Читать книгу More Than Meets the Eye - Carla Cassidy - Страница 8

A wild-goose chase.

Kevin Cartwright feared that’s exactly what he was indulging in when he entered the automatic doors of the Kansas City Memorial Hospital.

After three years of false leads and dashed hopes, he really didn’t expect this new development to pan out. But the moment he’d seen her on television, he’d known he had to check her out.

“I’m here for an appointment with Dr. Phoebe Jones,” he said to the lobby receptionist.

“Her office is on the fourth floor,” the elderly woman explained. “Take the elevator up then ask at the nurses’ station and they’ll direct you to Dr. Jones’s office.”

A moment later Kevin stood in the elevator and stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. It was only noon, but he’d already been on a plane for five hours. Apparently the good doctor only took appointments during her lunch hour and so he’d had to take a redeye flight to get from Southern California to Kansas City before noon.

He tried to ignore the antiseptic smell that permeated the building, the “hospital” scent evoking in him memories of intense pain and crippling fear.

Don’t think about it, he told himself. Just don’t think about it. There was no way he wanted to fall back into memories of that time so long ago.

He found the nurses’ station on the fourth floor with no problem and was taken to Dr. Jones’s office by one of the nurses.

The office was small, furnished simply with a desk, two chairs, and a wall of bookcases behind the desk. The bookcases held nothing but medical tombs, the desk, a computer, and an appointment book.

There were no personal artifacts, no photos, no vase of flowers…nothing to indicate anything about the woman who belonged to the office.

Even in here, the hospital smell lingered and Kevin felt the unwelcome memories once again trying to intrude. It had been five years ago that he’d last been in a hospital and it vaguely surprised him that the memories were so strong that it felt as if it had only been yesterday.

He consciously shoved them away and focused on the task at hand. She’s got to be the right one, he thought as he sat in the chair opposite the desk.

Adrenaline pumped through him as he anticipated that after three long years, it was possible he’d finally found one of the four people he’d been hired to find.

“Good afternoon.” The soft, feminine voice drifted from the doorway and a second later she stepped into his sight.

“Hello,” he returned, half rising from his seat. His pulse accelerated slightly as he gazed at her.

He told himself it had nothing to do with the fact that she was one sexy-looking woman, but rather because it was possible he was finally going to be successful in partially wrapping up one of his most difficult cases.

Still, she was certainly easy on the eyes.

She waved him back down as she eased into the chair behind her desk. “I’m Dr. Jones and you must be Kevin Cartwright.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He couldn’t see the necklace. Beneath the smock she wore, she had on a green turtleneck that did dazzling things to her green eyes, but hid the necklace that had brought him to her in the first place.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Cartwright?” She opened up an appointment book and stared down. “According to my secretary, you were quite insistent on meeting me today, but you were vague about the purpose for this meeting.”

She tucked a strand of honey-colored hair behind her ear, then looked at him once again. In her eyes he saw a no-nonsense directness. “If you’re from a drug company, I can tell you right now that I don’t do the ordering and so we’d be wasting each other’s time.”

“No, I’m not from any company. I saw the news story about the little boy who lost his arm in a mowing accident. You and your team of doctors made national news with the successful surgery to reattach the limb.”

She nodded. “Michael is a good kid and we were very happy with the success of the operation.”

“It sounds as if Michael is a little fighter.” For the first time since he’d walked into the office, she smiled and Kevin felt the force of that gorgeous smile in the pit of his stomach.

“He certainly is,” she agreed.

“The television screen didn’t do you justice.” He hadn’t meant to say it, but it was what had been going around in his head.

She was thinner than she’d looked on television, although she certainly had curves in all the right places. And there was no way the television screen had been able to capture the intense green of her eyes or the soft golden glow of her shoulder-length hair.

The smile that had momentarily lifted the corners of her lush lips disappeared abruptly at his words. “What is it you want, Mr. Cartwright?” She glanced at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. “I have another surgery scheduled in exactly fifteen minutes.”

