This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (28 page)

“Yes, thank you for calling back. We have a John Doe admitted here. His identification was gone, but our ER found a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket with your name and number. If you could help us identify this man, we would very much appreciate it.”

“John Doe. Is he dead?” Panic had closed my throat, and the words emerged as a croak.

“Not yet. He’s in a coma.”

“What’s he look like?” I asked, picturing Charlie or John.

“Short, balding, a bit rotund.”

“Pointed-toe shoes?” I asked, just to be sure, though I was pretty sure I knew who she was describing.

“Yes.”

“His name’s Syd Finkelstein. He’s an attorney with an office in Queens. What happened to him?”

“Unless you’re a family member, I can’t release that information. Let’s just say it was bad enough that his survival is in some doubt.”

My legs were suddenly boneless, and I leaned against the wall of the local Italian bakery. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I forced past lips that felt like bars of ice.

I ended the call and sat there for a few minutes. I remembered my last meeting with Syd. I’d been so cocky. Well, I didn’t feel like Mata Hari any longer. I felt like a heel.

19

“Do you think this is my fault?”

“I don’t know.” John said as he pulled the car into the parking lot of the hospital. It wasn’t the most comforting answer.

I had called him right after I hung up with the doctor. He had answered, heard my voice, and then offended me by asking in a joking tone, “What kind of trouble are you in now?” But when I told him what had happened, he had stopped teasing and rushed to pick me up.

John wheeled into a parking space and stopped as I said, “Maybe I should have warned him.”

We got out. John leaned on the roof of the car and gave me an exasperated look. “From what you’ve told me, it sounded like Finkelstein already didn’t trust Securitech.”

“But if I’d told him about the attack on me and the old lawyer he might have been
more
on his guard.”

John pressed the lock button on his car keys. The car dutifully honked and blinked its head and taillights, sending red and white light strobing across the other cars in the lot.

“For all we know Securitech had nothing to do with this and he was hit by a bus. I mean, he had no ID,” I said, and then jumped nervously, thinking I saw a shadowy figure hunched among the cars. It turned out to be a low bush in one of the dividers. “It could have been just a mugging.”

“You don’t really believe that,” John said.

“I could hope. Oh God, that sounded horrible.”

“You need to calm down until we get some actual facts,” he said.

We were approaching the sliding glass doors that marked the main entrance to the hospital. I shook my head. “I should never have told him about the other will.”

“And then you would have felt guilty about withholding that information. You cannot singlehandedly keep the universe in balance, Linnet,” John scolded as we entered the hospital.

We checked the board and discovered the ICU was on the third floor. As we rode up in the elevator, the air had a taste that was both antiseptic and rotten. I took a seat in the waiting room.

“Aren’t we going to…?” John gestured at the nurse’s station.

“No point. They won’t tell us anything, and we can’t get in to see him.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because they will have called his family by now. They’ll show up and I’ll find out what I need from them.” I glanced at my watch. “They may even be here now.”

John dropped into a chair, slouched, and stared up at the television. It was turned down so low that no words could be distinguished, just a bass drone. It looked like some kind of game show. I picked up a magazine, its cover tattered by too many nervous fingers, and added my own bends and tears as I flipped through the pages, not really focusing on anything.

Twenty minutes later, I saw a petite, white-haired woman wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope around her neck walking with a tall, slender woman with expertly highlighted brown-blonde hair who looked to be in her fifties. A man about her age had his arm around her. They were surrounded by five very tall young men.

The conversation concluded, the doctor peeled away, and I stood up as they headed into the waiting room and asked, “Mrs. Finkelstein?”

“No, Mrs. Messinger. Finkelstein was my maiden name.”

“You’re Syd’s sister,” I said.

“Who are you?” demanded one of the giants.

“Caleb, don’t be rude,” said the older man. He held out his hand. “Nate Messinger.”

“My name is Linnet Ellery. I’m an associate of Syd’s. The hospital called me because they found my number in Syd’s pocket.”

