Final Words (4 page)

“I’ll get it.” Reaching around her, Skitch swiped his card
key through the reader and then opened the door. “I guess Security will be
reviewing all our systems this afternoon, trying to figure out how someone got
into the autopsy suite.”

“Yes, I guess so.” Emma stepped through the doorway, crossed
the narrow corridor and entered the locker room. She felt bad that the security
team would have extra work because of her but she couldn’t admit that she had
imagined the woman. Fists clenched inside her pockets, she favored her aching
leg as she passed the rows of lockers and entered the prep room.

Skitch followed her. “You’ll see him later?”

“Him?”

“Detective MacKenzie?”

“Oh. Yes.” Emma quickly donned a clean lab coat, shoe covers
and a hair cap. Then she washed up for the second time that morning, avoiding
her assistant’s eyes as she did so. “He has some questions about the Campanero
case.”

Stepping to the other sink, Skitch washed up again too. He
whistled quietly as he scrubbed his hands and arms, not questioning her
further. But Emma could tell that curiosity was eating him up. Skitch was a
confessed gossip. But there was nothing for him to gossip about here. As long
as he didn’t find out she’d been seeing things. Or dreaming about a certain
handsome detective.

Stop it, she warned herself. Focus on what’s more important.

Turning off the faucet with her elbow, Emma shook the loose
water from her hands and headed for the autopsy suite. Still whistling, Skitch
finished his scrubbing and followed her. His long legs brought him to the
swinging door first.

“Have you met Detective MacKenzie before?” he asked, nudging
the door open with his foot.

Stopping on the threshold, Emma looked at the body at the
third workstation. “No,” she answered quietly.

Her gaze shifted around the suite, found nothing in the
shadows and then settled on the corpse again. It lay as she’d left it, with the
sheet drawn down below its neck. Even from this distance, she could see the
terrible wound in the woman’s head.

It was a hallucination. A stress-induced hallucination.
That’s all.

“I’ve heard stories about him from the gals upstairs,”
Skitch went on. “He has some reputation, you know.”

“Does he?” She searched the shadows again.

“He likes the ladies and the ladies like him. Or so I’m
told. You might want to watch out for him, Doc.”

Realizing at last what he was implying, she looked back at
him. “Skitch, please.”

“You’re fresh meat for a guy like him. Fresh and sweet.” He
grinned down at her. “He’d eat you alive.”

Just like my ex-husband
, she thought. Then she took a
deep breath and pushed Jason MacKenzie out of her mind, along with the strange
incident with the woman. She’d simply had a hallucination brought on by nerves
and lack of sleep and if she wanted to do her job, she knew she’d better come
to terms with that.

And her dreams… Well, they were just dreams.

“Let’s get to work, Skitch.”

“You got it.” He followed her inside. “We wouldn’t want to
keep Ms. Campanero waiting.”

* * * * *

Crossing the hot blacktop of the parking lot, Jason shoved a
hand through his hair. He’d visited the morgue several times but the place had
never caused his gut to tighten as it had today. Maybe it had something to do
with the fact that two of his friends had recently passed through there.

Or maybe it had something to do with Emma St. Clair.

Don’t get distracted, he warned himself.

A breeze off the bay carried the tang of salt to him but it
didn’t cool his flesh or his mood. Shoving his left hand into a pocket of his
jeans, he dug out his car keys and headed for his Mustang. He had intended to
read Emma St. Clair the riot act for leaving the state in the middle of his
investigation. But she’d been Brian’s friend too. And when she’d run into that
chapel looking so terrified, he’d lost the ability to be the tough cop. He’d
always had a soft spot for the ladies and ignoring that soft spot wasn’t as
easy as he’d thought it would be. But was it all ladies or just this one? Even
now it was hard to recover his perspective, to forget the way she’d clung to
him, the way she’d looked at him.

Flexing his left arm, he felt a bruise where her fingers had
dug through the fabric of his shirt and into his flesh. In his mind, he could
still see the sheen of fear that made her blue eyes shimmer. He could still
smell the scent of gardenia from her gleaming auburn hair.

Scowling, he unlocked the driver’s door of the dusky green
classic and forced his mind back to more practical matters, like wondering what
might have disturbed the lady. According to Brian, she had a reputation for
being cool in the face of anything. Why would she get so upset about a woman
who had wandered accidentally into a restricted area?

Pausing with his hand on the door handle, Jason gave the
parking lot a quick glance. His was the only car in the visitors’ lot. The
coroner’s staff parked at either end of the building, near secured doors that
led straight into the back area of the morgue. Whoever the mysterious elderly
woman had been, she was nowhere in sight.

