Eclipse (18 page)

‘A thousand thanks,' Chauvin said.

Grace shut the front door, looked at the bouquet, even more aggravated because now she had little choice but to offer him a cup of coffee. She went through to the kitchen, laid the roses on the worktop, then ran water into the coffee machine.

‘You read my mind,' Chauvin said from the door.

‘I take it that's a yes to coffee?'

‘Always.' He stooped to pet Woody, who allowed his ears to be fondled, then trotted to his bed and lay down.

‘Espresso or regular?'

‘Espresso,' he said, ‘definitely.'

‘Pull up a chair,' Grace told him.

‘
Merci
.' He rummaged in his bag and brought out a camera. ‘I hope you don't mind. I meant to take some photos last night, but I forgot.'

It was a sharp-looking camera, Grace thought, larger than most of the neat little digital devices almost everyone used these days.

She brought over his small cup.

‘OK with you?' Chauvin turned on the camera.

Grace wished she hadn't offered him coffee.

‘Just a snap or two,' he said, ‘for my collection.'

‘Collection?' She went back to the counter, set up the machine for her own cappuccino.

‘Travel memories, you know,' Chauvin said. ‘I'm sure you and Sam take pictures when you go places.'

‘Sure,' she said.

‘Smile for me?'

Grace turned, smiled, and the camera whirred and flashed.

‘Another please?'

She didn't turn around this time, but she heard the camera go again, ignored it, looked at her watch and shook her head.

‘I'm sorry, Thomas, I can't even have a coffee with you. I really do need to get going.' She switched off the machine, turned around.

Chauvin took another photograph.

Grace blinked. ‘No more, please.'

He said something softly in French.

‘I didn't catch that,' she said.

‘I was just thinking aloud,' Chauvin said, ‘about your amazing resemblance to the late Princess of Monaco.'

Grace laughed.

‘But it's true,' he said.

‘I have blonde hair,' she said. ‘That's about it.'

‘No,' he said. ‘You have the same wonderful bone structure, beautiful eyes.'

Grace felt a real flash of discomfort. ‘I think it's time you were leaving.'

‘Just a couple more photos, please.' He raised the camera again.

‘No more photos.' She was firm.

‘Are you going to confiscate my camera?' He grinned. ‘You sound like a teacher, scolding me.'

‘I have a lot to do,' Grace said.

‘OK.' Chauvin leaned down, put the camera into his bag, picked it up and rose. ‘You're right to be cross with me. This was an intrusion.'

‘Not at all.' Grace went ahead of him into the hallway. ‘But you really need to call first. Sam and I both have very hectic schedules.'

At the front door, Chauvin stopped. ‘You know, back in Switzerland I thought that the resemblance between you and the other Grace was almost uncanny, but then, last night, when I met your daughter, that really took my breath away.'

‘Really,' Grace said, and opened the door.

‘You must have noticed it, surely?'

‘Never,' Grace said.

‘Now that would be fun, to photograph Cathy as Kelly – perhaps as she looked in
High Society
, or maybe
Dial M
—'

‘I don't want you bothering my daughter, Mr Chauvin,' Grace cut in sharply.

‘So hostile.' He looked disappointed. ‘From Thomas to Mister.'

Grace moved away from the door, and Chauvin stepped over the threshold.

‘Goodbye,' she said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your stay.'

She closed the door.

Discomfort had turned to unease.

She went back into the kitchen, picked up the phone and keyed Cathy's speed-dial number.

‘Leave a message and I'll call you right back,' her daughter's voice said.

‘Cathy, I may be overreacting, but if Thomas Chauvin tries to contact you, please don't have anything more to do with him, and call Sam. I have reason to feel a little uncomfortable about him. Call me anyway, please, as soon as you get this.'

She ended the call, made another one, to Sam.

Voicemail too.

She left a message.

When Sam got back in the car, Martinez had just finished a call.

‘Cutter says the Delgado doctor called. Doctor Bartolo Lopez. Says he only just found out that Beatriz and daughter visited his practice on the tenth. Cutter and Sheldon are going to talk to him.' Martinez paused. ‘Your nose tell you anything in there?'

