Page 70 of Shades of Henry
“What?”
“I’m special,” he said, the pride unmistakable.
“Don’t ever doubt it.” There was a thick, gooey silence in the car then, the kind that warmed Lance’s chest before he turned his attention to the matter at hand. “So, since we’re not breaking in or doing anything illegal, you’re just going to ride my heel while I get permission from the office manager?”
“That’s the plan,” Henry said, looking out into the brutal sun with a sort of cheerful anticipation.
Lance tried to analyze the buzzing in his stomach.
To his surprise, he realized he was sort of looking forward to this too.
MARA, THEoffice manager, was a stout woman in her forties with cheerfully blond hair and cat-eye glasses. She had no problem letting Lance and Henry into Sampson’s office now that the police were through with it, but she warned them that they weren’t to touch anything, and they weren’t to take anything out.
Henry held up his phone. “Just taking pictures, ma’am.”
“That’s what you’re using?” Lance wrinkled his nose. “Somehow, I’m disappointed.”
“I’m sure Jackson’s got a long-range camera if he needs it,” Henry said defensively. “He seems to work a little… I dunno, closer than that. Besides, he sent me his cop friend’s number so I can text the evidence to him.”
“That’ll have to do,” Lance mumbled. “So, Mara, let us in?”
“Sure!”
Sampson had an office in his own practice—his office in the hospital was opulent, but small. Plush rug, glossy oak furniture, a clear view over Stockton Boulevard.
“I wonder why he got one inside the hospital instead of in the office park next door?” Lance murmured. “Maybe he was here before the recent remodel.”
“Maybe they wanted to shove him in a corner,” Henry muttered. “Lots of awards and shit for show, but seriously, if he’s practicing medicine somewhere else, what does he need an office in here for?”
Lance thought about it. “Ostentation,” he said, looking at a couple of cases carefully crafted for some obscure humanitarian award. “He has it.”
“He does indeed.” Henry moved behind the desk to the small utility closet. “You’re the one with the key.”
“Are you sure the cops didn’t check this?” Lance asked as he opened the door and stepped back. He was hoping to catch the interior with as much light as possible.
“I asked Cramer,” Henry said. “Neither he nor Jackson had a chance to mention it to their detective friend. Jackson said he’d contact the guy today. The fact is, they wrapped up the main bad guys and all they really have on Summer Frasier is some paperwork and Jackson’s story about sex in the office.”
“But is this really your job?” Lance asked, hating the whine in his voice.
“Well, is it really not? I mean,youcan have your version of internal affairs check her out—but by that time, she’ll have cleared the evidence. This is….” Henry grimaced. “It’s a loose end, and I don’t like those. And it’s driving Jackson nuts, and he needs to chill and get better. And… and I don’t want to be the guy who’s sloppy. So we’re doing this.”
Well, Lance couldn’t really argue with that. Henry Improvement was apparently not done in half-measures.
“God, that’s tiny,” Henry observed as Lance opened the closet. “I don’t know how Jackson took a breath in there. But look!”
“Holy wow,” Lance murmured, getting a good look at the pill bottles arranged neatly in box flats—four shelves of them in the back of the closet. “This is not legal.”
“And that,” Henry said, pulling his phone out and starting to take pictures, “is why we’re here.”
At that moment, they heard Mara’s voice raised in the hall. “But Ms. Frasier, don’t you need a key to go in there?”
Oh seriously? Now? Henry and Lance met horrified glances—and did the obvious thing.
They dove into the closet.
“What are you doing?” Lance asked, mashed up between a shelf of polyisoprene gloves and Henry. For a moment his baser animal kicked in and he leaned a little closer to Henry, smelling baby shampoo and Old Spice and danger.
And there went his libido, right along with the pounding of his heart.
