The Pain Nurse - страница 8

“Gary, you need to go see the police. Now.”

“Chris was going through the postdivorce wilds. Having a great time being away from me. Playing with residents. They’re young and idealistic and horny. And playing with nurses, I hear.”

“As I remember, you left her.”

“It was over a long time ago, way before any judge ruled. As I remember, you once wanted me to leave her to be with you.”

A wave of nausea swept over Cheryl Beth. “That’s not true.” She spoke quietly but heard her words echo off the walls and mantle. “What we had was a…fling. My bad judgment.”

“Oh, the pain nurse, always making nice.” He stroked her hair again, ran one of his high-priced hands down the side of her face, down her neck. He smelled good. Damn it.

“Stop, Gary.” She moved to a chair facing him and took a gulp of the whiskey. His face was strangely blank, the handsome planes of his cheeks, strong chin and sensual lips. He would look thirty-five forever. Then he leered at her, his dusky blue eyes morose and appraising. She knew her face was red and her eyes puffy, her makeup a mess, but he looked as if he hadn’t parted with one tear. Some days she hated blue eyes, swore she would never trust them again.

“Well.” He set down the glass and stood. “I’m going to have to tell the police that you two were together before she was killed. But I assume you already did.”

“I did.” Her mouth filled with cotton.

“Did you tell them about us?”

“No,” she said softly.

“Cheryl Beth, always discreet. Always the good girl, even when she wasn’t.”

“Why are you being such a jerk?”

“Because I’m not going to let Chris get me from the grave.” He pointed adamantly down, as if she were buried beneath the house. “Like I said, the ex-husband is always the prime suspect.” The leering smile returned. “But so is Chris’ romantic rival. Who knows what she might have said to you tonight. But, you told the police everything, right? Well, almost everything.”

He paused, then, “What else happened at the hospital tonight? Did Bryant come down there?”

She said the chief executive had come down. He had been very solicitous and gentle with her, and had told her to take two days off.

“Come here, babe, I’ll give us both an alibi.” His body language was all too clear.

She edged him toward the door, afraid of all the raging things she might say. “I don’t need an alibi. And you need to call the police, talk to them. I can’t even believe you were alone tonight, spying. What about Amy, that child physical therapist you were fucking.”

“Oh, I love to hear you talk dirty, Cheryl Beth. Gets me so horny.” He smirked. “But your mother would disapprove of that language.”

She knew he was pushing buttons. He was so good at that. But the words still lashed her. Why had she ever let him into her life, especially into the deeper parts that could wound?

“Please go.”

“Maybe I was with Amy tonight. You don’t know. And she’s hardly a child. She’s twenty-two.” He looked around the familiar room.

“I need you to go now.”

“I hope you close those curtains after I leave. Those big windows. You should really be more careful.”

“Gary, you’re really…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She just held out her hands defensively and he slipped out the door. When she had locked it, she spoke to the door. “Gary, you’re really creeping me out tonight.”

“You’re a hard man to find.”

Will Borders sat in the wheelchair, against the wall in a hallway behind a cart with red drawers, an EKG machine and menacing-looking defibrillator paddles, and there was Scaly Mueller walking toward him. Captain Steve Mueller was the commander of the Internal Investigations unit.

“But good men are hard to find.”

He talked that way, lapsing into motivational clichés. It was just another Scaly Mueller joke. All the cops made fun of him behind his back. Will said hello, but the unspoken answer to Mueller’s question was that Will’s only peace was anywhere but inside his room. After a week in the neuro-rehab unit, he had barely slept. Moving meant pain. Even raising his arm to dial his cell phone meant excruciating torture. Immobility meant pain to come. Once he was down for the night, he was strapped into what looked like vibrating socks-prevent blood clots, they said. They also killed his ability to sleep. But the biggest problem was three feet away from his bed.