She glared at me as if she didn’t believe a word I said.

“I’m a nurse.” Geez. As if that would have any bearings on my sanity. The woman was getting creepy, yet she did look fabulously wealthy. Stella Sokol would agree with me on this one.

“A nurse? Where?”

Great. Was she going to claim some injury that I’d have to tend to now? “I’m only in Newport temporarily.” I almost said working a case, but finished with, “At the Highcliff Manor. Private duty.”

She grabbed my sleeve!

I tried to ease her hand free but her two-inch nails dug into my arm.

“Highcliff? Do you know Dr. Cook?” Her voice came out so desperate, I started to feel sorry for her.

“Why…I just met him.” I tried to unlock the grip-no success yet. “Ma’am, I really have to get back to my patient.” I looked down at my arm. She held tight.

“I need to talk to him.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure if you call Ian James, he can make you an appointment-”

She spat on the ground!

I yanked free and started to turn. But before I could, she said, “I spit on Ian, that bastard.”

Bastard? Darling Ian?

This scene was getting weirder by the minute and not making a hell of a lot of sense to me. “How do you know Ian?” Suddenly I felt protective of the guy who hid his monitor from my view. Go figure.

“I’ve been a patient there many times. Besides, everyone in town knows him just like they do Olivia Wheaton-Chandler from Highcliff. The money lady herself.”

Ah. Thus the overly tight skin, lips puffed out bigger than my sister Mary’s after a bee sting, and eyes that slanted way too much for a Caucasian. I tucked the Wheaton-Chandler chick’s name into my mental file to check out eventually.

Ah, again. Maybe Barbie here could shed some light on the fraud. I reluctantly stuck out my hand and hoped she wouldn’t latch on again. “I’m Pauline Sokol. I have a patient at Highcliff who will be having surgery in a few days.”

She took my hand so gingerly this time I wondered if she had come to her senses and decided she really didn’t want to touch a peon like me. “Babette. Babette LaPierre.”

Why did that not surprise me?

“Nice to meet you, Babette. How long ago was your last…stay at Highcliff?”

She touched one of her gigantic nails against her tooth. Babette never cleaned a toilet in her life, I told myself in that instant, and was pretty certain that included the rest of a house too.

“Let’s see. I think it was about fifteen days ago.”

Fifteen days? Geez, I was thinking years, maybe months. On closer inspection, I diagnosed Babette as one of those women who were addicted to plastic surgery. “Wow. So, how many procedures have you had done at Highcliff?” Not that I cared, but I’d suddenly made a bet with myself. Had to be in double digits. More than even Joan Rivers.

Babette had to stop and think for so long, I was guessing past fifteen.

“Twenty-eight. I think that’s correct.” She started to rub her hands against the sides of her jacket in a rather rhythmic fashion. “I tend to lose track.”

OCD. I would just bet Babette had several other signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. So I figured her plastic surgery requests came from her also suffering the new fad illness, BDD. Body dimorphic disorder. Babette required more and more changes to an already perfect body, which, until therapy worked, she’d never be satisfied with.

Hm. She really might know something for my case.

We walked back to one of the side streets that led away from Cliff Walk. Obviously Babette was mortified to be seen in public with torn Armani, and I wasn’t all too thrilled being seen with her. I didn’t want anyone to think I had BDD. Then again, if they looked at me closely-they would see I’d never have to worry about that. Actually, I didn’t want anyone seeing me with Babette in case I needed her help.

Suddenly she seemed to want to get rid of me. Or at least not be seen with me since she kept looking away and turning toward the street as if to cross.

“Well, I’m this way,” I said, nodding toward the right.

“I live on Bellevue. I will see you around Highcliff though.” She nodded and looked both ways before starting off.

I was wondering what she’d do if someone were coming down the street in her direction, when all of a sudden a woman did come out of a garden path from a home bigger than the White House. The real White House in D.C.

Babette seemed as if she would scamper off, but instead she turned toward the lady. Ready to turn away, I noticed her hairdo. Stiff brunette.

Without thinking, I found myself walking across the street, all the while staring.

Babette turned around just as my mouth dropped to my chin (something that often happened when I was shocked. Mostly by Jagger though).

“Oh, you. I thought it might be someone important,” Babette said.

The other woman looked at me as if she recognized me.

Babette said, “I forgot your name, Nurse, but this is my friend Daphne. Daphne Baines.”

My first thought was that Daphne had BDD too. No one was born that perfect. No one.

Then my heart started to race when my second thought was: Daphne Baines is the woman who tried to push that man off of Cliff Walk!

I started my run back to the lodge, and after making it only three streets away from Highcliff, I heard the crunching of gravel behind me. Oh, well, must be another jogger, I thought. Pretty soon the sound got louder-and I felt a presence getting near. Most joggers were courteous enough not to get too close but to move over. Not this one. I quickened my pace.

So did he.

I assumed it was a he, but to be sure, looked briefly over my shoulder. Yep. A he. All in black. Getting closer. And not looking familiar or like a real jogger since he had on jeans.

He was following me!

I sped up, and when I got one street away from the lodge I cut across a neighbor’s yard. Despite some large dog barking, I ran as if trying to save my life-and I might have been.

Soon the lights of the lodge brightened my view-and my mind. There on the porch sat a couple, who I assumed would save my life if need be. Suddenly they looked past me, causing me to swing around.

The black figure sped past and out of sight.

Phew.

Who the hell was that?

If I hadn’t needed a shower, I could have gone right to Highcliff. Geez, having Daphne Baines see me up close and personal, then being probably stalked, I made it back in record time.

Now I was more convinced that it was she on the cliff with that guy. Her husband? Lover? Hm.

And what the heck did they throw into the sea?

Before I’d hightailed it out of there, I did notice gigantic diamond rings on her fingers. If she were a divorcée, it didn’t seem as if she’d wear all the markings of a married woman.

After a quick shower, I dressed in my pink nursing scrubs and decided to go see Goldie. Even though it killed me to stick on the damn outfit, I thought I’d look less conspicuous at Highcliff wearing it. And besides, I could get into areas that were for staff only.

“Miss Sokol,” Ian said, causing me to yank my head up from his computer.

Yikes.

“Hm?” I bumped my temple on the shelf of the desk, but swallowed back a cry of pain.

“Miss Sokol, may I help you with something?”

Nonchalantly I hit the X in the upper corner to close the window on Daphne Baines’s files before Ian could rat me out.

Seems old Daph was married-to a gazillionaire. He owned business after business, mostly in the real estate game. With the prices of housing around here, I figured the Baines clan didn’t want for much. No kids, and I figured that was because Daphne didn’t want to ruin her perfect body, which she’d paid dearly for.

Interestingly enough, I’d found that Daphne had suffered the ultimate to be beautiful-eleven plastic surgeries. Wow. It was a darn good thing that her hubby had the big bucks. Nothing she “required” would have been covered by insurance.