by Pamela Clare
Not so long ago, the command in his tone would have gotten her back up. She knew now that he was motivated by genuine concern, abetted by an overdeveloped sense of protectiveness. She might even have complied to alleviate his anxiety. But today she just couldn’t.
“John, I’ve been hunched over this desk for three hours. I need a stretch, some fresh air and a change of scenery.”
“You’re walking?”
She rolled her eyes. “The whole block and a half.”
“Take somebody with you.”
She glanced at her wristwatch. Ten to twelve. In all probability, Vince would have just left and Candace would be just getting back. “Okay,” she agreed.
“Got your alarm with you?”
Her gaze automatically went to the small gadget she’d clipped to her purse. Sacrilege to ruin the clean lines of the Prada, but it was better than wearing it around her neck as John had wanted. “Yeah, I’ve got it,” she said. “Any more orders?”
“Yeah. Talk dirty to me.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t know how.”
“Sure you do. I’d give you a demonstration, but I’m standing at a public pay phone in a crowded hallway. Wouldn’t want to draw a crowd.”
A crowded hallway in the Justice Building. Her lips curved in a wicked smile. She might not be very good at it, but she might never get another chance like this one. “Well, there is this one fantasy…”
“Yeah? Go on.”
He did it again, dropped his voice to that register where it seemed to shiver right through her. “Not a fantasy, really. More of a wish.”
“One we can make come true?”
She closed her eyes. “Easily. And you wouldn’t even have to move a muscle.”
“Sounds … intriguing. Care to elaborate, counselor?”
“I was thinking it’s my turn to get under your shirt this time.”
Background voices surged and receded. Then John’s voice in the receiver, lower and more gravelly. “I think that could be arranged.”
“Good. Because my hands seem to have developed a will of their own.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmmm. You see, they’ve got this bone-deep need to touch warm skin. Your chest, your back, your shoulders.” Voices again in the background, this time very close. She pictured him angling himself away from the others.
“Sounds wonderful.”
“When these hands are finished with you, Detective, I expect to be able to sculpt a three dimensional model with my eyes shut.”
He swore softly.
“Problem, Detective?”
“Witch. I think you know what my problem is.”
She laughed. “You asked for it,” she reminded him.
His answering laugh warmed her all the way through. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”
“Goodbye, John.”
“Wait! Don’t hang up. I can’t walk away from the phone.”
Her grin broadened. “I recommend calling the local radio station. Maybe they’ll spin a special request for you.”
Fifteen minutes later, as she popped the lid off her taco salad, she was still smiling at the mental image of John staring in disbelief at the dead receiver in his hand. Life was good.
Beneath the table, her cell phone buzzed from inside her purse, its ringer muted. Swiveling in the chair, she groped awkwardly for the bag. It rang twice more before she managed to open the bag and retrieve the slim phone. She turned away from the crowd and flipped the phone open, pressing a hand to one ear to drown out the lunch hour din.
“Suzannah Phelps.”
No reply.
“Hello?”
There were muffled noises in the background, but nothing else; no breathing, no caller carrying on a second conversation.
“Hello? Are you there, caller?” she repeated.
Again, no reply.
Shrugging, she snapped the phone shut and slipped it back in her purse. This time, she parked her bag on the table for quicker access if it rang again, and returned her attention to her meal.
Half way through the salad, she started to feel a little giddy, though not unpleasantly so. All this thinking about John, she supposed. She picked up her diet cola and drained it. There’d be hell to pay tonight for their little phone conversation. The sweetest kind of hell. He’d insist she make reality of the mind pictures she’d conjured.
Suddenly, in the middle of a busy fast-food family restaurant, at the height of the lunch hour, she was fully aroused. Her face felt flushed, her breasts tingled and her body ached. Tonight was too far away.
What if she were to meet him at the Justice Building? Maybe she could whisk him away when he finished his testimony.
Her breath came hard at the thought. Pushing her tray out of the way, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Briefly, the faces around her seemed to swim together. She blinked twice, and everything came back into focus.
Her eagerness to reach John suddenly struck her as funny. She laughed, drawing a few curious looks. God, she’d better shut up or the lunch time crowd would think she was drunk! Carefully, she made her way through the parking lot. Three more steps and she gained the sidewalk, except as she walked, the concrete slabs beneath her feet seemed to undulate, making her stagger.
Good God, she was drunk! But how? She hadn’t consumed anything even mildly alcoholic.
Finally, fear penetrated her confusion. Going hot and cold at once, she glanced back toward the parking lot. Cars, faces, clothing … everything blurred. She tried to gauge the respective distances to the restaurant and to her office. The restaurant was a little closer, but if someone had doctored her drink or her food, they must have done it back there.
Why hadn’t she listened to John?
Then she heard it, brisk, purposeful footsteps approaching from behind. Heart tripping, she lurched into motion again. She had to get to her office. A man’s voice called her name. Instead of turning, she broke into a run.
The voice called her name again, much closer, shouting for her to stop in a tone so commanding she almost obeyed. She was so close now, her office building just across the street, but with her pursuer closing in, she’d never be able to cross the busy four lanes. She could hear his breathing now, close behind her and knew she wouldn’t even have time to reach one of the commercial businesses on the north side of the street.
