Cereal Killer

desk, slid the window aside, and said, “I told you not to come over here, Detective Coulter. You’re wasting your time and ours.”
    Dirk gave her a teeth-baring smile. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”
    “I mind.” She slid the window closed and turned her back on them as she began to sort files on a counter behind the desk.
    Dirk’s face went from pink to purple in under three seconds, and Savannah decided to avert tragedy if she could. Stepping up to the window, she moved the pane aside and stuck her head through the opening. “Excuse me,” she said. “But Detective Coulter really needs that information. It’s critical to his case and—”
    “Get a warrant,” she snapped without even turning around. “And until you’ve got a warrant, get out.”
    This time it was Savannah’s face that flushed. She briefly considered jumping through the window and wringing Nurse Ratched’s neck, but she decided to forego violence in favor of blackmail.
    “Maybe you should scoot back there and tell Dr. Pappas that two of his patients are dead, one is missing, and at the moment, he’s a prime suspect for multiple murder.”
    The receptionist whirled around, her mouth hanging open. A strange hush had come over the crowded waiting room. The only sound was that of a low chuckle coming from Dirk’s direction.
    “And while you’re at it, ask the doctor if he usually treats his patients in limousines in the alley.”
    The receptionist disappeared so quickly that Savannah half expected to see a puff of pink smoke in her wake.
    Dirk stepped up behind her. “What was that bit about the limousine?” he asked.
    She turned around and saw a roomful of people staring at them, their ears practically out on stems.
    “I’ll tell you later,” she said. ‘Just a hunch I had. If he’s out here in less than ten seconds, I was right.”
    It was eight seconds before the receptionist appeared again. “The doctor will see you now in his office.”
    Savannah gave her a bright smile... the one she saved for people she didn’t particularly like. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I thought he might.”
     

Chapter
    16
     
    S avannah wasn’t at all surprised, when she and Dirk entered the doctor’s office, to see that Dr. Pappas was, indeed, the fellow she had seen getting into the Mercedes limousine outside. Nor was she shocked that he wasn’t particularly happy to see them.
    Not only did he neglect to offer them a seat, but he didn’t even speak to them. He just sat behind his desk and glowered at them from beneath bushy white eyebrows.
    Up close, Dr. Pappas was even less attractive than he had appeared from across the parking lot. Looking more like a caricature of a mad scientist than a physician, with his tousled silver hair and carelessly trimmed white beard, Savannah wondered what it was about this man that inspired a waiting room full of patients.
    “Dr. Pappas,” Dirk said, extending his hand across the desk. “Thank you for seeing me. I’m Detective Coulter, and this is my associate, Savannah Reid.”
    “I know who you are,” he said, tight-lipped.
    “Then you probably know what I want,” Dirk said, dropping the pseudo-friendliness. “I’m afraid that one of your patients, Tesla Montoya, has been the victim of foul play... like Cait Connor and Kameeka Wills... also patients of yours.”
    The doctor said nothing as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over the front of his white smock.
    “I need to know her blood type,” Dirk continued. “If you have that information in her medical files, it would help me a lot.”
    “I don’t release personal information on my patients,” he replied evenly. “No responsible physician would.”
    “I’m not asking you for anything all that personal,” Dirk said. “I don’t want to know how much she weighed or if she had AIDS, for Pete’s sake.”
    No response.
    “We found a pool of blood in Tesla Montoya’s apartment,” Dirk added, obviously growing more impatient by the moment. “She’s missing, and we have reason to think she’s been kidnapped. Would you or one of your nurses just look in her file and tell me her blood type? If you’ll do that I’ll leave you alone.”
    Pappas stared at Dirk for several long, tense seconds; then he reached for a manila folder in a stack of similar ones on his desk and flipped it open. He thumbed through the papers inside, reading.
    Finally, he closed the folder and tossed it back on the heap. “She was