He thought again of Emma St. Clair’s eyes. She’d been more
than concerned about an old woman’s welfare. She’d been terrified. Maybe her
reaction resulted from the fact that she was just back from a lengthy
recuperation. Maybe it came from the fact that she’d nearly died, herself, so
recently. Working on dead bodies after an experience such as hers couldn’t be
easy.

Whatever the reason, Jason had found himself wanting to
comfort her instead of interrogate her. Such consideration was more in Charlie’s
line than his. Up to now, he’d figured it was best to force a witness into
dumping her information all at once, kind of like purging the stomach of a
poisonous substance.

Jason’s gut clenched as he yanked open the car door. When
Emma St. Clair had turned those teary blue eyes up at him, when she’d gripped
his arm as if he was the only floating debris in sight of where her ship had
just gone down, he’d forgotten all about questioning her. Instead, he’d wanted
to hold her, soothe her, protect her.

Scowling again, he dropped into the sun-heated interior of
the Mustang and slammed the door. This proved one thing—he’d been a fool to
restrict himself from intimate female contact this past year. He should have
known that doing something so contrary to his own male nature would backfire in
a big way. He needed to get control of his urges. So she was pretty. So she was
soft and sweet-smelling. So were a lot of other women.

Shoving the key into the ignition, Jason admitted to himself
that Emma St. Clair ranked way above “a lot of other women”. Even now, away
from her, he knew that those blue eyes had gotten to him. No matter how angry
he’d been when she’d left town two months ago, he would treat her gently when
they finally did get together this afternoon.

And that bugged the hell out of him.

Although it was still early June, summer had taken dead aim
at the Texas coast. Escaping the bright heat, Emma stepped inside the cool,
marinara-scented interior of Rodolpho’s Restaurant. Relief shook her when she
saw her best friend seated at a table near the back and she quickened her step.

She’d covered about half of the busy restaurant when Marta
Zamora rose from her seat and rushed forward. At the last instant, Marta slowed
and then tugged Emma into a hesitant hug.

“I won’t break,” Emma said as her friend’s fingertips
fluttered against her back.

“You already did.” Marta’s normally cool voice sounded thick
and she hugged Emma tighter before stepping back to give her an appraising
look. Concern slashed her dark, tapered eyebrows. “You look like hell.”

Understanding her friend’s blunt style better than anyone,
Emma caught Marta’s hands and gave them a squeeze. “Hello and I’ve missed you
too.”

“I only meant that you look tired.”

Marta led Emma back to her table. Gesturing toward the
nearest chair, Marta returned to her own seat. A couple of hanging ivy plants
and a potted sentry palm gave the table a sense of seclusion that Emma
appreciated. She hadn’t decided yet if she would tell Marta what had happened.
If she did, she didn’t want anyone to overhear the crazy story.

“I told Edgar not to push you your first week back,” Marta
said.

“He didn’t.” Sitting, Emma chose a crispy breadstick from a
basket on the table. But instead of eating it, she drummed it against the
tablecloth to hide the quiver in her hands. She wasn’t tired. She was edgy. The
Campanero autopsy had gone on without further incident that morning but the
memory of the event preceding it clung to her. The elderly woman had seemed so
real and yet without substance. Emma could almost imagine she’d seen a ghost.
But that was impossible.

For a moment, Emma considered the possibility that she might
be losing her mind. She wouldn’t be the first in her family. Great-Aunt
Victoria heard voices and saw people who weren’t there. Partly as a result of
that, she now lived in a nursing home. Such things could be inherited so Emma
couldn’t help wondering if what had happened today could have been a similar
psychotic episode. Maybe some mental screw had jarred loose during the
accident.

Looking up from drumming the breadstick, Emma found Marta
watching her with a puzzled frown. She sighed. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. What’s that old saying about a long-tailed cat in a
room full of rocking chairs?” Leaning forward, Marta covered Emma’s free hand
with her own. “You’re jumpy. You should have taken more time off before you
tried to tackle your job again.”

“I wish people would stop telling me that.” Emma remembered
the way Jason MacKenzie had looked at her when he’d startled her in the chapel—as
if she really was some kind of fruitcake. “I’m fine. Really,” she said again.

“Uh-huh. My Mexican browns have been reading your French-country
blues since we were five. Don’t tell me those pupils are the right size for
this amount of light.”

Drawing her hand back, Marta waved it to indicate Rodolpho’s
well-lit interior. “And your skin is too pale. You look like you’ve seen a
ghost.”

The breadstick snapped in Emma’s hand.

“You need a glass of wine.” Marta beckoned to a passing
waiter. “Two glasses of the house red, please.”

Emma shook her head at the young man. “I have to go back to
work this afternoon.”

