Part 10 (2/2)

She smiled at her friends. ”I don't know if I'm all right, exactly, but working is better than not working.” She paused. ”Thanks for asking.”

Judy nodded her dark head, then turned to the pile of charts. ”Okay, what's cooking?”

Karen filled her in on Mr. Gibbons's worrisome fever, which was now up to a hundred one point three. Lab hadn't called with results of the blood tests, and Dr. Pierini was due to start his rounds in half an hour.

”I'll goose them a little,” Judy said, reaching for the phone. ”Oh, I found out what was wrong with Ashley.”

”Diarrhea, you said.”

”Yeah, but what caused it.” She turned her attention to the phone. ”Oh, hi, this is Judy on the surgical floor. Do you have anything yet on the Gibbons culture? Sure.” On hold, she turned her attention back to them. ”She thought it was food poisoning the first time it happened, and she raised h.e.l.l in the cafeteria, but no one else had been sick, so they ignored her. This time, she narrowed it down. Jelly beans.”

”Jelly beans?” Piper looked aghast. She loved popcorn Jelly Bellies.

”She's on a diet, so she bought some sugar-free jelly beans for a snack when she went to a movie. Four hours later, the runs started.” Judy snuggled the phone more comfortably between her neck and shoulder. ”She went shopping yesterday, bought some more jelly beans, the same thing happened. This time, the jelly beans were all she had eaten. She said she bloated with gas and the cramps were awful.”

”On the other hand,” Piper said practically, ”she probably did lose weight.”

They all laughed. ”Yeah,” Judy said, ”but she said it wasn't worth it.” She turned her attention back to the phone. ”Look, is there anything you can do to rush this along? The patient's temp is climbing. This may be staph. Okay. Thanks. I'll call back.” She hung up and said to Karen, ”They promised to have the results in another fifteen minutes.”

”It usually takes them double the time they promise. They might have the results before Dr. Pierini starts his rounds, if he's running late.” Karen glanced up the hallway as a doctor appeared, frowning as he studied a chart. It was the elusive Dr. Dailey, appearing for all the world as if he had been working hard all night. ”What brand were those jelly beans?”

”Karen, honey, you don't want to go there,” Judy warned.

”Oh, they're not for me. I was thinking of giving some to Dr. Daileya”for therapeutic reasons, of course.”

”Of course,” they all chorused, smiling, because the unanimous diagnosis among the nursing staff was that Dr. Dailey was full of s.h.i.+t.

Karen looked at her answering machine as soon as she entered the apartment. The little red light wasn't blinking. Well, it wouldn't be, she scolded herself. Marc knew she worked nights. If he hadn't called earlier, he certainly wouldn't have called in the middle of the night.

Sighing, she locked the door and headed for the shower. He had no reason to call, anyway, unless he wanted to swear at her some more. It was over. It had never even really started. There hadn't been any comments about seeing her again, only that relentless seduction. He had achieved his purpose, and now she had to let go of it, stop worrying the situation in her mind. It was over, she told herself emphatically.

But it didn't feel over. Marc had changed her view of herself. Standing in the shower, she was acutely aware of her body, in a way she hadn't been before. She felta sensual. Female. Her nipples beaded under the pelting water, and she thought of Marc's mouth on them. She remembered the way his hard, callused hands had curved around her waist, her bottom, effortlessly lifting and turning her, positioning her for his pleasure, and hers. Her insides clenched on the swell of s.e.xual arousal, and she could almost feel him there, thrusting into her.

Wow. She blew out a breath. Every woman should have a lover like him, just once in her life.

But she didn't want it to be just once. She wanted him again, every night for the rest of her life.

The question was, what should she do about it? It was h.e.l.l, not knowing where she stood. She had doubts about his motives, about his feelings, about everything concerning that night except her own emotions, and in her experience emotions weren't a stable foundation on which to base important decisions.

Her experiencea”hah! Her experience in this man/woman stuff was nil. She had never loved a man before Marc.

The water had been getting progressively less warm, but all of a sudden there was nothing but cold water pouring from the showerhead. Stifling a shriek, Karen jumped out of the spray. She didn't know how long she had been standing there mooning over Marc, but it was long enough to exhaust the hot water supply. Hastily, she turned off the water, then wrapped a towel around her. She s.h.i.+vered as she dried off and hurried into a robe.

The inadvertent cold shower had dispelled her sleepiness, which was good; she handled night s.h.i.+ft better if she waited several hours after getting home before she went to bed. She could watch the morning news, catch up on her mail, pay bills, do all the normal stuff. And just for fun, she might paint her toenails a daring scarlet, instead of the discreet pink she normally used.

Carl Clancy wasn't in any hurry. He had checked further than the phone book this time. h.e.l.l, how was he to have known the Whitlaw woman had sold the house but the new phone book wouldn't be issued until December with her corrected address in it? But he had found where she was living now, even discovered that she was a nurse at one of the local hospitals.

