Got Your Number

until someone thought to bring her picture to our office. We identified her from a photo taken during a marathon last weekend." The woman's voice broke. "She came in second place."
    Overdose. Roxann was shocked, but not surprised—Elise seemed determined to play Russian roulette with every known vice, yet push herself to the limit as an athlete. She thanked the woman and hung up slowly. Carl, dead. Elise, dead. It was almost too much to absorb. She allowed the news to sink in, then sent a prayer to the ceiling for Elise, remorseful that she had suspected the woman of ransacking her apartment, and far worse—of killing Carl. Poor Elise was a mixed-up soul, searching for an excuse and a panacea, and she'd found neither in her short life.
    She sighed, then chased down the Magic 8 Ball, deciding she'd feel much better once she saw Angora and Nell. She lay on her stomach, and reached under the credenza, feeling for the toy, trying not to think about what else might be under there.
    Her hand met paper, and she pulled out a copy of the first page of the medical examiner's report on Carl's death. It must have fallen out of Capistrano's file. She scanned the sheet, reminded once again that Carl had died so needlessly. If she had only listened to Capistrano and set up the video meeting with Melissa earlier, this entire tragedy could have been avoided. Frank Cape needed never to have set foot in South Bend. She pressed her lips together, feeling a good cry coming on, then stopped at the sight of Carl's full name. She remembered seeing his middle initial stenciled on the glass door of his office, but she'd never asked him what it stood for.
    As Roxann stared at the name, a hot flush climbed her face. At first the implication seemed too outrageous, but as her mind sifted clues and conversations and observations, her hazy theory began to take on a shape, and a face. Her insides heaved, and sweat broke out on her temples.
    Angora .

Chapter Thirty-two

    HER INCISIONS WERE ITCHING AGAIN. Angora wiggled in the hospital bed and tried to think the twinges away, then went back to reading the Slim Down Now! magazine her mother had forced upon her.
    "If you eat a frozen mashed banana instead of a cup of ice cream, you would save two hundred twenty calories. If you normally indulge in ice cream once a week, you would lose a whopping four pounds a year."
    Four lousy pounds? In an entire year? Who did these people think they were kidding—a frozen banana wasn't ice cream, it was a freaking frozen banana. She took a bite out of a chocolate Moon Pie, then slapped the magazine shut and rooted around for something more interesting. It was all pretty much the same crap, though—eat less, exercise more, blah, blah, blah.
    Mike Brown's stack of Progressive Farmer lay untouched. Out of sheer boredom, she opened the cover and wrinkled her nose: "To Fertilize or Not to Fertilize," "Pasture Rotation," "Liquid Swine Waste." But one item in the table of contents caught her eye: "Marvelous Meat Loaf."
    When she was around six years old, her mother had hired a little old woman named Liza who made the most incredible meat loaf and mashed potatoes with gravy. But even at six her cheeks were a bit on the chubby side, so her mother restricted her portions to mere spoonfuls no matter how much she pleaded for more. Dear Liza would sneak a plateful to her room after dinner. But when Dee caught Angora under the covers sopping gravy with a piece of white bread, she'd fired Liza on the spot and hired a bony woman who considered spinach a staple. Ugh.
    With mouth watering, she turned to the recipe. Knowing how to make meat loaf seemed like a good basic skill to have. Oooh, there was a picture—a nice juicy hunk of meat with a drizzle of red sauce baked on top, served up with creamy mashed potatoes swimming in brown gravy. Heaven. On. Earth.
    A knock on the door sent her scrambling—her parents were back. "Come in," she sang, shoving the Moon Pie and the magazine under her pillow. She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her gown and pasted on a sublime smile.
    But the last person in the world she expected to walk in was Trenton, impeccably dressed in tan slacks and a mint-green cashmere sweater she had bought him for his birthday.
    "Hello, Angora."
    Her jaw dropped and her mind raced, searching for all those vile things she'd imagined saying to him if and when she ever saw him. "Uh, hi."
    "Guess you're surprised to see me."
    She nodded, speechless.
    He walked to