“And you’ll do so in a better mood if you have a little wine
in your blood.” Marta gestured to the waiter. “Bring it.”

As the young man hurried away, Emma swept the scattered
breadcrumbs into a pile.

“Oh, sweetie.” Marta’s dark eyes searched Emma’s face. “I
was so worried about you. What happened with you and Brian must have been
devastating.”

Emma wanted to tell her friend what had happened that
morning. But just blurting it out didn’t feel right. She needed to ease into
the story. If she could summon the courage necessary to say anything.

“Don’t worry anymore,” she said with false cheerfulness. “I’m
getting better every day.”

“As your best friend, worrying about you is my job. I can
tell something’s wrong.”

Emma looked down at the table. “Maybe I just feel guilty.”

“That would make sense. Brian died. You didn’t. Well,
technically you did but you came back again.” Marta drummed her well-manicured
nails against the checkered tablecloth. “What happened must have affected you
deeply.”

Emma continued sweeping up the breadcrumbs as she quietly
said, “I keep wondering why he died but I didn’t.”

“Maybe there is no answer. Maybe it was just his time.”
Marta covered Emma’s hand again. “Stop beating yourself up.”

Emma nodded. “I’ll try.”

Releasing her hand, Marta sat back. “So tell me about a
certain police detective you’ve been seen with.”

Emma blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Detective
MacKenzie?”

“I understand he paid you a visit this morning.”

“How do you know that?”

Marta’s lips curled upward. “I have my sources.”

“You mean ‘spies’?”

“Call ’em what you will.”

“I’ll call ’em Skitch Reid.” Emma frowned again. “My
assistant has a very big mouth.”

Marta’s brief good humor faded. “All kidding aside, you’d
better keep your guard up with MacKenzie. He’s been through all the single
women on the police force and half the female lawyers in town. He’s a shark
with a big appetite for sex and since your divorce, you’re a vulnerable little
angelfish.”

Long buried, physical need sparked deep inside her. “I sound
like a real wimp,” she managed to say without wriggling in her chair.

Marta tempered her tone. “I just don’t want you to get hurt
again, sweetie.”

“Don’t worry about that. Skitch already warned me about him.
Besides, Detective MacKenzie’s interest in me is purely professional. As is
mine in him.”
In spite of the jolt he gives my libido.

“I thought that ER doctor brought you back to life.” Marta
shook her head. “He may be a wolf but any woman who doesn’t appreciate good
looks like MacKenzie’s must be dead.”

“Marta, please.” But she couldn’t help remembering those
golden-brown eyes gazing at her with concern. Nothing wolfish there. Well,
maybe a little. Just enough, in fact. But whatever the expression meant, the
last guy who’d looked at her like that had taken her on a honeymoon to
Barbados. And to divorce court a few years later.

“I’ve given him a look or two, myself,” Marta admitted. “But
he likes playing the field too much for my taste. He has trouble restricting
himself to one woman at a time. At least, that’s the word in the ladies’ room.”

“If he’s anything like Alan, then I know he’s bad news.”

“You might know it but can you resist it?”

Emma went very still. Her friend had hit upon her greatest
fear—her lack of trust in her own ability to make judgments about men as well
as life. Alan had done that to her. And after today could she trust herself to
know what was real and what wasn’t?

She picked up her menu. “I’m starving and I don’t want to
talk about my health, work or philandering men anymore.”

Marta wrinkled her nose as she grabbed her own menu. “With what
you do for a living I don’t see how you can eat at all.”

“Being a district attorney is a more palatable occupation?”
Emma opened her menu. “You’re the one with the strong stomach.”

“And right now it’s gnawing at my backbone. Where’s that
waiter with the wine?”

* * * * *

Jason crept up behind Charlie and eased the grease-stained
paper bag over the older man’s shoulder.

Lifting his fingers off his computer keyboard, Charlie sat
back and eyed the bag as it landed on his desk. “You brought me a cheeseburger?”

“And fries.” Jason perched on a corner of Charlie’s desk. “You
wanted lunch but we need to save time. I figured we’d work while we eat. Are
those the Campanero crime scene photos?”

“You promised me a real meal.” Charlie’s unforgiving gaze
locked on Jason. “I followed you through three
greasy
body shops this
morning on the promise of a decent lunch and you bring me a
greasy
cheeseburger and fries to eat at my desk. You’d better have brought me an
autopsy report to go along with this.”

“It isn’t ready. I’m meeting one of the medical examiners at
one-thirty to discuss it.” Opening the bag, Jason lifted out two burgers and a
cardboard cup of dinner-sized French fries.

Charlie turned to face Jason dead-on. “Which medical
examiner?”

“You know which one.” Digging for the ketchup packets, Jason
avoided his friend’s gaze.

