My fantastic, larger than life make out session with ER Dano had me all hot and bothered and not in the least in need of a jacket. With no words spoken, we shared an intimacy that had me barely able to stop.
“Hey, there’s a time and place for everything, Nightingale,” he said in all his realism, yet they were the most disappointing words I’d ever heard!
Dano leaned to the side, bent forward for a quick kiss on the lips, then took my hand into his. “You fit perfectly.”
Wow. Nice sentiment.
“Um,” I mumbled.
He was correct about the time and place, although for a few fleeting, CSIC-less minutes, I might have gone a bit farther if he hadn’t stopped us.
Pauline Sokol: real naughty nurse!
For a change I’d thrown caution to the wind—and I loved it! Hey, I told myself, this was the twenty-first century and women were allowed to have sensual feelings. Even allowed to be the ones to start the romantic/sensual actions.
But this really wasn’t the place, so I tucked my desires into the back of my mind in a new folder called “ER Dano…Yum” and sat silently looking at the sunset.
After we’d had to leave the beach since it closed at sunset, he drove me home, said goodnight with a decent kiss, and most importantly an “I’ll call you.”
Now I was no fool, having a guy say he’d call was akin to having someone say “I’ll see you” when you meet them on a vacation, and they live on the other side of the world. I’d long ago learned not to trust those words when a guy said them, so I quickly added, “When?” and Dano and I had a date set up for Friday night.
I mentally patted myself on the back when I went inside my condo and marked our date down on the calendar.
A light at the end of the single Pauline tunnel.
My mother would be stuffing lacy table favors with candy-coated almonds in pastel colors right now if I told her.
No one was home so I hugged Spanky for a bit, set him outside, and pressed the phone recorder.
“Pauline Sokol? This is your m…o…t…h…e…r.” The last word came out in a slow, deep voice much like Darth Vader’s.
I shook my head but sat down and listened, knowing the tone was all in my mind.
“Your sister Mary is coming over for lunch tomorrow. I thought you might want to join us.”
I shook my head. “I’m gonna have to pass despite the tempting offer,” I mumbled.
“Oh and Uncle Walt has to have his wisdom tooth out. Who would touch an old man’s wisdom teeth? Can’t they just dope him up so he’s comfortable? Pauline?” Silence. “I thought I heard a click and maybe you came in and picked up the phone. Just to let you know, you are not home much lately. Well, ever since that job. You know that job.”
I laid my head down on the counter and shut my eyes. I wanted to keep smacking my head against the counter, but that might dent the counter, and Miles would be pissed. I wasn’t crazy…yet.
“Okay, I guess you did not come home. From where? It is nearly eight o’clock on a Wednesday night. Where are you at this late hour?”
This time I was really tempted to slam my head into the counter—a few times. Instead I sat up and went to press the stop button. Too much Stella Sokol at this time of the night could cause wicked nightmares.
“Well, you call me before I go to sleep so I don’t worry. It is still eight o’clock, well, four minutes after. Wait. Wait a minute. I’ve got five after on my watch.”
I could hear she had put her hand over the phone receiver to yell, “Michael, what time do you have?” Daddy was probably asleep, so she took her hand away and said, “I go to sleep at nine sharp, Pauline.”
As if I didn’t know that. Creature of habit Stella Sokol had gone to bed at nine sharp and woke up at six sharp my entire life. I only hoped that as a baby, I woke her up a few times during the night.
Mentally I chastised myself and stuck my finger on the stop button—
“Meet me at our place at nine…”
Shoot! I stopped the message before it finished but knew full well whose voice that was and where our place was.
Ah….
As I’d stripped off my beach outfit to don dark clothes, I knew Jagger had called to work on the case. My case. Our case as it so often became. I appropriately had stuck on “investigating” clothing along with stuffing my pockets with my work tools like gloves, my camera beeper and a tissue (okay, that was Mother-induced like don’t leave home without going to the bathroom first or wearing clean undies).
Once dressed, out the door and into my car, I pulled into the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts and into a space near the back. Soon Jagger’s SUV drove up beside me. Without a word, I got out, hopped into his car and we were off without any explanations needed.
Before long, we had come to the intersection where TLC Ambulance Company was located. My heart started to race in anticipation of finding something, some clue, no matter how tiny that would jumpstart this case.
Because right now we had nothing.
One murder, one attempted murder, and medical insurance fraud being committed. The only guarantees so far.
I looked at Jagger. “Anything on Pansy?”
He parked on a nearby side street and said, “She’s in a coma.”
“Damn. I was afraid of that. Her body must be in shock after the blood loss and trauma of surgery.”
He looked at me, and I ignored how damn good he looked. “What are the chances she’ll pull out of it?”
“Geez, your guess is as good as mine.”
“I’m not guessing, Sherlock. I’m asking your medical opinion.”
My shoulders stiffened. “I know that, Jagger. What I meant was that no one can really say. I doubt even the surgeon would give you decent odds.” With that, I got out and stood on the sidewalk.
He followed me and took my arm to lead me toward our destination. “Someone’s a little testy tonight.”
