Baby Girl Doe (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 5) (8 page)

I opened my eyes and stretched.
That was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages.
I felt totally refreshed, like I did when I was very young and didn’t have a care in the world. Ah, to be a child again and know true bliss one more time. I guess that’s what Max feels like when he opens his sleepy little eyes in the morning.

A light breeze sailed through the window, fragrant with the aroma of dewy, freshly clipped grass. I rolled over on my side and noticed that Gus was still asleep. I watched him for a few minutes, happy with the memory of last night’s romance. He’d given me back that feeling I’d so badly missed: the feeling of total satisfaction. We were as one last night, and I can’t remember feeling as good or complete in a very long time.

The fragrant morning air was intoxicating. It was like breathing the scent of poppies, and I felt my eyelids grow heavy again. I rolled over on my side and felt my head melting into the pillow.
Max is still quiet—just a few more minutes. Thank you, God.

I awoke to the sound of buzzing as a mosquito landed on the netting that surrounded my bed. “Where the hell did that come from?” I glanced around and saw that I was no longer in our bedroom but in a large safari tent. I heard stomping on the floor before I could fully take in my surroundings. I clutched my chest and sat up.
Huh?

Nigel Twain was sitting on the end of the bed wearing an Indiana Jones fedora and lacing up a pair of Alden boots. A sleeve was torn off his unbuttoned safari shirt, and his exposed arm looked like a thick, muscular snake. He stood up and stomped his feet so that the cuffs of his khakis covered the tops of his boots. He turned to face me, eyes blazing, his exposed chest as magnificent as a slab of finely carved onyx.

Twain is the psychiatrist I routinely consult with on my cases. He’s a gorgeous, dark, and brooding man with the psychological insights of Sigmund Freud. More than that, he’s the embodiment of all that I lust for. He hasn’t had as strong a hold on me since I became a mother. Gus performed like an Olympian last night—positively knocked my socks off. I thought that I had it all and needed nothing, yet here Nigel was.

“Nigel. What the hell? Where’s Gus? What are you doing here?”

“You know,” he said with a sly smile and a swagger in his step as he approached me. “I only come when I’m called for.”

“I don’t get it. I didn’t call anyone.”

“
Yes
, you did.”

“
No.
I
didn’t
!” I insisted.

“Maybe Stephanie Chalice the mother and wife didn’t, but Stephanie Chalice the adventure-seeking suspense junky most definitely did.” Twain had a musky British voice that made me quiver from the inside out. “I get it, Love. I really do. Motherhood, vacations at the shore, changing diapers, and warming baby bottles are all wonderful, but there’s a part of you that yearns for thrills and mystery. You have a dark side, Stephanie, and you can’t appease it with a trip to Toys R Us or knitting a baby blanket. Your lodgings were burnt to the ground. Women are missing. Homicides are going unresolved. It’s clawing at you, and you can’t fight it.”

“I can’t?”

“Of course not. That’s why you sent for me.”

“Oh
yeah
? What do you bring to the party?”

“A physician’s mind, a warrior’s body, and a penchant for tawdry wrongdoing.” He grasped my hand and pulled me off the bed into his arms. “Adventure and intrigue await us.”

We were face-to-face and chest-to-chest. I felt myself tingle all over. “I can’t go with you. I have a family to take care of.”

“They’ll be fine until you get back,” Twain insisted. “How long can it take to save the world, fifteen, twenty minutes tops?”

“But I’m not dressed to—” Twain snapped his fingers and a strong breeze abruptly sailed through the tent. I gasped when I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I was wearing a see-through gauze shirt, khaki miniskirt, and knee-high leather boots. For some reason my pseudo-erotic attire didn’t shock me.
Something’s missing
, I thought, and just like that a bullwhip materialized in my hand.
Oh, that’s more like it. I look like Wonder Woman in safari gear.

“Nigel, you’ve thought of everything. Let’s go. Let’s go save the world.”

Twain smiled and forged forward. I followed him through the opening in the tent.

A lush tropical rainforest stood before us. Water cascaded from a mountainside and crashed into the flowing river below. Banana trees and vines surrounded us, and the air was filled with the screech of macaws and monkey noises. Just an aside: I love monkeys. I have smiling monkey magnets on our fridge at home and several pairs of monkey PJs. All monkeys are good, even the flying monkeys that served the Wicked Witch of the West—they weren’t really bad, just misguided.

