Diagnosis Murder 7 - The Double LIfe (6 page)

"Not entirely," Mark said. "She married me, didn't she?" 

"How do you know you weren't the one charmed into it?" 

"Good point," Mark said.

They were silent for a moment while he worked up the courage to ask her something that had been on his mind since last night.

"What was Jesse's funeral like?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It was very nice, an intimate little service held on the beach at sunrise." 

"Which beach?"

"The one in front of your house," she said.

Mark was taken aback. "Why there?"

"His parents split up when he was very young and he was never close to them. You, Steve, and I were his family. Your house was the family home. It was where we gathered to hash out cases, celebrate holidays, and where we went to find safety and comfort. Of course that was where he wanted the funeral to be."

"Who was at the service?"

"Susan, Steve, Emily, and I. That was all. No priest or rabbi. Those were his wishes. Steve gave a wonderful eulogy, full of humor and affection. He said he'd lost his little brother. I feel the same way. Susan was so grief-stricken that all she could do was whisper good-bye and cry."

Amanda's eyes started to tear up. She wiped her eyes before the tears could fall.

"I'll find whoever did this to him," Mark said. "That's a promise."

"You're not doing this alone," Amanda said.

"I know."

Mark got up, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and walked out into the corridor, where he found Emily waiting for him, a wheelchair in front of her.

"I knew I'd find you here, already on your feet and investigating Jesse's death."

"It's what I have to do," Mark said, unapologetic.

"I know that, but not until you've been checked out by your doctor first to make sure you're okay."

"I've taken care of that."

"The hell you have," Emily said. "Now sit down in this chair."

"Don't be ridiculous, I need to go—"

Emily interrupted him. "You're not going anywhere without your wallet and your keys. And if you want them back, you will do what I tell you. I have your durable power of attorney and I can have you committed, in case you've forgotten."

"As a matter of fact, I have." Mark sighed and reluctantly dropped into the wheelchair, and let Emily wheel him down the corridor.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Dr. Heidi Mack was technically the physician handling Mark's case and, as such, she gave her patient a thorough examination, though she'd previously ceded much of her authority and responsibility to Dr. Noble. Mark's injuries weren't serious and Dr. Mack pronounced him completely recovered. She gave Mark some painkillers and told him to take it easy for the next few days, but she knew her patient well enough to assume that her advice would be ignored.

Emily wheeled Mark out to the parking lot, where her Mercedes SLK convertible was parked next to his Ford Five Hundred sedan.

"I'll follow you," Mark said.

"I'm driving," she said. "You can come back for your car tomorrow."

"You heard Dr. Mack. She said I was fine."

"Yesterday at this time you were unconscious with your head split open," she said. "And I know you lied to Heidi about your vision. You probably see three of me right now. You'll drive when
I'm
convinced you're okay."

"You're one tough lady." Mark grimaced and headed towards the passenger side of her car.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she said, climbing into the driver's seat.

"How's your driving?" Mark asked.

"Fast and nimble," she said. "Where to?"

"You're not taking me home?"

"I am if that's where you want to go, but I'm sure you have other plans."

"I thought you weren't part of my crime-solving team," Mark said.

"I am now," she said. "Besides, I want to keep my eye on you."

"You're that worried about my concussion?"

She shook her head and smiled. "I just like the view." Mark wasn't used to someone flirting with him, at least rot that he remembered. He liked it.

The top of the SLK retracted into the trunk with the touch of a button. Twenty-eight seconds later, the car was zipping along residential streets to Santa Monica, staying off the major thoroughfares.

Mark had forgotten how much he enjoyed driving with the sun on his skin and the wind whipping his hair. He'd forgotten lots of things, but this memory pre-dated his amnesia.

Until two years ago—four years if he counted the two erased by his head injury—he drove a Saab convertible. The Saab met a nasty fate. Mark was carjacked and the car got totaled. His next car, a Mini Cooper, suffered a similar fate. He'd barely owned the car for a month when an RV collided with it and knocked it off a cliff about a hundred miles from Las Vegas.

