The Crush (15 page)

She glanced at the window and when she realized that the blinds were open, she quickly extinguished the light.

Definitely nervous.

Wick exchanged the regular binoculars for a pair of night-vision ones. He could now see Rennie standing at the window and peering through the open slats of the blinds. She turned her head from side to side slowly, as though searching all corners of her dark backyard. She tested the lock on the window, then she drew the cord that shut the blinds.

A few seconds later she reopened them.

Was that a signal to someone? he wondered.

She stood there for several minutes more. Wick kept the binoculars on her, but occasionally swept the yard with them, looking for movement. Nobody

scaled her back fence. Rennie didn't climb out the window. Nothing happened.

Eventually she backed away. Wick refocused the binoculars. He could see her turning down her bed. She lay down and pulled the sheet up as far as her waist. She plumped her pillow beneath her head, lifted her hair to fan out behind her, then rolled onto her side, facing the window. Facing him.

"Good night, Rennie," he whispered.

The phone awakened her. She switched on her nightstand lamp and automatically checked the time.

It was nearly one o'clock. She'd been asleep over three hours. When she was on call she tried to sleep when she could, never knowing when a night would be cut short.

She could almost count on being interrupted on a Saturday night when the emergency room stayed busy trying to patch up the damage that human beings inflicted on one another. When the patients outnumbered the surgical residents, or a case required a surgeon with more experience, the one on call was asked to come in.

She answered ready to respond. "Dr.

Newton."

"Hello, Rennie."

Instinctively she clutched the sheet against her chest. "I told you not to bother me again."

"Were you sleeping?"

How had Lozada obtained her home number?

She had given it only to a very few acquaintances and the hospital switchboard. But he was a career criminal. He would have ways of finding even an unlisted number. "If you continue to call me--"

"Are you lying on your pale yellow sheets?"

"I could have you arrested for breaking into my house."

"Did you enjoy yourself at the wedding?"

This question silenced her. He was letting her know how close he was. She envisioned him smiling the complacent smile he'd worn throughout his trial.

It had made him appear relaxed and unconcerned about the outcome, even a little bored.

On the surface his smile had seemed benign, but to her it signaled an underlying evil.

She could imagine him wearing that gloating smirk as his victims breathed their last. Knowing that he had discomfited her, he would be smiling it now.

"I liked the dress you wore," he said. "Very becoming. The way that silky fabric swished against your body, I doubt anyone was looking at the bride."

Following her wouldn't be difficult for him.

He had disarmed a sophisticated security system and choked the banker to death in his home while his wife and children slept upstairs.

"Why are you watching me?"

He laughed softly. "Because you are so watchable.

I looked forward to seeing you every day of that dreary trial and missed you at night when I could no longer see you. You were the one bright spot in the courtroom, Rennie. I couldn't take my eyes off you. And don't pretend you were unaware of my attention. I know you felt my eyes on you."

Yes, she had felt him watching her, and not only at the trial. She also had sensed it in the past few days. Maybe knowing that he had been inside her house was making her imagine things, but sometimes the sensation of prying eyes was so strong she couldn't have mistaken it. Since the day she got the roses, she hadn't felt alone in her own home. It was as though someone else were always there.
Like now.

She switched off the lamp and moved swiftly from the bed to the window. Earlier she had decided to leave the blinds open, thinking that if Lozada was out there watching her, she wanted to know it. She wanted to see him, too.

Was he out there now, looking in? Feeling exposed, her arms broke out in gooseflesh, but she forced herself to stand at the window while she searched the dark, neighboring houses and the deep shadows of her own yard, which lately had seemed sinister.

"I wasn't flattered by your constant staring during the trial."

"Oh, I think you were, Rennie. You just don't want to admit it. Yet."

"Listen to me, Mr. Lozada, and listen well," she said angrily. "I disliked your staring. I dislike these telephone calls even more.

I don't want to hear from you again. And if I catch you following me, there'll be hell to pay."

"Rennie, Rennie, you don't sound at all grateful."

She swallowed hard. "Grateful? For what?"

After a significant pause, he said, "For the roses, of course."

"I didn't want them."

"Did you think I would let a favor go unreturned? Especially a favor from you."

"I didn't grant you a favor."

"Ah, I know better, Rennie. I know more than you think. I know a lot about you."

That gave her pause. How much did he know?

Although she realized she was playing right into his hands, she couldn't stop herself from asking, "Like what?"

"I know that you wear a floral fragrance. And that you're never without a tissue in your handbag. You prefer your right leg to be crossed over your left. I know that your nipples are very sensitive to air-conditioning."

She disconnected and threw the cordless phone across the room. It landed on her bed. Covering her face with both hands, she paced the width of her bedroom and breathed deeply through her mouth, trying to stave off the nausea that threatened.

She could not let this maniac continue to terrorize her. Apparently he had developed a sick infatuation for her and was conceited enough to believe that she would reciprocate it. He wasn't only homicidal, he was delusional.

In medical school she had studied enough required psychology to know that he was the most dangerous kind of criminal. He believed himself invincible and therefore would dare to do anything.

Reluctant as she was, ever, to be involved with the police, this couldn't continue. She must report it.

She retrieved her phone, but before she could dial 911, it rang. She froze. Then she remembered to check the caller ID, which she had failed to do before. Recognizing the number, she took a stabilizing breath and answered on the third ring.

