Killer Calories

guessing.
    “Where what is?” She batted her blue eyes.
    “Your gun.”
    Mmmm ... good guesser.
    “Gun? I came out here to have an herbal bubble and a conversation with you. Do I need a gun to do that?”
    “Do you answer most questions with another question?”
    Bat, bat. “Doesn’t everyone?”
    He laughed. She couldn’t tell if it was nervous laughter 0r if he was genuinely amused. Although she prided herself on being an astute judge of character, motivation, and intends, she decided that Dr. Ross wasn’t an easy man to read.
    “Are you going to shoot me, Savannah ?” he asked, still wearing that enigmatic grin.
    “Are you going to misbehave?”
    “With a woman who’s packing a pistol, a lady who has a black belt in karate? Not likely.”
    She raised one eyebrow. “How do you know I’m a black belt?”
    “I read the papers. You were quite the celebrity around here some time back. A detective lady who—”
    She blushed. “I think infamous is more like it. Getting myself canned from the police department wasn’t exactly my greatest career achievement.”
    “You were treated unfairly.”
    “I think so, too. But my life is better now, so I’m not complaining. In the long run, they did me a favor .”
    “You enjoy being a private detective?”
    She didn’t like where this was headed. The topic was getting too personal, and she wasn’t going to learn anything about him if they sat here and rehashed her ancient history.
    “Yeah, I like it. Usually. How about you? Do you like being a doctor?”
    “I did... back when I had a real practice and actually healed people. Now I’m a baby-sitter for the guests at Royal Palms. The most important thing I do around here is examine a twisted ankle from time to time. And most of those are phony.” He sighed and slipped lower into the water. “A fake doctor, doctoring fakes.”
    She felt guilty for a moment, as though her own duplicity had added to his sense of futility. “What happened to yo ur practice?” she asked.
    “I was brought up on charges and lost my position at the hospital.”
    “What charges?”
    “One of my patients died under mysterious circumstances,” he said in a straightforward manner that she both respected and mistrusted. What could he possibly gain by being so candid with her?
    “They suspected you of murder?”
    “That’s what they called it.”
    “And what did you call it?”
    “Physician-assisted suicide. Or, at least, that’s what I would have called it, if I had done it. I was cleared, of course, or I wouldn’t be practicing medicine.”
    “Of course.” She waited for him to continue. When he didn’t she said, “Well... did you do it?”
    “She was an elderly woman in her mid-eighties, a cancer patient, in horrible pain. Every day I visited her, and every day she begged me to end the suffering for her.”
    “And you did?”
    He studied her thoughtfully for a while before answering, as though deciding whether to tell her the truth or not. Finally, he said, “She died, peacefully in her sleep. If she hadn’t, I might have helped her.”
    “But ‘might have’ doesn’t count... legally, that is .“
    “Thankfully, no. If they jailed you for ‘might-haves,’ 90 Percent of us would be behind bars.”
    For a long time, they sat there with the bubbles and fragrant warmth rising around them, while Savannah tried to determine whether or not he had just lied to her. Damn, where was a polygraph expert when you needed one?
    “If I hadn’t intended to tell you the truth, Savannah ,” he said, “I wouldn’t have brought up the subject in the first place.”
    “That’s sorta what I was thinking. And I was wondering why you asked me here this evening.”
    He grinned and glanced quickly down at her chest, which was floating nicely on top of the scented water. “Can’t a man ask a beautiful woman to join him in a spa without him having an ulterior motive?”
    “No. Men always have ulterior motives... especially when they’re wearing skimpy swimsuits.”
    He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “So, you noticed.”
    “I’m a sighted female between the ages of eight and eighty. Of course I noticed.” She mentally checked the position of her cover-up and the Beretta. “So, does that mean you invited me here to seduce me?”
    “Not entirely.”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    “Although if you tried to seduce me, I certainly wouldn’t object.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Hmmm.” He frowned.