Mrs. Messinger fell on my neck, crying and hugging me. “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. If it hadn’t been for you, Syd might have lain here for days all alone.”

John joined us, and I introduced him. The Messingers introduced their sons Joshua, David, Aaron, Izaak, and Caleb. We all sat down.

“It was so good of you to come,” Mrs. Messinger said. The boys were eyeing John and me with some skepticism. Their father masked it better.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to pry—” I saw the male Messingers stiffen, and John stepped in.

“But she’s going to. It’s what she does.” He softened the words with an inclusive smile. “Look, Syd and Linnet had a case in common.”

“A case that led to me being assaulted. Then I got a call that Syd was in the hospital. I want to know … I need to know what happened to Syd to see if it’s related.”
And if I’m responsible
, my hindbrain added.
Please don’t let me be responsible.

“Our uncle was attacked,” Izaak said.

“He was mauled pretty badly,” David added.

“Mauled,” I repeated. John gave me a significant look.

“They had to amputate his right arm at the elbow,” Mr. Messinger said. His wife shuddered, and he hugged her again.

“How did he survive?” I asked, thinking of my own close calls.

“Dumb luck,” Nate Messinger said. “A delivery truck pulled down the alley and the driver saw him lying there. There was a guy bending over Syd. The delivery man took out after him, but he got over a wall and escaped.”

“Was he human?” John asked, and the Messingers gave him an odd look.

“What time did the truck pull down that alley?” I asked.

“It was after dark,” Joshua said.

I looked at John. “He would have been clearly visible in the headlights. It was a human.”

“All that means is that he had transformed back to human so it would be easier to get at Syd’s wallet,” John argued.

“And it could have just been a mugging,” I countered. I ignored him and turned back to the family. “Was he coming from work?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Messinger said.

“Did they find his briefcase?” John asked.

“No.”

“People sometimes carry money and valuables in a briefcase,” I said.

“Why are you insisting on making this a simple mugging?” he demanded.

“And why are you trying to prove this is something more?” The Messingers were staring at us. John stood up, took my arm, and pulled me to my feet.

“Linnet wanted to tell you to tell Syd to get better soon.”

He started to march me away. Then he called over his shoulder, “I’d get security for Syd!”

We rode the elevator in simmering silence, me on one side of the car with my arms folded definitely across my chest, and John on the other with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

John keyed the car’s lock from across the lot. The headlights flashed, and it was almost as if the car had winked at us. It was a warmer and friendlier response than I was getting from my silent companion.

We reached the car, but I didn’t get in. I rested my hands on the roof and said (I hoped) firmly and professionally, “Don’t treat me like a brainless twit.”

“Then stop acting like one.” It wasn’t the response I’d been expecting. It actually took my breath away.

“How have I been brainless?”

“You didn’t have to tell Finkelstein about Gillford and the other will, but out of some weird sense of honor you decided you had to. But it never occurred to you that if Securitech was watching
you
—and you were just representing lunatics with no realistic claim on the estate—they were sure as hell going to watch the guy representing the stripper who actually has a real claim to the company.”

Put that way, I no longer looked so noble. I looked like … a brainless twit. I looked back at the storied bulk of the hospital, windows gleaming like yellow eyes. There was no way to cast this as a mugging and excuse myself. Syd was in a coma, missing half his arm, and because he’d managed to survive he was still in danger. And all of it because of me. I lost it and started to cry. There was an aching weight in my chest, and my muscles vibrated with the desperate, futile wish that I could go back and do things differently.

John came around the car in a flash, and gathered me in his arms. “Oh shit, Linnet, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m just angry because that could have been you in that hospital.”

“No, you were right. I didn’t think. I didn’t consider all the ramifications. I had found out information about the other will, and I guess I just wanted to show off.”

“No, that’s not it. You have an instinct for justice, which, sad to say, isn’t all that common among lawyers.” Even though I didn’t totally buy what he was saying, it was nice to hear. “Let me take you home,” he murmured. “Are you hungry?”

“I couldn’t eat.”