I pulled my arm free. How I wanted to shout something about Airbrush Lady but was too smart to say anything. All’s fair in love and war came to mind until I told myself we were not lovers, but co-workers so I said, “Long day. Sorry.”
He nodded, took my arm again, and before I knew it, we were at the backdoor of the TLC building where Pansy had lived. The Tudor house was built amongst the other buildings as if it had been there first and everything else sprung up around it.
“B&E?” I whispered.
“Don’t touch anything. Don’t take anything,” Jagger said as he fiddled with something in the lock—and in a few minutes, it popped open, he turned the handle, looked over my shoulder, and eased me through the open door.
Talk about eerie.
I felt as if Pansy and Payne were standing in the hallway looking at us!
Something touched my face! I started to scream but found a gloved hand over my mouth. I swung around to see Jagger looking me in the eye. “Cobweb,” he whispered. “And no great surprise,” he added as he shinned his flashlight across the foyer.
It looked like something out of The Munsters. Dark, dank, and medieval in appearance, the place looked like a Tudor house all right—only one that had been centuries old and not cleaned since.
“Geez,” I mumbled after Jagger took his hand away.
“I’ll say. But not surprising.”
I was surprised I thought as we made our way into the living room—which was as colorful as Payne’s office, including 50s décor. “I love that old television,” I said, looking at the old pine cabinet TV that had to be very old. “These two were really nuts. His office taste yet her living room. Let’s go see the kitchen.”
No wonder we’d all come in a different way for Pansy’s after memorial service gig.
I followed Jagger down a dark hallway to a swinging door. He eased it open, held it so it wouldn’t swing back and smack me in the face (or maybe so it wouldn’t swing back and make any noise), and I walked in. “Wow.”
The kitchen looked like Mother Goose had decorated it. Country/nursery rhyme was an understatement. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling. Braided rugs covered the hardwood floors and dried flowers hung from every nook and cranny possible. And if I had a nickel for every duck, goose, or chicken in the room, I could quit my job.
I looked at Jagger. We could only shake our heads.
How sweet! Simultaneous head shaking.
Usually we’d get right down to the business of snooping, but both of us had our curiosities so piqued that we made a tour of this “fun house” before we could start.
The bathrooms were decorated like the ocean, along with real water inside the windows, which bubbled constantly—I felt a bit seasick. Upstairs the master bedroom was done in monochromatic black and red this time. If it weren’t for the rest of the house, I would have thought Pansy had no imagination until Jagger opened the door to a spare bedroom.
Junglemania.
The entire room was done in animal prints including the carpet of a bear rug. I could only whisper, “Goldie would kill for this place,” then caught myself. “Oops. Bad choice of words.”
“Yeah,” Jagger said, but I noticed he was as intrigued with the place as I was and nearly speechless too. A real rarity. “We need to get going,” he warned once he obviously came to his senses.
I followed him down to the living room where he motioned for me to start looking on one side of the room. “Gloves on?”
I curled my lips at him and held my gloved hands up, wiggled my fingers at him, then started to put all of them down except the middle one—then caught myself and made a fist instead.
“Good girl, Sherlock.”
I smiled despite myself and started to open drawers—not even sure what the hell I was looking for but knowing I’d realize it when I saw it.
After several minutes of snooping, we came up cold and headed to the other rooms. Despite the very interesting objects we’d found, including a horse’s bridle and whip in her bedroom—neither of us wanted to go there—and scented soaps and male fragrances in the bathroom, we ended up in the African hot spare bedroom. And hot it was.
My face burned each time Jagger or I discovered some sexual device. That was what I termed everything we found. H…o…t.
Pansy was no wallflower. That was for sure.
Jagger stood in the center of the sexual jungle while I tried not to blush. He shook his head, which looked like a pissed expression in my book. Maybe he was embarrassed with all the “toys” we’d found.
Then again, this was Jagger.
If anyone would come out of this embarrassed, it would be me.
I started to walk toward him and tripped on a “toy” on the floor. No way was I even going to imagine how that thing worked. However, on the way to falling, I reached out into the air and grabbed onto a handle on the wall.
A vine- and fur-covered (black leopard, I assumed) swing came out the ceiling and smacked Jagger right in the back.
“Oh!” I shouted, steadying myself.
“Damn it,” Jagger mumbled, pushed the swing to the side, and went to the wall where he jiggled with the handle until the thing disappeared back into the ceiling like some snake retreating into a hole.
I merely stood there and watched, amazed that Jagger could work the damn thing and amazed at what Pansy did on the thing!
Jagger motioned for me to follow him, so I figured our search here had been futile—and we weren’t going to play Tarzan and Jane.
On the way out, the lounge chair (which was what I was calling it, although tiger stripes and vibration did not exactly say La-Z-boy) caught my eye.
Despite the sensual décor, it looked rather comfortable, yet there were no arms to it. One could easily straddle…whoops. Better not go there.
For some reason, I walked toward it though, pressed the on button, and stepped back.
The top flew open, revealing a stack of papers.
I looked at Jagger.
Jagger looked back at me.
And the papers sat there begging to be read.