“Ah,” Charlie said. “Dr. St. Clair. And when you meet her,
you will treat her gently?”

“Yeah, yeah. Like she was made of porcelain.” His
inclination to do just that still annoyed him.

“I’ve never met her, myself but I’ve heard she is very
beautiful.” Charlie grinned. “You should get to know her.”

Get to know her. Yeah, that was exactly what he’d felt the
urge to do. Get to know her in every way a man could know a woman. But there
had been more. An urge to fold his arms around her and hold her gently until
the fear left those gorgeous eyes.

Jason shoved a burger at his partner. “And you should quit
meddling and eat your lunch. You need to keep up your strength so you can
handle the Campanero scene again this afternoon.”

Charlie’s grin drooped into a scowl. “You mean so
we
can handle the Campanero scene again.”

“Well, since I have this meeting…”

“With Dr. St. Clair.” Still scowling, Charlie began to
unwrap his cheeseburger. “All right. I’ll check the scene alone. But I expect a
real dinner from you tonight. Lobster.”

“Lobster? Listen, I don’t make any more money than you—”

“You owe me for not telling the chief how you plan to spend
your afternoon while I cover the case he gave us this morning.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Not that you would tell him.”

Charlie placed a hand over his heart and tried to look
innocent. “Of course not. But if he should ask… Well, you know how I feel about
lying.”

“All right.” Unhappy, Jason unwrapped his own burger. “Lobster.”

Charlie lifted off his top bun and rearranged the pickles
and tomato. “Now, tell me. What did you think about Dr. St. Clair? Are her eyes
really as blue as Brian told me?”

Jason rolled his eyes. He was never going to hear the end of
this.

* * * * *

Emma stirred the straw in her water glass and watched the
restaurant door. She was tempted to leave before Detective MacKenzie arrived.
Not only had she heard enough about his reputation from Skitch and Marta but he
reminded her of her hit-and-run…of Brian’s death.

Not a great impression to make on a woman, she thought, then
sat up straight as the bell above the front door jingled.

Despite the warnings of her friends, Emma’s pulse raced when
the detective’s golden-brown eyes locked with hers. She knew that her reaction
had nothing to do with her case. It had to do with broad shoulders, a sensuous
mouth, panther-like grace and every other cliché used to describe romance novel
heroes.

Forbidden fruit, she thought and wished that her friends
hadn’t pointed out his attractiveness or his reputation. Not that she hadn’t
noticed it on her own. But being newly divorced, she had no interest in
starting to date yet.

Grabbing another breadstick, she began to crumble it onto a
small plate and tried not to stare as he approached her table.

“Sorry I’m late.” He pulled out the chair next to hers. His
long body seemed to fold into it. Scuffed Tony Lama boots and frayed jeans
hugged legs that stretched to one side of the table instead of disappearing
under it. He looked completely at ease and utterly male and his body gave off a
heat that she couldn’t totally blame on the summer sun.

Uh-oh, she thought.

“Charlie was having trouble with a new computer system we
have at the station,” he said. “I had to help him out.”

Emma tried to focus on his words instead of the mouth they
came out of. “Charlie?”

“Charlie Garcia. My partner.” One side of that attractive
mouth curled upward, cruelly defeating her efforts to ignore his sensuality. He
gestured toward the mess she’d made. “You shouldn’t waste those. They make
great breadcrumbs for Chicken Parmesan.”

That fraction of a smile doubled her heartbeat. She tried to
blame it on the half-glass of wine Marta had forced on her but deep inside she
knew it was more than that. It was him. This man was big trouble.

“You cook?” she asked, searching for any topic that might
distract her suddenly and inconveniently awakening libido.

“I’ve been known to.” He looked up at the waitress who
appeared beside him.

“What can I get you, sir?” The young lady’s smile hinted
that she’d like to offer something that wasn’t on the menu but the man seemed
unaware of his affect on her.

“Just coffee, thanks. You want anything, Dr. St. Clair?”

“Um, no.” Still off balance by the bombardment of strange
sensations, she quickly reached for her water glass. “I’m fine.”

He leaned his elbows on the table as the waitress went to
fill his order. “You can’t beat Rodolpho’s coffee, can you?”

With less than three feet separating them, Emma couldn’t
help noticing the gold flecks in his brown eyes. They burned against the deep
walnut-brown background of each iris like a flame in a fireplace. She could
almost feel their warmth reaching out to her.

Marta and Skitch had a lot to answer for, she decided and
focused on the crumbs on the table. “It’s very good.”

“Much better than what we get at the station. That stuff
tastes like they scooped the water out of the bay and then forgot to use a
filter when they brewed the coffee.”