This was it. Her only choice was to turn and fight, hope someone came to her rescue.
The alarm! She was carrying a personal alarm. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? Fingers clumsy, she fumbled for and found the electronic gadget attached to her purse. Seconds later, the air was rent by the high-pitched, intermittent shriek. It was the last sound she heard before she sank to the sun-warmed sidewalk in a dead faint.
*
Quigg burst through the doors of the ER. Ignoring the stares from the crowded waiting room, he strode to the triage station. “Suzannah Phelps. Where is she?”
“Are you a relative, sir?”
He flashed tin, saw the nurse’s expression change. “She was brought in a couple of hours ago.”
Hours ago. He gritted his teeth. No one had told him until after his testimony was out of the way. Couldn’t have him rushing off before cross. Intellectually, he understood the decision, but dammit, he didn’t have to like it.
A moment later, an orderly led him to one of the many curtained treatment areas fanning out around a busy nurses’ station, but he didn’t need the direction. He could hear Ray Morgan’s voice coming from the last bed from the end. Thanking the orderly, Quigg stepped into the cubicle.
Whatever he’d expected to see, it wasn’t a fully dressed, perfectly normal-looking Suzannah slipping her shoes on as though she were ready to walk out the door.
“Suzannah?”
“John!”
She looked like she was going to get up, and he moved into the room to restrain her with a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?” The question came out gruffly.
She lifted a h
and to cover his. “I’m fine now, thanks to Detective Morgan.”
“Ray,” Razor corrected.
“Ray,” she amended, glancing in his direction. Then she turned back to face Quigg. “Thanks for sending him.”
“Don’t thank me too fast.” Ray’s voice laced with self-disgust. “All I managed to do is nearly chase you into traffic.”
Quigg dragged his gaze away from Suzannah’s to give Ray a sharp look.
“I was late getting there.” Ray grimaced. “They’ve got Smythe Street dug up for repairs. With the detour, by the time I got there she’d already started back on foot. I could see she was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other, so I went after her. But by then, she’d figured out she’d been slipped a mickie, and seeing as I was chasing her, she concluded I was the perp and ran.”
Quigg blanched. No one had told him the details, only that someone had spiked her drink and she’d been rushed to hospital.
Now it was Suzannah who grimaced. “I finally remembered the personal alarm and triggered it just as Det … just as Ray caught up to me. Then I passed out.” She gave Ray an apologetic smile. “I gather he had to flash his badge for every suspicious merchant and passer-by until a patrol car arrived.”
“No problem,” Ray assured her. “You did exactly the right thing, triggering that alarm. Right, Quigg?”
“Right.” He caught her gaze and held it. “Though not going to lunch alone would have been my first choice.”
She groaned. “Please, no lecture, John. I got the message loud and clear.”
Maybe. But there’d still be a lecture. Later. “So, what’d the bastard slip you?”
She swallowed, as though to ease a tight throat. “Rohypnol.”
Quigg swore, tightening his fingers on her shoulder. Rohypnol. A benzodiazepine, ten times stronger than Valium. Date rape drug. Roofies. Rope. The street names for the strictly illegal drug ripped through his mind. As did the drug’s effects—intoxication, decreased resistance, and in high doses, blackout. In extremely high doses, coma and death. At as little as five or ten bucks a pop, it was gaining chic with the high school crowd as a cheap drunk. One roofie was just as intoxicating as a case of beer, and sadly, easier for teens to lay hands on. Not to mention its popularity with a certain segment of the male population who weren’t averse to a little sexual assault, provided the victim couldn’t dredge up the details afterward for a successful prosecution.
“They did a full tox screen on me,” she continued, “but Ray tipped them to look specifically for Rohypnol and GHB.”
“Good call,” Quigg said. They didn’t usually screen for Rohypnol on a standard tox screening.
Ray shrugged. “Instant intoxication. Seemed a good bet.”
Quigg forced down the bile rising at the back of his throat. It must have been a pretty massive dose to knock her back so quickly without the extra kick of alcohol. He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close. She slipped an arm around his waist and hugged him back, pressing her face into his shirt. No doubt she thought the gesture was meant to preserve the fiction of a relationship for Ray’s benefit, but Quigg knew better. He did it simply because he couldn’t not do it. After a few seconds, he drew back.
“Well, you look okay now.”
She smiled. “Amazing what a little stomach-pumping will do for a gal.”
Of course they’d have pumped her stomach. Standard drill. Guess he’d wanted to spare himself the mental picture. “Any idea as to how he did it?”
“I got a call on my cell phone just as I sat down to eat,” she said. “I had to fish around under the table for my purse, then I think I turned away to shield the phone from the noise when I answered it.”
She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear in a gesture so familiar, it gave him a strange ache in his chest.
“All I can figure is someone must have swapped drinks while I was preoccupied with the phone.”
“And the caller’s identity?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “No one on the line.”
Quigg flicked his gaze to Ray.
“We’re already on it, but I think we’re going to find it was placed from the pay phone in the vestibule of the restaurant. The receiver was found to be off the hook.”
