“So…” I look down at the furry black body on my couch. “I need your help with something.”
“What?”
“There… there’s a cat at my house and I can’t get rid of it.”
There’s a long pause on the other line. “What?”
“It just came in through my back door!” I blurt out. He must think I’ve completely lost my mind. This is not very Nora behavior. “And now I can’t get it to leave. Can you come help me?”
He chuckles. “Nora, if you want me to come over for a booty call, just say so. You don’t have to make up some ridiculous story about a cat.”
I cringe. I made a mistake calling him. “Never mind.”
“I’m joking! Look, I’ll be over soon. I just have to finish up one thing and then I’ll head right over to help you get rid of the cat.”
I grip the phone. “Thank you, Philip.”
“Hey, what are partners for?”
I don’t think anyone would argue that the purpose of a partner in a surgical practice is to get rid of a stray cat that wandered into your home, but he’s being nice and I’m not about to start getting sarcastic.
Philip lives at least a twenty-minute drive away from me, but about ten minutes later, I hear a knock at my door.At first, I’m convinced it must be the police again, and a tiny little idiotic part of me is hopeful that it could be Brady. But no, it’s Philip.
“Did you drive a hundred miles per hour the whole way here?” I ask him.
“Hey, it sounded like you were having a true emergency.” Philip steps into the foyer, looking around my house. “Place looks good. Kind of bare, but not too bad.”
I back away to give him room to come inside. He’s got his coat on, and underneath he’s wearing a sweater and jeans. I usually only see Philip in either scrubs (mostly) or a dress shirt and tie. He looks good dressed casually. He is, in fact, incredibly handsome in whatever attire he chooses. I’ve heard nurses on the floor call him Dr. McHottie. He’s in his early forties now, and as far as I can tell, he’s at his peak attractiveness.
And he knows it. When he’s not listening, Sheila calls him “God’s gift to the world” and it always makes me snicker.
I was surprised when Philip decided to get married, but he seemed devoted to his wife at the time. And he said he was finally ready to settle down and have kids. But apparently, he wasn’t at all ready to settle down, because within a few years, he was hooking up with nurses at the hospital again. Nurses—plural. Everybody knew about it, and then his wife found out. It was a really bad divorce.
So in summary, Philip is terrible at relationships. He can’t seem to keep it in his pants. But at the same time, I respect the hell out of him as a surgeon. He’s good at what he does, and he’s always had my back.
“So where’s this treacherous cat?” Philip asks.
I feel my face get hot. I step back and point to the sofa. “There she is.”
“Good thing you called me. She looks terrifying.”
I glare at him. “Are you going to help me or not?”
He flashes me a grin that shows off all his teeth. “Relax. Watch the cat whisperer at work.”
He strides over to where the damn cat is still lounging on my sofa. He reaches out for her, but this time, she lets out a loud meow, then leaps off the sofa and runs away.
“She evaded me,” he says. He looks around the room. The cat has vanished. I can only hope she went out through the back door and is not on my bed, lying on my pillow. “Um. Are you sure you don’t want to have a cat as a pet? I think she would like to be your pet.”
“I can’t have a pet!” I cry. “What part of my life makes you think I can take care of acat?”
Philip blinks at me. “Nora…”
But it’s too late. Everything I’ve been going through in the last couple of weeks suddenly hits me like a ton of bricks. The two dead girls. The missing hands. The detective.Brady.
And suddenly, I’m sobbing. I don’t think I’ve cried since I was in grade school, on the day I found out my father was arrested. I didn’t even cry when I discovered my mother had killed herself. I remember when my grandmother gave me that piece of news, and I just sat there on my bed, feeling nothing. I knew my grandmother was watching me, expecting me to squeeze out a few tears, and when I didn’t, it confirmed what she always believed aboutme.
“Nora.” Philip’s arm is around my shoulders. “Nora, it’s okay. I’ll track down the cat if you want me to. She’s got to be somewhere around here.”
