She set the snow globe down and returned to the living room. Moving to the couch, she opened her briefcase and pulled out the murder book. The Field Interview cards Kline had sent with the key to the padlock were in the back. She pulled them out, sorting them on the coffee table. Her sole interest was with the tenants living in the building, not the total number of people contacted when Pacific Division canvassed the neighborhood. Other than Jones and the victim, there were six names, and Kline had told her that he conducted these interviews himself. She trusted the detective. They had gone through the academy together and he had played a role in her last case. She skimmed through the cards, rereading his notes. But every card was exactly the same. Every interview, almost identical. The young woman calling herself Jennifer McBride lived a private life. No one in the building knew her. Over the past year, no one really talked to her. She was attractive, had a great smile, but kept to herself and was always seen alone.
Lena set the cards down, that story on KFWB resurfacing in her mind. The story about the old man who died in his living room and sat for a year in front of his TV before anyone noticed. The man without a lifeline.
She lay back on the couch, thinking it over and wondering why this mysterious woman-the woman who cast spells-didn’t have a lifeline, either. No connection between her real identity and the life that she was living under another name. No connection left behind just in case something went wrong.
The more Lena considered the circumstances, the less sense it made. The victim had obviously been too smart, her theft of Jennifer McBride’s identity too thorough. The life she was living had been too risky to not include some sort of an out pitch, some kind of an insurance policy. A lifeline back to the real world and the people who knew her and loved her.
She woke up in the dim light, her body flinching as it broke the surface. She turned and looked back at the lamp on the foyer table. Sat up and stared at the fire escape outside the windows. Night had fallen, the marine layer had rolled in-and she was still in Jennifer McBride’s apartment.
She checked her watch. It was seven-thirty and she’d been asleep for hours. She didn’t understand it. The loss of control worried her.
Lena got up and crossed the room to the window, sorting through the events of the day she couldn’t seem to face. But as her eyes climbed the brick wall on the other side of the alley, everything came to a sudden stop.
That man with the wool cap and the binoculars was staring at her through the fog. Staring at her and not looking away.
She glanced back at the couch, calculating the angle. When she realized that his view included most of the living room, she stopped calculating and drew the curtains. She didn’t really need to do the math. The day was already too rich, too good.
She stepped into the kitchen, splashing her face with warm water. Her mind was still going, and it felt like a migraine was waving at her from an hour or two down the road. She thought she remembered seeing a bottle of Tylenol when she and Rhodes made their initial search. Switching on the overhead light, she found it in the cabinet beside several bottles of vitamins.
The Tylenol was new and she picked out the cotton. After filling a glass with tap water, she popped two caplets and noticed a piece of scratch paper on the counter beside the stove.
It was a grocery list. Lettuce, yogart, bread, and cheese. Four or five basic items the victim had jotted down before her death.
For some reason she found it hard to look at. She thought about her meeting with the chief again. Her confrontation with Jones in the lobby. The pervert with the wool cap watching her sleep. As the moments faded, her eyes drifted back to that grocery list that had been left behind and was no longer needed. She felt the sting and wondered why it was always the small things about a victim’s life that brought a murder home.
Lena flipped the paper over in frustration, but froze before she could shake her head. The grocery list hadn’t been scrawled out on a piece of scratch paper. Instead, the victim had used the back of a script from her doctor.
She whisked the paper off the counter, holding it closer to the light and trying to keep her emotions in check. She saw Jennifer McBride’s name and a drug called Synthroid. The words were barely legible, but they were here. The name of the doctor who prescribed the medication was here as well, along with an office address and phone number, printed neatly at the top.
Everything about the script looked legit.
She packed up the murder book, locked the door, and hustled downstairs. Hitting the sidewalk, she saw Jones keeping watch with his ruined eyes from the window. The clouds were tumbling in at street level, the air, pitch black and raw. She knew that he couldn’t see her in the fog, and even if he could, she didn’t care.
Her car was parked two doors down. As she picked up her pace, she noticed another man exiting the next building. His body was silhouetted in the darkness, but she could see him shouldering a book bag. In spite of the cold, it looked like all he had on were a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He crossed the street, moving away from her into the mist. His gate appeared smooth and easy, like he didn’t know that she was even there. Still, she kept an eye on him and watched as he clicked the remote on his key ring. She heard the alarm chirp and saw the headlights blink. And that’s when she spotted the wool cap.
“Hey, you,” she shouted.
He stopped and turned from half a block away, his face lost in the gloom. Lena searched for the patrol car at the end of the street, didn’t see it in the wall of fog, and turned back. Then the man jumped into his car and pulled out.
Her eyes flicked down to the license plate, but the car seemed new and she didn’t think it was there. She heard the tires screeching on the wet asphalt-watched the car shimmering in and out of the darkness and ghosting as it picked up speed. It was an SRX Crossover. When it rolled beneath a street light, she caught a glimpse of the color before it vanished into the December night. She had seen a similar color on a Lexus SC coupe and liked it. Radiant bronze. At least the perv had taste.
27
Doctor Ryan is with a patient,” the nurse said. “She won’t be long. You can wait in here.”
Lena followed her into the doctor’s office. When the nurse left, she took a seat in front of the desk and looked out the window. The medical building was on Sunset at the very end of the Strip and she could see the rays of early morning sunlight burning through the mist. She had spent most of the night on her computer, catching up on Justin Tremell’s exploits and researching Synthroid on the Internet.
The woman living as Jennifer McBride had an underactive thyroid gland, yet at the time of her death was only twenty-plus years old. The medication she was using amounted to hormone replacement therapy. It was a simple fix for a condition that affected both men and women. From what Lena had read, people whose families originated in countries close to the Mediterranean Sea appeared more susceptible to the disease than those who didn’t. But the condition had no real boundaries, a long list of possible causes, and could affect anyone.
Lena stood up as Dr. Sue Ryan entered, introducing herself and shaking hands. She watched the doctor move around the desk with Jennifer McBride’s file under her arm, a blonde in her mid-forties with gentle eyes and a round figure that seemed to fit her well. Lena could tell from the expression on her face that the nurse had given her the news. There was no reason to explain why she wanted to talk.
“I’m sorry to hear about Jennifer,” the doctor said. “I’ve been so busy, I didn’t know.”
“How long was she a patient?”
“Only about two months. I’m afraid I didn’t even recognize her name. I had to skim through her file before I remembered her.”