Hush

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No-uh, not at all,” she said. She knew she sounded flustered, but she just needed to hang up and get out of there.

“Maggie sent an email around telling us how to reach you, and I thought I’d try to catch you this afternoon. From the area code, I guess your place is upstate.”

“Yes-in the Catskills.”

“That’s great. Do you go most weekends?”

“It depends, you know, on the season, things like that.” As she spoke, her eyes raced over the kitchen windows, checking outside. “Actually this time I’m only here for half the weekend. I was just about to head back to the city.”

“Don’t let me keep you, then. If you’re going to be back in town tomorrow, would you be up for grabbing a cup of coffee?”

Now he was really catching her off guard.

“Um, sure. Is-is something up?”

“No. I just wanted to chat about a few things-out of the office.”

“That sounds kind of ominous,” she said.

“I didn’t mean it to. It’s just so hard to talk in the office with patients around.”

“Oh, okay. Sure. I’m free most of the day.”

“How’s eleven? I know you’re on the West Side, so we could meet at Nice Matin-that bistro at Seventy-ninth and Amsterdam.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.” She hung up and grabbed the pet carrier and hurried out of the house.

As she made her way out of town, her eyes kept flicking toward the rearview mirror. The only vehicle behind her was a red pickup truck, which soon turned off onto another road. Whoever had hurt Smokey was clearly long gone-in fact had probably been gone since last night. She suddenly recalled another sound she’d heard-the light slam of a car door when she was in her backyard. It might have been the person fleeing, after drugging and shaving Smokey.

Would the person strike again, she wondered, this time in the city? And would she be the target, not just her cat? A brush fire raced across every nerve in her body. I have to do something, she thought.

The weekend doorman, Carlos, was on duty when she arrived at her building, and he let her leave her bags in the lobby while she parked the car in the garage. But she kept Smokey with her. When she returned she saw that Carlos had loaded everything onto the brass rolling cart for her. They were alone in the lobby.

“I’ve got a small favor to ask, Carlos,” she said, fumbling for the right words to use.

“Of course, Mrs. Warren,” he said.

“I do consulting work, you know, and one of my clients has had some trouble lately. I mean, one of their partners-a doctor-was murdered.”

“Oh my goodness,” he said, his brow wrinkled. “That’s big trouble.”

“I know-it’s horrible. And I’m kind of on edge about the whole thing. I just want to be really careful.”

He stared at her, waiting for her to continue. She could see he had no clue what she was driving at.

“I mean, I’m being a bit silly but I want to be extra cautious about the apartment. I don’t want to let anyone up until you’ve seen their ID. And will you let me know if anyone comes by and asks for me?”

He lifted his chin slightly and then nodded, catching her drift.

“Do you think you may be in danger, Mrs. Warren?” he asked.

“No, no. I’m just a little paranoid and hoping you’ll humor me.”

“Of course,” he said. “We always take precautions, but I’ll be extra careful, Mrs. Warren. Of course I will.”

“And will you tell the other doormen?”

“Most certainly.”

As soon as she was in her apartment, she turned the dead bolt on the door and put the chain on, too, something she never did during the day. She’d always felt safe in her apartment, but nothing felt safe to her now. After unzipping Smokey’s case and watching him slink sadly into the living room, she checked each room of the apartment to make sure nothing had been disturbed.

It was close to seven, already dark, and she poured a glass of wine and sat with it at the kitchen table. She had to figure out who had taken Smokey and why. An empty envelope lay on the table and she flipped it over. In her work she was a constant note taker, and she found it helped her to not only remember but also make sense of things. With a pen she wrote one word: Jack. And then a question mark. Was it really possible that Jack was trying to spook her so that she was a wreck by the time she met with the court-appointed psychologist-making his custody fight a slam dunk?

Lake scrawled the word clinic next. As Harry had indicated, everyone had been informed as to where she was going to be this weekend, and since they’d been given the afternoon off, any one of the staff could have driven to her house that Friday. And someone from the clinic would have access to a syringe.

But if someone from the clinic killed Keaton-and was now taunting her-what had the motive been? Sexual jealousy? Professional jealousy? In the few short weeks he’d been with the clinic, had he managed to incite something like that? Maybe Keaton’s death was connected to the “snag” he’d mentioned to her. But how would she ever figure out what it was?

And then she wrote an x-for unknown. There was still a chance Keaton’s death was totally unrelated to the clinic. Maybe his gambling problem-if he’d truly had one-was at the root of everything and some horrible thugs had killed him. And now they might have their eye on her. But would they have bothered shaving her cat? Didn’t they just pump a bullet in the back of your head and dump your body in a landfill?

Her purse was on the table and she found her BlackBerry in the pocket and punched in Hayden’s number. There was a chance, she realized, the PR guru had an update on the police investigation.

“I was just this minute gonna call you,” Hayden said. “I thought I’d catch you before you and your cute little husband went out for the night. Or you probably have family stuff to do, right? Like, see one of those Narnia movies or something.”

Lake almost snickered. “My kids are away at camp,” she said. “And that cute little husband no longer lives here.”

“Oh, phooey-I hadn’t heard.”

Lake got right to the point, in part to change topics.

“How are things going with the clinic?”

“It’s been intense-and getting more so. Levin’s okay to deal with, but I can’t stand the posse, especially that Brett or Brie chick. She acts as if she’s got a stick up her ass-and she looks like it, too.”

“So I’m not the only one she seems to despise?”

“No, and she’s really ticked at me now. When I found out that Levin was going to send the troops home on Friday, I told her she had to stay and handle the phones. I needed her to keep track of all the vultures from the press who called and refer them to the cops. She was totally annoyed and made the receptionist do it.”

“You can hardly blame the press for their interest.”

“I know. But Levin says that since ‘octomom,’ they’re just aching for a negative angle to pursue with these clinics. There’s some TV reporter named Kit Archer that makes him apoplectic, and Levin wants to make sure he doesn’t come anywhere near this mess.”

Archer. That had been the name on the file Levin had grabbed from her.

“Can you keep them at bay?” Lake asked.

There was a pause, and Lake could hear Hayden take a sip of something. Lake could almost see her long fingers, nails painted plum, holding the stem of a wineglass.

“No, not now. That’s why I was about to call. There’s been what you might call a disturbing development, and the shit is gonna hit the proverbial fan.”

Lake’s whole body tensed. “What is it?” she asked.

“Levin called me this morning. Apparently Keaton had given a set of his house keys to one of the nurses a few days before he was killed. They were sitting in an unlocked drawer all week-and anyone could have used