Chapter 18

There are real bad guys and there are posers.

A guy in our borderline group fooled me at first.

I earmarked him early. I figured he could come in handy. He came on to Reena's little foster sister.

Reena tried to warn Wendy off. "He's older than me. He's nineteen. And he's got a record, okay? As in criminal? Leave him alone."

"I like bad boys," she said, flaunting her tiny tits as best she could.

Wendy was one-hundred percent poser.

So Reena started on the guy next. "She's underage."

"She sure doesn't act it." Mike drained his beer.

"I mean it. She's only thirteen."

"No shit." But I saw his eyes dart from side to side. He was thinking about easier pussy. Naw, this guy didn't play in my league.

Still, when Wendy crooked her finger and yelled, "Hey, this is my new song!", he got up. They thrashed to Demerit and she just about gave him a lap dance before she puked up her beer.

Reena burst into tears and locked herself in the bathroom to do some serious slashing.

I knocked on the door. I told her what she wanted to hear. But all the while, I was thinking about how to make this soap opera work for me. I couldn't figure it out then, but it would come to me.

***

Mrs. Lee's dumplings were not quite as good as my mother's, but I wasn't about to complain. I just added more hot chili-garlic sauce and said, "I read some of Laura's files, but I'll have to think about them. Could you tell me a little about her?" I wanted to know what she was really like, warts and all.

First, I got all the saintly stuff. Laura went to church regularly (big smile from Ryan, carefully neutral expression from me). Laura volunteered for the local food bank. Laura went rollerblading almost every day, barring ice and on-call duties, even if she had to get up at four a.m. on surgical rotations. Laura'd had a grand total of three boyfriends in twenty-seven years, all of them serious, one of them a fiancé named Brendan Ho, but supposedly they all ended as friends.

"So why did they break up?" I asked.

Mrs. Lee pursed her lips. "None of them were good enough for her."

I had to laugh.

Mrs. Lee didn't. "She was too picky, even when she was a little girl. She would practice the piano again and again until she had it right, even when her teacher said it was good enough. She graduated from high school with the highest marks. She was the class valedictorian, but she was angry because another boy had higher grades at another school."

I made a face. Another guy edged me out for valedictorian, but otherwise, I could relate.

"She loved Brendan, but she was always complaining that he didn't work hard enough. I told her, 'he is good, he loves you, he has a good job'." Mrs. Lee shook her head. "Nothing was good enough. Her father said she got that from me."

"If she did, I know she got other, good qualities from you," I said.

She laughed. "Hope, you're too good to me."

That surprised me. "I haven't done anything."

She patted my hand. "Don't you understand yet? You believe in me." She turned to Ryan. "You, too. Thank you for coming. Eat more."

Obediently, I picked up another she jau and swirled it in the sauce. Nothing beats homemade cooking.

"No problem," said Ryan, sipping his tea. He paused. "I don't suppose those ex-boyfriends...there might be a link there?"

We both looked at him. He grinned and shook his head. "Maybe I've been watching too much CSI or whatever, but you know the whole 'If I can't have you, no one's going to' angle?"

"That's true." It had flitted across my mind, but I wasn't sure if I should bring it up to her mom. Ryan probably already knew her better than I did.

Mrs. Lee said slowly, "Brendan married another girl. They have twin boys. I know his mother. I would be very surprised if he had ever hurt Laura."

"Maybe I can look into it. Do you have contact information for her other boyfriends?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I only know their names."

"I have her day planner," I said. "And her old computer might have some contact information, if we get into it next time."

"We can try and track them down," said Ryan with a firmness that surprised and gratified me. He took my hand.

"I wish she had found a good man like you," Mrs. Lee told him.

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, but Ryan's hand tightened on mine. I knew he was warning me to keep mum about our status. It was true, Ryan was a good man. Just not officially mine.

Ryan kissed the back of my hand before letting it dangle back down between us. I glanced up under my eyelashes, afraid Mrs. Lee would disapprove at his public display of affection, but if anything, she looked wistful. To change the subject, I said, "Did you get any leads from running an ad in the paper, asking for witnesses to the accident?"

"I've run them every year since she died."

Ryan and I exchanged a look. No fooling around with Mrs. Lee.

I took a deep breath. "Any leads?"

She shook her head. "I turned everything over to the police. Of course, who knows if they actually bother to do anything about it." She snorted and swirled her tea in her cup. She'd eaten the least of the three of us.

"Did you do it this year?"

She nodded and gestured for me to have more. As I obediently picked up another dumpling with my chopsticks, she said, "Yes. No answer so far."

"Maybe we could try on Craigslist or something." My last word got cut off when Ryan rubbed his thumb over the skin of my wrist. It felt so good, I sucked my breath in.

Mrs. Lee cast me a sharp glance.

I tried to wriggle my hand away, but Ryan held firm while he asked in a perfectly normal voice, "Do you have any ideas what might have happened?"

