Cut to the Chase (29 page)

“You don't want to be responsible for a dead man in your bed do you?” Willem answered.

“I'd prefer a live one,” Hollis said.

“I'm volunteering,” Willem said. He opened his eyes and locked his gaze with Hollis, who felt herself blush.

“Let me see your pupils,” she said. “I'll get a flashlight.”

When she shone the flashlight in his eyes, the right one was about the same—still a different size.

“Try to rest. I'll do it every hour all night. I was once in the hospital from a fall downstairs and they woke me every hour.”

“When was...” Willem said, but Hollis placed a finger near his lips. “Not now. Someday I'll tell you,” she said.

Back in the living room, Candace turned off the lights.

“What are you doing?” Hollis asked.

“Scoping out the street,” Candace said over her shoulder.

“And?”

“Jack is getting in his car. He must have a practice.”

“It's late, isn't it?”

“Maybe he has a date?”

“Never mind Jack. The question is—does the Super Bug have anything to do with Danson?”

I
an
and Rhona accepted congratulations. Their chief had arranged a press conference in the amphitheatre. He would do the talking, but he wanted the two detectives there to receive press accolades. He wondered aloud what the headlines would be. All agreed that the Sun would have the best one—it always did.

Rhona celebrated their success, but she wanted to get on with the investigation, to pinpoint the connections, if there were any, with Gregory, the murdered Russian, and Danson, his missing landlord. There had to be a link, but she couldn't join the dots. While her fellow detectives speculated on the headlines, she pulled out and reread the translation Hollis had given to her.

Super Bug—she was aware of what that meant in terms of hospitals and medicine, but that meaning didn't fit in this note. Unless it referred to a terrorist attack that would be launched with a super bug. Germ warfare had been a feature of the Cold War, and certainly there had been a scare in the U.S., when poisonous powders passed through the mails. Several people had died. The Russian gang experts should know. She picked up the phone.

* * *

“Go to bed,” Hollis said to Candace. “I'm going to set the alarm and wake every hour to make sure he's okay.”

“He should be in the hospital.”

“I know, but…”

Retching from the bedroom.

Hollis reached Willem first. He was leaning over the side of the bed. A thin trickle of pink liquid slid down his chin and pooled on the floor.

It was blood. Willem might have internal injuries.

“Sorry,” Willem whispered.

Hollis grasped his hand. “It's okay. Not your fault, but there can't be any argument. You absolutely must go to St. Mike's.”

Willem said nothing.

“You won't be alone. I'll come with you. “

“I'll be okay,” Willem whispered.

Hollis gently squeezed his hand. “No, you won't. No one should be by himself at the hospital. You always need someone with you.”

Willem drew a ragged breath. “Will you say you're my wife?” His battered lips moved into a facsimile of a smile. “I'm a fast worker.”

Although Hollis returned the smile, she didn't feel like smiling.

“If you say you are, they'll tell you what's wrong,” Willem added.

“You're right. The next-of-kin stuff. Of course I will,” Hollis said. She wanted to smooth the hair back from his forehead, to kiss his bruised face, but contented herself with holding his hand while Candace called 911.

Minutes later the ambulance arrived, and the attendants, sweating and straining, manoeuvered the stretcher down the stairs. Each time it banged the wall Willem winced.

Hollis had collected Willem's wallet before they left the apartment. When she claimed to be his wife, the paramedics allowed her to ride in the ambulance.

At St. Michael's Hospital, Hollis offered Willem's driver's license, and the triage nurse recorded pertinent information. She assured Hollis that they wouldn't have long to wait. Hollis didn't know whether to be happy or sad. This was triage. Rapid entry meant you were seriously injured.

Hollis stood beside Willem's stretcher and held his hand. He opened his eyes briefly and gave her what might pass for a smile. “Hell of a way to get a wife,” he said and shut his eyes again.

The wait was mercifully brief. The paramedics spent little time shifting Willem from their stretcher to the hospital's and left to answer the next emergency call. Hollis wasn't allowed to enter the treatment rooms, but the attending nurse promised the doctor would speak to her, and she could be with Willem again when he was out of the examining room.

