Monday, March 13, 4:45 P.M.
Aidan got back just as ME tech Johnson zipped Winslow’s body bag. He stepped out of the way of the gurney and walked over to Murphy’s side. “She’s all right,” Aidan said, his voice low. “I told her about the credit cards. I didn’t have to tell her they were hers. She already knew.”
“Spinnelli called me while you were with her.” Murphy showed him his notepad, on which he’d scrawled the address for a mailbox store on the other side of town. “He traced the billing address of the credit card to this place. They’re open till six.”
Aidan glanced at his watch. “We’ll just make it.”
“Spinnelli also said he’d heard from Patrick. He’s gotten notice from five different lawyers who are filing appeals.”
“Shit.”
“Just hit the fan,” Murphy finished. “Where’s Tess?”
“Said she was heading home to start going through her old court evaluations. I told her we’d call her later tonight.”
“Murphy!” Jack emerged from the hallway that led to the bedrooms, motioning them to come. “You, too, Aidan. Come on. You’ll want to see this.”
They followed Jack back to what had been the Winslow baby’s nursery. The crib still stood in the corner, the changing table still stocked with disposable diapers and baby powder. A thick layer of dust covered everything. One of Jack’s men stood on a step stool, his face in an open air vent, the vent cover propped up against the wall.
“This is Rick Simms. Show them what you found, Rick.”
Rick turned around, his thumb and forefinger gripping a small black box, an inch wide and half an inch thick.
Aidan stepped up on the corner of the stool to get a better view. An inch-long cable protruded from one end of the box and he suddenly knew exactly what Rick Simms had found. He looked back at Murphy, both stunned and angered, surprised he could still feel either after all he’d seen this afternoon. “It’s a camera.”
“Good eye,” Rick said. “Wireless camera, high res.” He twisted the box slightly. “And capable of transmitting sound. Here’s the mike.”
“Sonofabitch likes to watch,” Murphy muttered. “How did you know it was there?”
“Rick saw that there was no dust on the corner of this one vent cover,” Jack said, a twinge of pride in his voice. “Nice job.”
Rick’s smile flashed. “Thanks.”
“How many more of these cameras are there?” Aidan asked, stepping off the stool.
“We wondered the same thing.” Jack led them back into the living room. “They wouldn’t want to miss the grand finale,” he said and pointed to the vent cover over the desk, now empty as the computer had been taken back to the lab. “Try that one.”
Rick grimaced as he strained to reach the vent cover, which was spattered with blood and brain matter. “Man, this is nasty, Jack.”
Jack chuckle was dry. “Do you good to get your hands dirty for a change. Rick is one of the unit’s electronics experts,” he told Aidan. “Normally he’s in the lab, but I called all hands.”
Rick handed the vent cover to Jack who carefully set it aside. “You were right,” Rick said. “Another camera with a mike and . . .” He shone his flashlight into the dark opening, then turned around, perturbed. “And a speaker mounted to the inside of the wall.” He pulled it loose so they could see it—a small box the size of a plum. “Why a speaker?”
“A neighbor came by while you were with Tess, Aidan,” Murphy said. “She said she heard a baby crying all day. I thought he might be watching a video. Now we know.”
Rick frowned at the speaker in his hand. “We’ve got ourselves one sick bastard.”
“Where does the video feed go?” Aidan asked.
“I’ll have to find the receiver,” Rick said, “but my first guess? It goes to the Ethernet. And then . . .” He waved his hand. “Out there.”
Murphy blinked. “Ethernet?”
“It’s a way to get to the Internet,” Aidan murmured, his mind racing, the implications too overwhelming.
Rick nodded. “Streaming video. It’s all the rage, man. Normally I see the cameras pointing straight up through the floor or on their shoes so that pervs can look up women’s dresses. This one was meant for surveillance.”
Murphy was shaking his head. “So this is on the Internet?” he repeated. “Like on a Web site or something? You’re telling us anybody could have been watching Winslow blow his brains out?”
“Maybe.” Rick lifted one shoulder. “Depends on what your perp is looking to do. If this is a private show, it’s not going to show up on your standard Google search.” He lifted his brows. “But if it’s not private . . .”
Aidan’s stomach gave a sick twist as Rick’s meaning hit home. “Oh my God. Like pay-per-view?” He looked at Murphy, saw he’d arrived at the same conclusion.
“Twenty-first century snuff movies.” A muscle in Murphy’s taut jaw twitched. “This is unbelievable.”
“Any idea how long these have been there?” Aidan asked.
Jack crouched down to inspect the vent cover. “There’s dust on the vents themselves, but hardly any around the screws. Maybe a week or two?”
“So we need to find out who’s had access to this apartment in the last two weeks,” Murphy said. “What kind of person are we looking for? Would they need special tools?”
Rick stepped down. “Honestly, any teenage hacker could do the job.”
Aidan blew a weary sigh up his forehead. “Jack, we need to check Cynthia Adams’s apartment for the same devices.”
Jack looked up at Rick. “Can you do it tonight?”
Rick nodded. “To catch this guy? Oh, yeah.”
“We’ve got to follow a lead on the flowers from Adams’s place,” Murphy said. “Can you finish up here, Jack?”
Jack dismissed them with a flick of his hand. “Go. Let’s meet in Spinnelli’s office at eight. Tell Spinnelli to order Chinese. It’s going to be a long night.”
Monday, March 13, 8:30 P.M.
She was still here. Sitting at her dining room table in a red silk robe and white sweat socks, half a glass of red wine at her elbow, browsing through files.
She was still here. Not where she should be—cowering in a holding cell surrounded by unwashed vermin, waiting for one of her so-called friends to post bail, or standing before a judge.
