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“Excuse me?”
“That’s because it’s been rolled up over your calf, so it won’t get caught in your bicycle chain. You rode your bike to work.”
“That’s right. How did you know I stopped at Starbucks?”
“Coffee breath.”
“Ooh.” Holly covered her mouth. “Sorry.”
“It isn’t offensive, but that pumpkin odor is distinctive. And I happen to know Starbucks brought back their pumpkin spice drinks last week. The flavoring syrup is the same, but for some reason it smells different in hot drinks than in cold. It’s stronger. You had the latte. You’ve been drinking it from a thermal cup over there at the nurses’ station. The cup is decorated with the logo for the Lake Murray Tennis Club. It’s a city-owned club, isn’t it? I figure you probably play there.”
“How do you know the cup is mine? There are other nurses here.”
“The lipstick on the rim matches yours. No one else’s.”
Holly shook her head in amazement. “You’re right. That is my cup, and I do play there. I used to work at the pro shop sometimes. And I do love to travel. How did you know?”
“You’re wearing a hairpin. It’s jade, which could mean it’s from Asia. But there’s a Maori-style twist at the end, which means New Zealand. I saw them for sale there in a few places. You don’t really see them anywhere else.”
“I got mine at the Auckland Museum.”
“As lovely as New Zealand is, it’s several notches down on the list of travel destinations for Americans. You most likely visited several European countries before going there. You’re well traveled.”
“Right again. I’m going to Thailand next winter.”
Kendra didn’t know how much longer she could go on with this. She wasn’t sure if the nurse could tell her anything more and she realized that this idiotic “party trick” wasn’t distracting her from the awful thought that Metcalf could be dying in one of those surgery suites beyond the nurses’ station. And she’d only just begun to process the fact that Cynthia Strode was already dead. Her body was probably still with the others in that bomb-cratered crime scene.
“I’m sorry,” Holly said.
She must have looked more upset than she’d thought. “Thanks.”
“No, I mean…” She gestured behind Kendra, where a uniformed security guard appeared from the stairwell door. “I had the floor assistant call security when you first came up here. You should really go back to the waiting room with the others. The doctor will let you know when we know more.” She shrugged. “But like we tell everyone…”
“…no news is good news,” Kendra finished for her.
“It’s true.”
Kendra turned and walked toward the elevator. She couldn’t tell Holly that she didn’t belong down with those other friends and relatives. They’d closed her out, even though she was feeling the same horror and pain that they were. She couldn’t go back to that waiting room. That’s why she’d bolted up here to get information.
But now that was another closed door.
So, she just had to get the hell out of here.
***
Kendra’s hands clenched on the steering wheel as she sat looking at the hospital after she got into the driver’s seat of her Toyota 4Runner. She felt so damn helpless. There had to be something she could do. What? It was obvious Cassalas had wanted to get rid of her. He’d been very respectful, but she wasn’t FBI and therefore she was an outsider. That waiting room had been crowded with friends and relations of those victims who had been brutally killed and injured. It didn’t matter that one of those victims lying at death’s door was her friend, or that she had known and admired many of the dead. She didn’t belong to the club. She was in the way. She couldn’t even go to the crime scene and try to get them answers and closure. All she could do was tell the ones who had been left behind how sorry she was that a monster had decided to take down their loved ones to make his own death more spectacular, she thought bitterly. No, she couldn’t even do that, because she didn’t have all the facts yet. She had to wait for the FBI to get through with taking care of their own. Lord, how she hated the thought—
Her phone chimed, and she looked to see it was a text from her friend Olivia. It was a simple message:SEE ME WHEN YOU GET BACK.
Kendra felt an immediate rush of relief. She didn’t even think twice as she started her car and drove out of the parking lot. Olivia would understand because she’d realize how it was to be closed out and isolated when you wanted to reach out. Besides being Kendra’s best friend, they had shared blindness for most of their childhood and young adulthood, and that was a bond that was unbreakable. Even when Kendra had gotten her sight through an operation when she was twenty the closeness and friendship had remained. Olivia was totally brilliant and so was her websiteOutasite, a popular site for the vision-impaired, featuring articles, product reviews, and discussion boards, all accessible by integrated audio screen-reading apps. It was constantly changing and improving and was now a business that generated more than six figures.
Twenty minutes later Kendra parked her Toyota in the condo parking garage. She got on the elevator and pressed the button for Olivia’s condo, which was on the floor below her own.
She heard Olivia’s dog, Harley, barking as she got off the elevator. Olivia opened the door on the first ring, but Harley got to Kendra before she did. The big, adorable mutt’s paws were on Kendra’s shoulders, and he gave her ear a slurp before she could push him down. “How’s his training coming?” she asked Olivia.
“Splendid,” Olivia said. “But he never appears to realize which one of us is in training. I’m working on it.”
“I suspected that was what was happening.” She gave Harley a pat before she smiled at Olivia. “Well, here I am. Want to go out to dinner?”
