THE FBI THRILLERS COLLECTION Books 1-5 (115 page)

I
t was just after seven the next morning when I pulled my car into a guest parking spot in front of a parkside condo complex. I got out and looked around. The complex didn’t look more than three or four years old, designed in a country French style, three condos to each building, all of them garnished with pale gray wooden siding. The park was quite pretty, all pine and spruce trees, and playgrounds for kids, and even a pond for ducks and lily pads. As I walked into the complex, I saw a swimming pool off to the left, a clubhouse, and a small golf course. I remembered Laura saying that the library didn’t pay much. That was interesting. This place wasn’t cheap.

Laura Scott opened the door and blinked at me as I said, “Nice digs.”

“Mac, what are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you go to see Jilly yesterday? You told me you were going to visit her.”

She just shook her head at me. It made her long hair swing and lift. She was wearing nice-fitting jeans and a
loose T-shirt, and running shoes on her feet. I thought she looked elegant and sexy.

“Come in, Mac. Would you like a cup of coffee? It’ll take me just a few minutes to brew.”

“Yeah,” I said and, having no choice, followed her into one of the most beautiful homes I’d ever been in. The foyer was small, tiled with country peach-shaded pavers and whimsical accent tiles of French country scenes. Off to the left was a beautiful oak staircase leading upstairs. I followed her through an archway into a living room that was octagonal-shaped, giving it complexity with lots of nooks and crannies. There were bright colors everywhere, window seats, small flashes of scarlet pillows, and richly colored South Seas–patterned material on a sectional sofa. There were lamps and chairs and small groupings and nearly every inch of the room was filled with something extravagant, brightly colored, and utterly useless. It coaxed you right in.

There were plants and flowers everywhere. A mynah bird stood on the back of a chair watching me. He squawked, then began poking under his wing feathers.

“That’s Nolan,” Laura said. “He doesn’t talk—which is probably a good thing—just squawks occasionally.”

“Squawk.”

“That’s his greeting.”

“Hi, Nolan.” I followed her through the dining room into a small kitchen that looked right out of
Bon Appétit
magazine. All in all, the condo was a good-sized place, not as big as my own house, but not bad.

“How many bedrooms?”

“Three upstairs and a study downstairs.”

I accepted a cup of coffee, shook my head at the offer of milk or sugar. “You’ve got a really nice place here, Laura.”

“Thank you.”

“Did I see a two-car garage for each condo?”

“Yes. Before you raise that sarcastic eyebrow of yours even higher, let me tell you that my uncle George left me this condo in his will. About eighteen months ago, just in case you wondered.”

As, of course, I had. It was at least something solid and real that I could check out. “So Uncle George lived here?”

She nodded and sipped her coffee. Her head was cocked to the side, sending her loose hair hanging like a shining curtain beside her face. I wanted to roll around in that hair of hers, smooth it over my hands, let it tumble over my face. I’d noticed immediately that she wasn’t wearing a bra. I noticed again, and swallowed.

I forced my libido back into its case and got back to what I’d come for. “I was thinking that the complex doesn’t look more than three years old.”

“That’s about right. My uncle George bought it when they’d just begun building. He died a year and a half ago. I’ll never forget the first time I walked in here. The place was painted dark colors and filled with heavy, old pieces. I just shoveled everything out and had the greatest time making it mine.” She motioned toward the living room, and I followed her back out.

“Squawk.”

“Nolan likes coffee but I only give him a tiny taste just before bedtime.”

I elected not to sit in the chair that was Nolan’s current hangout. I sat opposite Laura on a pale yellow silk-covered chair. There was a hand-painted wooden magazine holder beside the chair. I saw two suspense novels, a world atlas, and three travel books. No magazines or newspapers to be seen.

“I didn’t go see Jilly yesterday because I had to work. There was a meeting with the Board of Trustees in the afternoon and I had to make a presentation. I didn’t go last night because, frankly, I didn’t feel well. I’m going to see her this afternoon.”