But patience was a virtue. And Ciccotelli’s face was showing evidence of strain. Her hand trembled when she picked up the wineglass and occasionally a look of sheer horror would turn her skin pale and her eyes glassy. She was remembering the way the bodies looked. She was thinking about how they’d felt just before they died, thinking she’d betrayed them. She was wondering who’d be next.
That would have to be enough for now.
As for the police, they’d be lucky to find their asses with both hands. Eventually they’d go through the victims’ financial records and find the nails that would secure Ciccotelli’s pretty little coffin. Until then, there was the angle of the state licensing board. They’d stepped in earlier than expected, thanks to Cy Bremin and his front-page spread. How entertaining it had been.
Well worth a replay. A mouse click on the sound file brought the scratchy voice of Dr. Fenwick to life. The board finds such allegations both serious and unacceptable.
No. Really? Not both serious and unacceptable. It was one of the more asinine comments the microphone had recorded in the weeks since it had been hidden behind a filing cabinet in Ciccotelli’s office. The board had nothing on Ciccotelli and everyone in the room had known it. Fenwick, Ciccotelli, and her attorney, who’d dispensed with old fart’s threats handily.
But the visit itself left a foundation on which to build. The imperious Dr. Fenwick would likely find the death of Mr. Avery Winslow even more serious and less acceptable. Strike two, as it were. The third pitch would be aimed at the licensing board, not the police. It wasn’t the ultimate payoff, but might relieve the boredom while the police bumbled around.
And it would, above all, be so much fun to watch.
Monday, March 13, 8:30 P.M.
“Well?” Spinnelli sat at the head of the table, frowning as they ate. Around the table were Aidan, Murphy, Jack, Rick, and Patrick, who had glumly informed them the number of appeal notices was now up to eight.
“Give us a minute to eat, Marc,” Jack protested. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“We didn’t eat lunch,” Aidan muttered. They’d been too busy with the florist shops. “But we can show you some video while we eat.” He stood up and grabbed the disc they’d taken from the mailbox store’s security camera, then grabbed his carton of General Tso’s when Murphy cast a greedy eye at his food. “We didn’t have to go back too far.” He inserted the disc, hit PLAY, then stepped back so the group could see the TV screen. “This was last Thursday afternoon.” A woman walked into the picture, wearing a tan coat. Her black hair fell in waves around her shoulders. She was roughly the same height as Tess Ciccotelli but the bulk of her coat disguised her build.
The woman appeared to be Latina. And her face, while slightly thinner than Ciccotelli’s, was similar enough that she could pass for Italian in the memory of a harried desk clerk or the poor quality store video.
“Tess wears that same color coat,” Murphy said. “This part really steamed me,” he added. “Watch her unbutton her coat, just enough to show off the scarf around her neck. She wanted to be sure the clerk saw the scarf because Tess always wears one.”
Unless she’s wearing a black turtleneck that fits her like a second skin, Aidan thought, then shoved that mental picture as far away as he could.
Spinnelli’s jaw tightened. “Because of her scar from that attack last year.”
Now the mental picture Aidan shoved away was his own hands around the throat of the con who’d nearly killed her.
“Damn,” Patrick murmured, staring at the screen. “She looks like her.”
“No way in hell she looks like Tess,” Murphy shot back. “What, are you blind?”
Patrick shook his head. “No, I’m not, but a judge might see enough resemblance to let those appeals go through. Especially with all the other physical evidence that’s piling up. Without motive, there’s not nearly enough to charge her,” he added, “but plenty enough to muddy the waters. Shit. This is not good.”
Aidan was watching the woman walk to her box, lean over, and insert the key. “Nobody in their right mind would think that was her. This woman doesn’t move anything like Tess Ciccotelli.”
“I can’t quite see myself using that argument in front of a judge, Aidan,” Patrick said, wry humor in his voice. “Although I will give you that few women move quite like Tess.”
Aidan looked over his shoulder to where Patrick sat, wearing as close to a smile as he’d ever seen. Murphy had developed a sudden interest in the bottom of his carton of twice-cooked pork. Jack was openly grinning and Rick looked like he wanted to. Feeling his cheeks heat, Aidan rolled his eyes. “I meant she . . . Never mind.”
Spinnelli’s mustache twitched. “We all know what you meant, Aidan.” He cleared his throat, sobering. “But regardless of the fluidity of this woman’s movement, Patrick’s right. We still have to prove she’s not Tess. Can we get any prints off that mailbox?”
“I’ll send a team over there, Marc,” Jack said. “But it looks like she kept her gloves on the whole time.”
The woman in the video shoved the mail from the box into the side pocket of the briefcase she carried. “So could this be our mastermind?” Patrick mused.
“I don’t know,” Aidan said. “She looks awfully . . . nervous to me. Twitchy.”
Patrick shrugged. “I might be twitchy if I was planning to kill two people. But it doesn’t feel right to me, either. She’s too out in the open. She knows she’s being taped and she’s posing. We need to find out who she is.”
Murphy crossed his arms over his chest, his brows crunched. “She was on the tape from the lobby of Adams’s building, too. The building super disengaged the camera at the elevator on Adams’s floor, but not the one at the first-floor elevator. We’ll find out if anyone saw her in Winslow’s apartment.”
Spinnelli steepled his fingers under his chin. “What about the cameras you found in the apartments themselves?”
Rick pushed the remnants of his dinner aside. “I found the same camera system in Adams’s apartment. One above her bed, one in her living room. One in her bathroom, too,” he added, puzzled.
“She slit her wrists the first time she attempted suicide,” Aidan said, taking the mailbox store security disc out of the machine. He sat down next to Rick. “People usually do that in the bathtub. Maybe our guy thought she’d try that again.”
