The Stiff and the Dead by Lori Avocato Page B

Hope Valley Clinic. Miles should be able to get you one.”
    Soon I’d need a huge elastic band to wear around my head if Jagger kept “surprising” me like this. This time the recovery of my jaw was much quicker. “What? What? What?”
    He shook his head. Twice.
    Since our first encounter a few months ago, Jagger could have easily suffered several cases of whiplash when we were together. I’d learned that one shake meant perturbed, two more like exasperated. “Look, Sherlock, I’m working a case . . . that is . . . in the same location—”
    I waved my hand in the air. “Hold it right there, buddy. I’ve heard this song before and it led me to . . . You’re going to tell me everything will be fine. Ha!”
    He sat silent. With Jagger, silence spoke volumes.
    â€œSee? You’re speechless.” A bold-faced lie to be sure, but I gave it a shot. Anything to get him off this subject.
    â€œYou’ll get done with your case much faster—and get paid faster—if you cooperate,” he said quietly, almost hypnotically.
    â€œCooperate with you?” I took a sip of my now lukewarm coffee. We hadn’t been here that long, but I liked so much cream in it, it cooled fast. I figured Jagger didn’t have a microwave in his SUV. “Cooperate. Yeah, right.”
    There went that grin again.
    Nonchalantly I crossed my legs, as if that would take the emphasis off his effect on me. Pheromones gone wild. Might make a good reality TV show.
    His grin deepened.
    I let out a deep sigh. Inside I felt as if something was slipping. Slipping from my grasp. Then the words, “What, as if I don’t know, do I have to do?” came out. Damn! I summoned every ounce of assertiveness I could and only came out with, “And how do you know Miles can help me?” As soon as I said that second part, I realized how foolish that was. This was Jagger I was talking to. “Forget the second question.”
    He smiled. Best teeth I’ve ever seen and white enough to do commercials.
    â€œTake a temporary job in the clinic. The pharmacy is next door. Staff floats back and forth getting medication for the patients. Easy to check on prescriptions that way.”
    â€œDid Fabio tell you about my case?”
    His look told me that Fabio, or anyone else for that matter, didn’t need to tell him anything.
    â€œI said I have a case of my own there. Leo Pasinski, one of the pharmacists.”
    Hmm. “I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me what it is about, who hired you or how my helping you will get my case solved faster.”
    He stared at me.
    I swallowed and wiped my now sweaty brow.
    â€œTrust me, Sherlock.”

    As soon as I’d left Jagger, I called Miles to ask his friend at the Hope Valley Clinic to get me a job there. Miles had friends and connections all over town. That’s how I’d gotten hooked up with Fabio. Miles had come through again, I thought the next morning as I yanked my mauve scrub pants up over my white bikini panties. Damn, but it felt good to be dressing appropriately for my age—even if I was in scrubs.
    Once dressed, I headed to the kitchen for a quick breakfast, hating getting back into a routine. I loved the freedom of my investigative job and although I was technically still working it, I was also technically back in nursing.
    Jagger was going to owe me big time . . . again.
    With that X-rated thought on my mind, I managed to make a cup of tea in the microwave and throw a slice of wheat bread into the toaster. If I was going to get to work on time, I had to put Jagger out of my thoughts.
    Then again, once I got there, I had no idea what I was going to do to help him—yet. I knew he’d tell me when he was ready.
    â€œAnd over there is where you hang your coat,” Randy Johnson said. She was the nurse who’d been assigned to “orientate” me to this job.