Her Sister's Keeper. Julia Penney

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СКАЧАТЬ so you’re a cowboy at heart.” The faintest of smiles warmed her pale features as she spoke.

      “I guess you could say that. I started out giving psychotherapy to the horses, but it didn’t pay, and on several occasions my efforts got me kicked. So I went to school to learn how to psych out human beings.”

      She laughed, a beautiful sound. He caught a faint whiff of her subtle perfume and wondered if something had happened to the air-conditioning in his suddenly very warm office. Just as he was pushing out of his chair to check the thermostat, Melanie set her teacup down and faced him.

      “Thank you, Dr. Mattson. I’m sorry if I was short with you earlier. It wasn’t easy for me to come here.”

      “You survived the experience with flying colors,” Kent said.

      The faint smile warmed her face once again. “I fulfilled a promise to a friend and a recommendation from my doctor,” she amended. “My allotted time is up. Thank you again. Please, let me pay you.”

      Kent shook his head. “Against policy. If you want to come back, by all means, do so, but you don’t pay a cent until your second visit.”

      “Then I’m afraid this is goodbye,” Melanie said, extending her hand.

      Kent took it in his own, surprised at the firmness of her grip. The tremble he’d detected earlier was completely gone. “Goodbye, Ms. Harris,” he said. “You have my card if you should have a change of heart.”

      She pulled her hand out of his and left him standing there, still marveling at the idea of a woman sitting in silence for ten whole minutes. He wouldn’t have thought such self-restraint was possible. Too bad to have lost that potential gold mine, but there’d be others. Not nearly as pretty, though. Not by half. The woman’s legs would stop the most jaded drivers on Santa Monica Boulevard. Kent’s phone rang as he was tucking his very brief notes into the Melanie Harris folder.

      “Murphy here. We have a situation.”

      “Damn, Murph, gimme a break. This is my day of raking in the big bucks so I can afford to keep working for you,” Kent said, pushing the file aside and rocking forward in his chair. “What’s up?”

      “We’re at the Beverly Hills Regency. A young woman was found dead in her room an hour ago by maid service.” There was a brief, ominous pause. “There are no signs of foul play, but I’d like you to have a look at the scene if you can. T. Ray’s still with the body. This looks very similar to that young woman who was found earlier this morning.”

      “Say no more. I’m on my way.”

      “Kent?” There was a hiss of static as Captain Carolyn Murphy paced with her cell phone the way Kent had seen her do on many occasions. He could picture the rigid set of her shoulders and that dark gaze gathering like a storm. “The thing is, according to the desk clerk, this victim checked into the hotel last night with a newborn infant. There are baby things scattered around the room, but the baby’s missing.”

      His heart rate accelerated and his adrenaline level soared. “Don’t let them disturb anything at the scene, Murph. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Kent hung up the phone, buzzed his receptionist and informed her he was leaving early.

      “You have three more appointments, Dr. Matt¬ son,” she reminded him with disapproval. “Mrs. Forsythe, Sienna Bernstein and…Wanda Wendell.” The latter name was spoken with understandable trepidation. Wanda Wendell’s sole reason for living was to make other people’s lives miserable.

      “Call them and reschedule. I have a police emergency.”

      Kent reached for his jacket and grabbed his car keys and briefcase on the way out the door. His mind was racing even as he descended the stairs two at a time, the five flights faster by far on foot than by elevator. He burst out the ground floor stairwell and took the basement shortcut to the parking garage, running to his reserved parking area. He was out of breath by the time he reached the place where his new Audi should have been, and stared at the dark, vacant slot in disbelief. What the hell? Grand theft auto wasn’t supposed to happen in this garage, which was precisely why he’d paid an outlandish fee for a reserved space in a place that had an armed security guard controlling access. Kent began a fresh sprint toward the gate, heart hammering.

      The security guard was young and ignorant, professing no knowledge of Kent’s Audi leaving the garage without him. Kent didn’t have time to argue. “Call me a cab, and make it quick,” he snapped. He heard a car approaching the gate from behind and stepped out of the way, glancing at the driver as the window lowered and a slender, graceful hand extended with the ticket. Melanie Harris. Her timing was a minor miracle, considering the infamously slow office elevator. Kent threw his arms up to stop her. “Ms. Harris! Could you give me a ride to the Beverly Hills Regency? My car’s been stolen and there’s a police emergency.”

      Those turbulent green eyes met his, and she didn’t hesitate. “Get in,” she said, and as Kent climbed into the passenger seat of her silver Mercedes sports coupe, breathing the mingled scents of leather upholstery and perfume, hearing the muted strains of Handel’s Water Music from the stereo, she waved off his thank-you. “Think nothing of it,” she said, pulling out into the midday traffic and accelerating smoothly ahead. “Consider my thirty-minute debt to you repaid.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      MELANIE HARRIS drove with the practiced skill of someone accustomed to navigating busy city streets. They had spoken barely five words since he had hopped in the car and given his destination. As she deftly shifted the Mercedes into gear and pulled into the light prelunch traffic, Kent flipped open the file he had been reading when Melanie first stepped into his office. He wanted to glean as much from the notes as possible before he had to process the second scene.

      Try as he might, he found it difficult to concentrate. He found himself distracted by the woman sitting just inches away. There was the perfume, for one thing. Subtle and pleasant, it kept wafting over from the driver’s side of the car. It was one with which he was unfamiliar, but he had a suspicion it would be forever linked with Melanie. He gritted his teeth and began reading the notes, but his eyes kept skipping from the words in front of him to Melanie’s legs. Tanned, shapely and in perfect range of his peripheral vision. After several minutes he gave up and stared out the window, trying to put his thoughts in order. He might have succeeded but for the fact that Melanie seemed to feel it was her duty, as driver, to initiate polite conversation.

      “I hope you don’t mind classical music, Dr. Matt¬ son,” she said, in reference to the CD playing in the car’s state-of-the-art sound system.

      He turned from watching the passing scenery to look at her. “Water Music’s definitely one of Handel’s all-time classics, but I guess I’m more of a rock and roll kind of guy.”

      He went back to glancing at his notes, silently damning himself for sounding so Neanderthal. Still, his response had obviously discouraged Melanie, because she gave up on the small talk and concentrated on her driving instead. Too bad Kent couldn’t do the same with his notes. It was those legs of hers. What red-blooded man could possibly concentrate on the details of an unsolved murder when such a pair of legs was sitting a mere thirty inches away?

      MELANIE WAS no stranger to the Beverly Hills Regency, and this was by СКАЧАТЬ