“Maybe. At any rate, I found similar setups in both apartments. Wireless cameras and speakers. Everything was wiped clean and whoever installed them didn’t leave any prints behind on the vent covers, either. And before you ask, it would be nearly impossible to trace the parts themselves to point of purchase. They’re generic surveillance systems. Good quality. You can buy them in any electronics store or off the Internet, and they’re leaping off the shelves. It’s a needle in a haystack.”
“What about the transmissions?” Aidan asked. “Can we trace them?”
“As long as the feed stays live we can try. The feed at Adams’s apartment isn’t live anymore, but the cameras in Winslow’s apartment are still transmitting. I found the router that the wireless camera is feeding into. I can put a packet sniffer onto the network and read the IP address it’s going to.”
Patrick blinked. “English, Rick.”
Rick chuckled. “Sorry. Internet transmissions get broken into packets, sent to wherever they’re going, and get reassembled on the other end. Packet sniffers break each packet into its component parts. One of those parts is the IP address—where it’s headed. I can read IP addresses on my screen as the messages pass across the network. There are two big problems, though. The first one is you guys,” he said to Patrick. “It’s like wiretapping a phone. I’ll need a warrant to even get started.”
“I figured you would.” Patrick drummed his fingers on the table. “What else?”
“This is the bigger problem. Once I find the IP address, there’s no guarantee that it’s real. Any hacker worth his salt isn’t going to send this video to himself. He’s going to send it to a zombie computer somewhere. If he’s smart, he’ll have the first zombie send it to a second.” He shrugged. “By the time I find the final IP address, I still have to connect it to a person and ISP providers don’t cooperate. It’ll mean another warrant.”
“Sniffers and zombies,” Spinnelli muttered. “How long’s this going to take, Rick?”
“A few days, maybe. But you need to know that some of these ISP’s are run through foreign holding companies. The smart ones are.”
“This looks pretty damn smart to me,” Patrick grumbled. “If it’s foreign, it’s like hitting a brick wall.”
Aidan rubbed his temples. “You’ve done this a lot, Rick.”
“Unfortunately, yeah. One of the big areas for us right now is Internet crime, kiddie porn being at the top of the list. These pedophiles know the system, man. They can spin your wheels till you’re too dizzy to see straight. And by the time you get to the end, you’re screwed because they’ve picked up and started all over again somewhere else. I’ll do what I can. Be assured of that.”
“But you don’t hold a hell of a lot of hope,” Aidan said.
Rick shook his head. “Nope. I wish I could say otherwise.”
Patrick blew out a breath. “But it’s all we have to start with. I’ll have your warrant in less than an hour, Rick. Get back over to Winslow’s apartment and wait.”
Rick gathered his things and waved. “Thanks for dinner, Lieutenant. Oh, and one other thing. Your guy turned off the juice to Adams’s cameras. I expect he’ll do the same to Winslow’s pretty soon. Once that happens, I got nothin’.”
Spinnelli made a frustrated noise as Rick left the room. “He always so optimistic?”
Jack shrugged. “He deals with kiddie porn peddlers most of the time. How optimistic do you expect him to be?”
Patrick pushed himself away from the table. “I’ve got to go get that warrant,” he said. “Keep me up to date. Marc, call me as soon as you have anything I can use to refute this and get those damn appeals off my back.”
When the SA was gone, Spinnelli looked at Aidan, Murphy, and Jack, his eyes weary. “We can try to prove it’s not Tess or we can find out who’s really behind this. So far, we’re not doing too well with the first one, so let’s focus on the second. Who do we like for all this?”
Murphy glanced at Aidan. “We thought it might be one of Adams’s irate lovers, but given Winslow, it doesn’t make sense to subpoena the Health Department’s records.”
“No,” Aidan agreed. “You’re right. Right now we could take this two different directions. Option A, somebody wants to discredit Tess Ciccotelli.”
“Why?” Spinnelli asked. “What’s the motive? This is elaborate. Somebody would have to have one hell of a grudge and the intelligence to pull this off. Most of the people she evaluated aren’t bright enough to pull off a setup like this.”
“An appeal is a good motive,” Murphy said. “And these people have families.”
Aidan pulled the trial printout from his notebook. “Then we’re back to one of the names on this list. I haven’t had time to check them out, but Tess said she’d go through her old files tonight. Maybe she’s found something.” He stared at the printout, then shook his head, still troubled by something Rick Simms had said. “But there’s an Option B that’s nagging at me. What if she isn’t a personal target? What if somebody figured she’s a good source of people who can be manipulated to kill themselves? Her specialty is people who have attempted suicide. What if somebody is picking victims from her patient list and juicing them up, tormenting them with their own guilt until they kill themselves?”
“And then catching the whole thing on streaming video,” Jack finished grimly.
Spinnelli looked unconvinced. “Seems like a whole lot of trouble.”
“Somebody enjoys their work, Marc,” Aidan said sharply. “And given the right audience willing to pay the right price . . . The motive could be simple greed.”
“There’s nothing simple about this,” Spinnelli said. “But you’ve made your point, Aidan. We’ve all dealt with sociopaths who wouldn’t bat an eye to abuse another person for profit. So who are we talking about here?”
“If Tess is just a conduit and her patients are the real commodity . . .” Aidan shrugged. “Then we don’t have a connection. We could be talking about anyone.”
Spinnelli blew out a breath. “You’re as optimistic as Rick Simms. Give me some better news, gentlemen, before I become suicidal.”
Jack pushed a sheet of paper to the center of the table. “I went by to check on Julia on my way over here and she had your tox report on Winslow.” Julia Vanderbeck, the ME, was also Jack’s wife. “She found PCP in his blood, same as Adams,” Jack went on.
