sister? The one who'd
hated him, loved him?

  Vile. But not impossible.

  So Roger had been molesting children for decades. He'd found his victims close at hand. Which led Wyatt to believe that his plans on the night he'd attacked Lily had involved far more than a sexual attack. Had those children really existed, Wyatt truly believed Roger would have kidnapped, then slaughtered them, choosing strangers with whom he had absolutely no connection in an effort to cover his crime. The homeless man who'd assisted him would more than likely have been found dead the next day, too.

  "His father never suspected?"

  "Who knows what that old man thinks?" Bitterness oozed from her. "Precious Roger could do nothing wrong, and if he suddenly decided he wanted to fuck the family dog, Alfred would have found a reason to justify it."

  It was only eleven thirty, but Judith seemed to need a bracer. She walked over to a small wet bar, opened a miniaturized wine refrigerator, and pulled out a pricey-looking bottle. "Care to join me?"

  Though he couldn't blame her, he declined.

  "Suit yourself." Judith was almost ruthless in her movements as she peeled the foil off the bottle. Retrieving a small device, a plastic tube holding a tiny air canister, with a long, slim needle at the end, she plunged the sharp point into the cork, pushed a button to release the compressed air, and watched as the cork erupted out.

  Violent, but expedient.

  "That's unusual-looking," he murmured.

  Judith pushed the cork off the needle with her thumb. "Wine has always been the unhappy wife's best friend, hasn't it? Anything that gets the cork out of the bottle a little faster is okay by me."

  He hadn't been thinking of how fast that needle could get a cork out of a bottle, but of all its other potential uses. "Your husband was opening a wine bottle when he died, wasn't he?"

  Glass clinked against glass as she poured herself a generous helping of Chardonnay. "He was a connoisseur, had already gone through a few bottles earlier that night with his sister and her husband, who had come over for dinner."

  Wyatt narrowed his eyes in concentration. "You mentioned that when I was here the other day. Can you tell me more about that night? What happened?"

  Carrying her drink, she returned to her seat. "There's not much to tell. We ate, drank. Roger and his sister were very tense with one another, so she and her husband left early to walk back to their place." She smiled bitterly. "I assumed they were having a lovers' quarrel."