Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

Mr. Gibbons's surgeon finally called right before Karen went on break. As expected, he was grumpy. In the general opinion of nurses, all surgeons were assholes, but Dr. Pierini was a logical asshole. "Mr. Gibbons's temp is a hundred point eight," she said. "At midnight, it was ninety-nine point seven."

"Shit." He yawned. "Okay. I want a culture so we can see what's going on here. Tell the lab I want the results when I do morning rounds." He rattled off more instructions, then said, "Where the hell is Dailey?"

"Dr. Dailey isn't answering his page."

"Well, find him, god damn it, instead of calling me."

He slammed the phone down, but Karen shrugged as she hung up. She had gotten what she wanted, and whenever she woke someone up at three o'clock in the morning, she was inclined to cut him a little slack. She would be more than happy to find Dr. Dailey, if it were possible. No nurse on the surgical floor had ever performed that miracle, however.

She would be even happier if someone shoved a wire up Dr. Dailey's patootie, so she could hit a buzzer whenever she needed him and light up his life. He could then be found by following the yelps. The nurses' break room was habitually strewn with newspapers and magazines, and the refrigerator harbored new life forms that no one wanted to investigate too closely. Four folding chairs sat around a small round table, and a lumpy sofa, covered in noxious orange vinyl, completed the furniture. A nineteen-inch television hung on the wall, but the video portion had been lost for several months, and the nurses had a lot of fun trying to figure out what was happening by listening to the dialogue and special effects.

Karen took a diet soda from the refrigerator and plopped down on Big Val, short for Valencia, as the orange sofa was not so affectionately known. Sighing with relief, she arched her feet and stretched her tired Achilles tendons and wished she had a basin of cold water in which to soak them. She would have liked to pull off her shoes but knew better; the feet would swell immediately, then she would have trouble getting her shoes back on, and they would be too tight for the rest of the shift. Several days' worth of newspapers were scattered on the floor. Leaning over, Karen grabbed up

several sections to see if anything exciting had happened while she had been gone. She doubted it, but maybe "Dilbert" hadn't been clipped out of the comic page. The cartoons had a way of winding up on bulletin boards in the hospital, with hospital employees' names penciled in. Administration didn't think it was funny.

She leafed through the papers, scanning headlines and photo captions. One photograph grabbed her attention because something about the burned shell of a house looked familiar. "A fire yesterday morning destroyed the residence of Nathan and Lindsey Hoerske—" Why, that was her house! Shocked, she stared at the blackened ruins in the photograph. It had been her house, rather. She had lived in that house for fifteen years. Oh, the poor Hoerskes, just married and so happy to have their own house. They had lost everything they owned, from the look of it. The newspaper said the fire started in the kitchen. Almost as rattled as if she had lost an old friend, Karen laid the newspaper aside. House fires were never just about lost property, they were about memories and dreams. The fabrics of lives were woven together within the protective walls that provided sanctuary from the rest of the world. She had liked Nathan and Lindsey; though she had made up her mind to sell the house anyway, she was glad they were the ones who bought it. They had seemed so much in love, but settled, as if they had found their groove in life and nothing could jar them out of it. Karen had imagined them having a couple of kids, the rooms cluttered with toys and resounding with the happy, high-pitched shrieks of children at play. Now they would have to start over, find another place to think of as home.

Piper breezed onto the floor at six-thirty. She put her hands on her ample hips when she saw Karen.

"Why didn't you call me?" she demanded, scowling.

"I didn't have time." Impulsively, Karen put down the chart she was notating and hugged Piper in apology. "The airline could only get me on a flight that was leaving in an hour. I just grabbed my clothes, called Judy, and ran."

"Well, I guess I'll excuse you," Piper grumbled, returning the hug. "I'm sorry, honey. It had to be rough, even though I know you weren't close to your father. What happened?"

"He was murdered. Shot."

Piper gasped, shocked, and the two other nurses at the station turned around with arrested expressions on their faces. Karen swallowed the lump in her throat. "It was a street shooting. There weren't any witnesses."

Piper blew out a breath. "Jeez, that's tough. Maybe you should have taken off another couple of days."

"No, working is easier." It always had been. If she could keep herself occupied, she could handle anything.

