Kate White - Hush

What else? she thought frantically. But just then she heard the doorbell sound. It was too late for anything else.

She walked out into the hall, bracing herself. Suddenly she felt something soft on her bare calf. She glanced down to find Smokey wrapping himself around her leg. Lake clasped her hands to her mouth. She’d forgotten all about him.

She grabbed the cat and raced down to her bedroom.

“Good kitty,” she whispered, dropping him on the bed.

She was shutting the bedroom door when the buzzer rang again, insistent, irritated by the wait. As she made her way back down the hall, she closed her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

When she opened the door, she almost didn’t recognize the two detectives. Hull had worn his hair slicked back today, maybe because of the heat. McCarty’s face was coated with a sheen of sweat-and there were wet half-moons under each arm of his khaki suit jacket.

“Sorry to disturb you at home,” McCarty said. “But we have a few more questions we’d like to ask you.”

“Of course,” she said, as friendly as she could muster. “Please come in. Can I get you some water-or something else to drink?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hull said brusquely. His tone implied her friendliness was wasted on them.

She led them to the living room and gestured for them to sit down. They each took an armchair, which left her the couch. As she perched on the edge of it, she saw McCarty take in the Uno box. Did it look calculated, she wondered, like a prop in a play?

“You mentioned the other day that you’d been with the clinic for just a short time,” McCarty said, flipping open his notebook. “How long exactly?”

She lowered her eyes, trying to calculate. It should have been easy to remember, but she was so distracted she could barely think. As she struggled she could hear Hull’s breathing grow louder, as if he were prodding her with a stick.

“Um, sorry,” she said. “Sometimes one day just seems to blur into the next. This is my fourth week.”

“Have you got a calendar here?” McCarty asked. “To double-check it?”

“No, I’m sure of it-I’ve been there just over three weeks. I’ve never worked a whole day there, though. I usually go in for a few hours in the morning-to interview the doctors, read through material, that sort of thing.”

She caught herself overexplaining. Stop saying so much, she scolded herself.

“Anyone there you’ve gotten to know very well?” McCarty asked.

“Not really. I’ve chatted a bit with Maggie, one of the nurses…and the medical assistant, Rory. Also Harry Kline, the therapist. We grabbed a cup of coffee together the other day.”

She felt she should tell them that-they might learn about it from Harry and it would seem odd for Lake to have omitted it.

“What about the doctors?”

“Well, like I said, I’ve interviewed them, and there was the dinner-but that’s all.”

“What’s your impression of Dr. Hoss? Have you spent much time with her?”

Why were they asking about Hoss? she wondered.

“No more than anyone else,” Lake said. “We talked for a few hours one morning about embryology and some of the procedures she’s been doing in the lab.”

“So you haven’t gotten to know any of the doctors personally?”

“No. Oh, wait, I’m forgetting Dr. Salman,” she added clumsily, as if she’d just knocked over a glass of water. “He’s the one who suggested me for the job. His sister and I are old friends from college and I’d known him for years, but not super well.”

Hull sighed, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

“Is that it, then? You’re not suddenly going to remember that someone there is your long lost cousin?”

“No,” she said. She wished she could have walked across the room and squashed something in his face.

McCarty cleared his throat, directing attention back his way. She remembered then that she hadn’t yet switched on the air conditioning and the apartment was warm, almost stifling. The sheen on McCarty’s face was practically glistening now. She wondered if she should jump up and turn it on now-but that might only encourage them to stay longer.

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard the news,” McCarty said, “but it turns out that Maggie Donohue had a set of Dr. Keaton’s keys in her desk drawer. We’re trying to determine if anyone saw them there and took them.”

“Yes, I heard. It’s so upsetting.”

“What is?” Hull asked.

“That someone might have taken them,” she said. “That someone from the clinic could be…the killer.”

“Does it surprise you?”

“Well, yes. I didn’t have much contact with Dr. Keaton, of course, but Maggie told me that everyone seemed to like him.”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?” Hull asked bluntly.

“Excuse me?” she said. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest.

“You said of course you didn’t have much contact with him.”

“Well, like I mentioned, I never worked a full day there. And…since he hadn’t officially joined yet, I hadn’t interviewed him.”

“Did you ever see anyone other than Ms. Donohue going into the drawer?”

“No, not that I recall.”

Hull eyed her as if he found her idiotic.

“Well, if you remember anything, will you let us know?” he said. There was the hint of a smirk on his face.

“Of course,” she said, forcing a polite smile.

“And you never saw Keaton have a confrontation with anyone there?” McCarty asked.

“No.”

If only she could reveal what Keaton had told her about the snag-but she didn’t dare. They would know instantly that she’d been more familiar with him than she had let on.

“How about several months ago?” Hull asked.

“What?” she asked.

“In the late winter. When Dr. Keaton was at the clinic before.”

“But I’ve only been at the clinic for a few weeks,” she said, carefully.

“You weren’t consulting when Dr. Keaton was there back in March?”

“No.” Her head was spinning. It seemed like they were trying to lay traps for her, leading her to the edge of a cliff.

“Let’s switch gears a minute,” McCarty said. “You mentioned the other day that you and Dr. Keaton had spoken about the clinic he’d worked at in L.A. Did he say anything particular about it?”

Where was this going? she wondered fretfully.

“We only spoke about it for a few moments. He said that they had some great marketing strategies.”

“No complaints?” McCarty said. “Nothing negative?”

“No, nothing like that.”

The heat was starting to get to her now. She could feel trickles of sweat running down the back of her neck, one chasing the other. But she just sat there, her posture as straight as possible, waiting for the next question. None came. McCarty thumbed back through endless pages of his notebook, perhaps for the notes he’d taken when she was first interviewed. Was he trying to find a contradiction, some new way to trip her up? Hull just sat there, staring at her. She’d heard about this technique. It was called the pregnant pause, wasn’t it?-or the let-them-stew-in-their-own-juices-and-then-see-what-they-spill strategy? Give it time and she would confess to anything, like operating a terrorist cell out of this very apartment.

“You have kids?” Hull said finally.

“Yes. They-” She was about to mention they were away at camp but realized it would be insane to reveal that they hadn’t been around last week. “They’re nine and eleven.”

Hull rose then without a word, as if suddenly bored. McCarty closed his notebook and stood as well. She couldn’t believe they were actually going. She followed them out into the hall, letting a breath finally escape from her lungs.