Dead End (7 page)

Shuffling, the last patient went into the office and closed the door. He emerged forty-five minutes later, grumbling about doctors who were still wet behind the ears and announcing that Reb was wrong, he wasn’t any better, and he shouldn’t be sent back to work.

His turn, Marc thought, and approached Gaston and the door feeling like a schoolboy. For a man who had a reputation for being hard-nosed and completely sure of himself, the sensation was irritating. But yesterday’s meeting with Reb had shaken him up—badly. He hadn’t been prepared to see her at all, and if he had been, he wouldn’t have expected the woman she’d become. This time around he might have an even worse time walking away than he had years ago. The only thing that had changed about his attraction to her was that it had grown more intense. The number of hours he’d spent awake and…and however you described swinging between something that felt like longing that actually involved his mind and hard-ons that didn’t feel like anything but the real thing. They were the real thing.

He tapped the door, and Reb said, “Come,” so he entered with Gaston at his heels. Reb saw the dog before she looked at Marc and said, “Out, sir, you don’t belong in here and you know it.” Then she saw her “patient,” and clapped her mouth shut. From the look in her eyes, he wasn’t the only one unsure of how to behave.

“I’m the last,” he said. “You had a light morning?”

“It was busy earlier. It’s first come, first served. Everyone tries to get here first. Sit down, please.” She indicated the chair that faced her desk and pulled a new folder from a drawer. She opened this and slid a few sheets of paper over metal clips. “What seems to be the matter?”

Laughing wouldn’t be polite. Mark sat down. “It’s complicated, but I don’t think you’ll need to take notes.”

She set down her pen and frowned—and her green eyes certainly were troubled. “Why didn’t you say you were ill yesterday? I’d have seen you at once, you know that.”

Marc felt guilty “I know you would, cher. I’m not ill.” The instant he used the automatic endearment he knew his mistake, but it had come naturally and he couldn’t take it back.

Reb propped her elbows on the desk and steepled her fingers. Her hair was pulled on top of her head and smoothed as best as it ever could be. The bones in her face were fine, and the hair seemed almost too heavy. She was taller than average, and well-covered. A standard-issue white coat with a stethoscope hanging out of a pocket didn’t seem to belong on her. He couldn’t get past thinking of her as a teenager. He’d better get past it fast. They had grown-up business together.

An unpleasant idea struck him. “Did you get married?”

Her fine eyebrows rose. “No. What would make you ask that?”

“Natural. Some guy should have wooed you up the aisle by now.” He must remind himself to avoid this line of interrogation in future. “I’m not married either.”

She laughed and settled her wide mouth in a wicked grin. “I think you’ve lost your touch, Marc. A desperate woman might make something out of all that.”

He didn’t feel like grinning, but watching her mouth was a real pleasure, even if it wasn’t comfortable. “But you’re not desperate, so I’m safe.” Recalling a certain kiss on the campus at Tulane was easy. She had kissed him, but he could have stopped her. He hadn’t. Reb might never have kissed anyone before that, but she’d shown promise. Oh, yes, indeed—a lot of promise. That promise must have turned into some realized dreams by now, not that he liked thinking about her kissing other men, or…

Damn it all, they were as good as strangers and he was feeling possessive.

“Motorcycles aren’t safe.”

Her expression turned speculative. She pulled the stethoscope from her pocket and pushed it into a drawer.

“People get hurt on them every day.”

“That’s true,” Reb said. She took off her coat and hung it on a hook. The consulting room looked exactly as it had in her father’s time. Dark wood, glass-fronted cabinets where instruments were spread. An examining table along a wall with a curtained changing cubicle at its foot.

A neat, green cotton blouse and tan pants had replaced yesterday’s hillbilly biker duds. Not that Reb hadn’t looked good in cutoffs and a tight T-shirt. He could have passed on the boots.

He was here to carry out serious business. Diversions weren’t part of the plan, particularly diversions that might not want to remain casual.

“Do you wear a helmet when you ride?”

That got him a withering look. “Yes. Thanks for your concern. I’ve ridden for years. It’s an economical form of transportation, and I like it.”

“Right. None of my business anyway.”