The question was, was she at home or not? Hospitals were twenty-four-hour operations, but he hadn't been able to find out what s.h.i.+ft she worked, not without bringing a lot of attention to himself. People tended to remember someone asking specific questions about a particular person.

He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. If she worked first s.h.i.+ft, she was now at the hospital. If she worked second, she should be getting up; third, going to bed.

He called the hospital, asked for her. He didn't have enough information about her, didn't know what floor she worked, but it didn't matter. The b.i.t.c.h who answered the phone replied in a frosty voice that nurses weren't allowed personal phone calls while on duty, except in case of an emergency. That was bulls.h.i.+t. Every floor had its own number, and the nurses made and received personal phone calls all the time. But rather than make a stink, he apologized and hung up. Dead end.

Next, he called her. After the screw-up in burning the wrong house, he had checked with the phone company and found that the number in the book was still the correct number; her new digs were within the same exchange area, so the number had simply been transferred with her. She might have the phone turned off so it wouldn't disturb her if she was trying to sleep, but that was a chance he had to take.

The rings sounded in his ear.

Karen's head came up when the phone rang. Her heart leaped, and she started to grab the phone, but then she remembered Marc knew she worked nights. He wouldn't be calling now, would he? Or maybe he would, thinking this was a good time to catch her at home, and it was still early enough that she might not have gone to bed yet.

She hesitated long enough that the answering machine picked up. Almost immediately, the caller hung up, and the message stopped. Not Marc, then. He would have left a message. Disappointment made her sick, but she shrugged it away. She wasn't going to spend her life waiting for him to call. If he hadn't called by tomorrow, she would call him. By running out the way she had, she had put herself in this quandary of not knowing if they'd had a simple one-night stand or if there could be something more between them. It was her fault, so she shouldn't balk at taking the first step.

Modern courts.h.i.+p was the pits, she decided, a.s.suming this even was a courts.h.i.+p. Things had been much simpler when men declared their intentions, and the women then stepped out with them or not, signaling their own acceptance or rejection of the suit. She liked the orderliness of that, the emotional safety. Women's liberation had been great in terms of opening up jobs and beginning to equal out pay, but darned if the old social rituals didn't seem a lot better than the confused mess they had now.

Karen regarded her toes. Scarlet polish just did something for a woman's feet, she decided. A woman with red toenails wouldn't hesitate to call a man if they had an important, unresolved situation. Tonight, she decided. She didn't want to call him now and get all upset or excited, then not be able to sleep. If he didn't call today, she would call him tonight. And if he told her to take a long walk off a short piera”well, at least she would know and would be able to move on with her life.

Carl Clancy sighed. Okay, she hadn't answered the phone. She was either gone or asleep. If he had another day, he would be able to find out everything he needed to know, but Hayes was pus.h.i.+ng him to get the apartment searched now.

He hoped she was at work. If she was at home, he would have to kill her.

Chapter 13.

”You Antonio Shannon?”

Shannon looked up from his desk at the big, homely man who stood in front of him. ”Yeah, I'm Shannon. What can I do for you?”

”My name's McPherson.” He reached into his jacket and produced a leather ID folder, snapping it open with the practiced flip of the wrist that said Fed. Shannon took his time studying the ID. It looked official, but why would an FBI agent want to talk to him?

”First off,” McPherson said quietly, ”I'm not here in any official capacity. This is purely personal. A friend of mine got killed in Mississippi, and you put in a request for information about him. Rick Medina. Do you have any leads on who might have killed him?”

Shannon rubbed his jaw. Whatever response he might have expected to his request about information on the Mississippi murder victim, he sure hadn't expected an in-the-flesh visit from a Fed. That meant his little request had set off alarms somewhere. McPherson might or might not be acting in an official capacity, regardless of what he said. The victim in Mississippi might or might not have been this man's friend. It didn't matter. Rick Medina, whoever he had been, had some hot-s.h.i.+t connections.

”We don't know anything about that murder,” he said slowly. ”We were actually looking for something that would help us with one of our murder cases.” He stood. ”I think you need to talk to Detective Chastain.”

Marc was on the phone with the ME. The child's autopsy was scheduled in an hour. His stomach tightened with anger at the thought of it, at the memory of the child's frail little body and matchstick bones. This was one of the times he wished he didn't have to adhere to the law; he would like nothing better than to kill the child's father with his bare hands, slowly, bone by bone and burn by burn, as he had tortured that child.

He had just hung up when Shannon entered with a tall, lanky, middle-aged man who nevertheless looked in remarkably good shape for his age. ”This is Mr. McPherson with the FBI,” Shannon said.

Marc shook hands, feeling the strength in the older man's grip. ”I doubt it,” he said mildly.

Shannon looked startled. McPherson gave a faint smile. ”I have an ID that says so.”

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