"Why don't you come stay with me for a few days—"

Karen rolled her eyes, then laughed. "You work days; I work nights. What would be the point?"

"Yeah, guess you're right." Piper pondered the situation. She was big-boned with a mop of short black curls and the most friendly face in creation. Just looking at her could make a patient feel better, not because she was a great beauty but because her good humor literally shone out of her. Her love life, unlike Karen's, was more active than Mauna Loa volcano. "Until you transfer back to days, you're on your own."

"Gee, thanks." Karen chuckled at the blithe callousness and hummed a familiar tune.

"I'll be there for youuuu," the two nurses behind her sang in unison. Piper picked up a stapler and brandished it at them.

"You can be attached to those chairs for another shift, you know." Judy Camliffe walked up, her stride brisk. "Hi, guys. Karen, you all right?" Only a few days before, such concern, even from Piper, would have made Karen uncomfortable. Now, however, there didn't seem to be much point in trying to wall herself off; her defenses already had been breached. Despite all her caution and efforts, Marc had slipped through them like a hot knife through butter. And despite all the years she had spent building a wall of anger against her father, she had learned that she wouldn't have been so angry if she hadn't loved him.

She smiled at her friends. "I don't know if I'm all right, exactly, but working is better than not working." She paused. "Thanks for asking."

Judy nodded her dark head, then turned to the pile of charts. "Okay, what's cooking?" Karen filled her in on Mr. Gibbons's worrisome fever, which was now up to a hundred one point three. Lab hadn't called with results of the blood tests, and Dr. Pierini was due to start his rounds in half an hour.

"I'll goose them a little," Judy said, reaching for the phone. "Oh, I found out what was wrong with Ashley."

"Diarrhea, you said."

"Yeah, but what caused it." She turned her attention to the phone. "Oh, hi, this is Judy on the surgical floor. Do you have anything yet on the Gibbons culture? Sure." On hold, she turned her attention back to them. "She thought it was food poisoning the first time it happened, and she raised hell in the cafeteria, but no one else had been sick, so they ignored her. This time, she narrowed it down. Jelly beans."

" Jelly beans?" Piper looked aghast. She loved popcorn Jelly Bellies.

"She's on a diet, so she bought some sugar-free jelly beans for a snack when she went to a movie. Four hours later, the runs started." Judy snuggled the phone more comfortably between her neck and shoulder.

"She went shopping yesterday, bought some more jelly beans, the same thing happened. This time, the jelly beans were all she had eaten. She said she bloated with gas and the cramps were awful."

"On the other hand," Piper said practically, "she probably did lose weight." They all laughed. "Yeah," Judy said, "but she said it wasn't worth it." She turned her attention back to the phone. "Look, is there anything you can do to rush this along? The patient's temp is climbing. This may be staph. Okay. Thanks. I'll call back." She hung up and said to Karen, "They promised to have the results in another fifteen minutes."

"It usually takes them double the time they promise. They might have the results before Dr. Pierini starts

his rounds, if he's running late." Karen glanced up the hallway as a doctor appeared, frowning as he studied a chart. It was the elusive Dr. Dailey, appearing for all the world as if he had been working hard all night. "What brand were those jelly beans?"

"Karen, honey, you don't want to go there," Judy warned.

"Oh, they're not for me. I was thinking of giving some to Dr. Dailey—for therapeutic reasons, of course."

"Of course," they all chorused, smiling, because the unanimous diagnosis among the nursing staff was that Dr. Dailey was full of shit.

Karen looked at her answering machine as soon as she entered the apartment. The little red light wasn't blinking. Well, it wouldn't be, she scolded herself. Marc knew she worked nights. If he hadn't called earlier, he certainly wouldn't have called in the middle of the night. Sighing, she locked the door and headed for the shower. He had no reason to call, anyway, unless he wanted to swear at her some more. It was over. It had never even really started. There hadn't been any comments about seeing her again, only that relentless seduction. He had achieved his purpose, and now she had to let go of it, stop worrying the situation in her mind. It was over, she told herself emphatically. But it didn't feel over. Marc had changed her view of herself. Standing in the shower, she was acutely aware of her body, in a way she hadn't been before. She felt… sensual. Female. Her nipples beaded under the pelting water, and she thought of Marc's mouth on them. She remembered the way his hard, callused hands had curved around her waist, her bottom, effortlessly lifting and turning her, positioning her for his pleasure, and hers. Her insides clenched on the swell of sexual arousal, and she could almost feel him there, thrusting into her.

