“Must be stressful for a doctor to perform surgery on his wife.”
“That sort of surgery was his specialty. I think he instinctively knew it might be a little more complicated than the tests showed, and he was right. George was far and away the best surgeon in the area; nationally ranked, in fact. I was in the best possible hands.” She suddenly dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
King reached over and took her hand. “I know that was all very painful for you, Sylvia. I’m really sorry you had to go through that.”
She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “You’d think I’d get over it at some point. I keep telling myself it’s part of life. In fact, whenever I autopsy a murder victim, I try to tell myself that. Death, sometimes violent, unfair death, is part of life. Without that outlook I don’t think I could do my job.”
He raised his glass to her. “A job you do extraordinarily well.”
“Thank you, it’s nice to be appreciated.”
She looked at him shyly.
“What?” he said.
“I was just wondering why we stopped seeing each other.”
“I was starting to wonder the same thing.”
She lightly touched his hand. “Maybe we should work on that.”
“Maybe we should,” said King.
CHAPTER
55
KYLE WAS FURIOUS. HE’D
arrived at the motel room right on time, knocked, and no one had answered. He waited outside for another thirty minutes to see if she showed. She didn’t. Then he decided to try knocking again. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. Maybe she was drugged out. He tried the knob. It was locked! He looked around. There were only two other cars parked in the lot, and they were far away from this section of the motel. As he was getting into his Jeep, a car pulled into the parking lot. Kyle watched as a large flabby man and a petite woman in a tiny skirt and wobbling unsteadily on four-inch heels got out and went into one of the rooms without looking at him. Kyle shook his head. Well, at least one guy was getting some tonight. He drove off.
All the way back to his apartment he thought of various ways to track down the woman and cruelly punish her for this latest sleight. Most of all he was upset about missing the five-thousand-dollar payday.
He pulled into his parking lot, slammed the door on his Jeep and hurried up the steps. It was after one o’clock in the morning, and he had nothing to show for the lost sleep. But he’d get even. He had what she wanted, more drugs. He would turn the tables on her. He’d go to the Aphrodisiac. If she worked there, he’d find out who she was. And if not, he’d go to the room, confront her, feign retreat and then wait for her to leave the club. He’d follow her home and find out her identity. With that information in hand he’d put the squeeze on her. If she could afford a thousand bucks for fifty dollars’ worth of drugs, she could afford to pay a little quiet money.
By the time he opened the door to his apartment, he had most of the plan worked out. He’d commence execution of it tomorrow.
He went to his bedroom and turned on the light. Only it didn’t come on. Damn bulb again. Then he noticed the movement by the bed. It was her! Here at his apartment. She was lying on his bed, only a sheet over her. Even in the darkness he could make out the scarf and the glasses she always wore.
“What the hell are you doing here? I waited at the motel for almost an hour.” It didn’t occur to him to ask how she knew where he lived.
In answer she sat up, let the sheet fall slightly off her shoulders, which were bare. This got his blood going and all his anger quickly dissipated. Then she seductively pulled the sheet far up her thighs, which were also bare. Kyle felt himself growing aroused as she motioned for him to join her on the bed.
“No guns this time, okay?” he managed to stammer.
She nodded her head and then pointed to the bureau against the wall. Kyle went over and saw the money spread out there.
When he looked back at her, she’d risen and was standing in front of him, the sheet barely covering her. She motioned with a flick of her hand for him to go over to the bed.
He did so smiling. She circled behind him. He turned to face her, his back to the bed.
The sheet dropped.
Her hand came up and Kyle froze. It looked like a gun that she was holding. When she fired, he put up his hands, as though to ward off the bullet.
The air-propelled twin darts attached by fifteen feet of wire to the Taser gun shot out and pierced his thin shirt. With one terrible jolt fifty thousand volts hit him dead in the chest, easily enough to drop a three-hundred-pound NFL lineman much less a scrawny morgue tech. The surge instantly overrode his central nervous system, and he fell backward onto the bed, where he curled into a fetal position as his muscles contracted.
Even though he’d be incapacitated for some time, the woman rushed forward to the bed and pulled the darts free. She put the Taser gun into her bag, which was lying on the floor, and slipped on a pair of gloves. She next pulled out a syringe.