Regan’s temper was near the boiling point. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Is Lieutenant Lewis available?”

Pretty-girl was becoming a pain in the ass. Sweeney’s resentment turned into hostility. How dare she try to intimidate him by pulling rank on him.

“The lieutenant’s busy,” he said, nodding his head to the office behind him. “Besides, he will only bounce you back to me, and I’ve got nothing to report.”

“Has anything been done? Has anyone talked to her neighbors or-”

“The way it looks, this Shields guy didn’t do anything illegal. I know that’s hard to swallow, but that’s the way it is. The woman willingly gave him all her money and then committed suicide. Simple as that. Case closed.”

“So the investigation isn’t really pending, is it?”

She was furious. Her face was bright pink, but he didn’t care. Shrugging, he said, “Sure it’s pending. Pending on getting some real evidence.”

Regan glanced around the room for help. She looked at the four men inside the glassed-in office at the back of the station. The man standing behind the desk was evidently the lieutenant. He was shouting and waving his hands around.

One of the other men drew her attention then. Dressed in filthy clothes and leaning against the window, he said something that infuriated the lieutenant, who was now pounding the desk and shouting. The tantrum didn’t seem to faze the man.

The lieutenant turned his wrath on the uniformed policeman. Even with the door closed she could hear a few of the vile insults and threats the lieutenant was making. The man leaning against the window came to the policeman’s aid. He got in front of him and said something to the lieutenant that sent him into a rage.

Regan wasn’t about to interrupt. She didn’t want to have anything to do with this lieutenant, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask him for help.

Deciding that she’d done all she could, she picked up her briefcase and left the station. The second she reached the sidewalk, she pulled out her cell phone and called Sophie.

“I talked to Detective Sweeney.”

“And?”

“The man’s a mess.”

“That’s what Cordie said about him,” she said. “But was he useful? Did he give you any information that might be helpful?”

“No, nothing,” she said. “I don’t think anything’s been done. He couldn’t have cared less about poor Mary Coolidge.”

“You read the journal didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. Dr. Shields needs to be stopped.”

“Which is why you went to the police station to find out-”

“Sophie, there is no investigation under way.”

“Did you talk to Lieutenant Lewis?”

“No,” she said. “He won’t help. He’s worse than Sweeney, if such a thing is possible.”

“I thought you didn’t talk to him.”

“I saw him in action,” she said. “He was screaming and carrying on.”

“Exactly what did Sweeney tell you?”

Regan walked along as she related the conversation she’d had with the obnoxious detective. “I’m telling you, it was a complete waste of time.”

She ended the call just as she turned the corner. She thought she heard someone shout and instinctively turned around.

The crash was inevitable.

Alec Buchanan was in a hurry to get to his car and drive home so that he could get out of the filthy clothes he was wearing. He felt as if he had bugs crawling all over him, and all he wanted to do was take a long, hot shower. He was all but running as he turned the corner and damn near rolled over the woman standing there.

He hit her hard. Her briefcase went flying in one direction, and she went flying in the other. He caught her around the waist and lifted her just as she was about to go headfirst into the brick building.

Alec held on to steady her. Damn, she was pretty. Smelled nice too. Surprising that he could smell anything today after his night in the garbage.

He released his hold, picked up her briefcase, handed it to her, and then stepped back. “Sorry about that.”

She nodded to let him know she’d heard his apology. She couldn’t speak. She looked into his eyes, tried to smile, then turned and walked away as fast as she could. She took deep, gulping breaths, trying not to gag. Dear God, the stench radiating from him made her eyes tear.

She burst out laughing. When she looked back, he was still watching her. She smiled but turned the corner and began laughing again. The man with the beautiful white teeth reminded her of a childhood trip to the zoo. Her brother Aiden had taken her when she was seven or eight years old. She remembered they’d gone inside a big, gray stone building. It was crowded and musty inside, but at the end of a long aisle was the new gorilla habitat. The finishing touches hadn’t been put on the gorilla’s new home. There was a double set of bars separating the gorilla from the crowd, but a thick, unbreakable Plexiglas pane hadn’t been installed yet. Regan pulled away from Aiden and ran, darting in and out of the crowd to get there before anyone else noticed there was room right in front of his cage. She made it all the way to the first set of bars before the smell knocked her to her knees. The stench was overpowering, and she began to gag. Aiden had to pick her up and carry her outside to fresh air.

She still remembered the horrible odor from the gorilla’s cage. The man she’d just run into smelled much worse.

Laughing about the old memory put her in a much better frame of mind. Unfortunately, her good mood didn’t last long.

She had just left Neiman Marcus and was hurrying down a side street with her briefcase and shopping bag in one hand and her purse in the other when a man twice her size bumped into her. What am I? Invisible? she thought. Twice in one day men had tried to walk through her.

This one didn’t bother to apologize. In fact, he seemed to deliberately step on her foot. He never looked back as he hurried down the street. Her toe stung where he’d stomped on it, and she walked at a slower pace toward Dickerson’s Bath Shop. The day was only half over and things could improve, she told herself. What good were negative thoughts?

Then she walked into Dickerson’s, and staying positive just wasn’t possible. The salesclerk, a woman wearing the name tag, “Ms. Patsy,” was leaning against the cash register and talking on the phone. She had the receiver cradled in the crook of her shoulder while she filed one of her fingernails.

Ms. Patsy’s face was such a bright red she was obviously worked up about something. She spotted Regan, impatiently waved at her to wait, and continued her conversation. The woman was in her late fifties or early sixties, but she was babbling on the phone like a teenager. She was apparently talking to a friend, filling her in on the latest gossip she’d heard about another woman named Jennifer. Regan wasn’t trying to listen in, but she couldn’t help overhearing a little of what she was saying, and she was appalled by the woman’s cruel remarks.

Regan moved down to the end of the glass counter so she wouldn’t have to listen, and after waiting for several minutes, she picked up the bottle of lotion and turned to go to another counter. Ms. Patsy shouted to her to wait, hung up the phone, and rang up the sale. Resentment simmered in her sour expression as she handed the package to Regan, and without a word, walked away. Regan was astonished by the woman’s rudeness.

She was actually relieved to get back to the hotel and her office, but the day didn’t get better. She spent the rest of the afternoon putting out one fire after another.

She worked until six, then ran up to her suite to freshen up, and was back downstairs by the door waiting for Cordie by six-fifteen. Her friend arrived by cab, which meant the old Ford was on the fritz again. Regan called for her car before going outside to greet her friend.