Ill? Had she eaten some of Mrs. Himmel’s shrimp and spent the night in the bathroom?

“You look just fine now, Laura. The flu bug gone? Or was it food poisoning?”

“No, it was a bad headache. Not quite a migraine, but still unpleasant. Maybe it came from all the stress. I came home about four in the afternoon and slept on and off until this morning. I called the hospital just an hour ago to see how Jilly was doing, to see when I should come, but no one would tell me anything. Of course, it was only six o’clock. The most anyone would say was that Mrs. Bartlett was unavailable. Why are you here, Mac? Tell me what’s going on.”

“What was your presentation to the Board of Trustees about?”

Her mouth curved into a grin. “It was titled ‘The New Century’—on library economics in the first decade and what the library should do in order to survive.”

“I’m here because Jilly’s gone.”

She jumped to her feet, took two steps toward me, leaned down, and yelled in my face, “No! That’s impossible, she couldn’t have died. She just woke up. She was bloody fine, the doctor said so. I called her last night. The nurse I spoke to said she was doing very well.”

“You never actually spoke to Jilly last night?”

“No, there was some sort of screwup. One nurse answered the phone, then another picked it up instead of Jilly. What happened, Mac?”

“She’s not dead. She’s gone, just disappeared out of the hospital.”

She lurched back, knocking her coffee cup off the table. The cup shattered on the oak floor, the coffee snaking toward a small silk Persian rug. She made a small sound of distress in the back of her throat and stepped back, staring down at the coffee. I got up and moved the rug out of the way. Then I just couldn’t help myself. I took her left wrist and slowly pulled her against me. She resisted, then finally she came to me, wrapping her arms around my back. I said against her hair, “She’s not dead, Laura, but she is gone. I came because I wanted to know if you knew why she left the hospital.”

Laura was tall. She fit against me very nicely. I held her away from me. I had to or I’d never even be able to keep a modicum of objectivity.

“When?”

“About ten o’clock last night,” I said, taking a step back from her. “We don’t know where she is. I’d hoped you’d know.”

She hadn’t moved. She just stood there where I’d put her. “Why should I know? Naturally I don’t have any idea where she is. How could I possibly know? She’s really missing? Just a second, Mac. I’d better clean that up.”

I waited until she returned to the living room with a paper towel. She went down on her knees and wiped the floor clean. I said, “No one has a clue where she is. No one saw her leave, by herself or with anyone else.”

She was cleaning up the shards of the cup, wiping more spilled coffee off the oak floor. She sat back on her heels and looked up at me. “And you think I’m involved,” she said at last.

“I came here because I hoped you’d know. You called
her last night.” I raised my hand to cut her off. “Yes, I know, you never really spoke to her. But hear this, Laura. Jilly didn’t like you. She might have been afraid of you. I know she believed you betrayed her somehow. I know she didn’t want to be anywhere near you. Surely you realize it was you being there that helped bring her out of the coma. She wanted to get away from you.

“Your story to me about meeting Jilly at your library—she was looking up articles on infertility of all things, you told me. I don’t buy that, Laura. To the best of my knowledge Jilly only realized she wanted to get pregnant about six months ago, at the outside. She wouldn’t even have started to worry there was a problem yet, would she?”

She rose slowly to her feet. She took a hard breath, her face set. “I’m not lying to you. That’s exactly how I met Jilly. I don’t personally know much of anything about infertility. How long does it take for someone to become concerned about not conceiving? I haven’t a clue. Maybe she’s been trying for quite a while and just didn’t tell you. That’s certainly possible, isn’t it? Jilly might not have been very well educated, but she wasn’t stupid.”

“You really believe Jilly was uneducated?”