The Emerg doctor spoke to Hollis before he hurried away. “We're running tests to determine the extent of the internal injuries. He certainly has broken ribs. We don't have beds upstairs, so we'll keep him in Emerg until we diagnosis what we're dealing with. The nurse will tell you when he's back from x-ray.”

When they transported Willem to a four-bed room in Emerg, Hollis foraged, found a battered molded plastic chair and perched beside him. Three o'clock in the morning might as well have been noon—the hospital throbbed with activity.

“Go home,” Willem whispered. “I'm in good hands. They'll call you. Get some sleep.”

Sensible advice, which she hated to take. Leaving him seemed like a betrayal. However, exhaustion wouldn't leave her as sharp as she needed to be. Outside the hospital, she hailed a taxi from the waiting ranks. Half an hour later she fell into bed.

* * *

Shrill screams pulled her from sleep's deep pit.

MacTee's barking added to the cacophony of noise.

“Noooooo, noooo,” a voice shrieked repeatedly.

Hollis stumbled out of bed. The clock said nine. Was it Candace? Elizabeth? What had happened?

MacTee whined and nudged her hand.

“It's okay,” she reassured him, although she was quite sure it wasn't. Groggy, she staggered out of bed. Most normal people had dressing gowns, but if you had a dog and no fenced yard, you didn't haul yourself out of bed in the morning, pull on a dressing gown and let the dog out. Instead you rose, dressed, and walked the beast. Her pyjamas would have to do.

As she pushed her feet into her slippers, a barrage of bangs thundered on her door. Whoever it was continued to repeat her keening mantra in a high-pitched voice. Bizarre. She couldn't think of an explanation, but in her foggy state that didn't surprise her.

“Okay, okay, I'm coming,” she shouted.

When she flung the door open, she confronted Poppy. “My god, what's happened?” Hollis said.

MacTee raced forward to present a toy monkey.

“No. Not now,” Hollis said and pushed him away.

Poppy stopped screaming, sucked in air and released it in ragged gasps.

“What is it? What's wrong?” Hollis said.

“Stolen. It's gone,” Poppy said.

“What? What's gone?”

“My safe. I was sure I hid it well enough that no one would find it.” Poppy shook her head rapidly and moaned, “Nooooo, noooo, noooo, it can't be gone.”

“Did you call the police?”

Poppy stopped howling. Still hyperventilating, she managed to snap, “Of course not.”

“That's what police do. Investigate burglaries.” Hollis stepped back from the door. “I'll call them.”

Poppy grabbed Hollis. “No, you won't.”

“Why not?”

Her breathing slower and her words measured, Poppy's gaze locked with Hollis's. “Because no one broke into my apartment. Do you know what that means?”

Hollis waited.

“My keys are special ones. They can't be copied at the hardware store. That means someone who has a key took the safe.”

Hollis remembered the missing key on Danson's ring. Candace had wanted to change the front door lock, then they'd decided that there was no point—too much time had passed. Obviously a bad decision.

“Who has a key?” Hollis asked.

Poppy's eyes no longer stared wildly, and her breathing had returned to normal. Sharing her news had calmed her.

It was the perfect time to pin her down and finally get straight answers.

“It could only have been Danson or Candace,” Poppy said. “Alberto has a key, but he was with me.”

“Danson? Why would Danson, who's disappeared, come back and steal your safe?”

Poppy shrugged. “Who knows?”

“I think you do,” Hollis said. “Come and sit down. It's time to talk about Danson, the safe and whatever was in it.” Poppy didn't move. Hollis placed her hand on Poppy's arm.

Poppy scrutinized the hand as if it belonged to a prehistoric reptile. She shifted and flipped her arm. When Hollis did not remove the offending hand, Poppy raised her eyes and glared at her.

Hollis tightened her grip. “It's time for truth-telling. Things have been happening that you should know about, because you and that article in the paper are right in the middle of this mess.” She thought about Willem's pain, about Candace's overwhelming anxiety, about Danson and the murdered Russian. She frog-marched Poppy inside the apartment.

