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“Sorry, sir,” Jovanic said, keeping tight control of the interview. “I have another appointment. We’ll see you and Doctor Bostwick at Wilshire Division at...” he consulted his watch, “five o’clock. Shall I send a black and white to pick you up, Doctor?” Bostwick cast a baleful look at the phone. “Dammit, Myron,” he muttered. “You useless sonofabitch.” He ended the call and brought his hard stare back around to Jovanic. “I’m not going to any goddamn police station. What do you want from me?”

“You do understand that you are going against your legal counsel’s advice if you speak to me, and that you don’t have to answer any questions?”

“Yes, yes, goddammit... get on with it. Ask your questions. It won’t do you any good because I don’t know anything.”

“Did you meet with Lindsey Alexander on Saturday, September twenty-third?”

Bostwick sucked air through flared nostrils—a bull ready to charge a red cape. “Yes, I saw her. It was a pre-surgery visit. She was scheduled to come in on the following Monday for a procedure.”

“What kind of procedure?”

“Blepharoplasty.”

Jovanic gave him a thin smile. “I’m sorry, doctor. Would you mind translating?”

“Eyelid lift. It’s done with sedation, either IV or general anesthetic... in this case, general. She was scheduled for both upper and lower lids.”

“I see. Okay, so she was scheduled for surgery on Monday. Where did you see her on Saturday?”

Bostwick hesitated and his gaze shifted to the left, toward the window. He was giving them less than the whole truth. “I met her here, here at the office. She was nervous about the procedure, very stressed. Kept calling me at home.”

“Do all your patients get your home number?”

Bostwick reddened again. “It depends on the patient. Lindsey was...” Whatever he was going to say stayed on his tongue. “I ended up telling her I’d meet her here and give her some medication to alleviate the anxiety and help her get through the weekend.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just call in a prescription to the drug store?” Jovanic pressed, edging closer to the desk.

“My patients get more personalized care than that. Ms. Alexander required my reassurance.”

And that’s what they pay for.

Claudia cast a glance at the hand-carved chairs, the Persian rugs covering the floor. Plastic surgery for the affluent evidently included a far higher level of care than she was accustomed to.

“What’s ‘PS’ doctor?” Jovanic asked.

“PS?”

“There was a note in Ms. Alexander’s calendar that she was meeting you at PS.”

Bostwick blinked at him, the color leaching from his face. “I... don’t... know... what... you’re... talking... about.”

“You have no idea what she was referring to?” Bostwick picked up some papers from his desk and riffled through them, not looking at Jovanic, obviously discomfited by the question. “I just said I didn’t. Weren’t you listening?”

“Okay, then. Did you supply Ms. Alexander with Blue Heaven?”

“Blue Heaven? Are you talking about Amytal, detective? I don’t use street names.”

“Did you give her Amytal?”

“I gave her some to help calm her.”

“Enlighten me, but isn’t Amytal a rather outdated drug, sir?”

Bostwick looked Jovanic in the eye, in his element now. “You have a medical degree, do you, detective? I gave my patient a legal sedative to help her with anxiety before surgery. What’s the problem?”

“What time did you see her?”

“Sometime in the middle of the afternoon. I don’t remember exactly. I’d have to check my records.”

“You’ll need to do that, sir. Now, perhaps you could tell me where you were between eight o’clock on the night of the twenty-third and six o’clock the next morning, the twenty-fourth?”

“Home in bed with my wife,” Bostwick answered quickly. Too quickly. “Just ask her.” He removed the granny glasses, carefully folded them before dropping them into his coat pocket and heading for the door. “Your time is up, detective. I have patients to see, and I’ve had enough of your interrogation.”

Jovanic dogged his steps. “Thank you for your time, sir,” he said as they passed Bostwick at the door. Then, in a classic Columbo move, he stopped abruptly and turned back. “There
is
one more thing, sir.”

“What
now?
”

“I understand you have a particular fondness for Labrador Retrievers.”

“I think we shook old Bostwick up pretty good,” Jovanic drawled, looking smug as he leaned on the elevator button.

“Did you see his face?” Claudia said in disgust. “I thought he was going to have a stroke.”

