Alone in the Dark (9 page)

gloves. Aren't you and King in the narcotics detail?"

That was exactly why he carried gloves. "Sometimes I have to handle bags of cocaine or

heroin," he told her matter-of-factly. "You don't want that getting on your skin, especially if you've got a nick or a cut."

Patience was barely aware of nodding in response. She was holding her breath as he took

the lid off the box, bracing herself again. It was as if each time she looked at the flowers,

she was reminded all over again that the world was not the place she wanted it to be, the

place that her brother and cousins made safe just by their very presence. There was a

nasty side to life, a nasty side that found them despite the best of precautions.

"Certainly isn't cheap," Brady observed matter-of-factly. Each rose was as plump and

perfect as the last. Great care had been taken selecting them. By his count, there were

two dozen.

"This must have set him back about a hundred dollars." Both hands in the box, he moved

the long-stemmed flowers around gingerly.

He'd already taken out the envelope with the card and set it on the table. She didn't

understand. "What are you looking for?"

He glanced at her. "Making sure your 'admirer' just sent flowers."

"What else would he have sent?"

He debated telling her, then decided that he'd rather she be safe than another statistic.

Forewarned was forearmed.

"There was one case where the stalker sent a poisonous snake along with the flowers.

When they caught him, he said that he felt if he couldn't have her, nobody could, and he

made damn sure he got his way."

She'd put the lid back quickly, but was confident that she would have noticed if there had

been anything alive in the box.

"No snake," she assured him. "Just flowers and a card."

But that was bad enough, she thought. Patience sincerely doubted that she was ever going

to be able to look at a rose without feeling an icy shiver go up and down her spine.

Satisfied that the only things in the box besides the roses were sprigs of baby's breath

and silver tissue paper, he turned his attention to the card. Still wearing the gloves, he

slipped the card out of the envelope and read it. The words matched the ones she'd

already told him. He slipped the card back into the envelope. Dropping it into the box, he

put the lid back in place.

"I'm going to take this down to the lab, have it dusted for prints."

"There'll be several sets. The florist's, mine. And Shirley brought the box into the clinic."

Shirley. That would be the animated woman in the outer office. "Might be a lot of

people's prints on the box and envelope," he agreed. "But it's a start." And who knew, sometimes they actually got lucky.

"Um, Brady." He looked up at her. His eyes were edgy, stirring. She felt something inside of her responding. Just nerves. "I don't want this to get back to Patrick or the others."

"Strictly off the record," he assured her. "I've got a friend in forensics who can handle this discreetly." He saw the skeptical look that passed over Patience's face. "What?"

She shook her head, embarrassed. But he kept looking at her, waiting. "It's nothing." And then she relented. "It's just that I can't seem to picture you with friends, that's all."

Brady eyed her for a long moment. He supposed he had that coming. It was no secret that

he went out of his way to keep his distance from people in general. But sometimes, people

got through anyway. Like Powell in forensics.

Like her.

He tried to tell himself there was no difference. "We're friends, aren't we?"

Brady's voice was devoid of emotion when he asked the question and she wondered for a

second if he was being sarcastic or just incredibly dry, then decided that he was being

neither.

"Yes," she acknowledged quietly, "we are." Friends was a nice, safe word that encompassed a wide terrain. Emotions were put into play with friends. That's all that was going on here,

she insisted.

It only made her feel marginally better.

"Then you shouldn't have any trouble extending your imagination to my having more than

just one friend," he concluded.

Brady started to pick up the box, then paused. Although she was trying to keep up a brave

front, Patience seemed even more shaken this time around than she had when he'd

inadvertently walked in with the rose he'd found on her doorstep.

Weighing his options, he made a decision. His assignment had just been brought to a

satisfactory conclusion. He and King had just led several of the detectives in the narcotics

division to a successful bust. Heroin dealers were using a school bus, of all things, to get

their "product" from one place to another. King had led the detectives right to the stash, packed away beneath the floorboards.

"I can stick around for a while if you like," he offered.

It wasn't that she didn't want him to. The thought of having him around was infinitely

comforting, but she just couldn't allow herself to surrender to her fears. It wasn't who

she was.

"You're on duty and I don't have any narcotics for you to unearth." She glanced toward

the operating salon. "Unless you're interested in confiscating some of the painkillers I

have on hand—"

He never cracked a smile. "I can take some personal time."

The offer surprised her. But then, Coltrane had already surprised her by turning up last

night. The man wasn't nearly as one-dimensional and aloof as he pretended.

She squared her shoulders, digging deep for her resolve. "No, that's all right. I've got a

lot of patients to see today. And, besides, I haveTacomafor protection." Right now, the

dog napped in the last exam room, but she knew all she had to do was call out the dog's

name and she would be by her side in a shot. "She might not be as highly trained as King

is—" she glanced toward the dog in the hallway "—but she won't let anything happen to

me."

The look on Brady's face told her he was dubious about her faith, but he shrugged as he

picked up the box. "You've got my number if you change your mind. I'll let you know about

the roses."

Patience walked out of the room first. She had no desire to accidentally brush against

Brady as they negotiated the doorway. She felt vulnerable enough as it was.

"I appreciate it. Really," she emphasized, sensing that if she went any further, she'd just make him uncomfortable. Brady Coltrane was obviously a reluctant champion, but she was

grateful that she could turn to him. He'd find things out for her with a minimum of fuss.

If she'd turned to Patrick, his first action would be to corner Walter and she still wasn't

one hundred percent sure that itwasWalter who was sending her the flowers.

