Emmy fumbled for the phone when it rang at six thirty the next morning and managed to knock the clock off the nightstand before she found it. “‘Ello,” she mumbled, not bothering to open her eyes. Damon rustled beside her.
“You’re a cheating, lying wife. You’re going to die. Cheating, lying wives should all die.” The voice was cold and angry and vaguely familiar. The dial tone sounded before she could respond, and Emmy dropped the phone back onto the base more out of habit than anything. Her heart raced while her stomach threatened to revolt.
Her eyes wide open now, she turned to stare at Damon. Judging by his thin lips, locked jaw, and raging eyes, she figured he had overheard. He took in her expression and silently pulled her into his arms, then kissed her tussled hair.
“I don’t know who is doing this, but we’ll find him,” Damon assured her as he pressed more kisses to her temple.
“Last night was so special. I forgot all about him. And now he’s calling us. We already have enough problems, we don’t need this.” Emmy heard more than a trace of tears in her voice.
Damon’s hand brushed over her hair before cupping her face.
“Emmy, Mark couldn’t remember anything about that night either. He couldn’t even recall getting into his car after he left the office. Do you remember leaving the restaurant?” Damon asked, interrupting her despondent musings with a question that paralleled her thoughts.
“No. I never went into work that day. Remember I had to renew my driver’s license and see our insurance agent about a problem with our policy?” Emmy pushed up on a hand, her eyes widening as she thought. He sat up so abruptly Damon knocked her onto the mattress again.
“You didn’t fix that insurance problem. Our agent called me several days later and said the problem disappeared but she wanted to know if you were okay because you didn’t show up for the appointment. I didn’t think about it at the time, but you couldn’t have been with Mark. He was in court all day.” Damon’s brow puckered in his I’m-going-to-figure-this-puzzle-out expression.
“I have no memories from that day, other than waking when you came into our bedroom. What happened to me, Damon?” She had to concentrate to keep the panic from overtaking her. A person didn’t just lose a day, unless they crossed the International Date Line. While not certain of anything else, she was certain she hadn’t crossed that line. Some other lines were still a bit shaky, but she knew she hadn’t crossed that one.
Reaching across her, Damon picked up the phone. He punched in a number he shouldn’t know from memory, but apparently did.
O’Maley answered the phone by the third ring. “O’Maley,” he said in clipped tones.
Damon Fields started talking and O’Maley was wide awake by the time he identified his caller and grasped the ramifications.
Muttering to himself, he struggled out of the tangled sheets and his feet finally hit the floor. They were moving almost before he broke the lover-like grasp of the sheets. He padded around the room searching for clean clothes with the phone pressed to his ear. He told Damon they’d be there as soon as he could rouse McCully.
He rang off with Damon and selected a familiar number. McCully answered with a vicious growl. Obviously someone hadn’t had her morning coffee yet. When he commented on this fact, she deigned to hiss at him.
“What do you want?”
“Depends on who’s calling.”
“You called me,” she snarled the reminder.
“I did? Wonder why I’d do that? Your being so pleasant and all in the morning,” O’Maley mock mused, as he tugged a clean pair of pants from under the bed. At least he thought they were clean. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he ran a load of laundry.
McCully growled again.
Grinning, he knew by the time they met to start the day, his playfulness would wane and hers would just be dawning. She seemed alert by the time he finally gave her the details of the call he’d just received from Damon Fields.
“Why do you have to be so chatty in the morning?” she demanded. Her new politeness was only due to the mug of coffee in her hand. O’Maley could hear her slurping addictively from the mug, or maybe it was the entire coffee pot. He didn’t ask.
Instead, he answered her question, knowing she didn’t want an answer. “A gift from mother nature?” He couldn’t hear what she muttered, which was probably a good thing. He continued. “A genetic compliment to already superior genes?” He stopped only because he thought he heard her choke. With a grin he decided to return to the original subject.
“We’re expected at the Fields residence as soon as we can get there.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll buy some chocolate covered doughnuts for you if you promise to be prompt.”
“I’m already there. Make sure they’re the good kind, the ones in the white box, no cheap imitations. Bring a gallon of milk too.”
“Contrary to popular belief, I’d rather not die any time soon,” he replied solemnly.
She repeated the name of her doughnuts of choice before hanging up. He stepped into the shower with a grin a moment later.
Ten minutes later, he backed the truck out his parking space and headed toward the supermarket for McCully’s breakfast. When he pulled into the Fields’ driveway a few minutes later, he wasn’t surprised to see McCully pull in right beside him. She didn’t exactly attack him for her doughnuts, but he didn’t argue when she took them out of the bag. A smart man just knew better.
Her bad attitude and even worse eating habits were two of the main reasons he’d taken her on as a partner. Her attitude amused him, and sometimes was even helpful. He definitely appreciated her quick reflexes, and quicker brain. She also had an amazing willingness to learn, but what impressed him the most was having the only other cop on the entire police force who could out eat him as his partner.