“So, Nigel, how exactly is the world imperiled?” I asked.

Nigel snapped a branch beneath his boot. The cracking sound frightened hundreds of small birds that took to flight from the nearby trees, squawking loudly as they filled the sky. He ducked abruptly, just in time to dodge a brown globular mass that went whizzing past his head.

“What the hell was that?” I shouted.

“Monkey poop,” Twain said as he broke into a run. “Move quickly.”

I picked up speed just as the cute monkey noises became a frenzy of screams. A big wad of monkey dung landed near my feet. I took off running. Within a moment we were safely protected by dense brush. “Why’d they do that?”

“That’s what they do.”

“No.”
I insisted. “You must have frightened them.”

“Perhaps, but they are monkeys, Stephanie, and they like to throw their shit. Perhaps not a sophisticated repellent but effective—they got rid of us fast enough, didn’t they?”

“I’m a friend of the monkey. They must have been really frightened to assault us like that.”

“Are you some kind of weirdo monkey advocate or something?”

“I’ll have you know that I make a donation to WWF every year.”

“The World Wrestling Federation?”

“No, dummy, the World Wildlife Fund. I make a notation on my check that says, ‘Screw the big cats. Monkeys are adorable, and this donation is for their conservation only!’ The black spider monkey is in danger of becoming an extinct species. They’re in deep shit.”

“Probably their own.”

“Not funny!”

“My apologies. May the black spider monkey go forth and be bountiful. Let’s hurry along,” Twain said, “We only have about ten minutes left in which to save the world.”

“That’s not much time. What’s the rush?”

“In ten minutes, you’ll turn back into a doting wife and mother—in other words, a pumpkin. We’ll be forced to scrub the mission.”

“Oh. I guess we’d better get moving.”

We pushed deeper into the brush. The sky darkened and thunder crackled overhead. Without warning, the sky opened up and drenched us in a soaking rain. I tried to run for cover but the spike heels on my Wonder Woman boots got stuck in the mud.

Twain grabbed my hands and pulled me free. “Careful,” he warned, “you never know
whennnn—
” His voice trailed off as the ground beneath his boots gave way and he was washed away in a mudslide.

I felt the mud beneath me begin to move. Those spike heels were truly a godsend—for the moment I was anchored firmly in place.
I’ve got to rescue Nigel and save the world,
I fretted
.
I looked down the steep embankment hoping to see him, but he was gone. There was only one thing to do. I pulled my heels out of the mud and let the mudslide wash me away, hoping that God and gravity would take us both to the same place. I slid feet first at high speed, past lush vegetation and jungle critters. I came around a bend and saw a monkey standing on a rock. His arm was cocked, and he was holding a handful of you know what. “No. You wouldn’t,” I pleaded. It took a moment for the monkey to recognize me. He smiled. Our minds locked for a moment, and we were able to communicate, primate to primate.

“Thanks for the donation to the World Wildlife Federation, Stephanie. I went to a fine restaurant, ordered Bananas Foster, and had enough left over for a Bailey’s banana colada.” He extended his unencumbered hand and caressed my cheek as I slid by. “Good luck saving the psychiatrist,” he said. “I think he’s into you.”

“Thanks, monkey. You’re very intuitive.”

“The name’s Chet.”

“Thanks, Chet,” I said as I slid by. The rain intensified. Mud was rushing up my skirt.
I’m going to have to take a long hot bath to clean this stuff out of my lady parts.
I once took a mud bath at a spa—they hosed me down afterward and still couldn’t get it all out.

I picked up speed and saw that I was heading for a waterfall. I tried grabbing a vine, but it snapped off in my hand. I turned forward just as I whooshed over the edge.

“
Wheeeeeeeeeee!
This is better than the Big Thunder waterslide.” The water rush blasted me out like a bullet and shot me into the air; my arms and legs flailing like an old woman swatting at gnats. I hit the water feet first, which was fortuitous because the water pressure washed all the mud out of my vajayjay.

I hit the surface and wiped the water from my eyes.

