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Johnny’s head was beginning to buzz. It was a bad sign. He blocked the images that wanted to creep in and focused on Meliana.
She wore jeans tonight, faded blue with a leaf embroidered on the hem of her flared left leg. Her T-shirt was pale yellow and short. Though he hadn’t gotten a good look at it yet, he could envision the tiny gold ring she wore in her navel.
She’d had it pierced on their honeymoon. He’d had his left earlobe done. The rings had been engraved with the same design as their wedding bands.
God, it felt like years ago that they’d been lounging on that beach in Papeete. They’d eaten dinner at an outdoor restaurant, watched Polynesian dancers, then returned to their cabana where it had been his turn to watch her do a hula just for him.
She’d been good, damned good.
He rolled the cold bottle of beer across his forehead and decided it might be wise to block that memory, as well. They were separated now, a nightmarish fallout from his last assignment. He’d changed, he knew it, and so did Meliana. He’d been coiled up inside when he’d returned, prone to fits of inexplicable rage. He’d feared becoming violent. He’d feared hurting Meliana.
The nightmare was over, yet, oddly, much of what had happened in the two-year interim was still available to him only in fuzzy snippets.
What the hell, he wondered in exasperation, had he been thinking, accepting a two-year undercover stint on the street?
He swore, then looked around as two pairs of eyes landed on him. Charlie had returned without him noticing it. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m bummed about the flowers.” Not a total lie. “Come on, Lightfoot, what sort of guy does stuff like this?”
Charlie resumed his modified lotus position. “Your basic pervert’ll indulge himself from time to time, but it isn’t always that drastic a scenario. Could be someone who’s lonely, a teenager with a crush. The lingerie, though, that goes deeper. Now we’re probably talking obsession, deviant thoughts.”
“How deviant?”
“I can’t…” He halted, raised his head. He had Meliana’s slip in his hands again. “Razor blade,” he said. “I see a flat razor blade being used to slice off the thorns.”
Meliana glanced at Johnny. “The thorns were removed from all the roses.”
“Who’s using the blade?” Johnny wanted to know.
“I don’t know, but he’s doing it on an old plank board, like barn wood.”
Johnny’s lashes lowered in suspicion. “Are you sure you’ve only got herbs boiling in those pots?”
Charlie laughed. “Positive. And they’re the kind you can consume without seeing pink elephants. I’m blank now, Mel. I think that’s it for tonight.”
“I’m impressed.” She braved one of the cookies he’d set out, and with it between her teeth reached for her slip. “Grateful, too.” She took a bite. “I know you get tired of the quack stigma. These are good, by the way.”
“Demerara sugar’s the secret. You can unwind now, Johnny,” he said without looking over. “Black magic’s done.”
Johnny tipped back his beer to finish it. “Chris Blackburn uses a flat-blade razor to shave.”
“So does your father,” Meliana pointed out.
“My father lives in Indianapolis.”
“Chris didn’t steal my lingerie, Johnny.”
“He knows your alarm code.”
“He’s FBI.”
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t twisted.”
The look she sent him told him clearly what her thoughts on that subject were.
A delighted Charlie shifted his gaze from one to the other. “Really cool, guys. Don’t keep anything bottled up inside.”
“Yeah, well, that’s only one bottle opened.” Johnny pushed out of his chair. “We have several more.”
“And apparently the number’s growing.” Standing, Meliana kissed Charlie’s cheek. “Thanks for the magic. Are you at the hospital tomorrow?”
“Day after. I’m holding a clinic on suppressed aggression, if anyone here’s interested.”
Johnny ignored the remark and located his keys. “You should let him touch Lokie while you’re at it.”
Charlie adjusted his headband. “Your dog? Why?”
“He was a gift,” Meliana explained. “Possibly from the rose guy.”
“A live gift, huh?” Charlie’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“Like it or not, she’s mine, and I’m keeping her. Thanks again.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Johnny echoed.
Charlie caught his arm as he started to follow Meliana out. “Keep an eye on her, man. I don’t like some of those last vibes I got.”
Better and better, Johnny thought.
He took the rickety stairs to the front door. If you could call it a door. It looked more like a piece of dented metal with a faulty latch. It was a miracle the guy lived to hold clinics.
The rain had stopped. He caught up with Meliana in the parking lot. “I wasn’t looking for a fight, Mel. I just have trouble believing in psychic power.”
“Uh-huh…” She was standing dead still.
His brows came together as he regarded her. “Problem?”
“I’d say so.” Taking his wrist, she turned him so he was facing his SUV. There, written in bold white block letters across the front windshield were the words LEAVE HER ALONE!
HER 11:00 A.M. OPERATION was postponed, first by a gunshot wound, then by an acute appendix in an overtaxed E.R. Meliana didn’t mind the extra work. It kept her from thinking about roses, underwear and warnings written on the windshield of an SUV.
What if this wasn’t a harmless crush? The question whispered repeatedly in her head. It had already followed her into her dreams and haunted her through an early-morning breakfast.
Johnny had been adamant. He intended to spend the night in Chicago. Meliana had told him he could stay with her, but he’d negated the idea before she’d even gotten the words out.
It stung a little, but she understood his reasons well enough not to argue. There’d been a suppressed sort of violence about him when he’d finished his assignment, one that neither Meliana nor Johnny had been able to deal with.
After their visit to Charlie, Johnny had left Shannon with her and gone next door to sleep at Andy McRae’s house.
In his prime, Andy had managed a large garden shop in the city. Now a nimble eighty-two, he was paid by the people in Meliana’s complex to maintain the grounds. He loved his current job and did it very well. He was short and paunchy, had knobby knees and wore soda-bottle glasses. Meliana loved him. His fuzzy white hair and sweet grin reminded her of a handmade teddy bear she’d had as a child.
