Alone in the Dark (3 page)

Patience had to remoisten her desert-dry lips. "You found this?" She nodded at the

flower that was once more in his hand. This time she made no move to take it from him.

"Yes. On your doorstep." He'd already told her that. Brady watched her closely.

"Just like the last time," she murmured the words to herself. Why couldn't she stop the

chill that slid up and down her spine.

"What last time?" The question came at her sharply, like fighter pilots on the attack.

She stared at him. For a second she hadn't realized that she'd said anything out loud. And

then she shook her head, dismissing her words. Not wanting to open the door any further

into the past than she'd already opened it. "Nothing."

Brady scowled. The hell it was nothing. People didn't turn white over nothing.

"What last time?" he repeated. The question bordered on a demand.

She tried to smile and only partially succeeded. The knots in her stomach were stealing all

her available air. "Is that your interrogation voice?" she asked him, trying to divert his attention. "Because if it is, it's pretty scary."

"Damn it, Doc, what last time?" And then he drew his own conclusion. "Someone been

harassing you?"

Bingo. From her reaction, he'd say he'd hit the nail right on the head. It was there, in her

eyes.

He could see it happening. Patience Cavanaugh was more than passingly pretty. She was

vibrant and outgoing on top of that. But in this upside-down world, someone could mistake

her friendly manner for something else, feel perhaps that she was being friendly beyond

the call and go on to misinterpret her behavior as a sign of interest.

She blew out a breath and looked away. "Not lately," she told him evasively.

Get a grip, Patience. It's just a flower, not a scorpion.She laughed to herself. Right now,

she would have preferred the scorpion. She knew how to deal with that.

Obsession—if that's what this was boiling down to—was something beyond her range. No,

no, it wasn't obsession, it was just a man who was too obtuse to understand that she just

wasn't interested. There was no reason to believe she'd wind up like Katie. Katie Alder,

that had been her name. The dead girl. This would go away just like the last time, she

promised herself.

Brady had no intention of letting this slide. "But previously?"

Best defense was a strong offense, wasn't that what Uncle Andrew always told them?

With a toss of her head, she fixed her best, most confident smile to her lips.

"Really, Coltrane, there's no reason to get all official on me." She thought of their

interaction over these past twenty-five months. "Although, I guess when you get down to

it, that's all you ever are, isn't it? Official."

"This isn't about me, Doc, it's about you."

She squared her shoulders, deliberately avoiding looking at the flower he still held. "Right.

And since it's about me, I'll handle it."

He raised a brow, pinning her with a look. "You weren't handling it a minute ago."

No, that had been an aberration. One she wasn't about to allow to happen again. She was

stronger than that. "I'm better now."

He made a leap, bridging the gap from here to there and filling in the missing pieces. It

wasn't hard. He'd handled more than one stalker case before he'd found a place for

himself in narcotics. "You ever report it?"

She looked at Brady warily. She'd always sensed he was sharp, maybe even intuitive, but

she didn't want to learn she was right at her own expense. "Report what?" she asked

vaguely.

"The stalker."

Patience raised her chin defiantly. "What stalker?"

"The one who was after you," he snapped tersely. Nothing irked him more than people who

wouldn't take help that was offered. Like his mother who had refused to walk away from

his father. "Look," Brady began more evenly this time, "nobody turns that shade of white when they see a stupid rose left on their doorstep unless there's something else going on.

Now if you don't want to talk to me, fine, but you've got a boatload of police personnel in

your life. Talk to one of them."

Because she was a Cavanaugh, even though she considered herself the mildest one of the

group, she inherently resented being dictated to. "How do you know I haven't?"

He looked at her knowingly. "Just because I don't get along with people doesn't mean I

can't read them." Brady gave her a look just before he turned to leave. "Have it your way.

Looks like I'm not the only one who isn't communicative."

It was as if he'd read her mind.

Patience blew out another breath, irritated. Relenting. The man was right, she supposed.

And it was better to say something to him than to Patrick or the others. Especially Patrick.

She knew without asking that the law took on a whole different hue when someone her

older brother cared about was being threatened.

"His name's Walter," she finally said, addressing her words to the back of Brady's head.

Stopping just short of the door, Brady turned around. He stood waiting, not saying a word.

Okay, Patience thought, she might as well tell him a little more. "Walter Payne," she

elaborated. "I saved his cockatiel and he was grateful. Very grateful. He was also kind of

lonely," she added after a moment. "I tried to encourage him to go out, to get out of his shell." She'd even gone so far as to suggest arranging a blind date for him. But although

eager to please her, Walter hadn't followed up on her suggestion. "Maybe I was too

successful."

"So he started harassing you?" He had his answer as soon as he saw the woman pale.

Harassment and stalking were such ugly words. She told herself that it was more like

enduring a schoolboy crush from a forty-five-year-old man. She couldn't handle it any

other way. "He brought me flowers, said it was from Mitzi."

"Mitzi?"

"His cockatiel. At first it was just one, like that." She nodded at the rose. "And then it was a bouquet. There was candy and a few poems, as well." Those had followed in quick

succession. Crowding her. "I just thought he was being overly grateful. The cockatiel

meant a great deal to him."

Brady tried to read between the lines to pick up on what the veterinarian wasn't saying.

"You told him to stop?"

"In a way," she allowed. "I said that it wasn't really proper, that I couldn't accept gifts for doing my job."

Why did he have to drag the words out of her? he wondered impatiently. "And?"

Patience shrugged, blocking the edgy frustration that pushed its way forward. "He kept

leaving them anyway."

He knew that these things almost always escalated unless there was forceful police

intervention. "What made him finally stop?"