Twain was waiting for me on a bluff. His clothes were drying over a fire, and he was wearing skimpy, leopard-skin briefs. He had a martini in his hand and toasted me with his cocktail. “Ready to take the plunge?”

“I just took the plunge. Oh, you mean—”

“That’s right. The world is safe, and it’s time for the heroes to copulate.”

Wait a minute.
“Don’t you mean
celebrate
?” I asked, hoping to distract him from the other item on his other agenda. “Safe from what? What did we accomplish?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you,” he said with a sly smile.

I began to trudge out of the water. I was waist deep, and my flimsy shirt was clinging to me like a second skin.
What am I doing? Stay here in the water where you’re safe from him.
My intentions were honorable, but my boots were meant for walking. I continued to stride out of the water and closer to . . .

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

I jumped up in bed, drenched in sweat and my heart pounding in my chest.

Gus jumped up as well.

“What the hell is that?” I yelled. I heard Max crying hysterically in the next room.

“Son of a bitch.” Gus jumped out of bed and ran to the window. I followed hot on his heels.

Ray was level with our window, high atop a ladder. He was on the top rung with a hammer in one hand and a tree limb to steady himself in the other.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Gus rushed to throw on some clothes while I ran into the next room to quiet Max. I was mad as hell, but I chuckled despite my anger. Hanging onto the tree branch like that, Ray looked exactly like a monkey.

“Hi, it’s Camryn.
How can I help you?”

“Camryn, it’s Stephanie Chalice.”

“Who?”

“Stephanie Chalice. I’m renting the Fisher house.”
Ring a bell, dingbat? I left you three messages. Remember me? You accosted my husband in the restaurant last week. You wanted to kick me to the curb and run off with my family. Still nothing?

“Oh. Um. Hi, Stephanie. Can you hold a minute?”

Can I hold a minute?
“Actually—”

I heard her click off the line.
What a pain in the ass.
I was cruising down Montauk Highway on my way back to the police station and waiting for Camryn’s shrill voice to crackle over the speaker. Some jerk cut me off in one of those eyesore G-Class Mercedes SUVs, the ones that only
gazillionaires
can afford and look like the vehicle driven by Field Marshall Rommel while he crossed North Africa during WWII. I was still stewing over Ray’s morning wakeup call and the frustration of Camryn’s inaccessibility. My road rage had built to a crescendo.
“Asshole!”
I shouted within the safe confines of my truck. How’s that for passive-aggressive?

Just then Camryn’s voice spewed over the speaker.
“Excuse me.
”

“No, not you.”
A different asshole.
“Someone just cut me off and I was—”

“Can we make this quick?” she interrupted impatiently. “I’m trying to schedule the closing on a waterfront property. It’s worth a hundred K to me in commission, and I can’t get the son-of-a-bitch seller’s attorney on the phone.”

Oh gee, my heart bleeds.
“Listen, Camryn, we’ve got to talk about your brother Ray.”

“Why? What’s he done?”

“It’s what he hasn’t done—he hasn’t shown us an ounce of common courtesy. I know he needs to complete the trim on the house, but he shows up unexpectedly and begins hammering without giving us a heads-up. He woke up everyone in the house this morning, and it wasn’t the first time. He scared the crap out of us.”

“Well, just talk to him about it.”

“We tried, and he wasn’t exactly receptive to compromise. The first time he dashed off, even though we asked him to stick around for a chat, and this morning, he refused to get down off his ladder. I mean, what’s the deal with him?”

“Deal? There is no deal. He waited until eight o’clock, didn’t he?” she said in a voice devoid of sympathy.

“Camryn, we’re on vacation.”
You know, rest and relaxation . . . sleeping in?
“If I had known we’d be waking up to a blitzkrieg every morning at dawn, I never would’ve taken the place.”

“As I remember, you didn’t have many alternatives. You would’ve had to go home.”

Do you believe the attitude? Now listen, beeatch.
“You’re missing the point, Camryn. We’ll give Ray every opportunity to do his work, but this bullshit show-up-whenever-you-please-policy is over. Am I clear?”

It took a moment for her to reply. “Okay, I’ll talk to him, but you’ll have to be
ultra
cooperative.”

