The Damsel in This Dress (19 page)

Giving Taylor’s hand one last squeeze, Soldier released it and settled back on the sturdy hospital chair. Clearing the emotion that threatened to choke his voice, he said, “What do you remember?”

Taylor let his head fall against his pillow, but the movement made him grimace. He closed his eyes and began to speak.

“I remember very clearly the few minutes before I was hit,” he said. He took a swallow of water from the glass Soldier had given him, then relaxed against the pillow again. “I was crossing Rose Avenue between Third and Fourth, traveling in an east-west direction. Visibility was good. Before I began crossing, I glanced up and down the street to check for traffic. There was none, so I started across.

“When I got to the middle, I heard an engine nearby, behind me, loud. I was surprised. I assumed it was a resident.” He grinned at Soldier. “Guess you know what they say about assuming.”

“Like, don’t ever do it.”

“Yeah. Well, the car seemed to shoot away from the curb. I turned, saw the headlights. Just before impact, I jumped out of the way. Front right bumper clipped my hip. I hit the ground and rolled. Next thing, I wake up in the hospital.”

“You’re certain you didn’t see the driver? Try to concentrate, Taylor.”

Taylor opened his eyes but kept his head steady. His brows furrowed and he closed his eyes again, as if to replay the scene in his mind. “The car was a blur, and I knew I was in deep shit if I didn’t get out of the way. I
may
have seen the driver, but I don’t remember. He was close enough by then, but I can’t get a clear picture in my head. It just won’t form. All I remember seeing was headlights.”

“Was it the same car that drove by the night we got back from the conference?”

“I think so. Sorry. The next time I’m hit, I’ll try to have my camera with me.”

Betsy and Claire walked down the hospital corridor, the sound of their shoes making tapping sounds as they went along. When they reached the nurse’s station, Claire put her hand on Betsy’s arm. There was worry in her eyes when she said, “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me you were being stalked? How long has it been going on? Why aren’t the police protecting you better?”

“Hold on, sweetie.” Betsy patted her friend’s hand. “I’m okay, honest. To tell you the truth, I didn’t believe I was being stalked, not until the conference this weekend. I almost called you the other night, but it was late and you’ve been so busy at the hospital and with your patients, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Claire looked thoroughly pissed. “
Disturb
me. You’re my dearest friend. Disturb me, already!”

Shoving her hands in her jacket pockets, Betsy said, “So, does Taylor really look okay? Will he be all right?”

“I have every confidence in his complete recovery. The man is built like a . . . well, never mind what he’s built like. He’s young and healthy and strong. His injuries will take time to heal, but he’ll be fine.”

Betsy felt relief ease the tension in every muscle she had. Thank God. She didn’t know what she would have done if Taylor had been killed. Kristee Spangler’s death was enough for her conscience to deal with, but the brother of the man she was falling in love with . . .

Claire must have picked up on her thoughts, because she smiled. “You want to tell me about it?”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Right.” She shoved her pen into the breast pocket of her toast-colored jacket. “You show up here with two of the hottest-looking men I have ever seen in my life, one of whom cannot keep his eyes or his hands off of you, both of whom are detectives and are sleeping in your house, you are being stalked, there’s been a murder and an attempted murder, and you have the nerve to say to me there’s not much to tell?” She rolled those pretty eyes of hers. “Well, I’d like to hear it when something interesting really does happen in your life!”

Betsy pursed her lips and said casually, “So, what did you think of Soldier?”

Claire’s brow lifted and her lips twisted into a wry smile. “Have you slept with him yet?”

“Claire!”

“Well, what in the hell are you waiting for? I’m not one to advocate casual sex, but in his case, I think you should definitely make an exception. Besides, I think he really likes you.”

“Yeah? Well, what about Taylor?”

“You want to sleep with them both? Wow, just thinking about that is getting me all hot.”

“No,” Betsy laughed. “For you. He liked you; I could tell.”

Claire blushed and ran her fingers nervously through her hair. “I don’t have time for a man in my life right now. Besides, I think I’m a couple of years older than he is.”

Betsy began to protest, but Claire put her doctor face back on and said, “Taylor needs rest. Time for you and Soldier to beat it. I’ll call you if his condition changes, okay?”

The Port Henry Community Hospital was only four stories tall. It was attractive, as hospitals went, made of red brick with natural stone trim. Offices, patient services, and the ER were on the first floor. The surgeries were on the top floor. In the middle were the wards and rooms.

Taylor McKennitt’s room was on the second floor, just down the hall from the nurses’ station. The hospital had been told to keep a special eye on room 212, the patient might be in danger. A uniformed officer would stand guard outside to make sure nothing untoward happened to their precious cop patient.

In the dark, the watcher smirked. Counting the windows, room 212 would be right about . . . there. The light was on, but the blinds closed. Shadows moved around behind the square of yellow light like moths trapped inside a lamp shade. Soldier and Betsy, and her bosom pal, Claire. They were all in there right now.