“The pills switched?” Murphy asked and Jack nodded.
“Yep, and Tess’s name was on the Xanax bottle as prescribing physician and her fingerprints were on the bottle, same as Adams.”
Spinnelli scowled. “I said better news, Jack.”
“Patience, Marc. What was outside the bottle isn’t as interesting as what was inside. I had a spectral analysis done on the residue in the bottom of the bottle. It was just dust caught in the crease of the bottle’s base. You couldn’t see it with the naked eye. The better news, Marc, is that it wasn’t either Xanax or PCP. It was Soma. Julia says it’s a muscle relaxant. And it’s in both bottles.”
Spinnelli nodded slowly. “Then somebody reused the bottles.”
“And since her prints are on the bottle, maybe they were Tess’s to begin with,” Murphy said. “But that doesn’t clear her, Jack. In fact, it makes it worse.”
Jack lifted a brow. “Unless they were stolen.”
Spinnelli shook his head. “Too many maybes, people. Find out if Tess ever took Soma and when. We’ll put it in the pile with the rest of the maybes. What else do you have, Jack?”
“We’re checking to see how long that doll was in the oven based on how much of it melted and we vacuumed both apartments. We’ll look for common fibers to put the perp in both places.”
“Assuming there’s just one,” Aidan said. “Tess said the caller today sounded different from the one Saturday night. Older.”
“You pull her LUDs?” Spinnelli asked.
“We got her home phone LUDs. The call on Saturday night looks like it came from a disposable cell. Today’s call was to her office phone, so I requested those LUDs, too. The report wasn’t ready before we came down. I’ll let you know. What about the serial numbers on the guns, Jack?”
“My people couldn’t raise the number on Adams’s gun so I sent it to the Bureau lab. Their equipment’s better, but it’ll be a few days before they get to it. Winslow’s is filed down, too. Same story. Sorry.” Jack slid another sheet of paper and a stack of photographs in front of Spinnelli. “Here’s an inventory of what we took from the two apartments. The teddy bear Winslow had in his hand is a standard model. Nothing special about it. We found it in Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us, so that’s likely a dead end.”
Aidan leaned across the table, bothered by the memory of the bear in the dead man’s hand. “Let me see the picture of the bear.” When Spinnelli had passed it over, Aidan opened the folder he’d retrieved from Records on his way to the conference room that evening. “Damn. It’s special all right. This is the police report from the Winslow baby’s death.” He pushed a photo from the folder next to the picture of the bear so everyone could see it. It was a wider view of the death scene, showing the entire backseat of the minivan. A diaper bag rested to the left of the car seat, a plush bear to the right. “It’s the one found next to the baby’s car seat the day he died.”
“Bastard doesn’t miss a trick,” Murphy muttered. He looked up from the pictures, disgust on his face. “Do you have the file on Melanie Adams?”
“Yeah. I had them both pulled.” Aidan slid the police photo taken at Melanie’s death scene to the middle of the table, while Murphy searched Jack’s stack for a copy of the picture he’d found in Cynthia Adams’s apartment.
“They’re the same,” Murphy pronounced. “Same pose, same clothing. Same shoes. Only thing different is the background. The one the police photographer took looks flatter. This one,” he tapped the new photo, “is glossy. Bolder.”
“You can do that with Photoshop,” Aidan said, then met Murphy’s puzzled look. “I took a graphics class for my degree. It’s a software program. You can take a picture, crop it, change colors, even. Somebody with experience could make this picture look like Melanie had hanged herself from the Eiffel Tower if they wanted to.”
“So somebody has access to our files,” Spinnelli murmured. “Sonofabitch.” He leaned back in his chair, jaw taut, clearly unhappy with the implication.
There was absolute silence for a very long moment. Then Aidan spoke the words nobody else seemed willing to say. “There is one other group that could have a grudge motive against Tess Ciccotelli.”
Spinnelli met his eyes and Aidan could see his boss had already reached the same conclusion. “Us,” he said.
Aidan nodded. “Us.”
Spinnelli looked away, closing his eyes with a brief shake of his head. “Murphy, go to Records, pretend like you and Aidan got your signals crossed and you’re there to check out the files. Ask to see the logs. We need to find out who’s viewed those files.” He looked at the three of them, his eyes sharp. “And for now we keep this to ourselves. I’ll give Internal Affairs the heads up when I have to.”
“They might not stop at two,” Murphy said quietly. “Her other patients are at risk, no matter who’s behind this. We’re going to need to see her patient list.”
Jack winced. “She won’t give it to you. Doctor-patient privilege.”
“Let’s show her the courtesy of asking first,” Spinnelli decided. “She’ll say no, then we’ll get a subpoena. For now, we’re looking for someone who has a knowledge of medicine and electronics, who may or may not be the woman in the video. Now go and get me something to work with. We meet back here at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.”
With that, they were dismissed. Murphy cast Aidan a sideways look as they walked back to their desks. “Call me after you’re done talking to her.”
“What do you mean, after I’m talking to her? You’re coming with me.”
Murphy shook his head. “You heard him. I have to go to Records.”
“Fucking coward,” Aidan grumbled. “You just don’t want to face her.”
“She won’t talk to me yet. She’s still hurt. Besides, you’re the one who likes to watch her move.”
“Shut up, Murphy.” They’d reached their desks and Aidan grabbed his coat from his chair. “I haven’t done a thing on Danny Morris all day. His scumbag father is still out there somewhere while Danny’s in the morgue.”
“So stop by the bar where Morris hangs out on your way to Tess’s. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll have dropped by for a brew.”
“While you hang out in Records. Not fair, Murphy.”
“Seniority, Reagan. See you tomorrow.”
