Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (22 page)

"I have no clue what you're talking
about." But her gaze dropped to the ground before she rallied.
"Pretty scary, though, right?"

"Yeah. Petrifying."

She shook herself. "Anyway, the
point's the same. Leave us alone." Her voice rang hollow.

I just waited. We both knew her mother
was going to call me and schedule an appointment with me, if she hadn't
already. We were going to see each other, showdown or no showdown. "Look,
Wendy. Who are you trying to protect?"

Her eyes widened. "No one."

She was lying. We both knew it. My tired
brain clicked like it was trying, and failing, to make a connection.

Her turn to go on the attack. "I was
just wondering if your supervisors know you're asking all these questions
instead of doing your real work."

My stomach dropped, but I tried on a
poker face. "What do you mean? I think they'd be pleased I'm showing such
an interest in my patients."

She bent in close enough that I had to
lean away, but I did it slowly, striving not to show fear.

"Yeah, an 'interest,' is that what
you call it? Accusing me of sending you letters and calling you? You think
because I'm gay, I'm that hard up? As a matter of fact, I've got—"
She bit back the rest.

I stared at her. I'd accused her of being
my poison pen pal without any evidence or even a clue about her motivation. No
homophobia intended. But was she really admitting to harassing me, or just
shooting off her mouth?

"Oh, forget it!" Wendy waved
her hand at me and stormed away.

I took irrational pleasure in watching
her thighs jiggle as she walked. It was easier than trying to figure out why
she was trying to scare me, and if it had any connection to Laura's death.

It was easier than admitting I was
freaked out.

Ryan was gone. Wendy was psycho. I'd have
to figure this out alone.

Or almost alone.

After that, I really needed a treat, so
just before I started call, I hit our local Japanese resto for some takeout and
paged Tucker from the residents' lounge while the steam still rose from one of
the Styrofoam boxes.

"Back already?" he said.

"Yeah. There weren't any consults
yet, so I bought me some teriyaki and you a bento box." If he was anything
like me, supper was an excellent suck-up/make-up/thank you/are we still
friends? gift. Plus I wanted to talk to him about Wendy. "Anyway, I'm in
the residents' lounge, if you want to pick it up." When he didn't respond,
I said into the micro-silence, "Or I'll leave it in the fridge. Whatever's
good for you."

"They haven't gotten back to me
yet," said Tucker

"Who?"

"The staff at the Douglas. You
wanted me to ask about antisocial patients."

"Yes, I know. That's not why I was
calling, though."

"Wasn't it?"

"Well. Only partly," I
admitted.

He barked with laughter. "That's
what I love about you, Hope. If nothing else, you're honest. So here's the
million dollar question. Why else were you calling?"

"To talk about Saturday?"

"Sounds good. Anything else?"

I thought of what we'd done and crossed
my legs. It sounded nuts, throwing handbooks at each other and then nearly
getting it on, but he was so hot. "Maybe."

"And you're playing it safe by
meeting me in the residents' lounge, where medical students will be our
chaperones and romance will be held in check by the smell of rotting
garbage?"

"Well..." I glanced around. Two
medical students hypnotized by the TV, a third by Facebook. "Yeah, that
pretty much sums it up. But my food smells a lot better than garbage."

"No dice."

"Huh?"

"The residents' lounge stinks, Hope.
I try to avoid it. Meet me outside somewhere. It's August and you're on psych
call. Live a little."

My idea of living dangerously was leaving
the premises to grab supper even though I was on home call and had 20 minutes
to respond. He was probably right, but it annoyed me. "You want your bento
box or not, Tucker?"

His laugh crackled back at me through the
line. "Yeah. At the picnic tables outside HR. See you in five?"

I hung up on him. We both knew I'd be
there.

Seven minutes later, while I unsnapped my
wooden chopsticks for teriyaki chicken, Tucker sampled some sushi. "Not
bad. How've you been?"

"Uh, busy." I blushed and dug
into my chicken to hide it.

"I'll bet. Well, me too. I talked to
one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Ven."

"But you said—"

"Yeah." His brown eyes turned
serious for a second. "Just wanted to make sure you wanted me and not just
my skillz. Happens too often."

I pushed my Styrofoam container aside.
"So what did you find out?"

"He has a great memory and he's
really a nice guy. He's going to get out some of his notes, but he still
remembered that group of borderlines. It disbanded in 2002, something about
funding, before they restarted it in 2003."

I suspected the history lesson was to
keep me in suspense as long as possible, so I bit my tongue.

"They thought it would be a good
idea to have group therapy for borderlines, same as for everyone else. They
have issues of anger and abandonment, as you know, so the idea was that they
could work on those together. But he said there were problems. Some of the
girls got together for 'slasher parties' afterward, where they brought out the
razor blades and cut their own arms, egging each other on. Two of the girls had
to be stitched up in the emerg." Tucker shook his head. "He did
remember one guy, though, he thought might have antisocial personality. Michael
Martinez."

"A guy," I repeated.

"Yeah. He was the only man in the
group. That's probably why Dr. Ven remembers him so well. He was also the only
one to have serious trouble with the law. Breaking and entering, theft under a
thousand dollars——not hard stuff, but enough to get him a record.
He was nineteen at the time, so it didn't get all wiped out the way it would
have if he'd been underage. Actually, most of the borderlines were over
eighteen. It started with eighteen and under, but got expanded, plus they
didn't want to kick out the patients once they turned nineteen..."

Tucker was way too interested in the
mechanics of the psych group. "Okay, so this Michael Martinez. What else
do you know about him?"