“What you suggested yesterday shocked me, Marc. Made me do some thinking. First, I know you’re wrong. But I can understand you coming to Toussaint to look for your sister. I wish I could help, but I can’t. If you think of something I can do, ask. I make a good sounding board, too.”

For the first time in days the tension in his chest relaxed. “Thanks, Reb. Something tells me I’ll be taking you up on the offer. I don’t seem to have many friends in Toussaint. In fact, I don’t seem to have any.”

“You’re not looking in the right places. You already met the best man I’ve ever known. Cyrus will be your friend. Just call. Madge Pollard is special—she’d do whatever she could to help, and for all her prickly pokes, Oribel is always ready to champion the underdog.”

It didn’t take much to grate on his nerves these days. “Underdog isn’t something I do so well, Reb. Any more than you would.”

She came around the desk and stood in front of him until he looked up at her. “You and I have that in common and it isn’t good. We’re too tough to be relaxing company. That doesn’t give us badges of honor—it’s sad. I’m trying to loosen up. Of course, I’d never give you advice on anything you might want t’do. Does Amy live in New Orleans?”

Dr. O’Brien distracted him. The light makeup she wore suited her, especially the pale, shiny lipstick. When she was a little kid, he used to take her swimming in the pool at Clouds End, and he remembered her laughing like a manic imp. Would she like him to tow her around in that blue water now—with the sun on her face, and body?

“Marc?” she said, and he realized they’d been studying one another equally closely. He smiled and felt warm in all the best places.

“Amy doesn’t seem to live anywhere anymore, but she did live in the Quarter last I knew.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?” She sat on the front of her desk and swung her legs. Her waist was slim and her stomach flat, but her breasts were more than handfuls, and her hips curved just the way he liked. She’d fit very nicely on his knees.

He cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen Amy in a couple of months. That’s not unusual, but she used to call every other week or so. She’s only called once since I saw her last, and that was right after we had lunch that last time.”

“Funny you don’t run into each other more often when you live in the same city.”

“We frequent different places, with different people and on different schedules.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah.” But it was the way Amy had wanted it, and in the end he’d wanted it, too.

“Surely she’s more likely to move on somewhere other than Toussaint.” She took hold of a pendant that hung at the vee of her blouse collar, and he glanced up, realizing she’d caught him looking at her breasts.

Fortunately his blushing days were over. “That would be logical, but Amy isn’t logical about a lot of things. She shared a flat with a medium. Had for a year or more, but the woman would never have contacted me. I called, looking for Amy. The medium said she hadn’t seen her since the beginning of May. Almost two months.”

Reb frowned. “But this person hadn’t tried to find out where your sister was?”

“No.” This had to be couched so he didn’t sound crazy. “She said she didn’t because she knew where she was. She was
in touch
with Amy.”

“As in Amy was dead and communicating from the other side?”

“We didn’t get too specific on that. The gist of everything said was that Amy had been seeing a man all the time she was in New Orleans. Not at the flat, but at some place they rented for when they were together.”

“Are you talking about Chauncey Depew?”

“She never cared for anyone else. He was her first and only love, starting from before she turned fourteen. He was twenty-one.”

Reb wrinkled her nose with distaste. “But he can’t have kept that up since he married Precious. She’s not much more than half his age—and she’s too high-maintenance. I doubt he gets to make a move she doesn’t know about.”

“Amy told me it was all over after the marriage, but her friend told me Depew even managed to get into town from his honeymoon in Orange Beach.”

“But that was a long time ago, Marc.”

He shrugged and gripped the arms of the chair. “I’m telling you what I was told myself. Evidently they kept seeing each other until Depew finally got scared his wife would find out—she must hold the purse strings—and called everything off. By my figuring that’s when Amy went missing.”

“That must have been a powerful relationship. To last so long under the circumstances.”

You
’
re thinking Amy
’
s probably a mess by now, and you
’
re right. Depew isn
’
t the type to hang around has-beens.
Marc hadn’t had the heart to ask Amy if she had something on Depew that kept him around.