“I think you’re the woman I’ve been looking for,” he explained.

The coolness on her pretty features intensified. “Is that some sort of a pick-up line?” She grasped the phone and he knew he was mere seconds from being escorted out of the place by security.

“No! Of course not,” he protested, realizing how it sounded to her. First he tells her the television screen didn’t do her justice, then he tells her she’s the girl he’s been looking for…she probably thought he was some sort of crazed stalker. “What I meant to say is that I think you are one of the people I’ve been trying to find for the past three years. I’m a private investigator, Dr. Jones, and three years ago a man contacted me and hired me to find four siblings.”

“Siblings?” For the first time her eyes lit with interest.

He nodded. “Three sisters and a brother.”

She sat back in her chair and gazed at him intently. “And you think it’s possible that I might be one of those siblings?”

“Yes, I think it’s possible. I know the woman I’m looking for has the first name of Phoebe.” But, he’d also been told that the people he sought would probably live near the ocean, and Kansas City, Missouri, couldn’t be farther away from an ocean.

A dainty frown appeared between her perfectly arched pale eyebrows. “But, Phoebe isn’t such an odd name. There must be hundreds…thousands of women named Phoebe,” she protested, then looked at her watch once again. “And I really don’t have time to get into this right now.”

She stood and he stood as well. He hadn’t been able to ask her about the necklace and that was the key to discovering if she was the Phoebe he was looking for.

“Look, could we meet later this evening to discuss this further?” He could see the hesitation in her eyes. “We could meet some place public, and if you think I’m wasting your time, you’d be free to walk away.”

She glanced at her watch once again, then looked back at him. “All right,” she agreed, although he could see the skepticism in her eyes. “There’s a little café called Myrtle’s not far from here. I’ll meet you there at seven.”

“What’s the address of this Myrtle’s?” he asked.

She smiled tightly. “You’re a private investigator, Mr. Cartwright, I’m sure you can manage to find it somehow.” With these words, she turned and disappeared out of the office.

Kevin stared after her, wondering just how difficult the doctor was going to be. As he left the office and stepped into the elevator, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a large chunk of gold nugget. The nugget had been his latest payment for his time and expenses.

He walked across the hospital lobby, then exited into the bright midday sunshine. He drew a deep breath of the early spring-scented air, grateful to leave the hospital and all its memory-stirring odors behind.

As he strode across the parking lot to his rental car, he worried the nugget between his fingers, his thoughts filled with the man who had given it to him.

Loucan. A strange name for a strange man. Initially when Kevin had been contacted by him and told that Loucan wanted to hire him to find four siblings, Kevin had thought nothing about it.

He’d been involved in finding people before—adopted children seeking their biological parents, parents wanting to find children. It was a large part of what he did as a private investigator.

But this case had been strange from the very beginning. Loucan had initially contacted him by phone and they had set up a meeting at a restaurant on the wharf in Santa Barbara.

The tall, powerfully built man had retained Kevin’s services and had paid him with a handful of high-quality pearls. Since that time three years before, Kevin had met with Loucan several times a year and each time had been paid with perfect pearls, old gold coins, or gold nuggets.

Instantly, Kevin’s ex-cop nose had smelled a mystery, but it was a mystery he had yet to crack. If Phoebe Jones had the necklace he’d thought he had spotted her wearing in the news report, then she was a piece of the puzzle.

He shoved the nugget back into his pocket, then got into his red rental car. At the moment, the biggest mystery he had to solve was to discover exactly where Myrtle’s Café was located.

Phoebe stood beneath a hot shower spray in her bathroom, hoping the steamy water would wash away at least a little bit of her exhaustion.

Her morning had begun before five, when an emergency appendectomy had needed to be done. That had set the tone for the hectic day. Besides the three surgeries that had been planned well in advance, she’d had three more emergency surgeries to undergo.

