Lowell’s pissed. She doesn’t seem to understand that if I’m at the hospital with my baby sister, I’m not going to be able to do her dirty work for her. She is prickly as fuck as she dresses me down over the phone. “You realize, Mason, that we’re working with a time limit here. If I don’t find any evidence relating to this murder soon, I won’t be able to pursue Mayfair as a person of interest. That’s bad for me. Very, very bad, which means it’s very, very bad for you, too. And your little sister. I mean, all it would take is one phone call to child services…”
“Fuck. Can you—can you just give me another day or two? I’m doing the best I can, okay? Zeth’s a hard man to get a read on. He keeps his cards close to his chest. It’s not as if he’s spilling his guts about the dead bodies he’s buried in the mountains every time we spar. He’s not that stupid. He barely knows me.”
“You sound like you respect him,” Lowell says. “You sound like I’m making you unfairly spy on an innocent man. Remember this, Mason. Men like Zeth are charismatic. They’re charming. They lull you into a false sense of security.”
“I don’t know who the fuck you’ve had dealings with in the past, but Zeth’s not charming or charismatic in the slightest. He’s an unfriendly, prickly motherfucker, and I am scared shitless of him. I have no sense of security at all, false or otherwise.”
Lowell just grunts. “Whatever. You know what the stakes are here, Mason. Get him talking.”
“I don’t know how to do that! I’m not a fucking interrogator. I’ve got no experience with this kind of shit.”
“Jesus. Just get him drunk. All men love to boast about the shit they’ve done when they’ve got a gallon of Jack Daniels inside them.”
This woman has no idea what she’s asking of me. If she does, then she obviously doesn’t give a shit about my personal wellbeing. In the brief time I’ve known Denise Lowell, she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to allow other people’s safety to get in the way of what she wants, though.
“I’ll do my best,” I tell her. “That’s all I can do.”
“Bullshit like that is for five-year-olds and losers, Mr. Reeves. Do better than your best. Do my best. Do whatever it takes.” The line goes dead, and I’m left standing in the hallway with my cell phone still pressed against my ear, wondering how the fuck I got myself dragged into this mess.
I head back into the room and find Millie counting off her best friends on what looks like both her hands and both her feet. The old guy doctor is good with her, I have to admit that. He puts up a good front, showing interest in who Octavia, Rosie and Samantha are. Dr. Romera, on the other hand, is wearing a sharp, hostile look on her face that I recognize all too well. I was wearing it earlier when she was trying to convince me to keep Millie at St. Peter’s. If looks could kill, I’d be hanged, drawn and quartered and already buried six feet under.
“Is everything okay, Dr. Romera?”
She jumps, as if we haven’t been staring at each other since I walked back into the room and she’s only just noticed me now. “Yes. Yeah. Everything is fine,” she says. Her voice is flat, though. Cold. It’s as if she’s a different person, all of a sudden gone is the warm, caring, friendly doctor I was dealing with a moment ago, and in her place stands…I don’t even know who she is now. “Everything is perfect,” she says, unfolding her arms from across her chest and placing her hands slowly into the pockets of her white lab coat. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me for a moment, guys. It’s my turn to make an important phone call.” She gives me another frosty, appraising look, and then flashes a perfunctory smile at her colleague. “You won’t mind if I step away for a moment?”
Dr. Bochowitz grabs one of my sister’s toes through the sheets and tugs on it playfully. “Of course not. There’s nowhere I would rather be.”
Dr. Romera leaves. It feels like she wants to run out of the room, but she’s doing her best to walk instead. A cold chill runs up and down my spine. What the fuck is up with her? What could possibly have happened during the time I left the room? Doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I swear, I will never understand women.
******