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Chapter 22
Jack
DOCTOR POLTER’S RECEPTIONIST, a scarily perky brunette wearing makeup that looks more like it belongs in a club than in a professional setting, cheerfully informs us that Cleo is with the Doctor and we’ll have to wait here—but would we like something to drink while we wait?
Two glasses of cucumber water later Doctor Polter finally walks out of the back offices. A woman that I assume is Cleo trails behind him, loudly thanking him for his time as she passes him her card. She turns to go and her eyes land on Nora. Her professional smile disappears, replaced by an ugly sneer.
“Nora, I thought you were off today,” she accuses. “Heard something about you getting married.” Her gaze flits over to me, scanning the length of my body, then freezing. Which is a weird reaction considering the two of us have never met. But maybe I imagined it because a second later she’s back in motion. Fast motion.
“I’d better go,” she says, darting a glance toward the door, then hurrying away from us. Without missing a beat Nora and I move after her. She’s through the front doors of the building and practically sprinting away from us. Unfortunately for her, the heels she has on not only limit her top speed, they also cause her to trip. One heel catches on a slight divot in the cement and she goes down hard.
“Nice try, Cleo.” I stand over her, shaking my head at her escape attempt.
“What do you want?” she hisses, wincing as she gingerly peels herself off the cement, coming to a stand. Her right knee is badly scraped up and bleeding freely, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she faces us warily.
“To start with,” I reply conversationally, “I’d love to know why you ran away?”
“Easy,” she bites out. “Because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“Not good enough,” I tell her. “Try again.”
Cleo lets out a bitter laugh. “I don’t have to talk to you.”
“No, you don’t,” I agree, sliding my hands in my pockets, letting the yellow envelope rest against my thigh. Next to me Nora follows the movement, and I could swear her eyes stick on my thumbs hanging out of my pockets. Weird. I don’t allow myself to dwell on whatever that’s about, though, because I want to get to the bottom of Cleo’s behavior. “If you’d prefer I can call up some of my detective friends and you can talk to them. I may not technically be assigned to your lover’s murder case, but I know guys who are.”
A muscle in her jaw ticks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sniffs. “Ian and I were not lovers. I’m happily married. Sure things have been a bit rough lately with him losing his license a few months ago.” She sniffs. “You have no idea how difficult it can be to go from having two six figure incomes to having only one. To have your husband go from having a highly respected career as a physician to him waking up one day and deciding to get work as a security guard.” She says the words as if they’re gum on the bottom of her shoe. “But I was turning things around for us. We were going to be happy together again.” She sounds almost desperate for the words to be true.
“Doctor Karlsson lost his license?” Nora gasps. “I had no idea.”
Cleo glares at her. “Why would I have told you? So you could run off and tell Stella? That woman gossips more than Us Weekly. Anyway, it was all a big misunderstanding. He was going to get his license back. We were going to be happy together again.”
“So you’ve said,” I say dryly. “But sometimes pictures tell more of the real story.” I lift the hand holding the envelope with said picture inside, noting the way she flinches in response. “Perhaps your husband, what did you say his name was again?”
“I didn’t say,” she replies, eyes locked on the envelope. There are twin spots of color high on her cheekbones and her posture has stiffened. I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t the sight of me that made her flee, but rather the sight of this envelope.
“It’s Sven,” Nora supplies. “Her husband’s name is Sven. Sven Karlsson.”
“Right, Sven. Perhaps Sven would like to see that pic…” I trail off as a puzzle piece slides into place in my brain. “Wait, Sven?” I repeat the name, pivoting to Nora. “Her husband’s name is Sven?”
“Yeah.” Nora nods. “Why? Do you know him?”
“I believe he and I have met,” I say, almost too stunned to speak.
“Jack,” Nora says in a low voice, “are you okay? You look a little freaked out.”
“Sven,” I whisper back, angling my body so that Cleo can’t read my lips. “That was the name of the security guard outside Ian’s neighborhood.”
Nora’s eyes widen.
“Look, I don’t know where you two get off following me here to threaten my marriage.” Cleo tosses her hair, bringing one hand to her hip and staring us down. It might be a more intimidating picture if that hand wasn’t shaking. “Why don’t you both get back to playing house and leave me alone.” The last word comes out full of hysteria; she couldn’t even remain calm for a full sentence.
“What are you so afraid of?” Nora whispers. Cleo doesn’t answer but her eyes dart back over to the envelope in my hand, confirming my earlier theory.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” she repeats shakily, taking a step back. “Leave my marriage alone! I love Sven. He doesn’t need to find out about what I was doing to make things better for us. It’s over now anyway. So let it go! Stop threatening me!”
“Cleo,” I say carefully, my curiosity peaked. The instincts I’ve honed over my years as a detective on full alert. “Let me guess, in recent weeks you’ve been the recipient of an envelope like this one? Maybe even more than one?”
Cleo blinks at me, then takes another step back. “Are you seriously going to stand there holding an envelope identical to the ones I’ve been finding and tell me it wasn’t you leaving them for me? It all makes sense now,” she goes on, voice quavering, “here I thought the person leaving me those photos was just trying to ruin my marriage. But now I see you were trying to get me knocked out of the running for the promotion too, all so your little wife here could have it. That’s why you left that picture of me giving Ian that Minoxidil yesterday. To try and make it look like I’d been mishandling samples, even though I never did any such thing. I found those in my car, and immediately went to report it to him because it’s not a sample drug that I pass out! You were trying to frame me! And now Ian is dead and can’t back me—”
