Liddy feigned a sigh of relief. “Well, then, I won’t worry. Would you know if my brother was going home?”

“He didn’t say, but I told him he needed at least another couple of days of rest.” Dr. Lyons took a card from the pocket of his white jacket and gave it to Liddy. “If your brother has any questions, please have him call me. Anytime.”

When we were back in her Rover, Liddy turned the key in the ignition. “Who do you suppose those men were who left with Gray?” she asked.

“The shorter one must have been his assistant, Will Parker. The big one dressed as a chauffeur might have been a bodyguard, because Roland told me that Parker usually drives for him.” I unpinned the ID badge and put it and the prop chart into the shopping bag.

When we got to the hospital’s tollbooth, the attendant took Liddy’s ticket and said, “Five dollars.”

I took out my wallet. “I’ll get it.”

I handed over a five-dollar bill. The wooden arm went up and we were released.

“What now?”

“Take me home so I can get into my own clothes. I’ll wash your scrubs and give them back to you tomorrow. Okay?”

“No rush. I don’t expect another call from General Hospital right away. They’ve got a storyline going that’s taken them away from the hospital for a while.”

My cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my bag, looked at the faceplate, and told Liddy, “It’s Nicholas.”

She grinned. “No phone sex while I’m driving.”

I laughed and pressed the button. “Hello, Nicholas.”

“Where are you?”

“In Liddy’s car. She’s taking me home.”

“How soon will you get there?”

“A few minutes. Why?”

“I’m in your neighborhood and I’d like to come over. I’m bringing you a surprise.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Animal.”

“Dog or cat?”

There was a slight hesitation before he said, “If those are my only two choices, I’ll say cat. See ya.” He hung up.

“That’s weird,” I said, closing the phone.

“What’s weird?”

“I don’t know. He got off the phone too fast for me to get a clue.”

When we got to my house, I saw my Jeep in the driveway. “Thank heaven,” I said.

“And the police returned it in one piece,” Liddy said dryly. “After what that wretched Detective Hatchet did to your house, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see parts of it scattered all over the lawn.”

I gathered up my purse and the shopping bag containing my clothes. “Thanks for today.”

“I like detecting,” Liddy said with enthusiasm. “Figure out where we’re going next. I’ll call you later.”

Liddy drove away and I went to take a look at my Jeep. It was locked, but I found the key on top of my left front tire-where any car thief would look for it.

“You could have had the decency to drop the key through the mail slot in my front door,” I said to myself.

From inside the house I heard Tuffy barking. I called to him, “I’m coming, Tuff.”

He kept barking, and at that moment I heard the sound of a familiar engine. I turned to see Nicholas’s Maserati slowing to a stop at the curb.

He wasn’t alone.

In the passenger seat beside him was a stunning blonde woman. Her golden hair was styled in a sleek, asymmetrical bob that curled slightly forward to emphasize her high cheekbones and full mouth.

As soon as Nicholas cut the motor, she opened the passenger door. I saw long legs in a short skirt. My first reaction was that her legs were better than mine.

Then I realized that I was standing there without mascara or lipstick, with my hair a mess, and wearing hospital scrubs. On a woman’s body, they were the world’s least flattering two-piece garment.

Nicholas, who seemed blissfully unaware that I wanted to kill him for putting me in this embarrassing situation, came around from his side of the car. He took the woman’s arm and guided her toward me.

“Della, I want you to meet Olivia Wayne-my favorite criminal defense attorney.”

32

“Ms. Wayne,” I asked, “has someone ever murdered a man right in front of you?”

I could see by his puzzled expression that Nicholas had no idea what I was talking about.

She got it, and she laughed.

“If you mean a certain Italian, I’d probably help you bury the body,” she said.

She thinks Nicholas is Italian, but he’s Sicilian. That made me feel better.

“I told Olivia that you’re under suspicion for breaking and entering and possible destruction of evidence in a murder investigation.”

“But you haven’t been charged with anything,” Olivia Wayne said.

“No.” Not yet.

“Good. Most people wait to contact a criminal defense attorney until the prosecution is already on track. I like to get ahead of that train.”

“Come inside,” I said. “I’ll make coffee. Or would you like some lunch?”

“No, thanks,” Olivia Wayne said. “Nick already fed me.”

“That was nice of him,” I said.

She chuckled. “Our friend knows the persuasive quality of grilled salmon.”

I’ll just bet he does.

Inside the house, I greeted Tuffy and Emma. Tuffy nuzzled me and wagged his hindquarters at Nicholas, but Emma, seeing the stranger with us, scurried away.

Eileen had left a note for me on our personal mail drop, the hall table. I scanned it quickly and told Nicholas, “Eileen walked Tuffy when she got home from the school at three thirty. We must have just missed her.”

I turned around to see Olivia Wayne kneeling in front of Tuffy, giving him a two-handed scratch that he was clearly enjoying.

“He’s magnificent,” she said. “We had a black standard when I was growing up. If I’m ever in a situation where I have the time to give to a dog, this is what I want.”

Her affectionate reaction to Tuffy made me warm to her. Just a little. Perhaps this was what Nicholas meant when he said that Olivia Wayne and I had something in common. Then I wondered what kind of relationship they had so that he would know what kind of dog she had when she was growing up.

“Where did you get him?” she asked. “What breeder?”

“He was a rescued puppy,” I said. “My late husband found him abandoned on the Rancho Park Golf Course. The groundskeeper said he’d seen him dumped out of a car the night before. Mack took him to a veterinarian to find out if he’d been micro-chipped. No chip, and no one put ads in the paper looking for him. We got lucky.”

Olivia Wayne stood up. “It seems to me that he got lucky, too.”

If you work a jury the way you just worked me, I’d want you on my side.

I led Nicholas and Olivia into the kitchen, started a fresh pot of coffee, and invited them to sit down at the table.

Eager to put on some mascara and lipstick and get into my own clothes, I said, “Just give me a minute to go and change.”

“You’re fine,” Nicholas said. To my amazement, he looked as though he meant it. “We’ve just got a short time before I have to take Olivia back to her office.”

“Nick, you go into another room for a few minutes until we call you back in,” his favorite criminal defense attorney said.

Apparently, Nicholas expected that. With a pleasant smile on his face, he got up and headed toward the living room. Tuffy stayed with me.

When he was gone, she said, “Della, give me a dollar. I need that so whatever you tell me will be privileged.”

I was still carrying my purse and Liddy’s shopping bag. I took a dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to her. “You work cheap.”

She laughed. “We’ll see if you think so should it turn out that I have to defend you. There was a famous criminal defense attorney way back in the old days. Jake Ehrlich was his name. I read his autobiography, A Life in My Hands, when I was in college. To defend someone for murder he charged everything they had. When a client balked, he’d ask, ‘What’s your life worth to you?’ ”