Death's Door

by Meryl Sawyer

  Jessica Connelly: What if I were a single mother?

  Nurse Avery: Well, that would be different.

  Jessica Connelly: I don’t see how.

  God! thought Madison. The challenging note so obvious on the page seemed exactly like her mother. Jessica Connelly—now Jessica Whitcomb—always confronted people, demanding they explain themselves. The words on the page hit an invisible target she hadn’t known existed, a hollow place in her heart. She forced herself to keep reading.

  Nurse Avery: In those cases, it’s the mother’s decision alone…to have a child using artificial insemination. Since she would be the sole parent, the clinic doesn’t require—

  Jessica Connelly: I understand what you mean, but my case is different. My husband would rather be childless than use a sperm donor. I don’t feel that way.

  For a moment, Madison was torn by the urge to close her eyes and imagine her mother. Her parents had been close…yet so different. Her father openly loved Madison in a way most fathers reserved for their sons. Zach Connelly had never mentioned sports but he’d always encouraged Madison to participate. No, more than encouraged, now that she thought about it. He had playfully insisted. At some point in junior high school, Madison had realized this was how many fathers in her class behaved with their sons.

  Madison had never cared for dolls or dress-up the way other little girls had. She’d been content to read books and experiment with her science kits. Buddy’s Bodies had been a favorite. It required the assembly of the human body from the internal organs outward. Another kit had been Living Chemistry, which involved many simple experiments.

  Her father prodded Madison to get out of the house and “exercise.” She’d found that she enjoyed sports but she’d never been a real star. It took time and practice that she would rather devote to her kits. She’d earned a spot on her high school varsity tennis team. She wouldn’t have stuck with it except her father had assured her that a sport was a necessary component to be awarded an academic scholarship.

  He’d been correct. Colleges these days required students to be “well-rounded” and those who qualified for a scholarship needed over-the-top grades, superior SAT scores and a slew of other commendations that would elevate them above the herd. She could thank her father for channeling her energy so that she set herself apart from other high school students across the nation.

  From her earliest years, Madison had shown an aptitude for retaining obscure facts. They began playing the child’s edition of Trivial Pursuit when Madison was in the second grade. She still remembered her first correct answer. What animal has a day named for it? She could almost hear herself shouting out the answer as she jumped up and down. “A groundhog, Daddy. Groundhog Day.” The memory triggered a raw ache. This wonderful man had been her father, not some jerk who’d sold his sperm for cash.

  Her mother hadn’t been good at arcane facts but Zach Connelly was a trove of information on far-flung subjects. In order to compete and win his approval, Madison had trained herself to remember facts so unimportant that they never registered with most people.

  “Does it sound like your mother?” Paul asked in a low-pitched voice.

  “A little,” she grudgingly conceded.

  “What more proof do you need?” he asked.

  “Proof?” Madison huffed her disgust. “This so-called transcript from a defunct clinic that everyone sued for all kinds of illegal things doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No?”

  “No!” she shot back in a tight, pinched voice. She’d never been a good liar. Evidently, he’d seen or sensed her reaction to several items in the transcript. The air in the room seemed to be charged the way the atmosphere heralds an approaching storm.

  “No,” she asserted again in her most authoritative tone. “I don’t believe I’m related to that man.”

  “A simple paternity test would prove it one way or the other.”

  That stopped her. Madison couldn’t deny a test would be definitive. “I want to talk to my mother before I do anything.”

  “Isn’t she in the South Pacific on a sailboat? It might be—” he shrugged “—weeks before she telephones you. Right?”

  “She should call any day,” Madison said quickly. “I heard from her a few weeks ago. She’ll phone as soon as she gets to a port with a telephone she can use or when she meets someone with a yacht that has satellite service.”