"Dr. Ven was going to look it up,
but he remembered him as very charming. Always had a girlfriend. We laughed
about that. I said there's less worry about abandonment issues if he's always
stringing them along, but Dr. Ven said actually borderlines get screwed up
sometimes when the partner dumps them and it becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy. But Dr. Ven remembers that Martinez kind of changed around the time
of Laura's death. He became a lot more secretive and defensive, and then
stopped coming altogether. Dr. Ven tried to track him down and get him to come
back, but his phone number was just a pizza place he used to work at. He kind
of slipped away."

"Okay. And Dr. Ven never said anything
about that to the police?"

"He said it was all circumstantial.
As a matter of fact, a lot of the patients acted peculiar when Laura died. He
thought they were uneasy about the reminder of their own mortality. He thought
it might be part of the reason so many of them dropped out."

"Who else dropped out?"

"Like I said, he's getting back to
me."

"I'd like to talk to him."

Tucker stretched his legs out and ate the
last piece of sashimi. "I know you would."

I whipped out my phone. "Do you have
his number?"

"Uh huh." He made no move to
give it.

I waited with my finger poised in the
air. "Tucker?"

"I know you'd like it, but this is
my part of the 'investigation.'
 
I'm
covering it, Hope."

"But—"

He shook his head and closed his eyes. I
reached across the table, stopping just short of his hand. "Come on,
Tucker, what difference would it make if I talked to him?"

"He doesn't like to break patient
confidentiality, for one," he replied without opening his eyes.

Damn. "Well, what about—"

"It's different. We used to work
together. But you're the 'detective doctor' parachuting in from Ontario, you
know what I'm saying?"

I grimaced.

He put his legs down and laughed openly.
"Anyway, I lured you here to talk to you about something else."

The look in his eye made my heart pound
all of a sudden. "Saturday?"

"And beyond. Don't worry, it's not
about jumping your bones."

"How disappointing."

He clucked his tongue. "That's my
girl. Can I try some of your chicken?"

I held the box toward him. "You're
just trying to draw it out and torture me."

"You know it." He was deft with
the chopsticks. Good with his hands. It made me wonder how he'd be in bed.
Again. He caught me looking at him and laughed. "Good, huh?"

I pretended he was talking about the
food. "Yeah, I like their sauce."

"Right." He lifted his
eyebrows. He seemed a lot more confident and playful than the last time we'd
seen each other. I wondered what had changed. Maybe it was just the lure of
being a 'detective doctor' himself. Well, I could live with that.

But then Tucker smiled, and I thought it
was more likely our dalliance in the conference room had recharged him somehow.

"Well, you've been kind of torturing
me, Hope." Despite his light tone, I tensed and waited. I had an idea what
was coming.

He surveyed me. He and Ryan both had
brown eyes, but Ryan's were dark brown, black in some lights, intelligent and
deep. Tucker's were lighter, with some gold in the iris, and usually more
playful. Except now they were intent. I waited for the Ryan-guilt. I deserved
it.

But he surprised me again. "My
parents are college sweethearts. Did you know that?"

I shook my head.

"You never asked. But they've been
together since he asked her to dance to the Police's
'Every Breath You Take
.' They play it on their anniversary every
year." He grinned and rolled his eyes. "They probably would've gotten
together before except he threw spitballs at her in grade seven and she
shouldn't have anything to do with him for years after. But they both said they
'knew' the other one was the right one. All our lives, they've been telling me
and my sisters that, and we've been like, okay, whatever, hippies."

I had to laugh. "I didn't know you
had sisters."

"Two younger ones. We quoted the
divorce rate at them, we told them life was a lot more complicated, new millennium,
yadda-yadda. And then I saw you at the resident orientation." His mobile
face turned serious. I found myself holding my breath.

"Everyone else was on time, serious,
and I'd known almost all of them for years. You burst in late with this huge
smile on your face. You were wearing shorts when everyone else was in dress
pants. You had so much
energy
, like a
hummingbird or something."

I had to laugh at that.

"And right off the bat, you didn't
take shit from anyone, including me. And I knew." He looked me straight in
the eye and repeated, "I just knew."

Holy macaroni. He was serious. A small,
secret part of me was amazed and touched while the rest of me was scared. I
never knew Tucker saw me that way. Cute, sure. He'd always been interested. But
he was talking
coup de foudre
, or as
the English say, love at first sight.

"I can't explain it. I could hardly
believe it myself. Still can't." He shook his head, too. "Sometimes,
I think it's a masochism thing." He didn't say, but we were both thinking
of Alex and now Ryan. I winced. He waved it away. "You drive me crazy. But
other times..." He looked me, tilting his head to the side. "I know
what I'm doing. So I'm waiting for you. Not passively. And not forever. I'm not
a saint. But you're the one, Hope."

My mouth went dry. My heart started
drumming like another panic attack, but in a semi-good way. He wasn't exactly
saying he loved me, but it was pretty close. He was calling me his destiny. And
I had no freaking clue what to say back.

He shrugged and smiled. "You don't
have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. Thanks for the bento
box." He stood up, untangling his legs from the picnic table.

I found my tongue again. "Now, wait
a minute. You can't say that I'm 'the one' and leave."

"Actually, I can do whatever I
want."

"Yes, I know, but..."

"And if someone had laid that on me,
I'd want some time to think about it."

"Yes, but—"

"Unless it was you." He frowned
before he gave me a lopsided grin. "I'm looking forward to that."