Damon met them at the door and the three of them walked down the hall to join Emmy in the kitchen. She had eggs and sausage cooking and smiled a welcome. But the events of the morning had left her pale and strained. Jenna Fields joined them in the kitchen and all other thoughts squished out of his brain.
They settled around the kitchen table to eat. The coffee and doughnuts didn’t last long.
By mutual agreement they didn’t begin their discussion until after breakfast. Emmy stacked the dishes on the counter and passed the coffee pot around another time. McCully refilled every time the carafe passed her way, O’Maley noted.
He took out his pad and pen, indicating the discussion was about to begin. Emmy didn’t need prompting before she told them about the phone call. She also explained how she could remember nothing of the day when Damon found her and Mark together.
Jenna interrupted and his heart pounded. “Did you have a headache when you awoke?”
“I remember I wasn’t feeling good for a few days afterwards. I took four sick days from work. My head and eyes hurt, my stomach felt queasy, and I remember being unsteady on my feet,” Emmy replied after some thought. Jenna made some notes in the notebook in front of her. O’Maley noticed she scratched out something in handwriting every bit as indecipherable as his own. He worked hard to eradicate any thoughts not related to this case from his mind. It was far harder than he would have guessed.
He and McCully asked Jenna and her brother questions as necessary. Fields answered some, but it was obvious his main focus was his wife’s teetering state of mind.
“Did you recognize the voice on the phone?” O’Maley asked her.
“No, while vaguely familiar, I couldn’t place it,” she answered.
“Was the voice masculine?” he asked.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“What do you remember from that day you felt you lost?”
“Waking up beside Mark Matthews in bed with Damon standing in the doorway.” The pain and fear and confusion in her voice were evident, even to a detective who’d heard it all. Something taunted him about her answer, but he couldn’t figure out what.
“Have you received other calls?” McCully asked.
“No. This was the first.”
Fields disagreed. “I got one,” he said, gazing across the table at O’Maley.
Who nodded, and continued writing. “Right.” He turned his head a bit so he couldn’t see Jenna. That didn’t help with the small whiffs of her very enticing scent that kept teasing him.
“You got a call about your cheating wife?” Emmy demanded of Fields. Her expression bordered on distraught.
Her husband sent her a gentle look. “I’ll tell you about the call later, baby,” he spoke softly, and Emmy subsided, calm flooding her features. Her hand curled in his and it looked like Fields squeezed hers.
Jenna interrupted to ask, “Emmy do you remember any odd smells from your lost day?”
“I remember a man’s cologne that might have been Mark’s. He has some I like, so I tend to remember them. I don’t remember any other scent offhand.”
O’Maley turned to Max after Emmy finished answering. “What do you remember from that day?” Something kept bugging him and it wasn’t only the gorgeous doctor seated too close.
“I was gone all day. I’d originally gone into Lancaster for a part for the furnace, but ended up having to go to York before finally returning to Harrisburg. I got caught in rush hour traffic on Route 30 and didn’t get home until late that evening. I just went home, since it was late and my house is only down the block from here,” he explained. “I had no idea what was happening or I’d have been here all night,” he said grimly, and O’Maley received the impression he blamed the Fields’ troubles on himself.
Jenna’s hand hurt, but she kept writing. One never knew what part of the information gathered would prove the most helpful. O’Maley, seated beside her, wrote as fast and furiously as she. She’d have liked to take a long look at his notes and pondered the idea of asking him if they could compare. With brutal restraint, she managed to keep all personal thoughts of the gorgeous cop out of her mind.
On a professional level, she would love to pick his brain for any information he had about some of the newest drugs being used in crimes. She almost choked on the mouthful of coffee she just swallowed when he turned to her and mentioned her very thoughts.
“Dr. Fields, we’d appreciate your technical knowledge of some of the drugs we’ve encountered recently in the field.”
Jenna finished her swallow, barely, hoping her eyes wouldn’t tear as nearly all the liquid somehow made it into the correct place. “I was just trying to figure out how to ask you and McCully for information on the latest drugs you’ve found at crime scenes.”
O’Maley nodded and then turned to Emmy. “If you think of anything else contact us immediately.”
As they all stood to leave, Emmy caught Jenna’s arm. “Why do you want to know about the latest crime drugs?” Jenna glanced at O’Maley and then at Emmy. “We suspect you might have been drugged. I believe you suffered an allergy to whatever you were given. That’s why you can’t remember anything from that day. You might have been part of a current trend that uses people illegally for drug experimentation.”
“Matthews was probably taken for the very same reason. They wanted to see his reaction to the drug you were given. Who knows if his reaction was as potent as yours though?” McCully added, indicating Emmy with a jerk of her head.
“He showed up for work and went into court as usual,” Damon remembered.
“He and Emmy were likely given the same dosage, which would have affected her more severely because she’s smaller. Did he act a bit strange or unusual that day?” She directed the question to her brother.
