clinic building. Ever since the break-in, though, it gave her the creeps when she was alone in it at night.
The past few weeks, she’d called Gage when she was leaving and talked to him until she was safely in her car. He’d insisted on it and it made her feel a little bit safer. As much as the overbearing male thing annoyed the crap out of her, the calls did creep her out and she was smart enough to know leaving the office this late at night might not be the safest thing. Tonight, she pulled the phone out as she went down the stairs. They kept their conversation neutral most of the time, him telling her about his day, her telling him about any interesting cases. Being a smart guy, he stayed away from any topic related to his brother. After last night’s talk with her family, Mel didn’t know that she wanted him to. Maybe he’d know if Caine was over at Town Hall still. It felt like less of a challenge to go talk to him there, rather than at his house. No memories there. Just a chance for them to talk.
Distracted by her phone, Mel didn’t hear the footsteps until they were in the front hall with her. Behind her, in the hall from the old kitchen, floorboards creaked. She’d been alone in this old house long enough to know it wasn’t the sound of aged wood. “Who’s there?” She couldn’t see anything in the dark. Why hadn’t she left a light on when she’d closed up earlier? “Anna, is that you?”
“Stop right there.” Mel froze, not recognizing the woman’s voice. “Back upstairs.”
Mel didn’t move. She tried to search out some sort of weapon in the shadows of the hall, but none of Mrs. Booth’s knickknacks were heavy enough to do her any good. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Get up those stairs, bitch. I don’t want to shoot you just yet, but I will if I have to.” The cool click of a cocking gun reverberated down Mel’s spine. Shit. Her finger moved over the still-illuminated screen of her phone, ready to push Gage’s name on the contact list. “Drop the phone. You don’t get to play the damsel in distress tonight.”
Mel let the phone falls to the carpet stair runner and slowly turned, her hands in the air. Climbing the stairs, she heard the other woman moving behind her. She couldn’t stop fear from strangling her throat. God. If this was the same person who’d trashed the clinic, who’d attacked her car and Caine’s golf cart, what would she do now that Mel was her hostage?
“Stupid whore. You should have listened to me while you had the chance. Into that room. The first one on the right.”
The way she said whore triggered Mel's memory. Take away the voice scrambler, and the inflection in the word was identical. The voice clicked too. Mel opened the door of one of the larger examination rooms and flipped the light on. She moved into the room and turned to face her captor. Portia looked like a rogue Barbie doll in a skin-tight black catsuit. Shiny blond hair was slicked back from her face before falling down her back in an expertly cut mane. A face that might have been marginally pretty was caked in too much make-up. There was definitely a bit of crazy in her brown eyes.
“What do you want from me, Portia?” Mel kept her voice as calm as she could, a trick she’d mastered during her psych rotation.
“That’s Ms. Brewer to you.” Portia sneered. God, Mel could have sworn her nose even lifted into the air a little. “Only my friends get to call me Portia. And I could never be friends with a girl like you. What does Caine see in you?”
Mel shook her head. She’d asked herself that question on many occasions. She hoped she’d get the chance to ask that question for the rest of her life with him. “I don’t know. We’ve known each other our whole lives.”
Portia waved the gun around. “Olivia told me all about you. About how you used to follow him around like a little lost puppy. How you did the same thing to his brother after she sent Caine off to boarding school where he belonged. She said that you’re too smart for your own good. That you got above yourself when you went off to that Ivy League school. What made you think