Monday, March 13, 11:15 P.M.
Tess leaned over the stack of folders on her dining room table to fill Jon’s glass with a nice merlot. “You don’t have to keep checking on me, you know. I can take care of myself.” Although after hours of reading court-ordered evaluations and knowing one of the names in one of those files could be responsible for the deaths of two of her patients . . . well, she was grateful both for the break and Jon’s company. Her apartment was too quiet. Normally she could make herself comfortable with the quiet, sometimes even enjoy it, but tonight every little creak, bump, and rattle of the wind against her window made her jump.
Jon scowled at her over his wine. “Of course you can take care of yourself. You just choose not to. You walked ten blocks to the Lemon in freezing rain. Dammit, Tess, Robin said you were frozen solid when you got there. You didn’t even have a hat, much less an umbrella.”
She’d headed to Robin’s Blue Lemon Bistro after Amy had exited stage left and Robin had welcomed her with open arms, just as she’d expected. “I left my umbrella at work along with my purse. Look, I run in worse weather all winter. I was cold, but I warmed up easily enough. Robin clucked over me, gave me soup. I was fine.” She tossed him a cheeky grin she hoped would erase the frown from his face. “Then Thomas gave me a shoulder massage. Robin’s wasting that man’s talents in the kitchen. He has wonderful hands.”
Jon’s lips twitched. “So I’ve heard.” He shook his head with an overly patient sigh. “Just next time you find yourself on the street with no money, call me, okay? I’m allowed to worry about you.”
“Well, you can stop for tonight. Robin loaned me cab fare and I went back to my office for my things and drove myself home. Took a nice long soak and got cozy. See?” She stuck out her sweat-sock covered feet.
Jon laughed. “Only you could make silk and sweat socks work.” But the smile quickly faded from his eyes. “How much trouble are you in, Tess? I worried about you all day. Then when that story broke about the second suicide . . . It was all over the TV news and each reporter made sure to mention your name.”
Tess swallowed hard, the levity they’d shared gone, the horror of the afternoon back in its place. “The police say I’m not a suspect anymore.”
“That’s good. But?”
“But it was awful. Him lying there, holding that bear. Half his head was gone, Jon.”
He covered her hand with his. “Not your fault, Tess.”
She dropped her eyes to his hand. “Everyone in his life had left him. His wife couldn’t forgive him. He couldn’t forgive himself. Most of their friends couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. I was the only one he had to talk to.” Jon’s hand grew blurry as her eyes filled, the first time that day she’d allowed them to do so. All she could think about was how he must have felt, seeing that picture. “It was hideous,” she ended in a hoarse whisper. “Obscene.”
“Tess, look at me.” Jon’s voice was so rarely sharp she did as he asked. His expression was a mix of fierce loyalty, anger, and worry. Gently he wiped at her wet eyes with his thumb. “You can’t do this to yourself, honey. How many times have we talked about your getting too involved with your patients?”
Her temper roused itself, just enough to give her tongue some edge. “It’s different for you. Your patients are out cold the whole time. They might as well be slabs of beef.”
Jon took the criticism with equanimity. “Which is the way I like it. I can’t think about them the way you do, Tess. It would tear me up. And the next time I picked up a scalpel, I might hesitate. That hesitation could cost a patient his life.”
She sighed. “I know. Professional distance. You can, I never could. You win.”
His smile was rueful. “There are some that would say you win. My point is, you have to play to your strengths, kid. You’re a good doctor because you care, but what’s it costing you? Too much, I say. Maybe you should rethink the population you deal with. All these suicidal patients eat at you.” Suddenly he brightened, adorably, Tess thought. Until he went on. “What about treating some nice phobias for a change?”
She gave him a narrow look. He was one of a handful who knew of her embarrassing phobia. “Like claustrophobia?”
One side of his mouth lifted and she knew it was as much of a smile as he dared. “Perhaps. Hell, maybe you just need a vacation. When was your last one?”
Her jaw automatically clenched. “My honeymoon.” The cruise she’d taken with Amy because she’d have walked across hot coals to China before letting that sonofabitch Phillip take his little floozy tramp and because the tickets were, of course, nonrefundable.
Jon winced. “Sorry. Robin and I are going to Cancún next month. Come with us.”
Her laugh was hollow. “No thanks. The only thing worse than going on your honeymoon with your best friend is being the trois in your ménage.”
Jon grinned, waggled his brows. “C’mon, Tess. Live a little. Robin won’t mind. We could find somebody for you.”
She smiled back in spite of herself. “Go home, Jon. I’m exhausted.”
He set his glass aside and stood up, pulling her to her feet. “Walk me out and—”
“Bolt the door.” She opened the door. “You’re worse than Vito ever was.”
Jon stopped in the doorway, his eyes wide. “You called home?”
Her smile disappeared. “No.”
“Tess—”
“Go home, Jon,” she repeated, serious now.
He hesitated, staring at his toe. “There’s another reason I stopped by, besides Robin’s worrying.” He blew out a breath and looked up from beneath lashes that most women would kill for. Aidan Reagan’s were longer. And darker. His eyes much bluer.
Tess blinked hard, bringing Jon’s face back into focus. Whoa. Where had that come from? Too little sleep and too much stress, she decided. And too many nights of sleeping alone, with only the cat to keep her warm.
Jon was leaning closer. “Tess, what’s wrong? Your face just went pale.”
“It’s nothing. I’m just more tired than I thought. What were you going to say?”
“Just that Amy called me a few hours ago.”
Tess’s lips thinned. “Oh? Did she tell you she fired me as a client?”
“She said that she’d said some things she wished she hadn’t. She’d been so scared that you’d been carted off to jail by that detective, that she wasn’t thinking straight. She wanted me to find out if you’re still mad at her.”