Still, the exhaustion was nothing new. Working at an inner-city hospital, it was no secret that all the doctors and nurses were overworked and underpaid. The only thing that compensated for that was the incredible sense of satisfaction her work brought to her.

She stepped out of the shower and grabbed a fluffy blue towel. Drying off, she thought of the man who had been in her office at noon that day.

Kevin Cartwright. He was a devilishly handsome man, his light-brown hair a perfect foil for his deep blue eyes. In the first instant of seeing him sitting across from her desk, she’d felt an immediate magnetic pull toward him.

But now she wasn’t sure if it had been the man himself or the sweet possibility of his words that had drawn her to him.

Family. Was it possible she might have family members somewhere out there? She had given up hope of ever finding any a long time ago.

And now this good-looking stranger had appeared in her office and spoken a magic word…siblings. Sisters and a brother—it would be so wonderful.

She padded out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where she had carefully laid out the clothes she was going to put on.

As she dressed, she steadfastly shoved thoughts of the possibility of finding family members aside, afraid to get her hopes up only to have them dashed once again.

It took her only a few minutes to pull on a pair of tan slacks and a green and tan flowered blouse. She ran a brush quickly through her shoulder-length blond hair, touched a dab of pink lipstick to her lips, then grabbed her purse and left her apartment.

Moments later she was out on the sidewalk headed toward Myrtle’s. She’d moved into her apartment building when she’d been a resident at the hospital and money, or lack thereof, had been an issue.

The apartment building was not only walking distance to the hospital, but also to the café she frequented on a regular basis and a public library.

Even after her residency had ended and money woes had eased, she’d never considered moving from the small apartment building. She liked keeping things the way they were.

It was fifteen minutes before seven when she entered Myrtle’s Café and took her usual seat by the window. From this vantage point she could see Kevin as he arrived.

“Hi, Dr. Jones,” Camilla greeted her with a friendly smile as she poured Phoebe a glass of iced tea. “Long day?”

Phoebe smiled at the attractive older woman. “They’re all long days.”

“The usual?” Camilla asked.

“Yes, but could you wait to place the order? I’m meeting somebody.”

One of Camilla’s gray eyebrows danced upward. “Somebody of the male persuasion?”

“Yes, but it isn’t what you think,” Phoebe hurriedly said.

Camilla frowned in disappointment. “It’s never what I think, and it’s not right, a pretty young woman like you eating alone every night.”

Phoebe smiled. “I don’t mind. Most evenings I’m too tired to make good conversation with anyone.”

“And I think you are selling yourself short, Dr. Jones,” Camilla replied, then excused herself to hurry to another table.

Phoebe took a sip of her iced tea and gazed out the window. Camilla was constantly harping on her to get a life. What Camilla didn’t understand was Phoebe had a life…a safe, comfortable life that revolved around her work.

There had been enough chaos in her life in the first eighteen years to last a lifetime.

Still, that didn’t stop her pulse from accelerating slightly as she saw Kevin across the street. As she watched, he crossed the street, sauntering with a kind of loose-hipped gait she couldn’t help but admire.

Although his legs were long and lean in his tight jeans, his upper body was muscular beneath the short-sleeved polo shirt. His bulging biceps peeked out just beneath the sleeves of the dark-blue cotton shirt.

As she watched, he paused just outside the front door of the café and quickly raked a hand through his light-brown hair, as if wanting to make certain he looked all right for his meeting with her.

Phoebe reached up and started to smooth her own hair, then jerked her hands back down as she realized what she was doing.

This meeting with Kevin Cartwright wasn’t a date. She simply wanted any information he might be able to give her about the possibility of her having siblings.

He walked through the café front door, bringing with him an energy that seemed to electrify the entire establishment. She’d noticed that earlier about him…the energy that seemed to emanate from him.