They stepped into the cab and Jovanic punched the Lobby button, unwrapping a toothpick. “He certainly knows bestiality is a crime. I’m gonna get him for that, even if nothing comes of this Lindsey business.” The cool grey eyes found hers. “So, you got time to stop by Lindsey’s penthouse? I want to start looking for that tape Ivan told us about.”

Claudia hadn’t been able to rid herself of memories of the blood-spattered kitchen and what had happened there, but she wouldn’t tell Jovanic how much she did not want to return to the Wilshire Boulevard apartment. She gave a casual shrug. “Sure, let’s go.”

Jovanic said nothing, but he bumped his elbow against hers, letting her know that he understood. Telling herself she was being stupid didn’t stop her from taking comfort from the contact.

Security had tightened since the attack on Ivan. A guard in a spiffy uniform manned the door at the Wilshire Boulevard building, and they had to show their IDs before meeting with the property manager who gave them a key to Lindsey’s penthouse.

Jovanic ripped away the yellow crime-scene tape that criss-crossed the entry to the apartment and unlocked the door. Before they stepped inside, he took two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket and handed one to Claudia. “Wear these,” he said.

“Do you always carry rubber gloves in your pocket?”

“I got them out of my kit while I was waiting for you at the hospital.”

“You have a kit?”

“Crime-scene kit... gloves, plastic and paper bags, stuff like that. I keep it in my car.” They moved through the foyer into the living room. “Don’t touch anything unless you absolutely have to. If you see something you think is important, let me know.”

Claudia nodded and pulled on her gloves. The latex slid on easily over her hands, powdery inside, loose against her fingers. “My, what big hands you have, detective,” she said, stretching her right hand out and wiggling her fingers in the glove. Jovanic matched his glove to hers. The top joint of his fingers reached well past her fingertips.

For the space of a second or two there was silence, apart from their quickened breathing. Claudia snatched her hand back, suddenly awkward with the intimacy that had invaded the moment. She glanced around, looking anywhere but at Jovanic. “So, where should we start?”

“Uh, let’s uh... the kitchen.” He sounded as disconcerted as she felt. “I want you to show me where you found that flash drive.”

She followed him along the service corridor but stopped at the kitchen doorway. She’d expected to find the blood and gore gone, the room sanitized, but the remnants of savagery remained undisturbed. The rusty stains everywhere and the lingering smell of congealed blood still nauseated her.

“He was over there, on the other side of the island. Like I told you, he was lying on top of the flash drive.” She gulped and drew a ragged breath, unable to continue.

“It’s not your fault,” Jovanic said softly. “Dammit, maybe if I’d gotten here five minutes sooner, maybe the guy would have been spooked, or... I could have done something heroic, or... At least I could have gotten a better look at him.”

“You could have been another victim,” Jovanic said, the momentary warmth in his eyes giving way to his usual pragmatic toughness. “If you’d arrived five minutes sooner, you might be dead, too.” His penetrating gaze took in every inch of the gourmet kitchen. “If Ivan brought the videotapes in here, the suspect got them, but since he still had the flash drive, we’ll check it out. You start at that end.”

Claudia said no more about her flight of fancy. Jovanic was much too practical to waste more time with what might have been. She moved as far away from the site of the attack as she could, unable to think of any man who possessed the power that Jovanic had to simultaneously attract and exasperate her.

They had no luck in the kitchen. Claudia informed the detective that she would start on Lindsey’s office, and went upstairs.

Seated behind the queen-sized glass-top desk, she opened the first drawer and stared at the flotsam and jetsam that Ivan had not yet packed into moving boxes. Little bits of a life that now meant nothing.

Two lives.

She sifted through the contents: utility company envelopes, bank statements, a small bottle of Elmer’s glue, a staple remover. Nothing different than someone searching her own desk drawers would find. Until she came upon a plastic bag filled with multi-colored pills and capsules.

“Find anything?” Jovanic’s voice interrupted from behind.

“Are you trying to give me heart failure?” she said, annoyed that he’d made her jump. “I found a bag of pills and capsules. No videotapes, no references to tapes.”

