'What do you think I want? I want to know if you're all right.'
'I put a sign in the window.'
'Yes, I know. I went across the street and read it a couple of hours ago when I realized you hadn't opened up for the day. It says Closed Because of Illness. What kind of illness?'
'Flu.'
'Are you running a fever?'
There was another pause. 'Probably. I don't know.'
'I'll bring over some fever-light. It works wonders on a temperature.'
'No. You can't come over here. Not today. The last thing you want to do is catch this stupid flu, trust me.'
'Doreen? Is there something else wrong? You don't sound like yourself.'
'I told you, I'm sick. I don't even feel like talking. I just got up to get a glass of water. I'm going straight back to bed. I'll call you when I'm better. Don't come over here.'
There was a click and a sudden silence.
Elly looked at the phone in her hand for a long moment, thinking about the strange raspy quality in Doreen's voice.
'She didn't sound sick,' she said to Rose. 'She sounded like she'd been crying.'
She went around behind the counter, grabbed her keys, and held out her arm. 'Something is very wrong. Let's ride, sister.'
Rose abandoned her jewelry hoard and tumbled down the countertop until she could scamper up to Elly's shoulder.
On her way out the front door, Elly flipped the Back in Ten Minutes sign.
The fog had finally lifted, but the day was overcast and damp. There was very little traffic in Ruin Lane. She cut across the street, moving between a Float that was searching for a parking space and a sleek Coaster.
When she reached the front door of Doreen's shop she de-rezzed the lock with the spare key that Doreen had given her and went inside.
She made her way to the staircase in the back room and started up the steps.
'Doreen?'
The floorboards creaked upstairs.
'I told you not to come here,' Doreen called down from the landing.
'I know there's something wrong.' She went swiftly up the stairs. 'You can't expect me to just ignore a situation like this.'
'Please, go,' Doreen said from the vicinity of the bedroom.
Elly reached the landing and looked down the short hall. Doreen stood, or rather sagged, in the doorway of the bedroom, propping herself up with one hand braced against the frame.
She was swathed in a bathrobe. Her amber pendant, which she never removed, gleamed against the dark skin of her throat.
She held an ice pack to the side of her face.
'Doreen?' Elly started toward her. 'What in the world?' Then she saw Doreen's swollen lip and the bruises under her eyes. 'Dear heaven, what happened to you?'
Doreen started to weep. 'I feel so incredibly stupid.'
Elly reached her and put an arm carefully around her. Rose chattered anxiously.
'Did you fall down the stairs?' Elly asked. 'We need to get you to an emergency room.'
'No.' Doreen's eyes widened in panic. 'I can't do that.'
'I don't understand. You've been injured. Why don't you want to see a doctor?'
'He hurt me.' Doreen pressed her face against Elly's shoulder. The tears turned into sobs. 'I thought… I thought he was going to kill me.'
'Someone attacked you? Did you call the police?'
Doreen shook her head. 'I can't.'
A terrible chill of premonition shot through Elly. 'Don't tell me it was your new boyfriend, the undercover cop?'
Doreen sobbed harder.
'Let's get you into the kitchen. I'll make a cup of tea. You can tell me all about it.'
*****
FIVE MINUTES LATER SHE HAD DOREEN ENSCONCED AT the kitchen table with a box of tissues nearby. Rose hovered near Doreen making anxious little noises.
Elly filled the kettle at the faucet. 'All right, tell me the whole story.'
Doreen sniffed and reached for a tissue. 'You already know most of it. I met him at a club a couple of weeks ago. We danced. He was hot. He was also a great dresser. We started dating. He told me that he was a police detective working undercover to take down a major drug lord. He said that until the case was completed, we had to keep a very low profile. He didn't want to be seen with me because it might put my life or the case or both in jeopardy.'
'You entertained him here in your apartment?'
'Sure.' Doreen picked up the ice pack and reapplied it to her cheek. 'He was here a lot. Usually showed up late at night. Always came through the alley door. What can I say? The sex was pretty intense. Very exciting. Until yesterday, that is.'
'That's when he attacked you?'
Doreen closed her eyes in pain. 'It was the first time he ever came here during the day. He showed up in the middle of the afternoon. I could tell right away that there was something different about him.'
'Different?'
'It was obvious that something had happened.' Doreen opened her eyes and gingerly adjusted the ice pack. 'He was very rezzed, very aggressive. Told me to close up the shop. Then he demanded sex. I got scared. I wondered if he had been drinking, but I didn't smell any booze on him.'
'Was he high on drugs? It wouldn't be the first time in the history of the world that a vice cop got involved with the vice he was supposed to be investigating.'
'I don't know.' Doreen grimaced and then sucked in a painful breath. 'I swear it was as if he'd had a personality transplant. He had always been so smooth, so cool. But yesterday he was a sex-crazed thug. When I fought back, he started beating me. He's a lot bigger and stronger, and I'm sure he would have raped me, but for some reason, he suddenly seemed to get nervous. I got the impression he was scared of hanging around here, like something terrible would happen if he didn't leave right away.'
'What did he say?'
'Among other things, he told me that if I breathed a word about what had happened to anyone, let alone went to the police, he would come back and slit my throat.' Doreen shuddered. 'I believed him.'
A sex-crazed thug. Elly thought about that.
The medics had said that Stuart Griggs had likely been dead for a couple of hours by the time she found him. If he had been murdered with blue dissonance energy, as Cooper believed, the killer might well have melted amber to accomplish his goal. That meant that shortly afterward he would have been consumed by a very intense case of lust.
A killer in the grip of a serious amber meltdown might attempt rape. But he would be operating within a very narrow window of opportunity. It was only a matter of time before he started to sink into a heavy sleep, and he would not want to do that while he was near his victim.
'Doreen, please think carefully. Exactly when did the bastard come here?'
Doreen's face puckered up in close contemplation. 'Somewhere around three. Right after the mail was delivered. Why?'
'Stuart Griggs died of a heart attack yesterday afternoon. I found the body at about four.'
'The florist up the street?' Doreen frowned in surprise. 'He's dead? I heard the sirens, but I was in such bad shape that I didn't even bother to look out the window.'
'Which explains why you weren't in the crowd of onlookers with the rest of us when they brought the body out.'
