“Hi, Mandy. It’s me.”
“Mark?”
“The one and only. And how’s the most beautiful veterinarian in all of Manhattan?”
“I’m fine, but where are you calling from?” She sounded put out rather than excited.
“The Plaza. I was down here on a coroner’s case, but unexpectedly had to stay the night and wondered if we could get together.”
Her silence gave him a sinking feeling.
“Well, I would have loved to,” she said after a few seconds, “but I can’t tonight.”
He heard a male voice in the background. Mandy lived alone.
“Of course,” he said, immediately casting around for a way to say good-bye without embarrassing either of them. “I just took a chance, never expecting even to find you in on a Saturday night. Stupid of me not to have called before and set something up.”
She laughed. “I won’t argue with that, Mark.”
“Well, next time lots of warning.”
“Yes, I’d like that. Perhaps we could have lunch.”
Ouch! He’d been demoted. From lover to former boyfriend status, all in an instant, suitable for get-togethers in public places, a greeting kiss on the cheek, but the rest of her body arched safely away from him. “Take care, Mandy.”
“You too.”
Definitely taken down a few rungs. Well, what did he expect? He hadn’t exactly broken her door down with return visits or rung her phone off the hook after her last weekend at Hampton Junction. To be honest, he hadn’t bothered because he knew there was no point. Mandy Caterril would never be happy away from her poodle practice in Manhattan. Just like Shauna, the uptown physiotherapist, before her, or Cindy, the TriBeCa theater director, before them.
East Side, West Side, all around the town. The tune popped into his head. Wonderful, beautiful, fun women from every part of the greatest city on earth, and not a hope in hell any one of them could cope with being the mate of a country doctor. As far as they were concerned, he’d made a mistake choosing to practice where he had.
Shit! Enough with the gloomy woulda, shoulda, coulda crap. He didn’t feel like just rolling over and going to sleep either. He grabbed the New York Magazine by his bed and flipped through the theater section. But it was long past curtain time, both on and off Broadway. Ought to kick himself in the ass for not having planned ahead and at least given himself a show.
Then he had an idea.
A crazy idea, but one that would be exactly the no-strings-attached, one-night-only encounter he felt in the mood for.
“Could you connect me with the home of Dr. Melanie Collins, please,” he said, having contacted an operator at New York City Hospital. “It’s Dr. Mark Roper.”
“The Chief of Internal Medicine?”
He hadn’t known that about her. “Is there another Melanie Collins?”
“I’ll see if she’ll take your call,” said the man on the other end. He didn’t sound very hopeful.
“Dr. Roper,” Melanie said, when he was plugged through to her. “This is a surprise.”
“It is for me, too. I had to stay over unexpectedly. If you have time, I wondered if we could continue our conversation about Kelly?”
She gave a throaty chuckle that made more than his hopes rise. “Sure, if you like. But I just ordered some Chinese food. Say, why don’t you come on over here and share it with me – they always send too much – and I’ll open a bottle of wine.”
It was so blatant a response to his overture, despite its being exactly what he had in mind, he went briefly dumbstruck. What was his problem? Seconds ago he’d wanted her to say yes. Now he balked. Why? He certainly had no hang-ups about women who took the initiative, in fact, quite enjoyed them. The age difference? No, he’d been there, too. Yet from the place in his stomach that turned when he encountered a bad taste or a foul smell, he once again felt a slight revulsion. This wasn’t right for him. “Oh, thank you, that’s really generous, but I’ve got an early meeting, which is why I’m staying over. I was hoping we could talk on the phone.”
“I see.” Her tone of voice had cooled to about minus twenty. “Of course. What did you want to know?”
Chapter 7
Sunday, November 18, 6:55 A.M.
The wind buffeted Mark as he jogged across Fifth Avenue toward the side entrance of the Plaza, but he didn’t feel cold. His run up to the reservoir and back had left him hot and sweaty. A funnel of gold leaves spiraled to the ground and swirled around his feet. Looking over his shoulder to the east, a streak of dawn bright as a polished steel blade hurt his eyes. He hurried inside and, when he got to his room, showered for a long time. Needles of steaming hot water pelted his skull as he lost himself in the din. Then he turned the cold on full.
An hour later he was ready, his head buzzing from the cups of black coffee he’d downed thanks to room service. Carrying his briefcase, he arrived at the Palm Court early only to find Earl already seated at a table reading the Sunday Herald while sipping a cup of coffee. Earl looked rested, clear-eyed, and calm – everything Mark wasn’t.
He’d been on the Internet until two-thirty, having gone back to learn more about Earl in preparation for their meeting. The man was impressive. Stellar in the field of emergency medicine. A long string of journal publications bearing his name. And a nose for rooting out trouble. More than once he’d made national headlines for his part in exposing deadly malfeasance in the health care field, often at great personal risk. Definitely not the sort to bend under pressure, cow before danger, or compromise to save his own skin. But he might do the right thing on behalf of Kelly.
“Morning,” Earl said, appraising him with the thousand-yard stare Mark would expect from someone who’d survived over twenty years in the pit and thrived on it. Gone was any hint of the sadness he’d seen at Kelly’s wake. This was a guy on full alert.
Mark slid into the chair opposite. “Morning.”
This early on a Sunday the ornate, gold-and-cream room was nearly empty. Waiters in green-striped vests descended on them, handing them menus, filling their water glasses, offering coffee, juice, croissants, jams, and butter, then suggesting a selection of entrées to start.
“I’m fine,” Earl said
Mark ordered tea.
The staff retreated, disappointment etched on their faces.
Before Mark could say a word of his carefully prepared intro that he hoped would ease the tension, Earl spoke. “If you’re here as a cop, Mark, get on with it, and I don’t talk to you without a lawyer present.” His voice was calm, his manner pleasant, but his gaze rock hard.
Shit! “Please, Dr. Garnet. I’d prefer we keep this informal, off the record, and that you simply tell me your take on what I found in my father’s files.”
Earl studied him, eye to eye, but said nothing.
Mark opened the briefcase, retrieved a copy of Kelly’s letter from a manila folder, and placed it in front of him. “To begin with, here’s what she wrote about you.”
Earl regarded it skeptically.
“Just take a look. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about any of it, I go my way and do what I have to do. You do the same. But I think we can avoid that.”
He didn’t make a move.
“Dr. Garnet, I figure there are two possibilities here. Either you’re the good man that letter and your record say you are, or you’ve been a brilliant fraud, and should be made to answer to the police about your affair with Kelly and what part it played in her disappearance. Me, I’m betting on the first.”
Earl picked up the sheet of paper and began to read intently, the tension draining from his face. Within moments, he was trying to fight back tears.
Her words on paper sounded as clearly in Earl’s head as if she spoke them in his ear. From the secret place his memories of her had hidden themselves over half a lifetime ago came a rush of forgotten sensations – the musical sound of her voice, her scent, the electric feel of her fingers on his flesh. And his agony after her disappearance.