He thought for a bit. “He didn’t eat his lunch, and he seemed tired, a bit lethargic when we met at the usual place.”
“Did you meet to do anything the night before?” O’Maley asked, his expression intense. Her pulse picked up and Jenna urged her thoughts back to the discussion.
“We met for supper,” Emmy exclaimed.
Jenna’s brain finally reengaged in the discussion. “At the café where we usually go,” she said in surprise and blinked.
“And we spoke with Johnson,” Damon added. The three of them stared at each other.
“You joined them for dinner, I take it?” O’Maley asked her.
“Yes, I did.” Jenna nodded, but her attention was on that night, not on O’Maley’s question. She didn’t even have to work to stay focused on her memory rather than him.
“He and his companion could have easily slipped something into Mark and Emmy’s drinks,” Damon concluded.
“Remember how they met at opposite sides of the table? Johnson leaned over my end to shake my hand and his companion leaned over the other side to shake Mark’s,” Emmy said.
“Do you remember the woman’s name?” O’Maley asked, his hand moving rapidly across his notepad.
“Gloria...” Damon began.
“Jones,” she and Emmy finished together.
“What’d she look like?” O’Maley asked.
“She had bright blonde hair and blue eyes that just didn’t seem real,” Emmy said quietly.
The woman’s image popped into Jenna’s mind. “She had extremely pale skin and was wearing bright red lipstick. It didn’t match her hair or face. Actually, she wore quite a lot of makeup,” Jenna contributed.
“Yes, she did.” Emmy nodded. “All you saw was makeup.”
“What about her body type?” O’Maley questioned.
“About the same build as Jenna,” Damon answered. Both she and Emmy agreed.
Jenna wasn’t quite finished with her description. “Something bothered me about her and now I know why. Did her eyes seem glassy and slightly tearing to you?” she asked Damon and Emmy.
Emmy’s eyes widened, while Damon’s jaw bounced a couple of times. “Yes,” they said together. “That’s why they didn’t seem quite real. They were so blue but blood-shot and vague,” Emmy added.
O’Maley’s hand had momentarily stilled, then it seemed to move even faster. Jenna saw the word drugs with a question mark beside Gloria Jones’s name.
When O’Maley finished his notes, he raised an eyebrow at Emmy, Damon, and her. “Anything else you remember, call us immediately,” he directed before he and McCully left. Jenna sincerely wished he would have asked her to call him, personally, after hours.
He stared at the house. His thoughts were malevolent. He hated happy people. Especially the happy people inside that particular house. They were in love. He hated happy people in love. The good guy didn’t always get the girl and the most successful men didn’t always have everything. He was the perfect example of this theory. He’d almost had it all, except that his wife was some other man’s wife now. Just as she had been when he met her.
His wife never complained, never nagged, never contradicted anything he said or did, never mentioned his other women. She was beautiful, with an ageless beauty that would improve with age, not diminish. She was intelligent, although he had been forced to make some adjustments to her thinking patterns, but she had been able to make the sort of sparkling conversation that enhanced his public image. Her kindness was legendary. All her attributes had added up to the perfect hostess.
Her only fault was that she was another man’s hostess and wife, again. He couldn’t kill this man off as easily as he had her previous one. Her newest husband was too well known. Too powerful. Besides, he could knock off as many husbands as she could acquire, but the same problem remained. She didn’t love him, her true husband. Her mate for life.
He had power and wealth after all. His looks weren’t bad and he was charming when he needed to be. He couldn’t understand why she left him. He had treated her as well as any woman deserved to be treated.
The malevolence deepened as he glared at the house. It was barely visible from where he sat, but he could see the light beckoning from the windows. He couldn’t see the silhouettes of the couple kissing as he had previously, but he knew they were. No couple had any right to be as happy as this one appeared to be. He could kill them, both of them, and make it look like a tragic accident. They had been estranged. A cloud of excitement swirled through his veins as he thought of the woman’s last few hours of life especially.
His breathing increased as he considered the things he could do to her before he killed her. It would only entail the perfect moment. Once that time arrived, he knew he could make the situation look like a terrible misunderstanding had occurred between a couple only newly reconciled. Then, then, his wife would understand that if she didn’t come back to him, he would also make her pay. She was supposed to be with him, not the loser she was married to now. She had remarried nearly as soon as their divorce was final.
She even appeared happy with the loser. Her pathetic love for the man made him physically ill to see them together. She must be quite the actress because she would never be as happy with another man as she had been and would be again with him. The excitement leaping through his veins felt good. He narrowed his eyes as he decided that he’d make her tell him every day how much happier she was with him than she had ever been with the loser. After he killed the Fields.
Damon Fields was well known in the court room and Prichard, his best drug runner, was soon slated to be prosecuted by Fields. That couldn’t be allowed. Fields therefore had to die. Afterward he would enjoy Emmy Fields’s last few hours of life. Then his cheating wife would return to him, because he’d make her pay like the Fields if she didn’t.
He smiled in the darkness.