“Rauci.”
“They couldn’t find the file.”
He showed her the note. It explained that they couldn’t find the file and that the young man — Dave — was not to give her the pills without it.
Amanda noticed that the boy was staring at her chest. She wondered if she could somehow seduce him into giving her the tranquilizers.
“We haven’t been in in ages,” she said, taking a step toward him.
“See, usually, if they know you pretty well, it’s not a problem,” said the boy. “But I think Sandy got you confused with someone else.”
“I think I’ve gotten pills from the doctor before.”
“Could you spell your name.”
“
“Oh, that’s a funny way to spell it,” said the young man, turning toward the filing cabinets.
“It’s not funny if it’s your name.” The young man blushed. “I just meant, uh, she might have gotten it wrong.”
“No offense,” said Amanda, thinking she was making progress.
She stepped around the counter and joined the vet’s assistant at the lateral files. She’d never been very good at flirting, let alone seduction. She wished she’d been wearing a skirt.
Amanda touched the kid’s hand. His face reddened. But before she could go any further, his cell phone began playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
“Go ahead; you can answer the call,” she told him, stepping back. “I’m not really in a rush.”
“Just my girlfriend.”
“It’s OK.”
The young man grabbed the phone from his belt and stepped a few feet away. Amanda followed, eying the large set of keys on the counter. But he was too close for her to grab them.
“Do you mind if I use the restroom?” As she spoke, she touched his neck; he nearly jumped.
“Yeah, go ahead. Down the hall that way.” Amanda decided she would just leave the window to the restroom open, then come back later and sneak in. She stepped inside quickly. It took only a second for her to undo the lock at the window.
She looked but couldn’t find wiring for an alarm.
The dogs being boarded began barking in their pens down the hallway as soon as she stepped from the restroom.
Glancing toward the front, she walked quickly into the ken-nel area. There was a glass-faced cabinet near the door, stocked with medicines and things like ban dages and su-tures. The cabinet was locked, but she guessed that there would be a spare key somewhere in one of the offices.
The young man was still on the phone when she came back, talking plaintively to whoever was on the other line. Amanda walked quickly around the counter, hoping that the drugs had been left somewhere nearby. But she didn’t see them. So she bent over the files, looking for another name she could appro-priate.
“Look, I still have somebody here. I’ll call you back, all right?” said the young man. “No. I have to call you back.”
“Problems?” Amanda asked when the young man came around the counter.
“Really, like, you shouldn’t be back here.”
“I’m sorry, I was just going to help. I was thinking that the name might actually be under my ex-husband’s. We, uh, had a falling-out. Divorce, you know.” The kid smirked. “Yeah, I know how that goes.”
“You’re married?”
“No way.”
“Try Anthony Stevens.”
The young man retrieved the folder.
“The black Lab?”
“Fifer.”
Still kneeling in front of the cabinet, the young man examined the folder. Amanda put her hand on his shoulder.
Was it too much? she wondered.
Apparently not. The young man got up.
“All right,” said the young man. “Hold on.” He retreated to an office directly off the reception area, then returned with a bag and a small receipt tape.
“Here you go. How do you want to pay?” he asked.
“You could just send us a bill,” she said.
The young man frowned.
“Or I could pay in cash,” she volunteered, anxious now that she was so close to finally getting the pills.
“Great.”
But as she opened up her wallet, she realized she had only five dollars left.
If she used the credit card, anyone looking for her would be able to trace her to the area.
If she couldn’t talk him into billing her, could she just come back and break in? Glancing over at the keys on the counter, she saw there was a small alarm key on the chain.
Breaking in would be too risky.
“I guess I don’t have that cash. If you could bill—” The young man pointed at a sign on the side of the counter: “All bills must be paid at visit.”
“A check or a credit card will do,” said the kid.
“All right,” said Amanda, taking out her credit card.
After all the effort it took to get the tranquilizers, drugging the dogs was anticlimactic. The animals went straight for the hamburger, whimpering and begging, tails wagging, as she bent near the fence. They might have looked ferocious from a distance, but they were friendly enough if you gave them food. Within an hour, both animals lay down near the fence and drifted off to sleep.
Amanda used the spare key she’d taken the night of Forester’s death to open the door. She doused the interior light, then poked around with her hand under the passenger-side seat. A single stenographer’s notebook was folded up in the cushion between the springs.
Amanda stopped at a McDonald’s restaurant two miles down the road, bought herself a vanilla shake, and slid into one of the back booths to read the notebook. Her heart was pounding so loudly it nearly drowned out the giggles of the teenage girls huddled over a cell phone two booths away.
The first page was blank. The second page had part of a case number and two telephone numbers.
The notes started on the third page. The handwriting was hurried, abbreviated.
As she read, Amanda heard her dead lover’s voice in her head.
Phne — nthing.
Call list—??
The threat had been made by e-mail, but as a matter of routine, Forester had suggested that the office monitor or record all calls. He’d also asked the phone company for a “call list”—in this case, a record of phone calls that had been received by the number, probably over the past two months. Amanda couldn’t tell exactly what the note meant — was he reminding himself to check the call list, indicating that he should look into it further, or simply recording someone else’s confusion?
The next pages had office hours and contact numbers for the senator’s campaign and Senate offices; Amanda guessed that Forester wrote them down so he’d have them while he was on the road.
Then came a note that read: “Mar 24 call.” March 24? That was at least a month before the threat had been received.
Ten or twelve blank pages separated that section from a fresh set of notes, written with a different pen.
