I walked closer and accidentally bumped my knee on the edge. After a silent mumble of pain, I shone my flashlight onto the desk to see if there might be another box.

Papers were strewn across the desktop.

Old Rip Van must have been filing and gotten the urge for Solitaire. Perfect. I moved the light toward the file cabinet.

It was open.

Looking upward I thought, Thanks, but this is way too easy for me, but thanks again. I’m not complaining.

Hey, I was still fairly inexperienced at this job and took all the help I could get.

I sat down at the desk and shone the light onto the files. Some had Ian’s old names on them, but they were crossed out and had more normal sounding patient names written above. No one had taken the time to replace them neatly. I bet poor Ian would be turning over in his grave, if he hadn’t been cremated.

Slowly I read through the files as I held the flashlight in my mouth. Some of the names I recognized as women or men whom Goldie had spoken about meeting since being there.

Frequent fliers had been replaced with BDDs.

I lifted a file and rolled my chair back away from the desk. Before I opened the folder, I looked up to make sure no one was around. Hopefully Rip would take her time. Something told me she wasn’t up for employee of the month anytime soon.

When I leaned forward to open the file, an unexpected breeze blew a paper off the desk. My heart stopped. Geez. Old Samuel must have followed me. I laughed to myself and stuck the paper back but not before reading it.

OVERDUE was stamped on it. Then a handwritten note: “Payment refused to be paid by husband” across the top of the bill…for one Daphne Baines-wife of the murdered Mr. Baines. Wow!

I set the paper back on the desk, hopefully where it’d been before but thinking Rip wouldn’t know any different, and opened the frequent flier file.

“Wow,” I muttered, followed by “Hmm,” then a few more “wows” until I took out my beeper camera and started to click away. Thank goodness I’d invested in it for my first case.

Seemed as if the frequent fliers were the ones bilking the insurance company. Handwritten notes, and I wasn’t sure whose hand had written them, said the spouses of each patient had refused to make any more payments. Mr. LaPierre had even said that his wife was a “sick woman” and needed therapy not more surgery. His credit card number had been crossed out.

But what interested me the most was that the surgeries were still preformed with a diagnosis of “deviated septum,” so dear, perfect Babette could get yet another nose job.

After reading through all of them, I found similar “made up” medical diagnoses so that the insurance companies did, in fact, reimburse Highcliff Manor for their work.

What I couldn’t tell was who preformed all the surgery-and who was behind this whole scam. These files had been tampered with and lots of potential evidence covered up.

A whirring sound struck the air.

The elevator descending!

I shoved the files back, not too worried about the order because Rip Van Winkle surely wouldn’t notice, and ran out the door back to the safety of my alcove.

Two nurses came off the elevator and old Rip walked around the corner at that very minute…and my heart started to beat once again.

Solitary surveillance was no fun.

I’d been on cases where I had to hide and watch the goings-on of suspects before, but most of the time I had Jagger to keep me company. Enough said.

Right now, though, my back hurt. I was also sweating in my jeans, but I couldn’t even take my gloves off for fear of leaving any fingerprints, so I just stood there watching the damn receptionist, again back at the computer, playing games!

It seemed hours passed before she finally got up. Thank goodness! She walked around the desk area and took a left down the hallway. She was probably headed toward the ladies’ room, but I couldn’t care less as I finally stepped from my alcove and looked at the front door, only steps away.

What to do? What to do?

Not wanting to draw any suspicions, I ran toward the elevator, but opened the door to the stairs instead. I hurried up to the second floor, looked around before I stepped out from the stairwell and turned toward Goldie’s room.

“Visiting hours are over, Ms. Sokol,” someone said-and in a not too pleasant tone.

Mentally I reviewed the symptoms of a heart attack-because getting caught right now, I believed I was having one. Chest pain, neck pain, shortness of breath, no heartbeat! Yeah, I could pass out right about now.

Quickly I slipped off my gloves then turned around to see Neal standing there. How the hell had he gotten back in? Duh. There had to be a staff entrance. That’s right. Doctors and nurses came in through a door that was on the south side of the building where their parking lot was located. Geez. I never parked there since I always walked here.

“Oh, hey.” I stepped forward. Thank goodness he was smiling…or make that ogling me. Maybe the all black outfit looked weird. Sure it did.

“Hey. Is there a problem, Pauline?”

Problem? How did he know? Oh, wait. “Problem with Goldie?”

Neal shook his head. I realized he looked oh so casual for him. Brown suede jacket. Blue jeans, snuggly fitting in all the right places, and brown boots. Yum. He looked yummy.

“Did he call you or something?” Neal stepped forward and placed his hand on the small of my back.

“Oh, yeah. Something. I better go see him. I didn’t want to wake anyone so I was sneaking around. Like I’m some kind of spy!” I laughed and thank goodness he joined me. “Oops. We should be quiet.” I leaned forward and forced myself to kiss him on the lips. Really. It was forced.

He eased me back and looked around. I guessed he didn’t want any of the staff to see us…you know. Then he guided me toward Goldie’s room, and I suddenly realized that my patient was snoring away. What the hell was I going to use for an excuse?

It was then that I realized it paid to be a good person in one’s life. Kerie Cetin walked around the corner and saw us. She hurried closer and said, “Oh, Dr. Forsyth. This is so strange. I was just about to page you. Mrs. Seymour is having some excessive swelling. Can you come take a look at her?”

“Excuse me,” Neal said to me.

I nodded and smiled. “No problem. I hope she’s fine.”

Kerie hurried away with him.

And I looked upward and winked. “Thanks.”

I turned and walked back to the elevator, realizing I wouldn’t have to crawl out of Goldie’s second story room window. I’d use the staff entrance-and no one would be the wiser.

With Jagger MIA, I gave myself a mental “atta girl,” knowing he’d do the same. However, it really didn’t feel the same. In other words I didn’t feel it down to my toes.

The digital clock said two and I groaned, realizing it was actually 2:00 A.M. Jogging back after my Neal scare had me revved up and falling asleep didn’t come easily. I’d have to nap in Goldie’s room tomorrow at the rate I was going.

Thank goodness the night had turned out profitably…and having nearly slept with the guy who caught you sneaking around had to be a plus.

I smiled, turned over, hugged my pillow and decided I’d force myself to sleep, and before I knew it the sun was glaring in my window, the damn clock had only moved four hours, and I had to get up for the day.

“Are you shitting me, Suga?” Goldie asked, then made some kind of surprised noise. It was difficult to identify sounds with old Gold.

“No. Neal caught me right outside your door. You do snore like a lumberjack, Gold.”

We both laughed and went over the evidence that I’d found last night. Goldie was so proud of me, I felt like a little kid getting a gold star on my homework.