"I put out a formal photograph of my family in dress blues. Made sure he saw it." Patience nodded at the far wall.

There, hung in prominent display was a group photograph he'd seen more than once on his

visits to her office. He looked at it with fresh eyes. The last time he'd seen that much

blue was at a patrolman's funeral. He had to say it was impressive.

Patience allowed a small smile to surface. "I guess that put the fear of God into him. Or at

least the fear of the Cavanaughs." Her smile widened a little. "Walter hasn't sent a poem or a single flower in the last six months. And he hasn't been by."

Brady looked down at the rose. King eyed it, as well. "Until now."

She nodded, suppressing a sigh. "Until now," she echoed.

If this was the resurgence of the stalker, she was being entirely too blasé about it. "You

should report this, you know."

Calmer now, she thought of the mousy little man, of the stunned expression on his face

when she'd made reference to her family and had shown him the photograph. She'd

overreacted, she told herself, because of Katie. But this was different and she didn't

want to stir things up. "He's harmless."

In Brady's book, no one was harmless in the absolute sense. Everyone had a button that

could be pressed, setting them off. "Every killer was once thought of as harmless."

She looked at him for a long moment. "You're trying to scare me."

"Damn straight I am. I've seen enough things in my life to know when a woman should be

scared, Doc."

She'd been around members of the police department all of her life. Beyond her father,

she couldn't recall any of them being as world-weary as Coltrane appeared to be. Not even

Patrick. "God, you sound as if you're a hundred years old."

"Some nights, I am," he told her matter-of-factly. "So, you want me to take a statement?"

"No, that's all right. If I get really worried about Walter, like you said, I've got my own

boatload of police personnel to turn to."

It wasn't difficult to read between the lines. "But you won't."

Patience didn't feel comfortable, being read so effortlessly by a man she couldn't begin

to read herself. Rather than get into it, she gave him her reasons—or, at least, the

primary one. "I don't want to upset them unnecessarily."

"How about necessarily?"

"Walter's harmless," she insisted. It felt odd, championing a man she wished, deep down, had never crossed her path. "He thinks he's just pursuing me, like in the old-fashioned

sense. Courting," she added, fishing for the right word. Walter Payne always made her

think of someone straight out of the fifties, when things had been simpler and persistence

paid off. "He stopped once. If I ignore him, he'll stop again."

"And if he won't?" Brady challenged. King barked, as if to back him up.

Tacomamoved closer to her mistress, offering her protection. She absently ran her hand

over the dog's head, scratchingTacomabehind the bars as she spoke, trying to keep the

mental image of Katie's photograph at bay. "Then I'll deal with it. I have a number of

people to turn to."

Damn but she was one stubborn woman. One could see it in the set of her mouth, in her

eyes.

But before he could say anything further to her, the bell above the door jangled and a

woman came in, struggling with a battered cat carrier. The occupant of the carrier paced

within the small space.

"I know I don't have an appointment, Dr. Cavanaugh, but Grade's been hacking all night

and I'm worried sick." The statement came out like an extraordinarily long single word,

each letter breathlessly woven to the one before and the one after.

Feeling the dog stiffen beside him, Brady looked down at his companion. The fur on King's

back was standing up as he stared intently at the carrier. Had he not been as well trained

as he was, Brady was sure the animal would have gone after the cat, carrier or no carrier.

The cat obviously sensed it, too. Hissing noises began to emerge from the carrier.

In contrast to King, Patience's dog seemed bored and trotted over to the far corner to

catch a nap beneath the rays of the early morning sun.

Taking a firm hold of King's leash, Brady spared Patience one last look.

"Report it," he told her much in the same voice that he used on King when he verbalized

his commands.

"I'll handle it," Patience repeated firmly. She turned her attention to the frantic older woman. Work was the best thing for her right now. "Right this way, Mrs. Mahoney. As it

happens, my first patient of the day isn't here yet."

And neither was her receptionist, she added silently. But then, Shirley had a very loose

concept of time. Too bad. The young woman had a crush on Brady that was evident to

everyone but the man himself. Shirley was going to regret not being here a tad early this

morning.

Patience turned to look back at Brady and mouthed, "Thank you" before she disappeared.

She could thank him all she wanted, Brady thought as he exited the clinic. In reality, he

hadn't done anything. Doing something was up to her. He unlocked his car. The hell with it,

this was her business, not his.

Holding the door open, he gave King a nod. The dog jumped into the back seat.

"Not our concern, boy," Brady said as he got behind the steering wheel.

He placed his key in the ignition. Glancing up into the rearview mirror, he could see King

staring at him. Brady tried not to read anything into the intent brown eyes, but the dog

seemed to be saying that he was wrong, that she was their concern. Because they knew

her.

Brady sighed. King always had a way of setting him straight. But this time, the dog was

wrong. Couldn't help someone who wouldn't help themselves. He'd learned that a long time

ago.

It had been one hell of a long day from start to finish. A bad night's sleep didn't help

matters. Not that he ever really got a good night's sleep. His sleep pattern would have

sent any self-respecting hospital-affiliated sleep clinic into a tailspin. He amassed his sleep

in snatches, never getting more than a couple hours at a clip, usually less. Each night

turned into a patchwork quilt of sleep and wakefulness.

The trouble was that he couldn't shut off his mind, couldn't find peace even in repose.

Half the time he dreamed of what he had experienced during the course of the day or,

more than likely, during his earlier years.

He supposed, in comparison to that time period, anything he experienced now was a

cakewalk, even if he did deal with the scum of the earth at times. At least he had the

consolation of knowing that he was ridding the world of vermin, making it safer for people

inAurora, people like Patience Cavanaugh, to sleep at night.