Wow. She blew out a breath. Every woman should have a lover like him, just once in her life. But she didn't want it to be just once. She wanted him again, every night for the rest of her life. The question was, what should she do about it? It was hell, not knowing where she stood. She had doubts about his motives, about his feelings, about everything concerning that night except her own emotions, and in her experience emotions weren't a stable foundation on which to base important decisions.

Her experience—hah! Her experience in this man/woman stuff was nil. She had never loved a man before Marc.

The water had been getting progressively less warm, but all of a sudden there was nothing but cold water pouring from the showerhead. Stifling a shriek, Karen jumped out of the spray. She didn't know how long she had been standing there mooning over Marc, but it was long enough to exhaust the hot water supply. Hastily, she turned off the water, then wrapped a towel around her. She shivered as she dried off and hurried into a robe.

The inadvertent cold shower had dispelled her sleepiness, which was good; she handled night shift better if she waited several hours after getting home before she went to bed. She could watch the morning news, catch up on her mail, pay bills, do all the normal stuff. And just for fun, she might paint her toenails a daring scarlet, instead of the discreet pink she normally used.

Carl Clancy wasn't in any hurry. He had checked further than the phone book this time. Hell, how was

he to have known the Whitlaw woman had sold the house but the new phone book wouldn't be issued until December with her corrected address in it? But he had found where she was living now, even discovered that she was a nurse at one of the local hospitals.

The question was, was she at home or not? Hospitals were twenty-four-hour operations, but he hadn't been able to find out what shift she worked, not without bringing a lot of attention to himself. People tended to remember someone asking specific questions about a particular person. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. If she worked first shift, she was now at the hospital. If she worked second, she should be getting up; third, going to bed.

He called the hospital, asked for her. He didn't have enough information about her, didn't know what floor she worked, but it didn't matter. The bitch who answered the phone replied in a frosty voice that nurses weren't allowed personal phone calls while on duty, except in case of an emergency. That was bullshit. Every floor had its own number, and the nurses made and received personal phone calls all the time. But rather than make a stink, he apologized and hung up. Dead end. Next, he called her. After the screw-up in burning the wrong house, he had checked with the phone company and found that the number in the book was still the correct number; her new digs were within the same exchange area, so the number had simply been transferred with her. She might have the phone turned off so it wouldn't disturb her if she was trying to sleep, but that was a chance he had to take. The rings sounded in his ear.

Karen's head came up when the phone rang. Her heart leaped, and she started to grab the phone, but then she remembered Marc knew she worked nights. He wouldn't be calling now, would he? Or maybe he would, thinking this was a good time to catch her at home, and it was still early enough that she might not have gone to bed yet.

She hesitated long enough that the answering machine picked up. Almost immediately, the caller hung up, and the message stopped. Not Marc, then. He would have left a message. Disappointment made her sick, but she shrugged it away. She wasn't going to spend her life waiting for him to call. If he hadn't called by tomorrow, she would call him. By running out the way she had, she had put herself in this quandary of not knowing if they'd had a simple one-night stand or if there could be something more between them. It was her fault, so she shouldn't balk at taking the first step. Modern courtship was the pits, she decided, assuming this even was a courtship. Things had been much simpler when men declared their intentions, and the women then stepped out with them or not, signaling their own acceptance or rejection of the suit. She liked the orderliness of that, the emotional safety. Women's liberation had been great in terms of opening up jobs and beginning to equal out pay, but darned if the old social rituals didn't seem a lot better than the confused mess they had now. Karen regarded her toes. Scarlet polish just did something for a woman's feet, she decided. A woman with red toenails wouldn't hesitate to call a man if they had an important, unresolved situation. Tonight, she decided. She didn't want to call him now and get all upset or excited, then not be able to sleep. If he didn't call today, she would call him tonight. And if he told her to take a long walk off a short pier—well, at least she would know and would be able to move on with her life.

Carl Clancy sighed. Okay, she hadn't answered the phone. She was either gone or asleep. If he had

another day, he would be able to find out everything he needed to know, but Hayes was pushing him to get the apartment searched now .