“And so will he!” I clicked off the cell phone and chucked it onto the passenger seat next to a box of Pampers. I know a lot of women who think they’re all-powerful, but this babe took the cake. Speaking of which, I had stopped at the bakery and picked up fresh Danish and coffee for my morning meeting with Sullivan Smote, the detective who had investigated Sarah Fisher’s disappearance. I tore off a piece of a blueberry-cheese Danish and stuffed it into my mouth.
Ultra cooperative my ass—who the hell does she think she is anyway?
Max had been hysterical until we got some breakfast into him and I did not plan on going through that again. Gus was so mad at Ray that I thought he would rip the ladder out from under him and pound him into the ground. And Ma . . . well, let’s just say she has quite a repertoire of Italian expletives at her disposal.

The desk officer had a huge red nose. He either had a sudden flare up of rosacea or his name was Rudolph. I laughed inwardly remembering his name. It was Randolph. Anyway Randolph, the red-nosed desk officer appeared to remember me from my first visit. “Chalice, right?” he said with a smile.

My breasts were kind of swollen, which meant that I was about a comma and two semicolons away from getting my period. I wasn’t sure if Randolph remembered my face, the engorged boobs, or both. I considered either recollection complimentary. “Very good. You remember.”

“You here for Pulaski again?”

“No, Detective Sullivan Smote this time. Is he handy?”

A well-tanned, gray-haired man walked through the door just at that moment. He was handsome, fit, and trim like an actor I’d seen playing a physician in a television pharmaceuticals ad. In the ad, the doctor explained how he cured his low testosterone problem with AndroGel and is now as virile as a stud bull. Of course, the disclaimer in that ad stated that women should avoid contact where AndroGel has been applied, and to call a doctor immediately if they grow facial hair or a penis. Not a great selling point. Thank God, Gus has all the testosterone I can handle.

The desk officer called to the slick-looking guy who had just entered the building, “Hey, Sully, your appointment is here.”

Slick Sully smiled. His teeth were three shades whiter than freshly driven snow—so white I almost reached for my sunglasses. “Thanks, Randolph,” he said.

Smote approached me and got really close, invading-my-personal-space-close. He looked skyward and pressed his palms together as if he were giving thanks. “Thank you, God.” I flashed the back of my hand fluttering my wedding band and engagement ring in his face. He took note and then once again peered toward the heavens. “I take it back.”

“Detective Smote, I’m—”

He smiled again and then backed a step away. “I know. You’re Chalice. I looked you up after we spoke the other day. It’s an old habit I’ve never been able to break. Call me Sully.” He looked down at the paper bag I held. “Good to your word—Danish and coffee?”

I nodded.

“See, so it’s not a total loss. Follow me.”

“
You’re
forward.”

“Don’t mind Sully,” Randolph said with a grin. “He’s banging out for good at the end of the day.”

“You’re retiring, Sully?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Congratulations. That certainly explains your forwardness.”

“Not really, Chalice,” Randolph said. “He’s always been a big flirt.”

Sully placed his hand on my shoulder and guided me past the front desk. “You’re not just wearing the wedding band for effect are you?” he whispered hopefully.

“No such luck.”

“Too bad. Let’s grab a conference room.”

Sully and I made small talk for a few minutes while we drank our coffee. Turned out he was a regular guy when he wasn’t on the make. I almost gagged when he told me how much he’d be pulling down each year from his pension. I mean, it really gave me pause—Suffolk County salaries were astronomical compared to NYPD wages.
Maybe Gus and I ought to move out here.
Sully was buying a condo on the water in West Palm Beach, Florida and trading in his Audi for a white Maserati convertible. Not too shabby. I mean the guy was obviously a ladies’ man. I could almost picture this silver-haired
playuh
tooling down Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, in his Maserati convertible with a silk scarf flapping in the breeze.

“A big time chick magnet like you—you’ll be up to your armpits in widows and divorcées,” I said.

“I certainly hope so. Although . . . I’m not exactly interested in women my own age.”

Gee, really?
“Just make sure they’re of consenting age, Sully. I’d hate to see you brought up on statutory rape charges.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’m pretty careful. So what’s your interest in Sarah Fisher?” he asked.

“My husband and I are renting the house she used to live in. It creeped me out to hear about her disappearance—I’m just curious. What do you think happened?”

