You Can't Hide by Karen Rose Read Free Book Online Page B

and drew a breath, visibly fighting for control. And degree by degree achieved it, while he watched, totally fascinated. “Cynthia Adams was a complicated woman,” she finally answered, looking at Aidan directly, ignoring Murphy completely. “But you know that if you’ve been in her apartment.”
    “Have you?” Aidan asked. “Been in her apartment, that is.”
    “No. I’ve never been inside her apartment.”
    The woman could lie without blinking. From the corner of his eye he could see the muscle in Murphy’s jaw twitch as his partner clenched his teeth. Aidan felt pity for Murphy, and for Spinnelli, too. They obviously cared for Ciccotelli. This was going to be difficult for them, he knew. So I’ll do it for them, he thought. “But you have been to her apartment, Doctor?” he pressed.
    “Outside?”
    She regarded him warily. “Once. She’d missed an appointment. I was concerned. I called and only got voice mail, so my partner, Dr. Ernst, and I went to check on her.”
    She’d been in practice with Dr. Harrison Ernst for five years. Nearing retirement age, Ernst was highly respected. This Aidan knew from his quick search on Ciccotelli before picking her up for questioning. “You normally do that? Make house calls?”
    “No, I don’t. Cynthia was a bit of a special case.”
    “Why?”
    Her jaw cocked slightly to one side, she laced her fingers together tightly in her lap. Her expression was unreadable now. “I cared about her.”
    “When was this? The visit,” he clarified and watched her jaw clench reflexively. His presentation of a question fol owed by a clarification annoyed her. Good.
    “About three weeks ago.”
    “Did she cal you back?”
    “Eventually.”
    “And?”
    “And she set up another appointment with me.” She was playing the game now. Admirably so. Answer only what was asked, revealing nothing more.
    “Did she show up? To the new appointment.”
    “No.” Any caginess disappeared, replaced for a fraction of a second with a look of such acute sadness, he found himself mentally circling back around. If she was innocent, she really cared. If she was guilty, she was damn good. “No she didn’t,” she murmured. “I called her again, left her another message, but she never cal ed me back. I never talked to her again.”
    Aidan took his pad from his pocket. “Why was Miss Adams seeing you, Doctor?”
    The wary look was back. “She was depressed.”
    “About?”

    23
    Karen Rose

    [Suspense 5]

    You Can't Hide
    Ciccotelli closed her eyes. “Were she alive I couldn’t tell you any of this. You understand that. It would be privileged.”
    “But she’s not alive,” Aidan said silkily. “She’s lying on a slab in the morgue, eviscerated, by her own hand.” Her eyes flew open and in them he saw shocked outrage. But she careful y banked it.
    “I began treating Cynthia about a year ago. She’d been to perhaps a dozen doctors before she came to me.”
    Aidan thought about all the prescription bottles they’d found in her medicine cabinet. So many doctors. And yet Cynthia Adams was still dead. “You obviously helped her so much she killed herself,” he said sharply. Her eyes flashed then calmed while Murphy shot him a warning glare.
    She pulled a folder from her briefcase and set it on the table between them. “Cynthia suffered from severe depression stemming from abuse she suffered as a young girl. Her father molested her from the time she was ten until she ran away from home at seventeen.” She leveled him a steady look. “I imagine you found evidence of… extreme sexual behavior in her apartment, Detective.”
    “We found cuffs and whips, yes. A few pictures.”
    She continued looking at him steadily. “Cynthia hated herself, hated her father for his abuse. Sometimes victims of abuse turn to the thing they hate the most. They become defined by that one hated thing. Sometimes victims of sexual abuse become addicted to sex. Cynthia was. She would have sex with as many