  What she said was true. She did expect to hear from her mother. Jessica had called every few weeks since she’d sailed from Fort Lauderdale with the stud-muffin she’d married. But Madison couldn’t honestly remember exactly when she’d last spoken to her mother. It could have been two weeks ago, maybe three. Madison had been so caught up with the business and looking for a new home that she hadn’t paid that much attention.

  She needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with her mother now. It occurred to her that she and her mother had shared only one intimate, soul-baring talk. That had been the night her father had died. They’d discussed what a great man he was and how much he’d meant to both of them.

  Her mother had been so agonizingly upset at losing the man she’d met in college and married the day after graduation that it came as a physical blow when she’d brought home a much younger man she’d met at a fund-raiser. It was even more upsetting when Jessica Connelly had married him less than a year after Madison’s father had died.

  What had she been thinking?

  Madison still didn’t have a clue. She’d always been closer to her father than her mother. It had begun in early childhood when her father had been more willing to play with her. She’d reveled in the attention and as she grew, Madison took her problems and her triumphs to her father first.

  “Why don’t you at least meet Wyatt Holbrook?” Paul asked. “That way you’ll have more to tell your mother when she calls.”

  Why don’t you go to hell. Although she was tempted to yell this at him, Madison kept her temper in check. “I need to talk to my mother before I do anything,” she insisted.

  She knew she sounded a bit childish, but she did feel the need to talk to…Erin. That’s who she would have called about this as soon as Paul Tanner had spouted his wild tale. Erin’s death had closed that door irreversibly. Never, ever again would she be able to discuss anything with her best friend.

  But even if Erin were here, this was a question for her mother and she might not check in for days or even weeks. When she did, the connection might be a hiss of static the way it was last time. But Madison wouldn’t have any choice. She would have to ask this question over the telephone.

  She was meeting Rob at Erin’s home tonight to decide what to do with her friend’s things. She could talk to Rob. He had a level head and he was accustomed to listening to people with sick and dying pets, giving him a wisdom and empathy few others had.

  Once she could have discussed this with Aiden, but those days were gone. Even if she could, she knew Aiden would insist Paul’s story was true. She could just hear Aiden saying, Why would a man like Paul Tanner make up such a thing?

  “I understand how hard this has been for you. These last few days have been tough. Why don’t we go get the bill of sale for the dog?” Paul suggested. “It may help us decide what’s going on here.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PAUL GAZED at Madison for a moment with what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He knew she wanted to get rid of him, to make the whole business with Wyatt Holbrook disappear. Not on his watch. “I’ll drive you out to your place. You can give me the sales receipt. Burgess expects me to bring it to him.”

  She hesitated, then finally responded. “Can’t I do it tomorrow? It takes forever to get to Fisher Island and back. I’ve been out of the office for days. I’m swamped.”

  “The sooner Burgess tracks down the person who sold your friend Aspen, the sooner he can pursue a valuable suspect or eliminate that person. Don’t you want Erin’s killer found?”

  “Of course I do. It’s just that I doubt someone
would sell her a dog, then kill her.”

  “You never know.” Privately he agreed and Burgess must have, as well. Aw, hell. Maybe not. Lincoln Burgess was a piss-poor excuse for a detective—not exactly the best choice for a complicated investigation. Around the department, they referred to Burgess as “the missing link.” Over the years, it had been shortened to Link. Dumb schmucks thought it was a nickname for Lincoln.

  “Well…I guess I—”

  Paul stood. “Come on. You can bring the dog with you. I’m in an SUV today.”

  “What dog?”

  Her wide-eyed, innocent stare didn’t fool him. “The golden retriever under your desk.”

  It was a moment before she replied, “You can’t see him from there.”

  “No, but I see a few gold hairs on the carpet. Considering this is your first day back at the office, the dog has to be here.” He gestured around at the small cube. “The only place he could be is under your desk.”

  She rewarded him with the suggestion of a smile that alluringly tipped the corners of her mouth upward. With her wild mane of hair and no makeup, she could have passed for a woman who’d just gotten out of bed. The thought alone sent a rush of heat through his body.