Sully shrugged. “I think she was a victim of foul play,” he said most matter-of-factly. “I think she was a naïve East End kid who got sucked in by some city slickster. It’s an ongoing investigation, but there haven’t been any new developments in over six months. Her apartment in the city had been cleaned out, no forwarding address, stopped showing up for work . . .”

“She just vanished into thin air?”

“No. I think she’s either dead or being held captive somewhere. She had about two thousand dollars in her checking account that was cleaned out in five separate ATM withdrawals.”

“What about the security cameras at the ATMs?”

“That’s the weird part. The woman in the security photos kind of looks like her.”

“Like her but
not
her?”

“Even her parents couldn’t tell us for sure. She was wearing large sunglasses in the security photos.”

“Large sunglasses? Like Jackie O?”

“Exactly like that.”

“She wore them each time she withdrew cash?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems weird. I know some kids have their sunglasses permanently glued to their heads but still . . . Did her parents offer any insights?”

“No. They had absolutely no idea about what happened to her. That poor couple . . . Sarah’s disappearance completely destroyed them. Sarah’s mother died, and her father went off the deep end.” Sully crossed himself. “God rest their souls.”

“God rest
her
soul. He’s not dead.”

“Not that I know of, but the last time I saw him he was practically incoherent. I hope he’s not suffering like that anymore.”

“When was that?”

“Late last year. He was forced out when the bank took their house. I haven’t heard from him since. Maybe that’s why I never married and had kids of my own. I never wanted to worry about a family. You know what it’s like being on the job. Cops see the world differently, as if there’s a scumbag lurking around every corner. People think it’s safe out here in suburbia, but let me tell you,
it’s not
. Suffolk County monsters are every bit as sick as the depraved bastards you come across in the city. There are areas out here I wouldn’t go into without a gun.”

Sully opened a folder and showed me photographs of Sarah Fisher and her family. Sarah had a round face with green-gray eyes, shoulder-length blond hair, and a cute button nose.

“What was she like?” I asked.

“Her folks and friends described her as a happy kid. She was on her high school and college track teams. She had a few close friends out here, and no one could think of anyone who might do her harm. She’d just started meeting friends in the city, mostly from her job. Apparently she hadn’t lived in the city long enough to build very many relationships. We checked out her phone records, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts . . . nothing! No suspects. I interviewed everyone I thought might know what happened and came up empty. In all my years on the force, I never investigated a case with so little to go on.”

Sarah was nestled between her parents in a photo. She looked just like her mother. You could look at her mother and fast forward to what Sarah would look like when she got older. Her father, now that was another story. He didn’t look anything like Sarah. He was shorter than his wife and daughter—much, much shorter.

Smote must’ve seen the look of shock on my face as I stared at the photo. The differential in height was alarming. “You’re surprised at how short her father is?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think he’s much more than four and half feet tall. He’s a midget.”

Whoa. Did he just use the M word?
First of all four-and-a-half-feet “tall” is short
,
but that doesn’t make someone a midget. Among little people, the word
midget
is considered a hate word and is viewed much in the same way that the African-American community despises the N word. Okay, maybe that’s a little strong. I mean little people were not enslaved for hundreds of years like the Africans were, not unless you count that time they worked their fingers to the bone for Willie Wonka in that sweatshop chocolate factory of his. I thought for a moment and remembered reading that normal-size people can have little children and that little people can have normal-size kids. The cause is most often genetic, but it’s not always passed from parent to child. “
Ixnay
on the
idgetmay
,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s not cool to use the word
midget
. It’s considered hateful.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“Most of us are not little-people sensitive. Keep it in mind. It may come in handy if you run across a tiny little cutie when you’re down in West Palm Beach.”

Sully rolled his eyes. “Fat chance. Anything else I can tell you? I have to turn over my files and get ready for my send-off party.”

“Sounds like a busy day.”

“Don’t get wise, Chalice,” he smirked. “What else?”

“Any chance of me getting a copy of your case file?”

“You’ll have to fill out an official request, but I’m pretty sure I can get it approved. I’ll make the copies myself.”

“Thanks. That’s sweet.”

“Sweet am I? So tell me, where do you stand on the subject of marital fidelity?”

I scowled at him. “I’ll tell ya where I stand . . . right next to my husband.”