Tess shook her head. It was like they were still sixteen and sharing a room in her parents’ house. “It didn’t occur to her to call me herself?”
“She thought you’d hang up.”
“I might have.”
“And she said she did call to make sure you got home all right, but you didn’t answer. I don’t want to be the go-between guy, so call her, okay? Tell her you want to kiss and make up. And listen to her, Tess. She knows more about this than you do. And even though she acted like a jerk, she’s a well-meaning jerk who doesn’t want to see you go to jail.”
He was right. Amy did mean well. Tess had come to that same conclusion as she’d walked the ten blocks to Robin’s bistro. “Okay. We’ll kiss and make up and take you out of the middle.” But she wouldn’t promise to do what Amy said. She’d thought a great deal about it in the hours since leaving Winslow’s apartment and was more convinced than ever that her cooperation with the police was vital. But Jon did worry so. Impulsively she rose up to kiss his cheek. “Thanks.” The instant her lips touched his cheek, his back straightened and his arm went around her shoulders protectively. She followed his gaze and her heart took a leap.
Detective Reagan stood in the hallway outside the elevator. And he didn’t look happy at all. She grasped the sides of her robe, pulling the silk up and over her throat. It was purely instinctive. Jon had seen her scar. Very few others had.
Slowly Reagan approached, his eyes on her shoulder where Jon’s hand still clenched, his own hands shoved deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He stopped far enough away to just be respectful. Still close enough that she could smell his aftershave. Because he’d shaved just before he’d come. His face was shiny smooth where this afternoon his cheeks had been dark with stubble. “Dr. Ciccotelli.”
“Detective Reagan. This is Dr. Jonathan Carter, the colleague I mentioned.”
His nod to Jon was curt. “If I might have a word with you, Doctor.”
Jon’s fingers dug into her arm, his warning about as subtle as the ferocious frown on his face. “Not without her lawyer here.”
Reagan’s eyes rose to meet hers, his gaze unreadable. “If that’s what you really want, Doctor, we can call your attorney.” His voice was cold enough to send a shiver of apprehension down her back. “But I need some answers to some questions tonight.”
Tess patted the middle of Jon’s chest. “I’ll be fine, Jon. I’ll give Amy a call. I promise. Go on home.”
“I don’t kn—”
“I’ll call you when he leaves so you’ll know I still live and breathe,” she interrupted, purposefully keeping her tone light. “I won’t say anything he can use against me in a court of law.” She slipped from his grip and gave him a nudge, her robe still tightly clutched around her throat. “Go home, Jon.”
Jon’s parting glare was as sharp as one of his scalpels. But he said nothing and a minute later, he was on his way down the elevator.
She was alone. With Aidan Reagan and his long eyelashes. “Where is Todd?”
“Following some other leads.”
“I see. Well, are you comfortable talking in my apartment, or would you prefer to stand in the hall?”
“That would be up to you, ma’am.”
So I’m a “ma’am” now. Reagan’s “ma’am” sounded remarkably like an insult. “Let’s go in then. I prefer not to stand in the hall in my robe.”
He closed the door behind them. “I apologize for the late hour,” he said stiffly. “I was hoping you’d still be awake.”
She waved her free hand at the stacks of folders on her dining room table. “I’ve been going through my files. Let me change my clothes, if you don’t mind. I’ll be just a few minutes.”
She was back in less than three, her robe traded for a thick turtleneck and jeans. The sweat socks stayed. She found him standing in her living room, examining the framed pen-and-ink sketches on her wall. “Can I take your coat, Detective?”
He shook his head. “No thanks.”
“Then can I get you some wine, or are you still on the clock?”
He turned around, his eyes lingering on the two wineglasses on the dining room table before moving to her face. “No thank you.” His voice was polite, but coldly distant. “Are you going to call your attorney now? I’d like to get this done.”
“No. Go ahead and ask your questions, Detective. If I can answer, I will.”
The flicker of surprise in his eyes was so brief she wondered if she’d imagined it. “You told your boyfriend you were calling her.”
“And I will. After you’ve gone. My attorney and I don’t have the same working relationship with the police, Detective.” Her mouth bent in a rueful smile. “And I don’t think she’s my attorney anymore, anyway. We kind of had a fight.” She lifted a brow, watching his face carefully. “And Dr. Carter is not my boyfriend.”
This time the flicker in those blue eyes was a flash, unmistakable. Intense. His gaze caught hers and for a long moment it was like they were in the stairwell all over again. Then the moment was over.
He looked away, pinning his gaze on the stack of folders on her table. “Did you find anything?” he asked, his voice rough.
Tess drew a breath. The sudden spike of oxygen served to kick her brain back into gear. Amy’s warning crawled back into her mind, that Reagan would use his looks to get her to drop her guard. For that one moment, her guard had been annihilated and the notion left her shaken.
“Before I answer, Detective, I have a question of my own.” She waited until he once again met her eyes, his brows raised, waiting. “Do I need a lawyer?”
He didn’t flinch. “No.”
She weighed the risk, then went with her original plan. “Okay. I went through the files. I was primarily looking for the trials where a conviction hinged on my testimony. Of the thirty-one convictions, there were five. All male. Four of them were homicides, one rape.” She shook her head, pragmatically skeptical. “But none of them struck me as having the intellectual capacity to stage something like this. These guys were thugs, not criminal geniuses by any stretch of the imagination. And, besides, all five should still be in jail unless some parole board really f— I mean messed up.”
She thought she saw his lips twitch at her near slip. “We’ll look at their families,” Reagan said. “See who’s been actively campaigning for a new trial.”