With her hands in her pockets, Reb got up. She went to a file cabinet and riffled through folders. She pulled one out and opened it, rapidly scanned pages, then replaced what she’d read and closed the drawer.

“What is it?” Marc asked.

She looked at him as if she’d forgotten his presence. “Excuse me. I was just making sure I hadn’t forgotten something from one of my morning patients.”

Like hell.
She was a lousy liar, but he couldn’t press her to breach patient confidentiality.

“What do you want from me?” Reb asked suddenly.

Her tone caught him off guard. “I’d have thought that was pretty obvious. I want your help.”

“With what? You’ve come up with some theory, but from what I understand, you don’t have a thing to back it up. Did you report her missing?”

“You’re angry with me,” he said, and struggled not to return the favor.

“You always were used to getting your own way. You asked, and people ran to give you what you wanted. No attachments, no personal involvements, just ask and you received. Well, I’ve got troubles of my own, and I’m not going to try making any points with you. And for the record, I don’t like being put in a position where I’m supposed to feel responsible for you.”

He got to his feet. “What troubles?”

She opened her mouth and kept it that way.

“I asked a simple question, Reb. You said you’ve got troubles and I asked what they are. If something’s wrong, I want to know.”

Drawing a short breath, she said, “Thanks for the concern, but I’m hardly your problem. I doubt if you’ve given me a thought in a lot of years. It was just a figure of speech anyway. Everyone has troubles of some kind.”

“Okay, I’ll accept that, but I don’t want you to feel responsible for me,” he said quietly, although he was glad to be on his feet and looking down at her. “This isn’t even a ‘for old times sake’ deal. You happen to be a doctor, the doctor who was the first to examine whoever fell down those belfry stairs. I’m not asking for personal favors, just information.”

Reb’s face stung. Her belly felt tight and her legs weak. When she took a step it was jerky. When she’d been a little kid following him around at Cloud’s End, he’d laughed at her regularly and shooed her away, but he’d never turned mean or put her down. He wasn’t mean now, but he knew how to dole out a cutting put-down.

“I didn’t mean to sound rude,” he said, and she wished she didn’t like him being so much taller and bigger than she was. He ran a hand through his short curly hair. “I didn’t always get my way, Reb. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, a lot you don’t need to know. If I seemed self-involved when I was younger it was because I needed to be to save myself. It would have been easier to do what was expected of me, but I believe I’d have died in a way if I had.”

“I think I understand,” she said, recalling what her father had said about Ira Girard’s determination to have his son go into the business, and Ira’s furious disappointment when Marc had refused. “Go see the deputy. Spike Devol. Misfit around here but conscientious—and straight. People trust him, even if he can be a loose cannon. There could be things you ought to know, but I don’t want to be accountable for choosing which ones and maybe dragging this out for you.”

“I’d rather talk to you than some deputy. You were there. Maybe if we talk you’ll remember some detail that’ll help.”

Talking with Marc Girard wasn’t without appeal, but once again he was applying pressure. “I don’t think it will,” she told him. “And I’ve got house calls to make.”

“
House calls?
Doctors don’t make house calls—”

“This doctor does. We’ve got an aging population, and I believe they should get what they’re used to when they’re ill.”

“You’re brushing me off.” Two large hands took her by the shoulders and held her as if she might run away. “Don’t do that to me just because I messed up all those years ago.”

The curse of the pale-skinned redhead was that they could really blush. Reb’s face throbbed. “This is ridiculous,” she told him. “If you weren’t upset you’d never behave like this. You didn’t mess up anything. I did. You were the one who figured out how to smooth things over, and I thank you for that. Let’s not bring it up again.”

“Because it embarrasses you?” he said, dropping his hands. “I’ll say this much and no more. You were the sweetest thing, and I…I liked you for your spontaneity. I never tried to make you understand the way things had to be—at least for a while. I left you thinking you’d done something wrong while I protected myself. Well, the joke was on me because I was the one who lost out. It’s in the past, but I wanted to tell you.

“Look, if I asked you,” he continued, “would you consider coming out to Clouds End with me? Early evenin’ maybe? I’ll feed you and see if I can’t figure out a way to talk about the things you might be able to help me with—as the doctor who was there.”