Johnny had told her to scream if she saw or heard anything suspicious. That included Chris Blackburn, should he happen to show up unannounced.
Times changed, Meliana reflected as she took a final stitch to close the appendix patient’s incision. One day Johnny and Chris had been allies, the next enemies.
“That’s it, Nick,” she said to the nurse beside her. “This guy’s lucky. Ten more minutes and that appendix would have ruptured.”
“Luckier than he knows,” Nick Hohlman replied. “Ten minutes sooner, and Welcher would have been the one to cut him open.”
“Welcher’s strictly day surgery, isn’t he?”
“In a perfect world, yes, but we’ve got two residents off sick, and two other surgeons on vacation.”
Meliana watched her patient’s breathing as the mask was removed. “Who scheduled that?”
“One’s on emergency leave. Dead grandmother, I think. The E.R.’s been backlogged for days. How about some coffee when we’re finished?”
She checked the monitors. “Looks good from here.” She thanked her assist and the rest of the team. “I love it when an operation goes well.”
“You love that Nick remembered to bring your Ella Fitzgerald disk down.” One of the other nurses wheeled the instrument tray aside. She grinned under her mask. “Not that I’m complaining. I had two surgeries with Dr. Bergen yesterday. He likes opera. If we hadn’t been so understaffed, I’d have developed a stomach bug and gone home to my squabbling kids.”
Nick retrieved the disk while Meliana made one last check of the patient. “This guy won’t be in recovery long,” she predicted. “He looks like a fitness freak to me.”
“If he gets a look at you,” Nick predicted, “he’ll rip his stitches out so you have to do it again.”
“You men are so superficial.” She removed her gloves and followed the gurney through the swinging door. “I never fell in love with any of the doctors I knew growing up, and two of them were incredibly hot. My mom’s chiropractor looked like a soap star.”
Nick preened. “I’ve been told I could model.”
“I have some charts to update, Nick. Let’s do the coffee thing later, okay?”
“No problem.”
He pulled off his cap. White-blond hair spiked up as if by magic. He was what Julie would call a pretty boy. At twenty-eight, he had more peach fuzz on his face than whiskers. His eyes were lake-blue, his features verging on soft, his spiky hair, minus a serious amount of gel, baby fine.
“Mel?”
She turned at the sound of her name, spotted Johnny and felt her amusement kindle. He still had clothes at their town house. He’d dug out fresh jeans and a blue T-shirt that was faded almost to white. His sneakers actually matched today, though she had no idea how he’d managed that.
“I see you found a hairbrush,” she said by way of a greeting. “Johnny, have you met Nick? He’s one of our best surgical nurses.”
“Best nurse works with best doctor. I’m here until seven tonight if you change your mind about that coffee. Nice to meet you, Mr. Maynard.”
Neither Meliana nor Johnny corrected him, but Johnny did send the man a speculative look as he walked off. “Does every guy you know have a thing for you, Mel?”
“I doubt if Nick has a thing for any female, Johnny. Rumor is he’s gay.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, darling. Why is it so cold on this floor?”
“Because the AC system’s been acting up, and until yesterday it was eighty-two degrees outside.”
“It’s sixty-two now and dropping. Did I hear your nurse friend mention coffee?”
Meliana removed her cap. “There’s usually a pot in the doctor’s lounge. Five’s warm, we can go up there.” She started for the elevator. “Did you talk to the people in Charlie’s apartment block?”
“Running the list, that would be a cat lady named Summer, a guy who makes his own vitamins, a bus driver, a stripper and two old women who’ve lived in the building since they were twenty.”
“Isn’t there a man who studies reptiles?”
“He’s in New Mexico until Thanksgiving. No sublet. Only the cat lady had anything to tell me, and it wasn’t about the writing on my windshield.”
“Please don’t say one of her cats got run over.”
“Went missing.” Johnny offered her a smile. “I’m under strict orders as an agent of the government to whom she pays her taxes to keep an eye out for a fur ball named Fluff.”
“Did you get a description?”
“I got the hell out of there. She has twenty-seven felines, Mel, in a one-bedroom apartment. Eight of them were abused by their previous owners. They don’t like men, and five of them have claws like grizzly bears.”
“At least Summer’s heart’s in the right place.” Meliana glanced back along the corridor as the elevator door slid open. “I think Nick took my disk.”
“Ella?”
“Her greatest hits.”
“Maybe he’s planning to return it to you tonight, at home.”
“And maybe you’re looking for ulterior motives where none exist. Nick’s more likely to want you than me.”
“Thanks for that.”
She pushed five, then patted his cheek. “Take it as a compliment.”
“I took the card that was attached to Lokie’s collar to the police today, but I’m not holding my breath they’ll be able to make anything of it.”
“It looked computer generated. Obviously this guy wants to remain anonymous. Would you rather go to my office for coffee?”
“Why? Do I seem uncomfortable here?”
She laughed. “You act in hospitals the way I act around open heights.”
“White-knuckled.”
She pressed seven. “I want this to be nothing, Johnny. I could’ve convinced myself it was if I hadn’t seen the writing on your windshield last night. He followed us to Charlie’s place.”
Johnny leaned against the wall while the large elevator worked its way upward. “He was warning me last night, Mel, not you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. And don’t say you’re trained to deal with stuff like this. No one’s ever really equipped to handle an unstable person. It’s like playing dodgeball with a bottle of nitro.”
The doors opened. Warm air flooded in and with it the smell of lavender.
