Page 45 of A Hidden Past

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Dr. Jordan Basler was ordinarily one of the most beautiful women Lena had ever seen. She had long brown hair with a generous helping of natural blonde highlights, striking green eyes and a bone structure that would have won her Miss Universe ten years in a row if she hadn’t decided to go to Johns Hopkins instead.

But right now, she was biting her lip, scratching her arm and fidgeting like a meth head ten hours removed from his last hit.

“Look, it’s late,” she told the detectives. “I was just about to go home for the evening.”

“Lila Kensington isn’t going home.”

Since impatience didn’t work, Dr. Basler tried taking offense instead. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’d forgotten that sixteen years of medical education and nine years of experience wasn’t enough to qualify me. I must have screwed up my autopsy. I’ll be happy to dig her up and do another one. Oh wait, that’s right. She was cremated. Guess I can’t do that.”

Lena was in no mood for the bullshit. “Jordan, you will be honest with me now, or I will formally seek charges against you for falsifying evidence. How sure are you that I’ll lose that case?”

Jordan looked from Lena’s stony eyes to Harris’s equally cold gaze. She swallowed painfully, then folded her hands on the table and twiddled her thumbs.

“You can start talking now,” Harris offered helpfully.

Jordan slumped. She lifted her hands and let them fall, then said, “He’s Julian Kensington. What am I supposed to do, say no?”

“I have to believe that someone with sixteen years of medical education and nine years of experience is smart enough to know the answer to that question,” Lena replied. “So I’ll skip to my next one. What did he tell you to do?”

“He didn’t tell me to do anything. He pulled me aside when I gave him my report and said that Clara was having a really hard time with everything. He said that if she found out that Lila was still using, it would devastate her. He really hoped that I was about to tell him that Lila died from her disorder and not from a habit that Clara had tried so hard to help her get rid of.”

“Or from someone drowning her.”

Jordan paled. “He didn’t say that.”

“Did he have to?”

Jordan sighed and looked away from the officers. Her lips trembled. She took a deep breath and folded her hands in front of her. “I… ” she hung her head, “the contusion on the back of Lila’s head appeared to be… it’s conceivable that it wasn’t an accidental fall.”

“Wonderful. Thank you. Harris?”

The two of them left Dr. Basler to consider the implications of her actions. When they were back in her car, Harris asked, “You want to go talk to the Kensingtons now?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. We go talk to them now, we’ll just be giving the slippery little asshole a warning so he can squirm underground somewhere and spend the rest of his days hiding in a beach house in Thailand. We’re going to keep digging until we find enough rope to hang him. Then we’ll spring the trap.”

He grinned. “Just like the good old days.”

“If you say so.”

Still, when she checked the rearview mirror before backing out of her parking space, she saw that she wore the same grin as Harris.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I finish my work in record time. Twelve houses in eight hours. It’s not even five o clock by the time I tell Mrs. Garrity I hope to be of service to her again soon and get in the van to head home. I make it about a mile before I realize I’m not heading home.

I’m not heading to Vivian’s either. I’m pretty sure I fucked that up for good. Aside from the fact that Vivian wants me to just deal with the fact that Lila’s killers are going to get away with it, the way she treated me made it clear that however much she might like me in bed, she still sees me as a child. The way I reacted to the way she treated me made it clear that I am one.

So yeah, that's probably over. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, and thanks for the memories.

Instead, I go to Mrs. Winslow's house. I have no idea why. I don't even like her. She acted like a kindly old grandmother, then dropped bombshells like a KGB agent.

But those bombshells put me on the path that helped me discover who killed Lila Kensington. I didn’t like feeling like she was manipulating me, but she was manipulating me closer to finding justice.

I’m probably just rationalizing after the fact. I’m probably just here because I need someone to talk to, and with Vivian no longer an option and Marco being about as trustworthy as a three-dollar bill, there’s no one else. Worst-case scenario, I end up even more part of the neighborhood’s gossip than before, but that’s something I can deal with. I don’t think there’s anything I care less about than the opinions of the people of Autumn Downs.

Anyway, I’m here now. If I just sit in front of her house for ten minutes, then drive away, I’ll look even more like a creep.

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