The watcher was satisfied. Taylor McKennitt hadn’t died after all, but things went that way sometimes. He was pretty banged up, and that would just have to do. The whole thing had been so spur of the moment, anyway. There hadn’t been any plan to take Taylor out, but there he was, just a-walkin’ down the street, just like in the song. The opportunity had presented itself, and it would have been foolish to pass it up.

The McKennitts were big boys; Taylor had left quite a dent in the fender. Kristee’s car would have to be ditched.

Turning from the window, the watcher approached a white Accord and placed a note under its driver-side wiper blade. It wasn’t much, just another nail in Betsy Tremaine’s credibility coffin. Between the hints and gossip, the anonymous phone calls, the damned dog, and now Taylor McKennitt, things were beginning to come together. The disasters would all center around Betsy, as well they should.

If only there had been some way to use Kristee’s death in all this, but the decision to finally eliminate her had been a long time coming. And she had, after all, brought it on herself. She could have given it all away with her stupid
Have a nice trip
comment in the bathroom at the hotel. Kristee never had been very bright, yet she’d been useful over the years, but now it was time to go solo.

The watcher glanced back up at Taylor’s window. The light had gone out. Best get a move on before Soldier and La Tremaine showed up in the parking lot.

Around the corner, the damaged green sedan waited. The watcher slipped behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb. Yes, yes. Like dominoes, everything would begin to fall. Elizabeth Tremaine would lose her reputation, her job, her loved ones.

The final blow, her death, would be slow. Painful. A delightful agony. She would be made to understand that she alone was responsible for what was happening to her. That she had brought about her own ruin.

And then she would die.

I
t was ten o’clock, Sunday night. Claire stood in the darkened hospital room and stared down at her patient. Taylor McKennitt was asleep. He was last on her rounds and now she could go home.

She glanced at his chart again just to make certain she hadn’t missed anything. His vitals were good and the swelling on his legs where he’d skidded on the pavement looked a little better.

As she prepared to leave, she turned to take one last look. She was grateful he would be released tomorrow. He wouldn’t be her patient anymore. Claire didn’t like having Taylor McKennitt as her patient. He was too good-looking, too sexy, too tempting.

She’d treated attractive men before, but none of them had ever affected her the way this one did. There was something about his athletic body, his easy smile, those sharp eyes. He was the epitome of every girlish daydream she’d ever spun, and being near him made her feel feminine and warm.

Claire was attracted to him, and she knew she’d best be honest with herself about it or lose her professional detachment.

She had turned thirty-four her last birthday, nearly three years older than her hunky patient. But her age didn’t stop her from remembering those silly stories she used to tell herself. Girlhood stories about when she would finally meet her one true love, what he would look like, how handsome he would be. No longer the idealist, long hours, hard work, constant competition, striving to be the best, all had turned her a little cynical about love and its place in her world.

The intense love she felt for medicine and for her career were deep and fulfilling, but the reality was, they didn’t keep a lady’s feet warm at night.

Returning her gaze to her patient, she watched as Taylor McKennitt slept deeply, his broad chest rising and falling rhythmically. One of the oddest things about being a female doctor was seeing men in situations she normally wouldn’t unless she were intimately involved with them.

She pursed her lips. The words
intimate
and
Taylor McKennitt
would undoubtedly not appear in her vocabulary anytime soon.

Claire moved a bit closer and admired his hair. He had beautiful hair and she longed to touch it. It looked soft, and she hadn’t touched a man’s hair in forever. His long lashes were to be envied, dark and thick, emphasizing the bluest eyes she had ever seen. His brother’s eyes were equally intense, but held no interest for her whatsoever.

It was his mouth, though, that really did her in. Claire imagined kissing that wonderful mouth, and felt the heat rising in her chest.

Don’t even get started
, she thought as she headed for the door. He’d be released tomorrow and she’d never see him again. He didn’t even live in Port Henry, for heaven’s sake. After he was well enough to travel, he’d head home to Seattle and that would certainly be that.

Besides, this wasn’t about her or Taylor or attraction . . . it was about Betsy and her safety. For a moment, Claire admonished herself for getting lost in thoughts about a man, when her friend was in real danger.

Claire exited the room, nodded a farewell to the night nurse, then went around the corner to her own office and began gathering the paperwork she wanted to take home with her.

A stiff breeze greeted her as the double-glass doors slid closed behind her. As she approached her car, covered with dew in the late night fog, she noticed a note shoved under her windshield.

The Port Henry Police Department was housed on the waterfront on the ground floor of a hundred-year-old building that had served at one time as a cannery. While the Victorian brick and mortar exterior exuded much of the charm the rest of the small town held, the interior had been designed for, and looked much the same as, any modern law enforcement office in the country.

The local joke was that there was always “something fishy” about the PHPD, since soap and water and paint had never been able to totally eradicate the odor of the building’s original occupants.

Soldier sat next to Betsy at Officer Winslow’s desk as they examined the note Claire had found on her car less than an hour ago.

HEY DIDDLE-DIDDLE-DOC

TIME WE HAD A LITTLE TALK

BETSY IS TROUBLE AND TO BLAME

FOR MAKING DET MCKENNITT LAME

—A FRIEND

“Some
friend
,” Betsy snarled as she gazed down at the accusatory poem encased in the evidence Baggie. Soldier watched as her emotions flitted across her face.

