Secrets Amoung The Shadows (6 page)

"I don't mind staying. Really." Instinctively she reached for his hand to touch and reassure him, but pulled back before actual physical contact, turning the motion into a sweeping move, ending with lifting her hair off her neck.

They were doctor and patient, not friends. The gesture would have been inappropriate.

"I know it's an imposition, and I appreciate it," he said.

"I don't mind," she repeated inanely. "That's why I chose this profession. I enjoy helping people." That, she hoped, made it all sound impersonal, just part of her job.

He nodded. "Goodnight, then." He didn't move, just continued to gaze down at her, and she'd never before in her life been so certain that a man was going to kiss her as she was now. Nor had she ever been so certain she wanted a man to kiss her.

She whirled away, unlocked her car, flung the door open and slid in, then closed it determinedly behind her. When she dared to look up, he was gone.

Across the parking lot she saw him striding boldly toward a dark blue Lexus. As though he could feel her gaze on his broad back, he stopped, turned and lifted his hand in a wave. He was between two parking lot lights, and she saw only a silhouette—couldn't see his expression. But she fancied she could feel it, and again it was desire, not evil. Or maybe she only wanted it to be so.

She started her car and pulled away, refusing to look back.

***

By the time she finally got home after getting Bruce Hedlund admitted to the psychiatric ward, the hour was late, and she was completely exhausted. Nevertheless, she lay sleepless for a long time, trying not to think of Eliot yet unable to keep him out of her thoughts. It was much too early to make a definite diagnosis, especially when she'd been unable to contact another personality, but the evidence for multiple personality disorder was compelling.

At best, a merging of the personalities could take years, and there was no guarantee even then that he wouldn't fragment again. When the possibility of murder was added to the equation, an already shaky picture turned bleak and hopeless.

And she was attracted to this man.

She rolled over onto her side and punched her pillow viciously.

She'd never been prone to destructive relationships. The lovers she'd chosen had been dependable, stable, safe men. Eventually they'd always parted company as friends with no wild, heart-rending emotions on either side. She could call any of them if she got an extra ticket to the theater or just wanted some companionship at dinner.

Eliot embodied all the things she feared in a man. In spite of trying to come across as a very controlled person, his emotions were roiling and raging. And he set off that same turmoil in her.

You couldn't stop loving someone if they became mentally ill. But to deliberately become involved with someone who was already sick would be inviting disaster. Mentally ill people hurt those who got too close to them.

Her mother had no choice. Leanne's father had been a happy, easy-going man when they married. The illness had come years later, after she and her mother both loved him with all their hearts.

Her father's agonized face rose up in her mind as clearly as if it were only yesterday instead of seventeen years ago that she'd opened the door to his study, going in to tell him goodnight before leaving on a date. He'd looked at her, tears streaming down his cheeks, and it had taken a moment to register the gun he held to his head. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Tell your mother her. I love both of you so much."

He pulled the trigger.

Her father hadn't meant to hurt the people he loved. His own torture had simply been too horrible to bear. Leanne understood that and didn't hate him, but she never again wanted to endure that kind of agony.

She rolled onto her back, determinedly pushing that scene from her mind. She'd been sixteen years old, old enough to already know what she wanted to do with her life, to help people like her father. But from that time forward she knew she could only give so much of herself to her patients. She could counsel them and help them and care about them...but only to a certain point. Beyond that point, she dared not go. The risk was too great.

If she was foolish enough to forget every ethic of her profession, she couldn't forget that reality.

***

Eliot submerged himself in his work the next day. With Leanne Warner's expertise and his determination, he would get his life back in order. He had to believe that.

The decision to seek help hadn't been an easy one, but he'd really had no other choice. Talking to Leanne, telling her his innermost secrets, had been tough, especially when he had to continually remind himself that she was a doctor, not a desirable woman. He'd often been accused by women of not opening up to them, of holding himself back, and they were right, of course.

He would never expose his vulnerabilities and failings to someone he was trying to impress. That was a surefire way to turn off a woman.

But Leanne was a doctor and not available to him as a woman.

She thinks you're crazy. She'll tell. Everybody will know you're crazy.

"Mr. Kane," his assistant said when he lifted the receiver, "you have two gentlemen here to see you, a Mr. Stockton and a Mr. Easton."

He sensed immediately that the two men standing in the reception area outside his office weren't clients. It wasn't just their clothing. Many of his clients, even the wealthy ones, wore inexpensive clothing. There was something about their stances, their demeanor, as though they were doing a job and were a little bored and a little belligerent about the whole thing.

"Detective Claude Stockton," the taller man said as soon as the door closed. "And this is Detective Frank Easton." He indicated his partner.