“Sit down. We're going to get to the bottom of this.”

“I don't see what business it is of yours,” Poppy said coldly.

“It's my business, because Candace asked me to find Danson, and I agreed to try. I'm doing my best, but I think you're withholding information that would make the job easier.”

Poppy perched on the sofa, physically and psychologically uncomfortable.

Hollis yanked a chair from across the room and sat directly in front of Poppy in order to monitor the expressions on her face, to identify the tiny, giveaway signs that Poppy was lying.

Surprisingly, Poppy did as she was told. She groped in the depths of a large patent leather handbag, hauled out and flourished an electronic gadget.

“Whoever took the safe won't be able to open it,” she said, a note of triumph in her voice. “I wasn't stupid enough to leave this at home.” She smiled a tight little smile that held no warmth or humour. “At least I wasn't stupid enough to pack it in my carry-on. Imagine what airport security would have made of it?”

Hollis, who'd never had occasion to think about, let alone use a safe, hadn't known electronic controls had replaced the combination lock

Poppy crossed her long legs and waved the remote. “If he's after what's in there, he won't risk damaging it.”

“What is in it? Did Danson or Candace know what you kept in the safe?”

“Danson knew about one thing I have in it.”

“And that was?” Hollis asked and hoped she sounded patient. After her night with Willem and her truncated sleep, she felt anything but patient. She wanted to shake Poppy until the information spewed forth.

“Do you really think Danson could have come back for it?” Poppy said. She re-crossed her legs. “Maybe someone.” She paused.

Obviously she had a specific someone in mind but didn't plan to name him.

“What if that someone learned what I had in there and forced Danson, maybe at gun point, to unlock the door and let him steal the safe? Maybe that's why Danson left? Maybe he felt guilty…” Her voice dwindled away and her brows lowered. “How would he have known…”

Poppy was driving Hollis crazy.

“Who are you talking about?” she said.

Poppy started. It was as if she'd forgotten where she was. “What?”

“Who are you talking about?” Hollis repeated. “What did Danson know? Who was the mysterious someone?”

Poppy didn't respond.

Hollis took another tack. “Is this connected to the article in the paper? The request that someone who had a particular stamp should connect with the person who'd run the notice in the paper?” Hollis watched Poppy as she asked.

Poppy's gaze shifted. She eyed Hollis speculatively. “It could be,” she admitted.

“Why did Danson think the article was meant for you?”

“Because one of the stamps I have is rare and few exist. It could have been meant for me. Danson assumed it was.”

“Now what do you think?”

She thrust her lower lip forward and pursed her lips. “Maybe.”

“Precisely what are we talking about?”

“An 1851 Queen Victoria 12-penny black,” Poppy said as if this would have been obvious to anyone.

Hollis's cell phone rang. She wanted to ignore it and keep Poppy talking. That wasn't an option.

“Hollis, it's Willem.”

“How are you? What did the tests show?”

“Thank god, nothing life-threatening. Two broken ribs, major bruising. I'm okay. Stiff and sore but okay.”

“What about the concussion and the bleeding?”

“My pupils are now the same size. They couldn't find anything to explain the blood. My spleen was intact, as were the other organs. They don't know what caused it.”

Relief. “I'm so glad.”

“They want to send me home, but they won't release me unless someone comes to get me.” Brief pause. “They told me to call my wife.”

Hollis laughed. “Your wife will do that. When?”

“Could you come right away?” Willem sounded apol-ogetic.

After what he'd endured because of her stupidity, she didn't want him to feel apologetic. “Of course. I have to let MacTee out for a minute, and I'm on my way. It should take me twenty minutes.”

“You'll have to come in, or they won't let me go. I'm still in Emerg.”

She wanted to swear, to throw something—anything to express her frustration. She'd finally pinned Poppy down and dragged information out of her. She hadn't had time to persuade Poppy to tell her what else the safe contained. Given Poppy's reticence and insistence on privacy, she might never have another chance. She'd have to risk it, because she couldn't let Willem wait.