  He cataloged every inch of her face while keeping his expression neutral as if he were thinking about the dog. Yeah, right. Something about this woman made his mind wander to sex every time he was around her.

  He resisted the urge to allow his eyes to detour lower to where the V-neck of her T-shirt revealed the shadowy cleft between her breasts. His pulse thrummed just thinking about the way she’d looked when he’d walked into her office and had taken the opportunity to give her the slow once-over. True, he hadn’t seen below the waist—she’d been sitting—but he liked what he could see.

  “You’re right. Aspen is under the desk.” She rose from her seat in one fluid motion that he found undeniably provocative even though he knew she didn’t intend it to be. “I didn’t let on I had him because I didn’t want Detective Burgess to take him.”

  As they walked out to his Jeep with the golden retriever at Madison’s side, Paul thought about the dog. When he’d heard her screaming and raced into Erin Wycoff’s home, he’d charged through the kitchen, barely noticing the envelope on the counter beside the pizza box. Minutes later the envelope and the dog had been gone.

  He’d followed Madison from the office and knew she hadn’t had the dog with her, but he hadn’t realized it wasn’t her dog. The way she’d pitched a fit at the scene about the dog needing eye treatment, he’d assumed the dog was hers.

  Never assume. When he’d studied criminology at the University of Florida, his favorite professor, Dr. Wells, often tried to trick them into false assumptions that led to erroneous conclusions in the test cases he taught.

  All right, all right. He should have known better, but his mind had been busy processing the horror of the scene and trying to decide what type of killer had been responsible for the brutal attack. Hell, he’d been itching to get back into action. He hated being on leave. That was why he’d gone into the station this morning. He was hoping to find that his leave had been terminated. No such luck.

  He held the back door of his car open for Aspen. The dog hesitated.

  Madison patted the floor in front of him. “Go on, boy. Hop in.” The dog leaped up into the car.

  They got in and Paul drove out of the parking lot. This close, he caught a whiff of the same scent he had the other time he’d been this near her. Flowery but fresh, not heavy the way some women wore too much fragrance.

  He waited until they were down the road before asking, “What did the vet say about Aspen’s eye problem?”

  “He needs drops twice a day. He’ll be fine.”

  “How did you know to take him to the vet?”

  “His eyes were tearing a lot more than normal. At least that’s what I thought. I just threw that show-dog stuff at them because I had to get away. I couldn’t stand thinking about my friend with all those people walking around her naked body, taking pictures, measuring things, collecting particles of hair and fiber and…I don’t know what.”

  Paul nodded, letting her think he believed her, but there was a missed beat in the conversation. Something about the dog. What?

  “You got him help pretty fast,” he remarked, to see if she would reveal something incriminating.

  “I took him to Robert Matthews. He was Erin’s boyfriend but they broke up last year. I knew he’d get me in right away and he did. I saw his associate.”

  “That’s good.” Something in her explanation still sounded off but he wasn’t sure what. Evidently the dog meant a lot to her. He had the feeling it was more than the last link to her murdered friend.

  “Did Erin leave her boyfriend or was it the other way around?”

  She kept staring straight ahead. He couldn’t help noticing she had a turned-up nose that gave her profile a cute upward tilt. “I think it was mutual,” she finally said.

  “She was your best friend. Right? Don’t girls discuss stuff like this?” He knew damn well they did. He was pretty sure now that Madison was hiding something. From the first, he’d been positive she hadn’t killed Erin Wycoff, but now he wondered if she knew more about the murder than she was admitting.

  He reminded himself that he wasn’t working on this case. The department could have requested to have him removed from disability leave now that his doctor had approved his return to the force, but they hadn’t. He was working for his father and needed to complete this job.

  “Women do talk,” she told him in a low voice charged with emotion. “But at the time Erin and Rob called it quits, my husband had just left me. I had all I could deal with.”

