“Will do,” said Ryan, his lips pressed into a grim line, visible through the webcam. He didn’t offer to hang up, and I didn’t ask him to. Tucker and I shouldn’t be doing anything that couldn’t be witnessed in public.
I looked through the keyhole, and sure enough, Tucker stared back at me. Even through the fishbowl of the keyhole lens, distorting the sharp planes of his face, I couldn’t help admiring his intelligent brown eyes and, yep, that stupid blond hair that he likes to spike with hair gel. “Are you alone?” I said through the door.
“No. I’m with you. There’s just this door between us.”
I undid the chain and swung the door open. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“You didn’t answer your phone or e-mail.”
“I was busy.”
He glanced behind me at my computer, and noticed Ryan. “I can see that. Hey, man.”
They nodded at each other.
I felt like stamping my feet. This was not the time for civility. I wanted to kick his ass, no matter how attractive he looked in his dark-wash jeans. He pulled off his jacket and threw it onto my futon, making himself at home. At least he didn’t try to kiss me hello on both cheeks in front of Ryan.
“When I say don’t come, Tucker—”
“You know that’s like waving a red flag in front of me. Strong like bull.”
“That’s a myth, about bulls and red flags,” I said. “They’re colorblind. They just don’t like the movement, especially when the matador is spearing them.”
“I know that,” Tucker responded, and added something in another language, which was another one of his quirks that I wasn’t going to respond to right now. “Talking about bulls is not the same thing as being in the bullring. What’s this case you got?”
I realized that I might be able to share some details about Gusarov with Tucker that I couldn’t give Ryan, since Ryan was a civilian. But Tucker couldn’t do any of the computer wizardry. I needed both of them.
Shoot.
I ran my hands through my hair in irritation. It lay shoulder length; I hadn’t had time to get a haircut. It was starting to get that blobby look. I caught Tucker watching me, a speculative cast to his face, his eyes arrested by the movement of my hands in my hair.
I lowered my arms and immediately glanced at Ryan, whose narrowed eyes shifted between Tucker and me.
I cleared my throat and explained, as best I could, that I’d met a creepy patient who was probably posting pictures of decapitated hamsters online, but the animal welfare groups in Montreal were overwhelmed and wouldn’t do anything about it.
“Dr. Hope to the rescue, champion of animals and small children,” said Tucker.
I wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. “You have a problem with that? Leave.”
He seemed surprised. “No, I like animals. My family has a dog. And you know what they say is the hallmark of an antisocial personality: fire-setting, cruelty to animals, and bed-wetting. We’d better catch this guy before he hurts anyone else.”
“Hang on a second,” said Ryan. “Bed-wetting?”
I nodded. “I know it sounds weird, but when they researched sociopaths, they found that they had these three things in common. That’s just what the research shows. That and a lack of remorse. The average person does something wrong and feels bad. A sociopath might apologize because it’s politically expedient, but really, they don’t care.”
Ryan cracked his knuckles. It startled me, even though I couldn’t hear the noise as well through Skype. He hadn’t done that in years. I guess the stress of detective work was getting to him too. “Okay. Let’s get this nut.”
Music to my ears.
Ryan doubled down on the computer side. Tucker asked me a few more questions about the patient, and I remembered that he’d considered doing psychiatry before he decided on family medicine. That could come in handy.
“It sounds like he could have body dysmorphic disorder. It’s unusual for a man to get plastic surgery on his face at any age, let alone twenty-two,” Tucker said, his brow pleated in thought. I tried not to register how yummy he looked when he was thinking. What can I say? Intelligence is a turn-on, even though he was stating something fairly obvious. “Maybe he doesn’t like the way he looks. Maybe he’s trying to change himself.”
That was speculative, but I didn’t want to interrupt his chain of thought.
“Maybe he’s trying to hide himself.”
Now he was getting into woo-woo territory, so I was relieved when Ryan said, “Got him. He’s online right now, just posted another picture. He didn’t manage to cover his IP in time. He’s close to Saint Marc’s Hospital, on Cote-des-Neiges.”
I stiffened. Saint Joseph’s Hospital, the Jewish Hospital, and Saint Marc’s, the francophone children’s hospital, are all within a twenty-minute walk of each other. My old apartment, Mimosa Manor, was basically next door to Saint Marc’s, as well as the Université de Québec à Montréal. Fortunately, Saint Marc’s was now a forty-minute walk from my new apartment. I licked my lips. “Can you give me his address?”
“I can give you his router address.”
“Done.” I wrote down the numbers and letters on a sheet of paper, then held them up for him to read and double-check.
Ryan nodded. “Now what are you going to do?”
“For once, I’m calling the police.”
He sighed in relief. Even Tucker nodded. “I wouldn’t go near this guy if I could help it. Are you doing plastics again tomorrow?”
“No. It was a one-time thing.” I glanced at the IP address again. “Thanks, Ryan. I—” Yikes. I almost told him I loved him, right in front of Tucker, whose dark eyes silently bore into me. “I mean, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Ryan grinned at my slip-up — he knew exactly what I was about to say. “You’re calling the police right now, right?”
“Yup. Officer Visser. She’s cool.”
“You’ll call me back after you’re done?”
“Yeah. She’ll probably need to talk to you anyway, since you’re the brains behind the operation.”
Miracle of miracles, Officer Visser was on that night, but she wasn’t in the office. I tried to explain my investigation to one of her colleagues, who obviously wasn’t interested. He said he’d give Visser the message.
I was dejected. I wanted to move on this guy — now. I Skyped Ryan to update him, while pacing back and forth in front of the screen.
“You did all you could, right?” said Ryan.
“Sure.” I was thinking about that IP address. Could I use it to look up the guy? I know I said I’d never climb back into danger, but...
Ryan’s mouth clamped together. “Don’t go there.”
I nodded.
“I mean it, Hope. I’ll never help you again if you keep endangering yourself. This is enough. Right?” His tone changed, and I realized that he was looking at Tucker now.
Tucker nodded. “I’ll keep her on lockdown.”
“You will not,” I said, hands on my hips.
They both looked at me.
“You got a death wish?” said Ryan. “How many times do you have to run after killers, bare-handed?”
“I’m not. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
“Sure you can,” said Tucker, grabbing my hand a little too firmly.
Ryan watched us, eyebrows raised.
“Don’t worry,” I told Ryan. “I’m not going to screw Tucker while he’s holding me prisoner.”
“Pity,” said Tucker in a fake British accent that made me laugh.
“Maybe I’ll just hang out with you guys for a while,” said Ryan. “Tucker? You following hockey?”
Tucker grinned. “The Habs just killed Phoenix.”
Ryan scoffed. “I wouldn’t call 3–2 killing them. They had to go to overtime.”