Brady accepted her thanks with no comment. He went out into the front of the office

with King close beside him. As he passed the receptionist, he heard the woman sigh. He

gave no indication that he heard her. He had a feeling if he so much as looked in her

direction, he would find himself detained indefinitely.

Brady went straight out the door.

Patience took a second to pull herself together, then walked into the reception area. She

smiled broadly at the man sitting on the black sofa. "I can see you now, Mr. Matthews."

The man gained his feet and tugged on his dog's leash. The animal had fallen asleep.

"'Bout time," Matthews mumbled as he went to the first examination room.

It was quiet again. Funny how eerie she found that now.

She hadn't told Shirley anything about what was going on, even though the young woman

had questioned her almost every hour on the hour about why Brady had walked off with

her flowers.

"Did you two have an argument? Boy, I'd never stick with a guy who took back flowers."

Her tone took a 180-degree turnabout. "Although he is kinda cute. Now, if he was

sendingmeflowers…"

For the most part, she let Shirley ramble on. The younger woman obviously had no great

need for the truth. The more she talked, the more enamored she became with the scenario

she was fabricating out of thin air. Very carefully, Shirley was edging her out as the

recipient of Brady's affections.

The minute the last patient for the day had been seen and accounted for, Shirley had

disappeared from the clinic like smoke. Tossing a hurried, "See you tomorrow" in her wake, the receptionist was gone.

Patience was quick to follow and lock the door behind her. Normally she left the front

door open until she was ready to go up into her own house, but not today. Today she made

sure that the lock was in place. She didn't want to leave herself more vulnerable than she

was already feeling.

The phone rang and she nearly jumped out of her skin. The sound echoed and bounced

within the empty clinic, mocking her. When she yanked the receiver up and exclaimed,

"Hello?" she only heard a dial tone.

"Wrong number," she told herself as she dropped the receiver back into the cradle. "It's just a wrong number. Damn it, Paysh, lighten up before you become a space cadet."

As if to offer her comfort,Tacomarubbed against her leg. She stroked the animal's head.

"Right, you're here to protect me," she murmured fondly, taking some comfort in the

sound of her own voice. "What could go wrong?"

It was dark outside and the dark always made her feel less than safe. Shadows harbored

a multitude of tiny, pointy demons bent on torturing her mind. Her fear was a holdover

from when she was very, very young.

Patience sighed as she flipped off a row of lights. What she needed was some hot tea. No,

she decided more firmly, what she needed was not to let her imagination run off with her.

If this sudden rush of unwanted attention was coming from Walter, well, she'd been

through this before. The man just needed a refresher course in leaving her alone.

And yet the tension refused to leave.

She didn't like being nervous. It reminded her too much of her childhood. Patrick and the

others had always thought of her as the cheerful one, the one who had come through the

experience of their less-than-storybook childhood unscathed.

But they were wrong. She hadn't.

She'd just maintain that outward, chipper facade to help bolster her mother and to help

Patrick, as if being sunny and upbeat could somehow enable him to lighten the load he

carried for all of them. She kept hoping her cheerfulness, however forced and unfounded,

would rub off on him. Eventually her brother had found his answers and his haven in Maggi.

Still, she felt that in her own small way, she'd done her damnedest to make life bearable

for him and her mother.

She'd pretended to be carefree and unaffected for so long, she didn't know how else to

behave. There were even times when she managed to fool herself into believing that she

was the person she pretended to be. Happy, outgoing, secure.

But underneath it all was that frightened little girl who cowered inside. The one who'd

hidden in her room with her hands over her ears so as not to hear the sound of raised, ugly

voices. And this resurgence of the stalker just brought it to the fore again.

Patience stifled a scream that swelled in her throat in response to the unexpected knock

on the door. Trying to calm her nerves, she immediately reached forTacoma's collar and

slipped her fingers around it, as if tethering herself to the animal.

"We're closed," she called out.

"I know, that's why I'm here."

Patience felt her heart slam against her rib cage as the words registered half a beat

before the voice did. Was she imagining it?

"Brady?"

This time, the voice from the other side of the door sounded more human. "Open the

door, Doc. It's starting to rain and King smells like hell when he's wet."

A smile threatened to crack her face in two as she ran to the door and undid the locks.

Throwing the door open, Patience stepped back as the welcome sight of officer, dog and

even rain came across the threshold as one.

A myriad of emotions swirled within her. More rain swept in and she came to, quickly

shutting the door.

"Where did the rain come from?" she asked.

"The sky," he deadpanned. King shook himself off, sending a spray of raindrops inTacoma's and Patience's direction. "King, no!" he ordered, then looked at Patience. The bottom of her lab coat was covered with droplets. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be. Don't be sorry at all." She was fairly beaming as she said it.

«^»

Tacomasneezed and took a step back after attempting to inhale King's essence. Man and

dog were leaving a trail of small puddles as they came into the center of the barren

reception area.

Patience tried to remember the last time anyone had looked this good to her and couldn't.

"What are you doing here?"

"Dripping." Brady rubbed his hand over his face in an effort to wipe off water. The

downpour had been unexpected and sudden.

Patience laughed. "Besides that." Circumventing the counter, she crossed to the cabinets just off the operating salon. After taking out two towels from the lower cabinet, she

offered one to Brady before sinking to her knees and using the other to towel off King.

"Did you get anything back from the lab yet?"

"Nothing definitive." She looked at him as he ran the towel over his head. He looked

boyish with his hair going in all directions. Somehow, she knew he wouldn't appreciate her