  “Wouldn’t that have brought you closer to your friend?”

  “It did. Erin listened to me whine big-time, but she didn’t talk much about herself. It was several weeks before I came out of my fog of self-pity and noticed Rob wasn’t around. Erin didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “I see,” he said, although he didn’t. He didn’t have any sisters, and his mother had left them and moved to California when he was seven. His experience with women amounted to sex and not much more.

  “You see, Erin was a secretive person. Always.” She’d turned to face him as she explained. “Our mothers met when they were pregnant. I’ve always…known Erin…forever. We were like sisters, but even as a child she kept things to herself. I didn’t find it unusual that Erin didn’t want to talk about Rob.”

  The earnest note in her voice told him this was the truth, as she saw it. One thing he’d learned as a detective was the truth often depended on your perspective. “She never mentioned the property she left you.”

  “Erin believed her parents left her a worthless chunk of property. She never told me it had become valuable or that anyone was interested in buying it.”

  “She must have mentioned the chimp place—”

  “Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce. No, she didn’t, but Erin volunteered at a shelter for homeless animals. She probably found out about it there and discussed it with them.”

  They pulled into the ferry line for Fisher Island. Aspen had hopped up onto the backseat, and Paul rolled down the rear window so the dog could stick his head out and sniff the breeze while the ferry made the short crossing to the island.

  The guard recognized Madison and waved them onto the ferry used exclusively by Fisher Island residents. Personally, Paul thought the whole private-island bit was a pain in the ass. It was a hassle to get on and off the place. While guards helped protect residents’ privacy, it wasn’t a guarantee they were safe. He’d easily gotten onto the island. He could have had a fake police ID and been admitted.

  It was almost noon and there were only a few other cars on the small ferry. Neither of them said anything on the short trip. They drove up to the Italian villa where Madison was staying. Madison jumped out and opened the door for Aspen. It seemed to take the dog a split second longer than necessary to jump
down.

  Paul got out of the car, asking, “Did the vet say Aspen has some sort of a vision problem, not just an eye infection?”

  Madison’s eyes became sharper, more focused. “No, but his infection wasn’t treated early enough. He has some vision loss, but he’s okay now. Aren’t you, boy?”

  The dog nuzzled Madison’s hand. Again, Paul thought there was more to the connection between them than Madison wanted to reveal.

  Inside the house, Madison went right to what he assumed was the bedroom she was using. Waiting in the entry with Aspen, he stroked the dog’s smooth head and looked into his eyes. “Trouble seeing, huh?”

  The dog poked at his hand with his nose. His eyes appeared a little cloudy, as if he had the beginnings of cataracts. He knew dogs could develop cataracts like humans, but Aspen seemed too young.

  “Here it is,” said Madison, returning to the entry.

  Paul took it from her and pulled the certificate out of the envelope. He scanned the document. It immediately raised a red flag. “Someone sold a purebred dog for twenty-five dollars?”

  “I guess. Erin told me a woman couldn’t keep her dog. I assumed she just wanted to find it a good home, then I discovered this bill of sale.”

  “What did Erin say exactly?”

  Madison silently regarded him for a moment, seeming to weigh her words. “I’m not sure. We were in a club. The music was really loud. She just mentioned the dog. I didn’t ask a lot of questions because of the noise.”

  “You didn’t discuss it later when you came back to her house and had pizza?”

  “No. She knew I wanted a dog. I’ve always wanted one but Mom was allergic to them, then I married a man who didn’t want animals of any kind.” She shrugged as if her ex-husband didn’t matter, but Paul sensed this was still an open wound. Words were pouring out of her too rapidly, which made him think again that she was concealing something.

  “We started to talk about the houses I had seen with the Realtor. I forgot all about the dog until I was on the way home. I figured I’d call Erin about it the next day. My first priority was to find a house where I could keep a pet.” She waved a hand at the elegant living room beyond the foyer. “The owners will return soon and I need my own place.”