“Nothing downstairs, either. Let’s try her bedroom.”

“Best little whorehouse in Brentwood,” Claudia murmured, feeling like a voyeur as they entered Lindsey’s most private space together.

Modern four-poster bed on a six-inch platform. Black satin tethers attached to each post waited to bind a willing victim. A wild zebra comforter turned back on glossy black satin sheets, a black negligee carelessly draped. On a pillow, a leather mask and nylon-thonged whip. Vividly erotic paintings from the Kama Sutra decorated the walls. Dozens of candles on virtually every surface, waiting to be lit.

Jovanic jerked his chin upward. A spray of peacock feathers framed a six-foot gilt mirror on the ceiling above the bed. “The lady liked to watch.”

“With a capital W,” Claudia said, moving around the room and looking into the largest bathroom she had ever seen. French doors led to an enclosed deck with the full-sized Jacuzzi where Lindsey’s life had ended.

By her choice? Or someone else’s?

Jovanic called her back into the bedroom and pointed to a small dark globe high up on the wall opposite the bed. “See that?”

“What is it, a camera pretending to be a light fixture?” He nodded. “Maybe we’re getting hot.” Claudia was getting hot, but not in the way he meant. The bedroom’s raw readiness for sex aroused fantasies that surprised her, and Jovanic’s proximity was getting to her. She wondered if he felt it, too.

She was relieved when he went to check out the camera, disappearing inside a closet. She could hear him tapping on the walls.

“There’s a locked door,” he called out. “Camera’s gotta be hidden in back of it. Have you seen any keys?”

Claudia strolled into the closet and collided with him as he was coming out. “Oh, come on, be a big bad cop, break down the door.”

He gave a snort that she thought might have been a chuckle. “You’re a real wiseass, you know that?” he said. “Just add keys to your list.”

Keys.

Claudia stared into the past.

A couple of weeks after their lunch at the Great Wall, Lindsey had summoned Claudia and Kelly to the patio at Spago in Beverly Hills. She’d just wanted company, no special occasion.

“Let’s see your key rings,” Claudia had said when the conversation lagged. “I read an article that says your key ring tells a lot about you.”

“Where’d you read that?” Kelly had asked.

“The International Handwriting Journal. Richard Kokochak says the more keys you carry, the more entanglements you draw into your life.”

Lindsey had squinted over the top of her menu. “The fewer entanglements the better is my philosophy. It’s why I don’t wear underwear.”

Kelly rolled her eyes and slapped her menu on the table. “Who do you think gives a fuck what you put on your skinny ass?”

Heads twisted around to see what had made the tall blonde laugh so loud.

“We were talking about keys,” Claudia had interjected before the two of them could get going.

Lindsey took her key ring from her Coach purse and jingled it: a brass L with only three keys attached.

“One for the car, one for the penthouse, one for my bedroom.”

Claudia said, “You lock your
bedroom
with a key?”

“Always.” Lindsey had swallowed a mouthful of wine and set the glass down a little too hard, splashing a few crimson drops on the damask tablecloth. “You never know who might show up in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, you mean like someone’s wife?” Kelly had asked.

“Now, there’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Lindsey had retorted, and they were off again, bickering and sniping at each other the way they always did.

Lindsey hadn’t locked her bedroom door on the night she died. Had she perhaps admitted a trusted visitor?

“Did you find anything in there?” Claudia asked.

“No tapes, just a ton of commercial DVDs. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Jovanic led her into the cavernous closet. A center-island dresser held a dozen drawers on each side. Built-in racks covered three walls filled with enough designer clothing to stock I Magnin. On the fourth wall, more DVDs than Blockbuster Video.

“Looks like she was big a Mickey Rourke fan,” Claudia observed, browsing the titles. “Personally, I never could get into him.”

“Too rough for you?” Jovanic’s voice was soft, sensual, close to her ear.

Alarm bells went off in her head and Claudia backed up a step, doing her best to resist the magnetism she felt emanating from him. “Er, no, just... er, too, er...” She broke off, stumbling over her words.

He looked amused. “Let’s look for Ivan’s tapes and a key.”

They divvied up the bedroom and began the search.