LITMIR.BIZ

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Brady began more evenly this time, “nobody turns that shade of white when they see a stupid rose left on their doorstep unless there’s something else going on. Now if you don’t want to talk to me, fine, but you’ve got a boatload of police personnel in your life. Talk to one of them.”

      Because she was a Cavanaugh, even though she considered herself the mildest one of the group, she inherently resented being dictated to. “How do you know I haven’t?”

      He looked at her knowingly. “Just because I don’t get along with people doesn’t mean I can’t read them.” Brady gave her a look just before he turned to leave. “Have it your way. Looks like I’m not the only one who isn’t communicative.”

      It was as if he’d read her mind.

      Patience blew out another breath, irritated. Relenting. The man was right, she supposed. And it was better to say something to him than to Patrick or the others. Especially Patrick. She knew without asking that the law took on a whole different hue when someone her older brother cared about was being threatened.

      “His name’s Walter,” she finally said, addressing her words to the back of Brady’s head.

      Stopping just short of the door, Brady turned around. He stood waiting, not saying a word.

      Okay, Patience thought, she might as well tell him a little more. “Walter Payne,” she elaborated. “I saved his cockatiel and he was grateful. Very grateful. He was also kind of lonely,” she added after a moment. “I tried to encourage him to go out, to get out of his shell.” She’d even gone so far as to suggest arranging a blind date for him. But although eager to please her, Walter hadn’t followed up on her suggestion. “Maybe I was too successful.”

      “So he started harassing you?” He had his answer as soon as he saw the woman pale.

      Harassment and stalking were such ugly words. She told herself that it was more like enduring a schoolboy crush from a forty-five-year-old man. She couldn’t handle it any other way. “He brought me flowers, said it was from Mitzi.”

      “Mitzi?”

      “His cockatiel. At first it was just one, like that.” She nodded at the rose. “And then it was a bouquet. There was candy and a few poems, as well.” Those had followed in quick succession. Crowding her. “I just thought he was being overly grateful. The cockatiel meant a great deal to him.”

      Brady tried to read between the lines to pick up on what the veterinarian wasn’t saying. “You told him to stop?”

      “In a way,” she allowed. “I said that it wasn’t really proper, that I couldn’t accept gifts for doing my job.”

      Why did he have to drag the words out of her? he wondered impatiently. “And?”

      Patience shrugged, blocking the edgy frustration that pushed its way forward. “He kept leaving them anyway.”

      He knew that these things almost always escalated unless there was forceful police intervention. “What made him finally stop?”

      “I put out a formal photograph of my family in dress blues. Made sure he saw it.” Patience nodded at the far wall.

      There, hung in prominent display was a group photograph he’d seen more than once on his visits to her office. He looked at it with fresh eyes. The last time he’d seen that much blue was at a patrolman’s funeral. He had to say it was impressive.

      Patience allowed a small smile to surface. “I guess that put the fear of God into him. Or at least the fear of the Cavanaughs.” Her smile widened a little. “Walter hasn’t sent a poem or a single flower in the last six months. And he hasn’t been by.”

      Brady looked down at the rose. King eyed it, as well. “Until now.”

      She nodded, suppressing a sigh. “Until now,” she echoed.

      If this was the resurgence of the stalker, she was being entirely too blasé about it. “You should report this, you know.”

      Calmer now, she thought of the mousy little man, of the stunned expression on his face when she’d made reference to her family and had shown him the photograph. She’d overreacted, she told herself, because of Katie. But this was different and she didn’t want to stir things up. “He’s harmless.”

      In Brady’s book, no one was harmless in the absolute sense. Everyone had a button that could be pressed, setting them off. “Every killer was once thought of as harmless.”

      She looked at him for a long moment. “You’re trying to scare me.”

      “Damn straight I am. I’ve seen enough things in my life to know when a woman should be scared, Doc.”

      She’d been around members of the police department all of her life. Beyond her father, she couldn’t recall any of them being as world-weary as Coltrane appeared to be. Not even Patrick. “God, you sound as if you’re a hundred years old.”

      “Some nights, I am,” he told her matter-of-factly. “So, you want me to take a statement?”

      “No, that’s all right. If I get really worried about Walter, like you said, I’ve got my own boatload of police personnel to turn to.”

      It wasn’t difficult to read between the lines. “But you won’t.”

      Patience didn’t feel comfortable, being read so effortlessly by a man she couldn’t begin to read herself. Rather than get into it, she gave him her reasons—or, at least, the primary one. “I don’t want to upset them unnecessarily.”

      “How about necessarily?”

      “Walter’s harmless,” she insisted. It felt odd, championing a man she wished, deep down, had never crossed her path. “He thinks he’s just pursuing me, like in the old-fashioned sense. Courting,” she added, fishing for the right word. Walter Payne always made her think of someone straight out of the fifties, when things had been simpler and persistence paid off. “He stopped once. If I ignore him, he’ll stop again.”

      “And if he won’t?” Brady challenged. King barked, as if to back him up.

      Tacoma moved closer to her mistress, offering her protection. She absently ran her hand over the dog’s head, scratching Tacoma behind the ears as she spoke, trying to keep the mental image of Katie’s photograph at bay. “Then I’ll deal with it. I have a number of people to turn to.”

      Damn but she was one stubborn woman. One could see it in the set of her mouth, in her eyes.

      But before he could say anything further to her, the bell above the door jangled and a woman came in, struggling with a battered cat carrier. The occupant of the carrier paced within the small space.

      “I know I don’t have an appointment, Dr. Cavanaugh, but Gracie’s been hacking all night and I’m worried sick.” The statement came out like an extraordinarily long single word, each letter breathlessly woven to the one before and the one after.

      Feeling the dog stiffen beside him, Brady looked down at his companion. The fur on King’s back was standing up as he stared intently at the carrier. Had he not been as well trained as he was, Brady was sure the animal would have gone after the cat, carrier or no carrier. The cat obviously sensed it, too. Hissing noises began to emerge from the carrier.

      In contrast to King, Patience’s dog seemed bored and trotted over to the far corner to catch a nap beneath the rays of the early morning sun.

      Taking a firm hold of King’s leash, Brady spared Patience one last look.

      “Report it,” he told her much in the same voice that he used on King when he verbalized his commands.

      “I’ll handle it,” Patience repeated firmly. She turned her attention to the frantic older woman. Work was the best thing for her right now. “Right this way, Mrs. Mahoney. As it happens, my first patient of the day isn’t here yet.”

      And neither

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