“That’s what she told me. She said she barely scraped through high school, said that one of her teachers wanted to get in her pants and so he passed her, helped her graduate. She was always talking about how brilliant Paul was, what a genius he was, and how she was content to just be in the background and take care of him. I thought that was ridiculous, but it was what Jilly really believed, evidently what she really wanted. She said she wanted his child. She asked if I could begin to imagine how bright his child would be? Then she’d shudder and say that if the kid had her brains and her no-talent they’d all be in big trouble. I didn’t tell her that I think Paul is too skinny,
doesn’t take proper care of himself, that he’s losing his hair, and that I hope he doesn’t pass that along to a kid.”

If she was lying, I’d never in my life heard anyone better. I said, “This is all pretty strange, Laura. I guess then Jilly never told you that she’s a scientist, a researcher with a master’s degree in pharmacology? That she’d completed all her course work for her Ph.D. but put it on hold because she was more interested in the projects she was doing than writing a silly thesis, her words?

“Why would she lie to you? Why would Paul back up her lie when you were with the both of them? Come on, Laura, if someone saw you last night, you’d better dredge him or her up because, frankly, I don’t believe you. There’s no proof of any crime yet, no proof that someone took Jilly from the hospital against her will, but as far as I’m concerned, I’d say you need an alibi.”

“Wh-what?”

I thought Laura was going to pass out. She turned utterly white and leaned at the last minute against a white wall, barely missing a mirror with a brightly colored frame. She was shaking her head slowly, back and forth. The thing was, I wanted to comfort her, to hold her and pat her back. I wanted to bury my face in that long straight hair of hers.

“Squawk.”

She looked wildly over at Nolan and spread her hands in front of her. “No, you’re making that up, Mac. Jilly told me she was a housewife, that she didn’t have a single skill. I always just laughed at her when she went off on those self-bashing kicks of hers. She was so very beautiful, you see, and she had this natural confidence that made everyone respond so eagerly and positively to her. She was bright, well spoken. I can’t believe it. A scientist? A master’s degree?” She looked suddenly as if she
was going to cry. She was still shaking her head, her hair swinging. She looked shaken and confused. It couldn’t be an act, I told myself. No one was this good.

“I was sleeping all evening, all night. I was alone. Why did Jilly lie to me?”

I said, “Paul told me there was no party at all last Tuesday night, the night of Jilly’s supposed accident. He said that they ate dinner alone. He said that Jilly left at nine o’clock to drive around in her Porsche and he was in his laboratory, working.

“He also admitted, finally, that he hadn’t slept with you, that he’d wanted to but you weren’t interested.”

She looked like a blind person, feeling her way along the back of two chairs until she finally collapsed onto a section of the sofa. She lowered her head to her hands, her hair falling forward. “This is crazy,” she whispered through her hands. “I don’t understand any of it.”

“That makes two of us. But the fact remains that Jilly is gone. Vanished.” I had to attack straight on, I thought, whether I liked it or not. “I want to know where she is, Laura. I want to know how you convinced her to leave with you. I want to know how you managed to get out of the hospital without anyone spotting you.”

She looked up at me, eyes focused and hard. Her voice was fierce. No more shock or palpitations out of her. “Listen up, Mac. I didn’t lie to you, about any of it, the party included. I told you I had to leave early to give Grubster a pill. If there turned out not to be a party, that has nothing to do with me or with what Paul and Jilly told me.”

“Where is Grubster?” I asked, looking around. Who would have a cat around when Nolan was sitting quite at his ease on the back of a chair, looking at my coffee cup?

She shook her head as she rose from the sofa. “Now
you don’t even believe I have a cat.” She left the living room. I heard her light steps up the stairs. When she returned a couple of minutes later she was carrying a huge tiger-striped cat. “This is Grubster. As you can see, he likes his food. He weighs eighteen pounds. He doesn’t move very quickly, unless it’s a matter of food. He’s nearly eight years old. He just looks at Nolan and yawns. Sometimes they just have staring contests. Sometimes Nolan even deigns to sit on his back and dig around behind his ears with his beak.”

“Squawk.”

Laura looked over at the bird. “Come here, Nolan, and say hello to Grubster.”