Allison Leigh – One Night in Weaver... (страница 8)

And although she might not know the finer ins and outs of what all Tristan and his highly confidential Hollins-Winword actually did—she preferred not to know, actually—she did know that her patient was suspected of having killed his two partners. Tristan was trusting her to either help the man work through his memory loss surrounding the incident, or debunk his condition altogether.

Everyone around Jason seemed to believe he was dangerous. Hayley was still withholding judgment on that. She simply didn’t know enough about the man yet.

“He’s trying to bang up the place pretty good, but he’s not showing any signs of injury,” Adam answered.

At least that was something. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she promised and disconnected the call. “A patient,” she told her grandmother, who was still standing right beside her.

“Oh, Hayley. What about your date?”

To hear Vivian’s tone, canceling was akin to dissing the Queen of England. Hayley scrolled through her cell phone history until she found Seth’s number. “The date’s just going to have to wait,” she said as she headed back into the privacy of her bedroom.

Her call was answered after only a few rings. “It’s Hayley.”

“Chicken out already?” His voice was deep.

“I’m not chickening out.” She tucked the thin phone against her shoulder and yanked her hair back into its customary ponytail. “I have a patient emergency.”

“Yeah. That’s what they all say.”

She caught the reflection of her narrowing eyes in the mirror and hastily smoothed out her face as if he could see through the phone to her severe expression. “I don’t make up things when it comes to my patients.”

“So you make up things when it doesn’t?”

“You’re toying with me.”

“If you unwound a little, you’d be quicker to recognize when a person’s joking.”

Tension that she hadn’t even realized she was feeling released inside her chest. She exhaled and pushed her feet into leather ballet flats. They weren’t on her list of favorites, but they were comfortable and no-nonsense and she’d quickly learned that where her newest patient was concerned, no-nonsense was key. In one of his rare verbal offerings, he’d warned her to save both her coddling and her feminine wiles. The fact that she’d offered neither was immaterial. “I am sorry, Seth.”

“I’ll make sure you make it up to me.”

“Ha ha. Another joke.”

His voice dropped. “No, Doc. That’s a promise. Obviously this is going to take some work.”

She smiled even though a shiver was dancing down her spine. “I guess we’ll see. I’m afraid dinner will probably have to wait until after Casey and Jane’s wedding this weekend.” She had several group sessions that met during the week in the evenings. And Friday would be busy with the wedding rehearsal and the dinner Casey and Jane were having out at their place. “I don’t expect to have any free time until next Sunday at the earliest.”

“Guess it will be back to the microwave for me. When I die from malnourishment, drop a flower on my grave.”

She laughed softly. “I’ll do that. Good night, Seth.”

“Good night, Doc.”

Still smiling, she slid her phone into the side pocket of her briefcase, which usually doubled as her purse, too, and went back out to the living room.

“All work and no play isn’t going to keep you warm at night, dear,” her grandmother cautioned.

Even though Hayley felt certain that Vivian hadn’t left the house all day except for the morning walk she usually took, her grandmother was still dressed in a Chanel suit with jewels sparkling at her ears and throat. In six months, Hayley had never seen her grandmother dress differently. She seemed to have an endless array of designer clothing and priceless jewelry. Undoubtedly the benefit of having been married once upon a time to a steel magnate. “That’s why I have an electric blanket,” Hayley assured her grandmother. “Don’t wait up. I might be late.”

“I wish it were for a different reason.” Vivian’s acerbic voice followed her out the door.

“Me, too,” Hayley murmured as she hurried to her car. “Me, too.”

* * *

Ten minutes away in the observation room that overlooked McGregor’s cell, Seth slid his cell phone into his pocket. Beyond the monitors and the bulletproof glass, the disgraced agent had finally stopped throwing his furniture around and now stood motionless in the middle of the room, staring down at his feet. They were bare below the pale blue medical scrubs that he wore. When it came to acting, the guy was doing a good job of looking as if he was losing his marbles.

Not that his behavior changed Seth’s mind at all about McGregor’s involvement in his partners’ deaths.

He glanced at the young man sitting in front of the monitors. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Adam.” Strictly speaking, Seth had no official need-to-know where the safe house’s “guest” was concerned. But Seth had helped Adam get into Hollins-Winword a while back and loyalty stuck. “Does Dr. Templeton ever check the log?”

Adam shook his head. “I tried showing it to her because Mr. Clay said she was in charge of everything with McGregor except security, but she didn’t want to see it. Says her only interest is in her patient. Not the comings and goings of his keepers, since we never interact with the guy.”

The only people who did interact with McGregor, according to Adam, were Hayley and, even less frequently, Tristan. Tristan’s meetings with McGregor were recorded. Audio and video.

Hayley’s, however, were not. She’d evidently dismissed the warnings that being observed during her sessions was for her own safety and insisted that her patient’s privacy be honored. Her only concession had been to carry a panic button whenever she was alone with McGregor.

“Well.” Seth scrawled the exit time in the log next to his equally indecipherable signature. “Enjoy the grub.” He’d brought Adam dinner from one of the diners in town.

“Already am,” Adam said around a bite of his roast beef sandwich.

Seth left the safe house and drove his truck well out of sight before pulling to the side of the road. He’d planned to make his usual quick stop at the place to check on things and be home at his apartment in plenty of time before Hayley came. But witnessing McGregor’s temper tantrum had waylaid him. And even before he’d heard her voice on the phone, he’d known that Hayley would be canceling on him.

His conscience didn’t particularly bother him.

Just because he’d considered the possibility of gaining inside information from her about what McGregor revealed during their private sessions didn’t mean Seth was acting on it. She had limited knowledge of those involved with Hollins-Winword and there was no reason for her to know he was anything other than what she believed him to be: a lowly Cee-Vid security guard.

So he sat there off in the distance on the side of the road and waited until her car arrived. She parked in the driveway of the ordinary-looking ranch-style house situated in the middle of a half-dozen other ordinary-looking houses, got out, walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the front door. A few seconds later, the woman who lived in the house with her real-life husband opened the door as if greeting a friend, and Hayley disappeared inside.

In his mind, Seth followed her movements. Through the living room filled with ordinary furniture. Probably greeting the husband, where he’d be parked on his recliner, watching sports on television after having spent his day in the drugstore where he was the pharmacist. Through the kitchen, which was usually filled with the warm scent of something the pharmacist’s stay-at-home wife was baking, and down the stairs to the basement. Then through a steel security door as thick as Seth’s thigh and down another flight to the very depths below the house where she’d be greeted by a guard just like Adam who didn’t hide the fact that he was armed the way the couple upstairs did.

And even though Hayley had the trust of Tristan Clay, for security purposes she would still have to surrender that sleek briefcase she carried and be wanded and patted down before she’d be allowed into the heavily locked room with her patient, the panic button tucked into her pocket.

The process would take a minimum of five minutes if she didn’t stop to shoot the breeze with anyone along the way.

Seth sat there slouched in his truck seat watching the house. Porch lights came on up and down the street as darkness fell and his butt turned numb.

And finally, a little more than three hours later, the front door of the safe house opened again and Hayley appeared on the porch. Accompanied by the lady of the house, she stood there for a moment, smiling and holding a foil-wrapped package in her hand, before returning to her car with a casual wave of her hand.

She definitely had the routine down. Anyone taking the time to watch would have seen only one friend stopping to visit another.

Exhaling, and not particularly anxious to examine the reasons why he was relieved she was out of there, Seth straightened in his seat, started up his ancient truck and drove home to the microwave in his apartment.

* * *

“You’ve got a visitor.”