‘Nothing,' Sam said. ‘The stuff Marilyn says she uses for “chemical peels”' – he grimaced – ‘was closest, but I'd be reaching.'

Martinez had found a couple of speeding tickets for Dewayne Jones, nothing more significant or sinister, and had returned his driver's license with thanks.

‘The problem with remembered smells,' Sam said, ‘is you're never sure they're accurate.'

‘Even if you had nailed it in there,' Martinez said, ‘how would that help us with about a thousand “technicians” in Florida using that stuff.'

‘I know it,' Sam said, checking his phone, still wishing he had nailed it.

He'd love to nail
something
in this case.

He listened to Grace's message, returned her call.

‘I'll pay Chauvin a visit on the way home,' he told her. ‘If he comes back—'

‘I won't be letting him in,' Grace reassured him. ‘And I've left Cathy a message telling her to call you if she sees him.' She paused. ‘I'm going to the clinic at around five, spend some time with your dad while Mildred has the procedure.'

‘He'll appreciate that,' Sam said. ‘You think Chauvin's more than just a nuisance?'

‘No,' Grace said. ‘But I think he may be obsessive, and Cathy does not need someone like that in her life, I'm sure you'll agree.'

‘Did you get his address?'

‘No, I'm sorry, but I didn't want to show that much interest. But he'd have to have given his address when he entered the country, wouldn't he?'

‘First address of his stay,' Sam confirmed.

Didn't mean he had to have given the right one, though.

‘Leave it with me,' he said.

Mildred's surgery had been delayed.

Dr Merriam had come to tell them that Dr Adams had been called to Miami General to carry out emergency eye surgery on an accident patient.

Scott Merriam was apologetic. ‘I know how much you want to get this over and done with, Mrs Becket.'

‘Can't be helped,' Mildred said.

She'd have liked to offer sympathy for the poor soul whose eyesight might be hanging in the balance, but the knowledge that she was going to have to go on waiting made it hard for her to speak.

‘How long?' David asked.

He understood emergencies, but Mildred had disliked Adams from day one. There were other excellent ophthalmologists in Miami, and suddenly he found himself considering calling this off, taking her home.

‘It's hard to say exactly, Doctor Becket,' Dr Merriam said. ‘Hopefully not more than a couple of hours, but one can never tell with these things.'

David looked at his wife.

‘No, David,' Mildred said, her voice returned.

He smiled.

‘Am I missing something?' Dr Merriam asked.

‘Just my wife reading my mind,' David said. ‘I was contemplating asking her if she'd rather reschedule.'

‘I couldn't bear it,' Mildred said flatly. ‘So we'll just send our good wishes to Doctor Adams's much needier patient, and go on waiting.'

‘You're very understanding.' Merriam looked at David. ‘Is there anything we can get for you, sir, while you wait?' He cast another apologetic glance at Mildred. ‘Nothing for you, I'm afraid, but if Doctor Becket would like some coffee, or—'

‘Nothing for Doctor Becket either,' David said. ‘I'll sit it out with my wife, and eat something when she's allowed too.'

‘That's just silly,' Mildred said. ‘If you're hungry.'

‘I'm not,' David said.

‘Me neither,' Mildred said.

All her energies concentrated on resisting the urge to burst into tears.

ICE – Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the main investigative arm of Homeland Security – would provide the address Thomas Chauvin had given on entry to the US, but it would take time, and Grace's reaction to the Frenchman's unscheduled visit had made Sam uneasy.

Still, they were back at the office and there was work to be done.

Especially after the kind of downer that always hit when a potential break came to less than nothing.

His thoughts swung briefly to ‘Marilyn' and her line of work, how well it suited her, probably infinitely more than anything an unfulfilled Dewayne Jones was likely to have done with his life.

And then his mind turned back again to Chauvin.

To the word Grace had used about him.

Obsessive
.

Where their family and that kind of individual were concerned, he was not prepared to take chances. Christ knew they'd been through more than enough in the last several years.

