Page 81 of Seduction
“On the clock?”
“Yes, do I have doctor-patient privileges here?”
She nodded graciously. “Do you have a dollar on you?”
I opened my purse then my wallet. I only had six twenties and a ten. I took out the ten. “I have ten dollars.”
Christine smiled as she rubbed her hands together. “I’ll use it to buy us expensive handcrafted coffees with loads of sugar, fat, and caffeine. So, let’s hear it.”
I laughed. Up until then, I’d never known my aunt had the slightest hint of a sense of humor. It was almost tragic that it had taken such a sad occasion for me to learn that.
I focused on the red brick building. Going against every instinct in my body that knew secrets were supposed to be stored deep inside the brain and padlocked, I said, “I know the woman at the party recognized him because yesterday I was told by a woman claiming to be his girlfriend that his name is Asher Christmas.”
Christine jolted herself out of her relaxed position and looked at me with bulging eyes. “His name is what?”
Time seemed to slow down as I said, “Asher Christmas.”
A bitter laugh escaped her then started to build into a more hearty but strange one. “This fucking world never ceases to amaze me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice barely audible. My face was warm, and my heart was beating a mile a minute.
Christine put a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Pen. I just…” She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she looked at me again, she appeared more focused. “We have to get through this next part of our day. After that, we must talk about Asher Christmas. Are you okay with that?”
I didn’t know if I could wait. I swallowed repeatedly, thinking about the right way to handle all the anxiety I was feeling. Then my gaze fell on the building again. Mary Ross was inside, lying on a slab. Asher or Jake was a man I just met. The least I could do was focus solely on her before her body was committed to the ground.
Decision made, I swallowed again to relieve the tightness in my throat. “I’m fine with it.” It came out clear but jittery from the intense pain in my heart.
* * *
Christineand I didn’t need to sit and wait. The clerk who greeted us was a slight woman who appeared to be in her mid-to-late forties. She shifted a thick brown folder she was carrying from her right to her left hand to shake. The woman referred to my aunt as Dr. Ross, then she said her name was Scheana. Then she shook my hand. I told her my name was Penina.
“She’s a neurosurgeon in New Orleans,” my aunt added.
Scheana lifted her eyebrows. “Then I’m in the company of two Dr. Rosses.”
I felt my face flush as Christine smiled proudly. It was the first time my professional stature had been confirmed in front of my aunt, and it made me feel bashful but delighted. Scheana announced there had been new developments in the case and that we should follow her somewhere so we could speak in private.
Christine and I looked at each other with furrowed brows then followed Scheana through a doorway. My head felt as if it were detached from my body as we walked down a carpeted hallway with no windows or doors. Scheana asked Christine if it had been difficult to find the medical examiner’s office, and my aunt answered that it hadn’t been since she had been there before. Christine shared that she had been there in February of that year to identify the body of one of her clients. I kept my arms folded, nostrils flared, wondering why I couldn’t smell the slightest scent of dead bodies. It was as if corpses weren’t in the building, or we were being escorted far away from the morgue.
“Oh yeah,” Scheana said as she led us around another corner.
“Yes, Detective Knight called and asked if I could identify the body in person.”
“And you came all the way from Boston?”
“Absolutely,” Christine said as Scheana opened the door for us. “So, I know we’re nowhere near following normal protocols for identifying a body.”
“That’s correct,” Scheana said once we were all in the small room, which had a table with two chairs on each side of it and a whiteboard that had nothing written on it. She pointed at two of the chairs. “Please, have a seat.”
Since the small talk was over, my anxiety was back in spades. Christine must’ve noticed, because she held my hand under the table.
Scheana took the seat across from us, setting the folder she was carrying on top of the table. Her smile was tight but genial—it was the sort that said she was about to apologize for something. “We received a corrected report on the deceased’s fingerprints this morning. We’re very sorry for alarming you, but…”
Christine slapped one hand on her chest and squeezed my shoulder with the other. “The deceased is not Mary.”
“No,” Scheana said in a humble tone. “We’ve identified her as Laurel Hempstead from Portland, Maine.”
“But this woman had my sister’s identification and my grandmother’s locket?”