“I didn’t feel guilty enough about what happened to Taylor,” she choked as she crossed her arms. “And now this creep is practically charging
me
with being the one responsible?”

“It’s all part of the stalker psychosis,” Claire said quietly from her chair next to Betsy. “He wants you to feel responsible for everything he’s doing.”

Betsy looked over at her friend, giving Soldier a chance to take in the softness of her wind-ruffled hair, the curve of her pale cheek, the thickness of her downcast lashes. She sat at the desk in boots, blue jeans, and a jacket pulled tightly around her, as though she were trying to protect her most vulnerable side from attack.

Betsy turned back to Soldier and looked him squarely in the eye. “Well, then in that case, I refuse.”

Soldier smiled down into her defiant face and nudged her chin up with his knuckle. “Contrary as ever, hmm?”

“Damn straight,” she growled.

Claire stood and bent over Betsy’s shoulder. “I have to get home and get some sleep, honey. Big day tomorrow. But I can stay if you need me to.”

Betsy patted her friend’s hand. “No, you go on home, D.K. I’ll be fine.”

Soldier grinned. “D.K.?”

“As in Doctor Kildare,” Betsy said. “It’s been my pet name for Claire since we were kids and she told me she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up.”

“And what’s her pet name for you?”

As Claire reached the front door, she said over her shoulder, “I call her Bitsy. ’Night everybody.”

Soldier felt his grin widen. “Why Bitsy?”

She shrugged. “When we were really little girls, I had trouble saying Elizabeth. It came out ‘A-little-bit.’ Eventually, it sort of boiled down to Bitsy.”

Officer Winslow returned from the break room with a mug of herbal tea in one hand, an evidence bag in the other. Placing the bag on his desk, he said to Betsy, “This is the first note, the one stuck under the mutt’s collar. The guy must have used gloves because the only prints on them belong to you on the first note and Dr. Hunter on the second.”

The handwriting on both notes was identical—each word was printed using all capital letters. Soldier gestured to the evidence bags. “We can assume the guy disguised his handwriting at least a little, but maybe he wasn’t very good at it. Do you recognize the handwriting at all, Betsy? The paper? Anything?”

Betsy leaned forward and carefully examined both notes.

“You know, I do recognize the handwriting. I just don’t know whose it is. There’s something about the D and the B and the C that seem familiar, like I’ve seen them written.”

“Problem is,” Soldier said, “nobody handwrites anything anymore except their signatures. Everything’s voice mail or e-mail or typed on a computer.”

Winslow took a sip of tea and laughed. “Yeah, I even write my grocery list on the computer. My handwriting’s gone to hell ever since I learned how to type.”

Soldier glanced at his watch. It was nearly midnight. He was exhausted, and he knew Betsy had to be on the verge of collapse after everything that had happened that day.

Pushing himself to his feet, he helped Betsy from her chair.

“Thanks, Sam,” Soldier said.

“No problem,” Winslow replied. “I don’t like this guy. What do you say we catch him?”

Soldier sent the cop a wide grin. “I’m for that.”

They said their good-nights and Soldier escorted Betsy to her car.

He drove her home in silence, both of them too tired to speak. When they got to her house, he checked the place out thoroughly before letting her go inside.

As Betsy started for her room, she paused on the staircase. “I’m truly sorry about your brother. Claire said he’s going to be fine.”

“Thanks. It seems he’s every bit as hard-headed as I am.”

She smiled at that and looked like she might say something else, but instead turned and walked up the staircase to her room. He heard her door close firmly behind her, and he couldn’t help but grin.

The man stood across the street, gazing up at the Victorian. Such a pretty house. Beauty enough to make a fellow wax poetic just by standing and admiring.

Three seventy-three Rose Avenue. The perfect address for such a lovely house. The lines, the elegance, the charm of an age gone by, preserved in cedar and glass, brick and paint.

The era to which the house belonged had ticked away, minute by minute, hour by hour, until the heart of the house, its families, its many sons and daughters, were no more. All gone off to the city, to come back to build stiff, shapeless boxes in which to live. Now, only the cost mattered and none of the grace.

As he watched, the kitchen light went out. Mere moments later, two lights came on upstairs. He knew they were bedroom lights.

She was home again, but she wasn’t alone.

He continued gazing at the old house, the panes in the windows staring back at him like square, hollow eyes. So many eyes, watching, watching.

Pushing down on his nerves, he ignored them. They could not hurt him; they were not real. Only windows. Her windows.

Patting his jacket pocket, he smiled. He could get in anytime he wanted. She must have forgotten about the hiding place where the spare key was kept. But he hadn’t forgotten.

He had it now, and it gave him comfort. But since she wasn’t alone, it would have to wait for another day. He could wait. He had all the time in the world.

A car turned the corner, its headlights reaching out to try to touch him, grab him, reveal him. With a few steps, he receded back into the shadows, to see, but not be seen.

Oh yes. He could wait. After all, he’d waited this long.