He'd seen Chauvin's rental car last night, a white Ford Focus, but he hadn't seen the tag, had had no reason to look at it. And he'd tried Cathy twice since Grace's call, knew she was probably not home yet, knew that she sometimes turned her cell off, which was fine, though at moments like these . . .

He called Saul, but his brother's phone went to voicemail too.

He turned to Martinez. ‘Remember what you said about Interpol?'

Martinez nodded. ‘Maybe not such a crazy idea after all?'

Cathy often forgot to check her voicemail after lectures. Through so much of last year, when they'd been under threat, Sam had insisted they all call in regularly. These days, she sometimes frankly enjoyed the freedom of being out of touch for a while.

Hell, she was a grown woman, living with her uncle – even if they were more like brother and sister – and in daily contact with her parents. And however much she loved them all, she needed to build up her own life structure again if she ever wanted to have the independent existence she was striving toward, and she was doing OK at JWU, and if all went well, come next year, she had plans.

For this evening, though, with Saul and Mel going out, her only plan was for a cool shower and then . . .

She saw him.

Waiting outside the front door of their building.

She remembered the way he'd looked at her when they'd met last night at her parents' house.

Parking her Mazda, she checked her reflection in the rearview mirror.

As she turned off the engine, he was already walking toward her.

Cathy smiled.

Best-laid plans . . .

Cutter called Sam on his cell number.

‘What do you have, Mary?' Sam put the phone on speaker, motioned to Martinez.

‘Doctor Lopez says the reason he didn't know the Delgados had come to his office on the tenth was because they never actually made it in to see him. He says his list was full that afternoon, and the on-duty receptionist went on vacation next day, so only just mentioned it to him. It's a fairly hectic multiphysician practice – on Collins and seventy-fourth street – so Mike and I think that's credible.'

‘Go on,' Sam said.

‘Lopez hadn't seen Beatriz Delgado for five years, by the way,' Cutter said. ‘And regarding her phobia, he says he once tried suggesting she got help, but she became very agitated, and he's never been approached for her records.'

All of which lent further credibility to Delgado's statements.

‘He wouldn't breach confidentiality about Felicia,' Cutter said, ‘though he did imply there was nothing to breach. And he said he'd never met Carlos.'

‘Hey, Mary.' Martinez leaned toward the phone. ‘We goin' somewhere with this or not?'

‘The receptionist, Angela Valdez, wasn't there today,' Cutter went on. ‘But she told the doc that on the tenth, Felicia refused to see him, and she and Beatriz argued about it. Felicia called her mom a hypocrite, said she was cruel to make her come, then stomped out. Beatriz apologized to Mrs Valdez and went after her.'

Sam considered the effects of that on other waiting patients.

‘That must have attracted some attention,' he said.

‘Mike and I raised that. Lopez says Valdez didn't mention anything about other patients, but he's left a message for her asking who else was there at the time, though there might be confidentiality issues there too.'

‘The doc going to let you know?' Sam asked.

‘Doctor Lopez and Mrs Valdez both have my cell number,' Cutter said.

At ten after six, Dr Merriam came in to Mildred's room.

‘We have lift off,' he told her.

‘I'd say “whoopee”,' she said, ‘but I guess you'd see through that.'

‘I've brought goodies,' Dr Merriam said.

‘Premed?' David looked at the small basin the doctor was carrying, at the small hypodermic within it. ‘For such a short procedure?'

‘Doctor Adams wants Mrs Becket to feel as relaxed as possible,' Merriam said.

Mildred extended both arms to him. ‘The more the better.'

‘My wife, the new junkie,' David said.

‘Needs must,' she said.

‘You don't mind needles?' Merriam asked.

‘I don't especially love them,' Mildred said. ‘How is that poor patient doing?'

‘Better than he was,' Dr Merriam said. ‘Doctor Adams is a great surgeon.'

David watched him swab his wife's arm and smoothly administer the injection.

‘OK?' Scott Merriam asked her.

‘Swell,' she told him.

‘It can't be working already,' David said.