Mark decided his next car would be another convertible, assuming he could find a company that would insure him without charging exorbitant premiums. Perhaps, he thought, he'd married a wealthy surgeon just so he could afford his auto insurance payments.

Emily pulled up to the curb in front of a tiny Spanish Real bungalow with white stucco walls, arched windows, and a flat roof, the parapet lined with decorative red tiles.

"I thought we were going to Jesse and Susan's place," Mark said.

"This is it," Emily said.

Mark remembered Jesse and Susan living together in what had been Jesse's apartment in Venice. Obviously, they had moved in the last two years.

The house was small, no larger than twelve hundred square feet, and it incorporated motifs from several Spanish architectural styles. It boasted an arched entryway with a gabled, red-tiled roof and a triple-arched living room window covered with a decorative wrought-iron grille.

Mark and Emily walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Susan opened the door, and before Mark could speak, she embraced him, wrapping her arms around him, which wasn't easy given her enormous belly.

"It's so good to see you," she said. "Nobody told me you'd regained consciousness."

"I'm sorry," Emily said. "That's my fault. You were going through so much yesterday, I didn't want to intrude."

"I sat here alone, crying. I would have welcomed any intrusion at all."

"But you sent us all away," Emily said. "You said you wanted to be left alone."

"Dumb move on my part," Susan said.

Mark took a big step back from her and looked her over.

"You're pregnant," he said in astonishment.

"How did you notice?" She smiled and motioned them inside. "Sometimes I feel like all I am is a belly with legs and blond hair."

The house was decorated with an eclectic mix of comfortable-looking furniture in traditional styles and of varying ages. None of the pieces matched, which indicated to Mark that the couple had bought each item one by one, getting what they needed when they could afford it.

"I had no idea," he said, shaking his head and looking at her belly again.

Her smile waned as she realized he wasn't joking. "You were the first person we told."

He nodded, reading her expression. "The blow to my head has caused some amnesia. I don't remember anything that's happened for the last two years."

Susan gasped, glanced at Emily, then looked back to Mark. "Not even your wife?"

"We're working on that," Mark said.

"I hope so," Susan said, waddling over to an easy chair and taking a seat.

"So do I," Emily said.

"In the meantime, I'm working on something more immediate," Mark said as he and Emily sat down on the couch opposite Susan. "I'm going to find Jesse's killer."

Susan swallowed hard. "I'd prefer that Steve did that." 

Mark furrowed his brow. "You know what I can do. If you've lost confidence in me because of my injury, I can assure you that although I've misplaced a few years, I'm still as sharp mentally as before and—"

Susan held up her hand, stopping him. "I haven't lost any confidence in you, Mark. You're probably the best detective in the country."

"Then I don't understand."

"You don't carry a gun," Susan said.

"I'll watch out for myself," he said.

"No,
I'll
watch out for you," Emily said.

"I want Steve to catch him," Susan said. "And I want the miserable sonofabitch to try to escape. Steve will kill him. You won't."

"I know how you feel, Susan. But I don't believe in revenge and neither does Steve. We both want justice."

"Call it what you want, revenge or justice, just as long as ends up with Jesse's killer planted in the ground."

Mark wasn't going to argue with her. There was no point. Her anger and pain were justified. She was a pregnant widow whose husband had been murdered while saving the life of another man.

"I didn't come here to upset you," Mark said. "I want to tell you how sorry I am about Jesse and that I won't rest until his killer is caught. You know how much he meant to me." 

"I know what you meant to him," Susan said. "All he wanted was your love and respect, to be a part of your family." 

"He had all of that. So do you. You are family, Susan. So is your baby. My home—" Mark glanced at Emily.
"Our
home is your home."

"Then I need to ask you something." Susan took Mark's hand and put it on her swollen belly. "It's a boy. His name was going to be Mark. That's what Jesse and I both decided. But after—after what happened to his father, I'd like to name him Jesse. Do you think that's wrong?"