Tess’s stomach clenched. “So we’re looking at appeals?”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “I’ll bet Patrick Hurst is not a happy man tonight.”
“You’d win that bet, Doctor. Have you heard of Soma?”
His sudden change of topic had her blinking. “Yes. It’s a muscle relaxant.”
“Have you ever taken it?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes. I had an accident last year.” A con with a chain, the memory of which still had the power to turn her gut to water. She focused on Reagan’s eyes, willing the panic back. “My back went out and my doctor gave it to me then.”
“How long did you take it?”
His expression was once again unreadable, and once again Amy’s voice loomed. Don’t be an idiot, Tess. “Off and on for about six months. Why?”
“Do you still have it? The prescription.”
“No. I didn’t want it anymore. It made me too groggy to work.” Even though the pain had been excruciating and at times still was. “Why are you asking about Soma?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Because traces were found in the bottles we found in both victims’ apartments.”
Her knees simply failed her. Clutching the table’s edge, Tess lowered herself to the dining room chair, unable to look away from his face. “The ones with my prints.”
“Has your apartment ever been broken into?”
She shook her head, eyes widening at the thought of that sadist in her own apartment, her own space. “No. No, I would have reported it.”
“What happened to the bottles?”
She stood up, suddenly restless and cold. She paced from the table to the window, rubbing her arms, blindly staring at the traffic on the street below. “I can’t remember. I must have thrown them away.”
She heard him moving and then he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders, warm. Strong. Warmth moved down her arms and back and for one weak moment she wished she could turn and feel his arms close around her. Wished she could lay her head on his wide shoulder. But wishes were just that. Reality was this . . . a nightmare that got worse with every new piece of information.
“Sit down,” he murmured. “You’re pale.” He gently pushed her back down in the chair and crouched in front of her, blue eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”
Numbly she nodded. “This makes it look like I did it even more.”
He stood up and said nothing.
Swallowing hard, she lifted her eyes to his. “I didn’t.”
He didn’t blink. “Has anyone ever threatened you, Doctor?’
“When do you mean? Like, ever?”
“In the last . . . year.”
His meaning hit her like a brick. “You mean since the Green trial. You mean . . . cops.” Her gut churned at the very thought. “Oh my God.”
Again he said nothing, which said more than a simple confirmation ever could.
“I got some letters,” she said. “None of them signed. Most of them were personal insults, a lot of name-calling. ‘Baby killer.’ ‘Cop-killer.’” The names had hurt at the time. They still did. “There was one person who wrote more than one. Said I’d be sorry. A month later I got a letter saying my contract was not being renewed. I thought that’s what they meant. Somebody threw a brick through my car window when I was in the mall, but they never caught the person. I thought that might have been part of it, too.”
Reagan looked angry. “Did you report any of this?”
“The broken window I did. Not the letters. There was no physical threat.”
“Do you still have the letters?”
“Somewhere. I’m sorry. I’m having trouble thinking right now.”
“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “Take your time.” He picked up the wine bottle. “Do you want some of this?”
“No.” She focused on her thoughts, willing them to slow, picturing herself receiving the letters and filing them in the cabinet in her office. “Wait here. I remember what I did with the letters.”
Aidan watched her retreat, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. Knowing he’d smell her on his palms if he gave into the urge to drag them down his face. The last fifteen minutes had certainly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was a man of self-control. Coming off the elevator, seeing her in that red silk robe had sent a jolt of pure lust to his groin. Seeing her rise up and kiss that blond doctor’s cheek had sent a surge of jealous fury that for a split second had hazed his brain.
Hearing her say the blond guy wasn’t her boyfriend made him want to drag her against him and find out if that long look in the stairwell had affected her as much as it did him.
Just putting his hands on her shoulders made him want more. If he’d touched her like he’d wanted to . . .
But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t. He looked around at her apartment. Situated in one of Michigan Avenue’s ritzier neighborhoods, her apartment alone would run a cool mil, not including the furnishings and the art that would send his interior designer sister Annie into spasms of delight. A woman accustomed to living like this wanted more than Aidan Reagan was prepared to give. This Aidan had learned the hard way. Fool me once . . .
The thought evaporated, along with every drop of moisture in his mouth.
“I found them.” Ciccotelli emerged with a large envelope, her tongue licking at the adhesive strip, and his system went into overdrive.
Willing his hand to take only the envelope, he reached—and was stopped.
Her exclamation caught him by surprise as did her hand on his. “What did you do?”
Aidan drew a breath. His knuckles were raw and scraped, compliments of one of the lowlife friends of Danny Morris’s father, the man they suspected of smothering his son then tossing his body down a flight of stairs. Aidan had stopped in Morris’s main haunt after leaving the office. Morris’s low-life friend was now in a holding cell after throwing a drunken punch at Aidan’s face. Morris himself was still nowhere to be seen. Morris’s wife sported a new black eye but still denied her husband’s involvement in her little boy’s death.
And Tess Ciccotelli was still holding his hand.
“I hit a brick wall,” he said, shocked his voice was still level. His heart sure as hell wasn’t. He tried to tug his hand free, but she held firm. She looked up, her dark eyes filled with concern.
“Was that wall somebody’s face?”
“No. It really was a brick wall. A suspect resisted and I scraped my hand trying to cuff him.” He gave another tug and she let him go.
“Was that suspect on this case?”
“No, another one I’m working.”
She nodded, subdued. “The little boy whose autopsy report I saw this morning.”
“Yes.” He managed to get the word past what felt like a wad of paste in his throat.
Her lips drooped and Aidan clenched his teeth. The woman had lips that just begged a man to find out if they were as soft as they looked. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Will you let me put something on your hand? It’s a nasty cut.” When he hesitated, she forced those full lips to smile. “I am a doctor you know.”
