'Don't try to tell me you're not,' she countered. 'I mean, it all happened so fast, and we were both emotionally distraught, our nerves stretched to the sea and…and…' She stopped, seeing the accusatory look in his eye.
They both stood in silent scrutiny of one another, weighing up, trying to determine the depth of hurt their words and actions had already caused. Meredyth had backed away from him in the past, usually with a great deal more speed than presently. Finally, Lucas said, 'I have no regrets, Mere. None whatsoever.'
She gauged his sincerity, reading his body language and the deep brown eyes. 'We'll have to keep talking about it. Later tonight then.'
'See you later then.'
She took the steps for the precinct, going inside to retrieve that file she'd forgotten, Lucas imagined. He climbed into his unmarked car and drove for home, wondering why she was afraid to love him unequivocally and unconditionally.
CHAPTER 6
Once inside her inner office, Dr. Meredyth Sanger made a series of phone calls to the crime lab, asking about any new developments in her and Lucas's case. She was put through to Dr. Lynn Nielsen, who civilly and curtly brought her up to date on the progress being made. And while Nielsen was overtly courteous, she finally told Meredyth in a firm, controlled, and accented voice, 'If we were left alone to do our jobs, then the information you and Detective Stonecoat want would be that much more forthcoming sooner.'
Mereydth felt satisfied that Lucas had indeed spent the day as he had said, and that he had kept her abreast of each step he'd taken in the investigation. Checking up on a man? She chastised herself for going to such extremes. She had never done such a thing before. Maybe Lucas was right. Perhaps she was looking for any little excuse to cut off the legs of their newfound intimacy before it could walk off with her heart entirely. They had been friends for years, always testing one another, teasing, and had in fact been intimate at one time, but Tsali had destroyed that earlier attempt at a life together, and Meredyth wasn't about to go down that heart-wrenching road again. She just knew that he would never get over Tsali, that he had built up a romantic fantasy about life with her and her two girls that he'd always wonder about.
Dr. Nielsen came back on the line. 'Detective Stonecoat left us with three sets of dental records, which we then left for Dr. Davies's perusal against the teeth. Dr. Davies has them now.'
'Would you please have Dr. Davies contact me with the results as soon as possible, please.'
'I'll do that, and Dr. Sanger, I am sorry that someone has victimized you in this appalling manner.'
'Thank you for your concern, Dr. Nielsen.'
'It is a horrible thing; I can only imagine how horrible.'
The ice woman almost thaweth, Meredyth thought, but said simply, 'Again, thank you, Doctor.'
Sergeant Stan Kelton knocked on Meredyth's door and peeked into her office. 'Heard you had come in. Dr. Sanger.'
'Stan, do you sleep here at the precinct too? You seem to be here day and night.'
'Pulling double shifts lately. Two men out with the flu. Hope to hell it isn't a West Nile virus thing.'
'God, hope not.'
'Anyway, two items for you.' He held up an artist sketch in one hand and a hefty parcel wrapped in brown paper in the other. 'Sketch is too damned generic to be of much help. Looks like any number of Bill Gates look a likes. Makes you want to believe your doorman, Stu Long, took the package from a guy who was simply paid to deliver it.'
Meredyth only half-heard him as her full attention was on the compact little box he'd placed on the comer of her desk. For a moment, she pictured kindly Stan in cahoots with others trying to drive her insane.
Stan hadn't skipped a beat. 'Still, if we could find the delivery guy….Any case, this package arrived for you. Been at central desk all day, except for the time spent in X ray with the bomb squad.'
'X ray? Bomb squad?'
'Given what's up, regarding the incidents with you and Detective Stonecoat, I thought we'd best be cautious. The X ray cleared it, found it to be what it purports, office supplies from Staples.'
She took the hefty package from Kelton and thanked him for his thoroughness, recalling making the order through her secretary.
'Sad day when we have to tiptoe around our own mail,' he said as he closed the door behind himself.
Meredyth took a moment to examine the artist's sketch of the man Stuart Long, her doorman, had described. Kelton wasn't kidding. It was so generic, it could be mistaken for the Wal-Mart happy face, or any fourth person she might encounter on the street with a pudgy face and spectacles. The glasses perched on the nose didn't help to make the picture distinctive.
Alone with the unopened package, Meredyth now stared at it, realizing that until this madman was caught, she'd have to question every item of mail coming to her at home, here at the precinct, and at her private practice.
She grabbed up a letter opener and ripped open the small box forwarded from the office supply shop down the street. True, it was unmarked save for the shop's logo, and true, it could have been hiding something sinister beneath its brown wrap, explaining Kelton's caution over it, but why did she have to live like this? It recalled the anthrax- letter scare of the fall of 2001.
She then noticed an unopened manila envelope in her in box. It could be from another department in the precinct, it could be from another precinct, or it could be from him, the maniac that had taken a deviant interest in her and in Lucas.
Using the letter opener, Meredyth carefully unfastened the metal clip on the file-sized envelope. It proved to be routine papers on several uniformed cops, two plainclothes detectives, and a captain, all of whom needed her expertise in dealing with street shootings and work-related stress, and for routine psychological checkups. Every cop who fired his weapon, justified or not, underwent psychiatric review to determine how he or she was coping with the results of his or her actions. A cop who was having serious marital problems that had or could escalate to physical abuse, and some engaged in verbal and emotional abuse situations, looked to her for help. The yearly diagnosis, tests, and checkups were departmental policy.
Lately, there had been a rash of police-involved shootings. These things went in waves, it seemed to her, almost as if one police shooting begot another, as if news of one infected a squad. Perhaps it did. Someone ought to do a study, she thought, but good luck to the shrink who tried. As a group, cops proved the most uncooperative of clients she had ever treated.
She shut off her light and stood up, about to leave, when she heard someone in the outer office. Had Kelton returned? She called out, 'Stan? Is that you?'
No answer.
She opened the door between her office and her secretary's office. No one there, but the door leading to the hallway stood ajar.
She rushed to the door and stared down the hallway. Empty of life, but she heard a door close and footsteps on the stairwell. She reached into her purse for the hefty little.38 Smith amp; Wesson that Lucas had taught her to fire. She inched toward the stairwell door and peeked through the crack to find the stairwell empty, but the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps rose from below, someone in a desperate rush. Known for his laid-back attitude and general laziness, Kelton was not one for rushing anywhere, and would surely have taken the elevator.
Meredyth pushed through the door marked STAIRS, and she rushed after the sound of the footfalls.
Whoever it was, he or she had gone to the basement, heading for the small police garage. Most of the units were parked in an open-air lot, but anyone servicing the building and willing to fight for a space in the underground lot, other than the spots reserved for police brass, might park there. There was no gate or toll booth to bother with in this first-come, first-served garage.
Pushing through the door to the underground lot, she saw a dark blue sleek Mercedes or BMW sedan rushing up the ramp, disappearing too quickly to scan the license plate. She neither saw nor heard another sound in the lot,