Mark shook his head. "It's wonderful."

"But it's not what Jesse wanted." Susan looked at Emily. "What do you think?"

Emily smiled. "I think Jesse would understand. And I think Jesse Junior will, too."

Susan nodded, her decision made. "Thank you."

She struggled to her feet. "I suppose you want the boxes." 

"The boxes?" Mark said, rising.

"All the stuff you had Jesse working on," she said, hobbling over to the kitchen, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she went. "You asked him to go through insurance company records and hospital admittance forms to see if all those people who died might have shared the same insurer, insurance agent, admittance clerk, nurse, doctor, whatever."

Mark and Emily followed Susan. "That was a pretty tall order."

"You were going to help him with it once he gathered it all together," Susan said, stopping beside the kitchen table, which was covered with papers. "I haven't touched the stuff."

"Do you know if he found anything?"

She shook her head. "He was waiting for some direction from you. He said you were real close to something."

"How did Jesse know that?" Emily asked.

"He always knew." Susan smiled and looked at Mark. "He said you get a sparkle in your eyes when things are about to fall into place. And they were."

Jesse wasn't the only one who knew it. So did whoever was driving the car that ran him down.

To fit the boxes in the trunk, Emily had to create some space by putting the top back up. Mark felt cramped now in the tiny car. Perhaps he wouldn't have felt that way if he hadn't known that the top could come down. Feelings, he decided, depend a great deal on what you know and what you don't. Feelings can't exist without a foundation of previous experience. If he didn't know he'd loved Emily Noble, would he be attracted to her now? Would he even be making an effort?

"What?" Emily said, taking her eyes off the road to give tun a quick, appraising glance.

"Nothing."

"You're staring at me."

"Sorry," he said.

"It's okay. You're wondering if you can love me again," she said, returning her gaze to the traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway.

It was his turn to give her an appraising look. "How did you know?"

"I'm wondering it, too," Emily said. "But I have more grounds for hope. I know you better than you know me."

I don't know you at all, Mark thought. But he wanted to get off this subject and he wasn't graceful about how he did it.

"When is Susan's baby due?" he asked.

"Six weeks."

"Those first few weeks after the child is bom are going to be hard."

"More like the first few months," Emily said.

"I don't see how Susan can do it alone."

"Neither do I."

"I'd like her to stay with us," Mark proposed tentatively.

"I've already ordered the baby furniture," she said.

Maybe, Mark thought, I could love her again after all. She was a remarkable woman, and they were on the same wavelength much of the time. There were worse relationships he could be in.

The beach house where Mark Sloan lived was two stories. The second floor, on the street level, was the main house, with living room, family room, kitchen, and master bedroom. A large deck faced the ocean and had stairs down to the sand. The first floor was on the beach, and for as long as Mark had lived in the house it had been Steve's apartment, with its own private entrance.

With Steve gone, there was more than enough room for Susan and her baby to stay as long as they liked.

Emily parked in front of the house and, after arguing over whether Mark was healthy enough to carry a box, they each lugged in one of Jesse's boxes. They went in the front door, and the moment Mark stepped into the foyer he felt disoriented. It wasn't a symptom of his concussion—at least not directly.

Everything about the house had changed. While the place was still recognizable as his home, all the furnishings were different. He saw some of his artwork on the walls, but in new places and sharing space with paintings and photographs he'd never seen before—at least not that he remembered. The bookshelves in the den had been reorganized and now held a mix of his collection and hers. Judging by the book spines, she enjoyed contemporary fiction as opposed to nonfiction, which was what Mark tended to read.

Emily set her box down on the kitchen table, the only piece of furniture that was still his and still exactly where he'd left it. It was the table where he, Steve, Amanda, and Jesse had spent so many hours sharing meals, discussing cases, and solving problems. Each scratch and nick on the table was a memory.