“Prints?”
“Wiped clean.”
“So, what’s next?”
“We’re canvassing everyone we can find who was there at the time. Maybe someone will remember seeing someone walk away from the payphone, leaving the receiver off the hook.”
“Show Suzannah the list of people interviewed,” he suggested. “Maybe she’ll see a name there that jogs something.”
Suzannah inhaled sharply and come to her feet. Quigg reached out to steady her, but she didn’t seem to need it.
“You think he was among the interviewees?” She asked. “Your guys might have actually talked to him?”
“Certainly possible,” said Ray. “He was definitely in the restaurant to make the call and to switch drinks. But he could just as easily have been waiting outside for you. Or maybe he was inside but left before the troops got there.”
“It couldn’t hurt to have a look at your client list for the past few years,” Quigg added.
“I can’t give you my client list. That would –”
“Just the criminal cases,” Quigg interrupted. “Especially guys who got sent up despite your defense and who are out now.”
“He’s right. It’s a matter of public record anyway,” Ray put in. “We could look it up ourselves, but I expect it would be quicker and easier if you just give us the information yourself.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Anything more for me?”
Quigg looked at Ray, who said, “I got a statement, and she’s undertaken to give us a list of clients she’s represented on criminal charges, with outcomes. I think we’re done for now.”
Quigg turned to Suzannah. “Anything you can think of we should be pursuing?”
Something flickered in her eyes, and she cast a sideways glance at Ray. “No, nothing.”
Damn. There was something, but she wasn’t about to say in front of Razor. “Then I guess we’re good.”
“In that case, do you think we could go home, now?” she said.
“You’re cleared to leave already?”
“Yes.”
Ray cleared his throat. “Okay then. I’m out of here.” He shrugged back into the jacket he’d taken off earlier, straightened his tie. “FYI, you’ll see a lot more patrol cars in your neighborhood, Suzannah. Hopefully, you can rest a little easier.”
Suzannah looked from Quigg to Ray and back to Quigg again.
“What?” said Ray, picking up on the silent exchange. “What’d I miss?”
“Suzannah’s a little concerned it might disadvantage her in the courtroom if she requests anything over and above,” he explained for Ray’s benefit. Then, for Suzannah’s benefit, he assured her there wouldn’t be a cop car sitting on her house, just stepped up patrols in the area.
She looked to Ray for confirmation and he held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor. No special treatment. We’d do the same for anyone in this situation.”
Suzannah picked up her purse. “Okay, let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, Quigg helped her into the passenger seat of the Taurus. Rounding the car, he climbed in himself, then turned to her. “Okay, what is it?”
Her eyes rounded. “What’s what?”
“Don’t bat those eyelashes at me, Suzannah. You were withholding something back there. You know it, I know it, and Ray Morgan sure as hell knows it.”
“He does?”
Her face paled and Quigg felt like a real bastard.
“You don’t do as many interviews as he’s done and not pick up when someone is holding back.”
“Why didn’t he press me?”
Quigg shrugged. “Who knows? Because he knew I knew and figured I’d get it out of you, maybe? Because he knows you had a rough af
ternoon and he’s not as big a bastard as I am?” He keyed the ignition and the Ford’s motor jumped to life, but he didn’t put it in gear. “I’m sure I’ll hear about it tomorrow. In the meantime, don’t try to change the subject. What were you hiding back there?” He nodded in the direction of the hospital.
“You don’t want to hear this.”
He tried to catch her eye, but she’d dipped her head. Did she really think she could say something that would shock him? “Honey, unless it involves necrophilia, I’ve probably heard it.”
She bit her lip. “Remember me asking you about Constable Newman at Ray and Grace’s barbecue?”
“Goddammit.”
“See?” Her eyes flashed at him. “I told you you wouldn’t want to hear this.”
He took a deep breath, forcing the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach down. “It’s okay. Go on. I’ll let you finish.”
She trained her gaze directly ahead as she spoke. “I’d left my wine glass unattended for a few minutes, and when I came back to reclaim it, he made a point of telling me I shouldn’t do that, that anyone could come along and spike it. That even in little old Fredericton, Rohypnol was not an unknown commodity.”
Cripes. “Maybe it was a friendly warning.”
“Maybe.”
“Did you get a bad vibe off him?”
Her brow creased. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Suzannah, either you did or you didn’t.”
“Okay, I did.” She turned to look him square in the eye. “But it was more like he wanted to jerk me around just a little, score a point or two off the Ice Princess. But now…” She shrugged, letting her words tail off.
Quigg swore softly. She dropped her gaze to her hands, which were clasped in her lap, but not before he glimpsed something in her eyes. Resignation? Was that it?
Ah, hell. She thought he’d dismiss her concern, take Newman’s side automatically.
Which he would have done a week ago. Which he should do even now. The realization sent a shock through him.
The unspoken code pretty much demanded his first loyalty had to be to his fellow officers, and for good reason. Cops counted on other cops for effective backup when a situation went sour. The minute you broke with that code was the minute you could stop feeling like that backup would be there for you a hundred percent. How far down this road was he prepared to go?