"Of course." Mrs. Lee's eyebrows lifted. "She didn't want to worry me, but I think maybe she was getting threatening letters or telephone calls."

I tensed, thinking of my own graveyard letter. "Why do you say that?"

"She was jumpy when she answered the phone. She started using her answering machine all the time. She started paying for Call Display. She said it was because she was so busy, but I knew she wasn't telling the whole truth."

Okay, now maybe we were getting somewhere. I shoved aside my own uneasiness. "Did you ever overhear any calls or intercept any letters?"

She shook her head. "I was hoping she gave them to the police, but they said they never received anything."

Damn. Dead end. "Did you check her phone records?"

"Yes. I only have records of her long-distance calls. She was a good girl. She called her grandmothers every weekend and a few friends once a month. There was nothing suspicious."

I sat forward in my chair, squeezing Ryan's hand. "If you think someone was after her, do you have any idea who it might be? Through work, or socially—"

"Work." Her chin swung downward.

"Why do you say that?"

"My daughter was a good girl."

I'm sure there are perfectly angelic girls around, but most of them aren't twenty-seven. Your halo gets at least a teensy bit tarnished by then.

"We didn't want her to go into medicine. I told her to become a dentist. You have a nice private office, an assistant for you, start work at nine, out at five so you can have babies. But no." Mrs. Lee shook her head and tightened her lips.

"Why did she want to do medicine?"

"She said she didn't like teeth!"

Ryan and I both laughed. Traditionally, all parents want doctor kids. Dentistry is kind of an also-ran. Laura Lee may have been one of two kids in history, rebelling against her parents by donning the other kind of white coat.

Mrs. Lee rubbed her forehead. "I told her, if you want to do medicine, you specialize. But she wanted to do general practice. I said, okay, you can still have a clinic, you can still have nice hours, but then she did emergency medicine."

I suddenly wanted to laugh, even though I understood her anxiety. Emerg means working around the clock, taking on all the drunks and druggies, the bloody traumas, the screaming children and broken limbs. It's not very glamorous or well-paying or just plain tidy, the way Mrs. Lee would like it.

I wondered if my parents felt the same way. Probably. The difference was, they didn't know enough about it to object.

"And the psychiatry!" Mrs. Lee threw up her hands.

I understood that, too. Asian people don't believe in talking about their problems. But I was starting to like Laura, that crazy revolutionary. I could see how she'd thwarted her mother by becoming a doctor and picking disciplines her mother didn't understand or value. But that didn't mean she'd been murdered because of it.

Mrs. Sze rapped her teacup down on the table. "I bet it was a psychiatric patient. So unstable."

I sighed. Psych patients are always fighting such a bad rap.

She bristled. I actually imagined little bristles popping out of her skin, like porcupine quills.

For the first time, I found myself disliking her, or at least her prejudices. "Do you have any evidence?"

"If I did, do you think I would be asking you?"

I bit my lip. No pay, no respect. Why was I doing this again?

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Hope. Sometimes you remind me of my daughter."

From the way she said it, I knew it wasn't the Hallmark version.

Ryan stayed silent, but he swung our clasped hands back and forth, soothing me.

I opened my mouth, glanced at Ryan, and shut it again. I was committed to Mrs. Lee, and to Laura's memory. As soon as I had a chance, I would call Tucker and arrange our excursion to Île-Ste-Hélène to keep investigating.

But before that, it was Ryan's last night here and he was outlining the delicate skin between each of my fingers.

***

It was a bit awkward, opening the apartment door one-handed, but I didn't want to let go of Ryan. From his crooked grin, he didn't, either. He slid his arm around me and bent his lips to the back of my neck. I jerked to attention and he laughed, low and deep, as his lips parted.

I pressed my back against the wooden door and squeaked just as his mouth made contact. Part of me couldn't believe he'd make a scene in my own hallway, seconds away from privacy.

The other part of me said bring it on, big boy.

Inside the apartment, my phone rang.

We both stiffened.

Damn you, hospital.

Ryan spoke first, slowly raising his warm lips off my skin. "You're not on call, right?"

"Not for psych. But my pregnant patient..."

He pretended to bang his head against the door.

"I know." But I didn't know what to do except twist the key and push open the door. By the time I picked up the phone, it had switched over to voice mail, but the person hung up.

I checked my pager. Still blank.

Ryan exhaled, lower lip curled upward as if to ruffle his bangs, only he didn't have bangs anymore. His crew cut didn't stir.

I tried to pretend the mood was salvageable. "Usually the hospital would page first and leave a message, instead of calling my house. So I don't think it's them."

He just looked at me.

On cue, the phone rang again. It was easier to pick it up than to talk to Ryan. "Hello?"

No answer.