He gazed around the café, then he found her and a smile curved the corners of his lips. He had a devastating smile. It transformed him from a handsome man into a sexy devil.

“I see you found it,” she said as he slid into the chair opposite her at the small table.

“I’m not just a private investigator, I’m a good private investigator,” he said and flashed her another of his seductive grins.

At that moment Camilla stopped at the table. “Evening,” she said, then winked broadly at Phoebe, as if to indicate she approved of the way Kevin looked. “The specials this evening are meat loaf and barbecue chicken.”

Kevin looked at Phoebe expectantly.

“I already ordered,” she explained.

“She always gets the same thing,” Camilla said.

“Then I’d just like a cheeseburger and fries,” Kevin said as he handed Camilla back the menu. “And a cup of coffee to drink.”

As Camilla hurried away, Kevin returned his attention to Phoebe, gazing at her without speaking for a long moment. She picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip, her mouth unaccountably dry. She suddenly realized she was nervous.

She told herself it had nothing to do with Kevin, but rather with the information he might give her, information that might unite her with members of her family.

She set her glass back down and looked at him. “All right, Mr. Cartwright, tell me again what brought you to me.”

“Please, make it Kevin,” he replied. He leaned back in his chair and studied her. She felt her cheeks pinken beneath his obvious appraisal. “You’re very pretty,” he finally said.

Her cheeks grew hotter. “Do you always speak your mind so freely?”

His grin widened. “Always, but I’ve made you uncomfortable and I apologize.”

She nodded stiffly, although she didn’t think he sounded apologetic in the least. Suddenly he irritated her with his sexy smile and broad chest, with his flirting long-lashed eyes and five-o’clock shadow of whiskers.

“Mr. Cartwright, I’m a busy woman and I don’t have time for nonsense. Now, you mentioned this afternoon that somebody had hired you to find a woman named Phoebe. What makes you think I’m the one you’re searching for?”

He shrugged, his smile fading away. “When I saw you on the news report, you looked to be around the right age of the woman I’m seeking.”

“I’m around twenty-seven.”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “Around twenty-seven?”

Their conversation came to a halt as Camilla arrived at their table with their orders. She served Phoebe’s salad and soup first, then gave Kevin his cheeseburger, fries and coffee.

“You said you were around twenty-seven,” he reminded her the moment Camilla had left them alone once again.

She nodded and broke apart the whole-wheat roll that had come with her salad. “I was raised in foster care and no birth certificate was ever found for me. Child protective services thought I was about two when I went into the system.”

Kevin chewed a bite of cheeseburger and chased it with a sip of coffee. “How did you get into the system?” he asked.

“From what I was told, I was brought to a hospital severely ill. The woman who brought me in was also sick and later died. She was never identified.” Phoebe stared down at her vegetable soup, fighting against the sadness that always threatened to overwhelm her when she thought of her past.

He leaned forward, so close that she could smell the scent of him, a spicy cologne tempered by spring sunshine and a hint of maleness. “So, you don’t know if her name was Trealla?”

“Trealla…” The name rolled off her tongue, unfamiliar and yet somehow not totally alien. “I don’t know…I really don’t remember anything about my early childhood.”

He popped a fry into his mouth and once again stared at her unabashedly. “There’s one way for me to know if you’re the woman I’m looking for,” he said after a long moment of silence.

“And what’s that?”

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “The woman I’m searching for has in her possession a piece of metal that looks like this.” He unfolded the paper and shoved it over to her.

With trembling fingers, Phoebe picked up the paper and stared at the object drawn there. It was a fourth of a pie shape, with intricate designs that were as familiar to Phoebe as the sound of her own heartbeat.

Instantly her hand grabbed her chest, fingers fumbling for the charm that hung on the silver chain and nestled between her breasts.

She pulled the charm from its resting place and half rose, leaning across the table to show him. Her heart crashed frantically against her ribs. “I’m the one you’ve been looking for, Kevin. You’ve found the right woman.”