"Have a seat, gentlemen," Eliot invited. His heart pounded so loudly that, like the murderer in Edgar Allan Poe's
Telltale Heart
, he felt sure they must hear the guilty sound. "What can I do for you?"

They remained standing, rejecting his invitation. "When did you last see Kay Palmer?" Stockton asked, his voice casual, belying the import of the question.

Eliot sat down in his chair, afraid his legs would no longer support him. "The woman who was murdered last week? I've never seen her."

Stockton lifted one bushy eyebrow. "Then do you want to tell us why she had your name and phone number in her appointment book?"

Chapter 6

There it was, then, a link between his dreams and the real world, between him and the murdered woman. In a perverse way it was almost a relief, a validation of his fears.

"I don't know where she would have gotten my name and phone number," he told the detective. It was the truth, as far as he knew it.

"Your number's unlisted, isn't it?"

"It's unlisted, but it's certainly no secret. I even have one style of business card with my office, home and cell numbers."

"Some of her friends have mentioned how she was real taken with you. They said she told them you'd gone to school together, but she moved away and didn't see you again until you showed up recently," Stockton continued.

That almost stole Eliot's final remnant of control.

"I was not going out with that woman, and as for going to school with her—" He frowned, searching his memory, recalling the uneasy feeling he'd had that Kay Palmer had seemed familiar. "I don't know. My high school class was large, and I haven't kept in touch with my classmates." His chest tightened so that he had to force out the words. "Off hand, I don't remember anyone by that name."

Stockton took a package of cigarettes from inside his jacket. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"I'd rather you didn't. I quit a few months ago, and I'd prefer not to be around it."

Stockton returned the cigarettes to his pocket, his face a carefully schooled mask. If he was offended, he didn't show it. "So you're denying that you dated Kay Palmer?"

"Yes. I deny dating her." At least, he had no memory of it.

"What about manicures?"

"Manicures?" The change of subject took Eliot by surprise. "What does that have to do with this woman's murder?"

The men exchanged glances again.

"The dead woman was a manicurist," Easton said.

"I don't do manicures. I don't have time for that kind of indulgence." But as he spoke, something tickled the back of his memory, something to do with manicures.

He clenched his fists in his lap, suddenly afraid to check his nails for fear they'd be smooth and polished rather than slightly ragged from the irregular care he gave them.

"Your name was in her appointment book. Several times," Stockton informed him. "The other women who work in the shop, they remember you coming in."

Incapable of speech, Eliot stared at him.

The evidence was mounting that he had been involved with Kay Palmer. Maybe he should tell these men about his dreams, let them arrest him and put him in jail so no one else would be in danger...so Leanne Warner wouldn't be in danger.

But even as the thought of being imprisoned—trapped—ran through his mind, his lungs constricted. Every breath became an arduous task. His claustrophobia closed around him. Sitting in the middle of his familiar office, he was becoming light-headed, the air heavy against him.

Kill himself?
Where had that insane thought come from? As overpowering as his claustrophobia might be, suicide had never entered his mind.

At least, not the part of his mind that he controlled.

"I'm fine." He turned his attention back to the detectives.

He really had nothing to tell the men. All he had was a dream, a nightmare. If he told them about it, they'd think he was nuts—and they might be right.

Stockton sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbow on Eliot's desk. "Mr. Kane, we're not accusing you of anything. We don't care if you had an affair with the murdered woman. You're not a suspect right now. We just want some information."

Eliot forced himself to stand, to appear confident and unconcerned. "Gentlemen, I wish I could help you, but I don't have any information. If there's nothing else...?"

He shook his head. "No." Fred, the doorman, could unless the older man had dozed off, as he sometimes did. But Eliot was reluctant to mention him, fearful the detectives might check with Fred and discover Eliot had left home that night.

Stockton took one of Eliot's cards from the holder on his desk, put it in a battered, bulging wallet and offered one of his. "If you think of anything that might help us."

Eliot accepted the card. He noted with a small degree of satisfaction that he was able to keep his hand from trembling as he took it.

Then his eyes darted involuntarily to his fingers. He thought surely the other men must be looking at them, too.

His nails looked the way they always did. If he'd had a manicure, it hadn't been recently.

But then, Kay Palmer had been killed over a week ago. How long did it take fingernails to lose the manicured look? He had no idea.

Eliot accompanied the men out, somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other in a reasonable semblance of normal walking, smiled and told them he'd call if he thought of anything. His smile felt a little tight, and he didn't offer to shake hands for fear his would be damp and clammy and suspicious.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Kane?" his assistant asked as he stood watching the detectives leave.

Eliot looked at the small, gray-haired woman who had worked for him for five years. She sounded genuinely concerned. For five years he'd passed her several times a day, so occupied with business he'd failed to register that she was a real person. He didn't even know if she had a husband, children, grandchildren.