For some reason, my Caller ID was blank. Shouldn't it have kicked in by now? I drummed my fingers on the desk, waiting in case it was a telemarketing company with a long pause before it clicked on to a person. I always let them spiel away for a minute before I ask them to remove my name from their calling list. It was awfully late for telemarketing, but with my luck, I might have attracted an extra-devoted employee. Plus it was another delaying tactic. Ryan just watched me with his arms crossed.

"Hello?" I repeated, but only got silence. I hung up.

"Why don't you have Caller ID?" he asked.

"I signed up for it. They must have lost my order. Or maybe they didn't have time to process it? I'm not sure."

"You need to check on that. Now."

"I thought there was other stuff you'd rather do." I'm not good at being a femme fatale, but I tried for coy.

He didn't smile or reach for me. "Look. If nothing else, I want you to be safe. You're getting weird letters and phone calls—"

"I know." I'd rushed home to Ryan and Mrs. Lee instead of stopping at the police station with my graveyard pic, so as penance, I dropped into my desk chair and logged on to bell.ca. While I clicked, I said, "Did you come to Montreal looking for me?"

He started before his lips thinned. "Yes. Well, not completely."

I waited. He didn't explain, so I prompted. "You mean Lisa, right?"

He rubbed his hand across his forehead, a gesture of irritation I knew so well. "What does this have to do with Caller ID? Or are you just changing the subject again?"

I scooped up my Bell bill and entered my account number while still trying to maintain some eye contact. "Humor me."

He shrugged. "I was going to take a few days off anyway. She invited me, said Montreal's a great city. Which it is. So we took the train down—"

I figured that was so all of them could drink. Ryan doesn't hang out with other teetotalers at work. I always liked that he could be friends with everyone, instead of just sticking to his church group.

I clicked "I accept" on the website. It didn't seem to have a record of this morning's order.

"—and I thought I'd look you up while you were here."

"I'm glad you came," I said, which was true. "Do you have Lisa's phone number?"

"Why?"

"Is it unlisted?"

"No, she's in the book. But why?"

I shrugged. No sense getting him more worked up. But our old nemesis, the phone, rang again. Ryan grimaced while I picked it up.

This time, I thought I heard a soft breath before a click.

If I'd been alone, I might have been spooked. As it was, I tried to look on the bright side. "Well, I definitely don't think it's the hospital."

Ryan stood up. "Hope. This is not a joke."

"I know. I'm going to keep a phone log for the police."

"How about for yourself?"

"Yeah, that too."

"If this steps up, will you call the police again? 'Cause I'm not going to be here to look out for you. I guess I could change my ticket—"

"No, Ryan. You've done enough for me." I gestured at the barred windows. "This has probably been the world's worst vacation for you."

"Oh, I don't know. It had its benefits." He grinned.

But guilt had finally kicked in for me, punching through my fatigue and Mrs. Lee mission and panic attacks and lust attacks. I jumped to my feet. "I'm serious. You hardly saw Lisa or your friends, you cloistered yourself here doing a computer model and changing my locks, and every time we, uh, try to get down, I get called away." I paused. "I officially suck. You are free to go."

Ryan threw his head back and burst out laughing. "Yeah, right."

I grabbed his hands and held them like I could transmit my determination to him. "Ryan, I am so serious. Get out of here. There are a thousand better women here for you. You know the T-shirt, 'Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Montreal.' I'm toxic to you. I bet you could find a good girl who'd marry—"

He silenced me with a kiss. A kiss hard enough to stop my brain, tender enough to stop my breath for a second. Then he broke it off. "Hope."

My lips were still turned upward for more. I had to reprogram myself for speech. "Yes?"

He smiled. "I wanted to do all that for you. I mean, yeah, you get called away more often than Superman and it's annoying. But when I heard you almost died..." He shook his hands loose, then fiddled with the mouse, drawing zig-zags across the screen before he spoke again. "It made a lot of things clear to me. I'm glad I got to do your windows and locks. I'd rather do that than go fry on a beach somewhere. And even this thing with Mrs. Lee, I got an idea why you do this stuff. I just want you to be safe."

I had to swallow the lump in my throat. I still thought he was too good for me.

"I don't know about the people you hang around with. Especially that Tucker guy."

My eyebrows jerked upward, not to mention my stomach. "What about him?"

"Well, he seemed pretty mad you were hanging around with me." He shrugged but met my eye steadily. "Do you think he might hold a grudge about it? He knows where you live, right? He's got your number."

"Uh huh." In my best "Your point is?" voice.

He shrugged again. "I don't know. I think he might be the one leaving you those messages and hanging up and whatever."

I didn't know whether to laugh or choke. I ended up sounding like a rooster being strangled. "I don't think so."

"Just keep an eye on him. That's all I'm saying."

"Will do." Oh, God. Now I was close to cracking up. I mean, the thought of Tucker spying on me, that was hysterical.

The right side of his mouth cocked up in a grin. "Awright. That's enough talk. So can we get busy?"