He should go. Right now. But his feet wouldn’t move. “I guess you are. I always forget psychiatrists are MDs, too.”
“Most people do.” She went into the kitchen and came back with a first aid kit. “But I went to medical school like all the other doctors. That’s where I met Jonathan Carter, actually, in med school. We’ve been friends a long time.” Her head bent over his hand, her hair forming a dark wavy curtain that hid her face. Her hair was still damp where it parted at her neck, the fragrance of her shampoo drifting up to torment him. It didn’t take supreme detective prowess to assume she’d been in the shower, which meant she’d likely been naked beneath that red robe. He gritted his teeth against the picture of those curves, wet and soapy.
“He’s protective of me,” she went on, then looked up, her hair sweeping back from her face. Her cheeks flashed hot and whatever words she’d been about to say were lost. Abruptly she dropped her head and cleared her throat. “Well . . .” Her shoulders rose and fell as she drew a deep breath. “At least it’s not dirty. This might sting.”
It did, but the sting was centered somewhere else entirely. “The guy tossed a beer in my face so I had to take a shower once I brought him in. I cleaned it up.”
Her throaty chuckle sent a shudder down his spine and his hand jerked reflexively. She stilled, then continued dabbing his knuckles. “Well, they say beer is good for the complexion.” She wound some gauze around his knuckles and taped the end. Stepping back, she looked up, her eyes cool. Two days ago he’d mistaken it for no emotion. Now he knew it was her shield. The knowledge that she needed one made him want to do everything he shouldn’t. “Keep it dry,” she murmured. “I think you’ll live.”
Aidan held up the envelope in his left hand. “I’ll check these letters out. Have you had any more calls?”
“No.”
“Would you be willing to let us tap your line so we can listen in case you do?”
She was quiet a moment. “Yes. Go ahead. I’ll sign a release. For my home phone only. Not my office line.”
It was more than he’d expected. “We’ll also need a sample of your voice, to compare to the message on Adams’s voicemail.”
“I’ll come in tomorrow morning. My first two appointments canceled.”
“I’m sorry.”
She lifted a shoulder. “It was to be expected after that article in the Bulletin.”
He’d put off the patient list long enough and with a sigh damned Todd Murphy to hell once again. “This could happen again. You know that.”
Her chin came up but her eyes stayed cool. “I know.”
“We need to be able to anticipate his next move. I have to ask for your patient list.”
She didn’t blink. “You know I can’t do that. Patient confidentiality isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have.’ It’s the law, Detective.”
She didn’t sound angry, he thought. Instead she sounded resigned, as if she’d expected the question all along. “You told us about Adams and Winslow.”
“I’m permitted to disclose when it’s critical for the detection of a crime or when the client is at risk and not able to consent. In both situations I judged the requirements for disclosure were satisfied. Besides, I didn’t tell you much more that you couldn’t get from your own police reports if you dug deep enough.”
“You told me that Cynthia Adams had contracted an STD.”
Something moved in her eyes, elusive and brief. “That was when I thought she was the target and that knowing that would give you a motive. And you would have learned it from the autopsy report anyway.” She drew a breath. “I was visited by the state licensing board today. They did not concur with my judgment.”
Aidan frowned. “How did they know you’d talked to me?”
“The case worker from the health department called them. Don’t apologize, Detective,” she said sharply when he opened his mouth to do just that. “I understood the risks when I disclosed.”
But it had been another blow, he could see that. He wasn’t certain what form any licensing board censure might take. “Did they . . . do anything?”
“Not this time. My attorney was there and that seemed to diffuse the situation a bit.”
“But they’ll be back tomorrow. Once they’ve seen the news about Winslow.”
“Probably. As will the reporters that were camped around the door of my apartment building when I got home tonight.” Her voice softened marginally. “Don’t worry about me, Detective Reagan. I can take care of myself.”
He wondered if she could. Wondered how she would take the news that her patients’ suicides had been recorded, perhaps for profit. Remembered the look in her eyes as she’d stared at Winslow’s body and wished she wouldn’t have to find out about the cameras, but knew that sooner or later she would. But it didn’t have to be tonight. “Then I’ll let you go to sleep, Dr. Ciccotelli.” He lifted his bandaged hand. “Thank you.”
She smiled, sadly. “Thank you for not hauling my ass downtown again.” She winced. “Sorry. When I’m tired my vocabulary deteriorates.”
There were a lot of other, better places he’d like to haul her ass. He turned away before his straining libido made any of them a reality, and found himself once more looking at the pen-and-ink sketches he’d studied earlier to keep his mind off the fact she’d been changing her clothes in her bedroom. “‘T. Ciccotelli,’” he read in the bottom corner of each one. “You did these?”
“No, my brother Tino did.”
Surprised, he turned to look at her. “You have a brother named Tino? Really?”
This time her smile showed actual amusement. “I have four older brothers—Tino, Gino, Dino, and Vito. And no, none of them are Sopranos, so don’t ask.”
Four older—and more than likely very protective—brothers. It was nearly a deflating thought. Nearly. The red robe was still too close to the front of his mind. “Any of them live around here?”
Her smile went sad again. “No, they’re all back home.”
“Philadelphia.”
Her eyes widened. “How did you—? You checked up on me.”
He nodded, levelly. “Which is why your ass is in your posh apartment, and not sitting in a hard chair downtown.”
She stared at him for a second, then surprised him with a laugh that seemed to fill every corner of the room and sent his pulse scrambling once again. “Touché, Detective. And good night.”
He let himself smile back. “Good night, Doctor.”
He waited until he heard the deadbolt fall, then turned for the elevator. He’d go home and get some sleep himself. But first he’d need another shower. And this time a very cold one.