I stared unseeing out the side window as we made our way back to my apartment. I finally stirred and looked over at John. “Do you think Chastity and her daughter are in danger?”

“Oh, probably, but not tonight. Deegan may think he’s home free with Finkelstein in the hospital.”

“But when he finds out Syd didn’t die…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The consequences were too dire.

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. The hospital isn’t going to give out information to just anybody. We’ve got a little breathing space.”

We turned down the side street that separated my building from a small park enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. “You can just drop me off. It’s a bitch to park—”

I broke off when I saw the space directly in front of the steps and doors of my building. John wheeled up next to the space and executed a perfect parallel park. I decided if it happened a third time I was going to assume it was some kind of Álfar power.

He turned off the car and cranked around to look directly at me. “I don’t
drop women off.
I escort them to their door the way Big Red taught me.”

“And who’s Big Red?” I asked as I got out.

“My dad.”

“Guess the training didn’t extend to opening car doors,” I said as he took my gym bag and roller bag out of the trunk of the car. I grabbed my boot carrier and slung it over my shoulder.

“Oh hell yeah, it did,” he said as we crossed the street. “But in this feminist society a guy’s gotta pick his courtesy battles.” I flashed him a wry look as I fished for my key. “I don’t open doors for women anymore—that gets me dirty looks—but I hold elevators, carry heavy things, and escort them to their doors.”

He was trying to make me smile, and he succeeded for a few moments, but then the problems and worries pressed in again. Inside the vestibule I headed for the stairs.

“Hey, there is an elevator,” John said.

“It’s my workout plan,” I said. “You can take the elevator. I’m on the seventh floor.”

“I don’t think that qualifies as escorting,” he said as he hefted the bags a bit higher and followed me up the stairs.

We were almost at the top when my toe caught on a tread, and I nearly took a header. With lightning-fast reflexes, John dropped the bags and caught me under the armpits, keeping me from a nasty face-plant.

“Easy there. You okay?” His hand was resting on my back. I nodded, but he was frowning. “Good lord, woman, your back is like an iron girder.”

“I’m tense. So sue me.”

“Tense doesn’t begin to cover it,” he grumbled as he recovered my bags and we made it to my floor. I opened the door to the apartment, and we entered. John set down the bags and looked around appreciatively.

“Nice.” He moved over to the secondhand bookshelves lining the wall under the windows and began looking through the books. “You have very eclectic taste.”

“Is that polite-speak for ‘bad’?” I asked.

John turned to face me. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Because you called me a brainless twit.”

“Correction. You called yourself that. I merely agreed.”

“And that’s better how?” I was embarrassed to discover that tears were pricking at the backs of my eyelids. I turned away.

John was suddenly there, gentle hands on my shoulders, turning me to face him. “Hey, hey. I’m worried about you. Okay? Now sit down.” He guided me to the sofa and pushed me down. He then got behind the couch and began to massage my neck and shoulders. He was really, really good, and it was heaven. I let out a sound that was half-groan, half-sigh.

“That’s better.” His voice was soft and low and sounded like a caress.

His hands became gentler, stroking down my arms. It seemed that electricity danced on his fingertips, making my skin suddenly hot. A shivering began somewhere deep in my core. He leaned down, and his breath fluttered my hair. I breathed in his scent, spice with a touch of sweat. I felt my thighs convulse and tighten as I anticipated a kiss on the nape of my neck, but he withdrew. I sat there, considering. I could feel the heat coming off him in waves and the answering heat in my own body, but he was holding back, resisting.

I knew if I looked back at him he would kiss me. Now I just had to decide if that was a good idea.
To hell with whether it’s a good idea. It’s what I want.
So I looked back over my shoulder, and sure enough, he kissed me.

His mouth tasted of vanilla and honey. I wondered if he’d managed to chew a lozenge or if that was another Álfar trait. If so, it wasn’t fair. I hated to think what I might taste like after a day at the office drinking coffee, and hours on a horse, and then more hours until we reached this point. I was probably disgusting. He sensed my withdrawal.