Shelby Rush had told me that many of the women who belonged to the society slightly disguised themselves when they participated. I hadn’t questioned that. Of course they would. If they had any kind of public persona, they would want their participation in the society to be anonymous. And they couldn’t just show up in masks all the time. Hence wigs turning brown hair blond, sunglasses, hats. Certainly not all of them changed their appearances. But Betsy Young had.
“I thought she looked like someone I knew, Noah. Someone I didn’t expect to see there. It shook me up. I ran out. That’s it.”
“Is the person you saw with me a patient of yours, Morgan?”
“You know better than to even ask me that. If she were, I couldn’t tell you, anyway.”
“You’re right. And I don’t have to ask you. Because I already know. When I asked you why you ran out of the precinct, the first thing you said was I can’t tell you. Not I won’t tell you. Only one reason for that.”
He stood and picked up our plates. His shirt was unbuttoned and I looked away from his bare chest. Not wanting to think about his flesh now.
“Don’t do that, Noah. I’ll clean up after you go.”
“So, I’ve been dismissed?”
“I don’t know what you expect of me. You come over here to seduce me and once that’s done you switch gears and start digging to get information that might help your case. How am I supposed to deal with all of that?” It was all I could manage not to scream. This had happened to us before. We’d gotten our roles mixed up. We’d crossed the line, and now I’d let it happen again. What was wrong with me?
I grabbed the plates-my plates-out of his hands. “This is my house. You can’t come in here and take over. Uninvited. You can’t.”
The dishes sounded as if they had shattered as I dropped them into the sink. I didn’t look to see if they had.
“You’re right,” he said in a low voice that curled around me like his arms had before.
Damn him for that, too. The easiest way to defuse someone’s anger is to apologize. And I couldn’t afford to have my anger defused. It was the only way I could get him a safe distance away.
I went back to the table to get the glasses and utensils. When I came back, Noah was standing at the sink filling my teakettle with water. In four steps I was by his side, pulling the kettle out of his hands and managing to splash myself and him with a wide arc of water.
“Glad that was still cold,” he said.
“This isn’t your kitchen!” I shouted. “I told you that.”
“What are you so mad about? You love my cooking. I remember that you loved my coffee, too. I even bought chicory.”
There was a whole subtext to what he was saying that I didn’t want to hear, because after he left, when I was alone again, I didn’t want to think about what else he’d implied.
He retrieved the kettle out of my hands before I realized what he was doing and finished filling it up.
“Noah, I’m asking you to get out of here. To leave me alone. And to give me back my goddamn kettle.”
Ignoring me, he put it on the stove, turned on the burner and proceeded to fill the French press with some freshly ground espresso beans that he’d also brought with him.
“You might as well just sit down and relax, because I haven’t had any coffee yet and I’m not leaving until I do. You know that about me.”
His arrogance infuriated me. He laughed. The New Orleans accent even affected his laugh. The peals were long and drawn out, like his words, like his legs, like his fingers. I turned away. I did not want to look at him anymore. I did not want to feel my insides bubbling up again.
I didn’t succeed.
Meanwhile, Noah took a pastry box out of the bag he’d brought with him, opened it and put the contents on a plate.
The raspberries glistened in their flaky tart crust.
“You can’t throw me out. I brought your favorite dessert.”
“You can’t know that. How do you know that?”
“You told me. Did you forget?”
I didn’t answer him.
The kettle started to sing and Noah returned to the stove to finish making the coffee.
“Take these,” he said, handing me the plate and two forks. He brought the French press and two mugs.
As he arranged everything on the table, he said, “You don’t have to tell me anything, Morgan. But you have to listen to me. There’s nothing stopping me from giving you information about this case.”
“Why would you want to do that?” The glistening raspberries were impossible to resist.
“Humor me.”
My fork slipped in between two berries, through the custard, and crunched into the crust.
“No. Explain.”
“Because I think you’re involved. I believe that Betsy Young is your patient and I am afraid that, by treating her, you could put yourself in danger. And that if or when that happens, you won’t come to me for help because of your professional integrity. Which, by the way, I think is very sexy no matter how infuriating it is. If I keep you informed, you will at least be able to protect yourself. And if, at some point, this case reaches a stage that’s dangerous enough that you won’t have to keep your information confidential, you might come to me.”
I lifted the fork to my mouth. The smooth and crunchy textures battled for prominence. The combined but distinct flavors of buttery crust, tart berries and sweet cream were a perfect excuse for me not to say anything.
Regardless of the words, no matter the conversation, Noah and I were spinning. We fluttered around each other like butterflies preparing to mate. They dance, they flirt, they advance and retreat. Some species, when they finally do perform coitus, stay locked together for as many as a dozen hours.
“One day,” Noah said in a voice so low I had to lean forward to hear him, “you’ll stop fighting me.”
“You’re so sure.” I had tried for a tone of voice that would suggest irritation.
“And you’re happy that I am.”
Obviously, I’d failed. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t ready to. And this time, Noah didn’t push.
Once we were finished, we left the table and moved into the living area. Noah took the chair near the window, making clear his intention to continue the serious part of the conversation.
“We don’t have anything. Perez and I are flying blind. Shit, we can’t even find the damn bodies, Morgan. It’s a crisis situation the likes of which neither of us has ever dealt with. I need something. A connection between the men. A suggestion in one of the shots to indicate where the hell those bodies are. Just one reason that the killer wants the stories to break in the paper first.”
“I noticed something odd in the photos in your office.”
He nodded.
I continued, speaking slowly, thinking out exactly how to phrase my sentences. I didn’t question why I had finally decided to speak. Did not allow myself to doubt my decision. I was not betraying any confidence. I had not been told what I was going to tell him by any of my patients.
“The bottom of the men’s feet are dirty.”
He nodded.
“There are dozens of particles, scratches, rough spots, and there are the red numbers. But there was also a…mole…or a piece of dirt on Philip Maur’s right foot, just where the number started. And there was something similar on Timothy Wheaton’s right foot. Almost in the exact same place. At first, I just thought it was more dirt. But how could both men have a speck of dirt in precisely the same place?”
“That’s something either Perez or I should have noticed.”
“I could be wrong.”
He got up. Urgent now.
I was barely able to breathe. Over and over in my mind I repeated what I’d just said, satisfying myself that I hadn’t broken any confidence, just pointed out something I’d noticed. Besides, I didn’t know what the mark was. I hadn’t asked the women in my group. There would have been no way to explain that I’d seen the photographs that close up, for one thing. It was only my guess that a group like the Scarlet Society would engage in some kind of ritualistic behavior and brand their men.