"Hey, Dr. Newton, this is Dr.

Dearborn in Emergency. We've got a car-wreck casualty. Male. Early thirties. We're doing a CAT scan now to check the extent of his head injury, but there's a lake of blood in his abdomen."

"I'll be right there." Just before hanging up, she remembered. "Dr. Dearborn?"

"Yeah?"

"My code number, please?"

"Huh?"

The security measure had been implemented after Lee Howell was called out on a phony emergency. "My code--"

"Oh, right. Uh, seventeen."

"Ten minutes."

THE INSTANT WICK'S BARE
, wet foot made contact with the tile floor, someone knocked on his motel-room door. "Shit." He stepped from the shower, reached for a towel, and wrapped it around his hips. He hoped to get to the door and put on the chain lock before the housekeeper used a passkey to let herself in.

As though knowing that he was working a graveyard shift every night, she timed cleaning his room within minutes of his return each morning, when he was ready only for a shower and sleep. He thought she might even be on the lookout for him. One of these dawns he might let her catch him bare-assed.

Maybe that would cure her bad timing.

"Come back later," he shouted as he stamped across the room.

"This can't wait."

Wick opened the door. Oren was on the other side of it, a white paper sack in his hand, a manila envelope under his arm. He looked as glum as a bulldog.

"Uh-oh. Another hemorrhoid flare-up?"

Oren thrust the sack at him as he pushed his way into the room. "Doughnut?"

"Krispy Kreme?"

"You particular?" Someone knocked; Oren turned. The punctual maid was at the threshold with her cart. "Go away," he barked and slammed the door.

"Hey, I live here, remember," Wick said.

"You said she was a pest."

"But now she might not come back all day."

"Like you're Mr. Clean."

"Jeez, you're in a foul mood. Take a load off." He motioned Oren into the room's only chair. "I apologized for waking you up last night. You told me to call if anything happened, so when something happened, I called.

When I saw Rennie Newton rolling out of her garage, I didn't know she was going to the hospital for an emergency.

"Did my call interrupt something? You and Grace dancing the horizontal tango? She put fresh batteries in the vibrator? What?

Or maybe Grace wasn't in the mood. Is that why you're so grumpy this morning?"

"Shut up, Wick. Just shut up." Glowering, Oren took back the sack and plunged his hand inside, coming up with a doughnut.

Laughing at his ill-tempered friend, Wick dropped his towel and pulled on a pair of boxers. He reached for the sack, got himself a glazed doughnut, took a bite that demolished half of it, and said around the mouthful, "No coffee to go with it?"

"Tell me about last night."

He swallowed. "I already did. The doctor got a call a little after one. She left her house within two minutes of getting the call. I nearly broke my goddamn neck running down those dark stairs while trying to get my boots on. Caught up with her on Camp Bowie three blocks from her house. Followed her straight to the hospital. She was there until five-ten. I followed her home. That's where she was when I turned it over to Thigpen. Who, by the way, showed up fifteen minutes late this morning."

Oren tossed him the manila envelope. He caught it against his bare chest. He finished the doughnut and licked the sugar off his fingers before opening the envelope and sliding out the eight-by-ten photographs.

There were four of them. He studied them one by one, then held one up to Oren. "This one's pretty good of me even though it's not my best side."

Oren snatched back the black-and-whites and threw them on the table beside his chair. "That's all you've got to say?"

"Okay, you caught me. I'm busted. What do you want me to say? Congratulations, Detective. Outstanding police work. Or do you want me to kneel and beg forgiveness? Kiss your ring? Kiss your ass? What?"

"What the hell were you doing, Wick?"

"Undercover investigation of a suspect."

"Bullshit." Oren picked up the most compromising photo. It was a rear shot of Wick and Rennie outside the country club walking toward her car. He was looking down at her and his hand was pressed against the small of her back.

"Don't insult me."

Wick stewed under his accusatory glare.

Finally he said, "We weren't getting anywhere by watching her house, were we? I've been sitting around for a week doing absolutely nothing. I've trimmed my fingernails three times for lack of anything else to do. I've sat so long my ass is growing as wide as Thigpen's. So I thought that maybe, if I exercised a little initiative, I could do us some good."

"By hitting on a suspect?"

"It wasn't like that."

"No? Then you tell me, Wick, what was it like? What was it like to be up close and personal with Dr. Rennie Newton?"

To avoid Oren's incisive glare, he reached into the bag for a second doughnut. "She's an ice maiden. She takes to being touched no better than a rattlesnake. In fact, she hissed at me."

"You touched her?"

"No. That," he said impatiently, pointing to the telltale photo, "and a handshake were the extent of touching. She showed her fangs when I tipped the parking valet."

"He'll give you back your five."

Wick looked at Oren, shook his head with disbelief, snorted, "He was ours? That pimply kid?"

"Rookie. Good with a camera. One of those fountain pen-looking things."

"That explains how you got the photos. How'd you know she was going to the wedding?"

"We didn't until she checked in with the hospital. She stopped by there on her way to the church. We hustled. By the time she reached the reception we had this guy in place."

"Why didn't you tell me all this?"

"Well, now, see, I tried. I even went back to the house to explain where she was going and to tell you that I had someone else covering her, just in case you wanted to take a break, go out for a good dinner, maybe see a movie. I was feeling bad about you being cooped up on a Saturday night. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the house empty and you nowhere to be found."