Had he learned from his folly? In a way. After all, he went into a career in ER, where he could rescue people from their worst physical catastrophes, after which they’d be whipped out of his department to face their personal demons in the care of others. It was a disconnect that suited him just fine to this day.

He reached for her hand. “I would have helped her differently now. I guess that’s part of what’s got me so tangled up – knowing I might’ve made a difference if I hadn’t been so clueless.”

“You still don’t believe Chaz killed her?”

He sighed deeply, as if to exhale his doubts. “I must have been wrong about him, too. His looking for her was probably a cynical act he put on to throw us off. It obviously worked.”

She slouched in her seat. Anyone looking at her would have thought she was studying the chandeliers and frowning in disapproval.

“So do I go to the police?” he said after what felt like minutes.

She looked directly into his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Earl, you expect the cops to believe a story like this? Let’s see. They couldn’t pin anything on Chaz in 1974. Now they find the body, and you pop up with your tale of being the mystery man, of having been her secret lover, and, what I predict will be their personal favorite, you didn’t tell anyone because you’ve been maintaining a noble silence all these years. They’ll fall down laughing, then have a field day twisting it all around so you look guilty as hell. As for what the press would do to you, don’t even think about it.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Talk to a lawyer.”

He lay wrapped in layer after layer of sleep, the kind that enveloped him only after he and Janet made love.

Yet a ringing drilled into his head.

He felt Janet’s leg draped over his, and opened his eyes, expecting to find himself in his own bed.

Instead, ornate swirls on the ceiling of their hotel suite spun like pinwheels in the ever-changing, neon glow from outside the window. He glanced at his watch and saw it was only 10:00 P.M.

After dinner they’d no sooner gone upstairs and closed the door to their room than Janet pulled him to her. “I want us to forget everything, at least for now,” she whispered, her lips at his ear.

His own desire had swelled to meet hers, displacing all anxiety, and he lost himself in her arms, for a while.

“Dr. Garnet here,” he said, fumbling the receiver to his ear.

“Dr. Garnet, it’s Mark Roper calling. I hope it’s not too late to disturb you, but I wanted to catch you before you left town. I think you’d be interested in seeing my father’s old medical file on Kelly.”

“What?”

“It contains a letter describing a man she met, someone she loved.”

Garnet felt his heart quicken. “Really.”

“I suspect he’s the one she got into the taxi with the night before she disappeared.”

Earl felt a chasm open at his feet. Into it fell Janet, Brendan, his life. “I see.”

“Do you? Shall we have breakfast together to discuss it?”

A dozen floors below, Mark hung up and stared at the ceiling. Garnet’s agreement to meet with him vanquished any doubts he had about him being Kelly’s lover. Not bad for a part-time coroner from the sticks. Twelve hours in New York and already he’d uncovered the secret that had stumped the NYPD for twenty-seven years.

He’d followed Garnet and his wife back to their hotel, then booked a room for himself, dumping his plan to return home that night. After reviewing all his files on Kelly, he went down to the hotel’s business center, where he spent time on the Internet planning what he would do.

Having successfully completed the next step, hooking Garnet into a tête-à-tête, he felt like celebrating.

Grabbing the phone, he called a number he knew by heart.

“Dr. Caterril speaking,” said the woman who answered.

“Hi, Mandy. It’s me.”

“Mark?”

“The one and only. And how’s the most beautiful veterinarian in all of Manhattan?”

“I’m fine, but where are you calling from?” She sounded put out rather than excited.

“The Plaza. I was down here on a coroner’s case, but unexpectedly had to stay the night and wondered if we could get together.”

Her silence gave him a sinking feeling.

“Well, I would have loved to,” she said after a few seconds, “but I can’t tonight.”

He heard a male voice in the background. Mandy lived alone.

“Of course,” he said, immediately casting around for a way to say good-bye without embarrassing either of them. “I just took a chance, never expecting even to find you in on a Saturday night. Stupid of me not to have called before and set something up.”

She laughed. “I won’t argue with that, Mark.”

“Well, next time lots of warning.”

“Yes, I’d like that. Perhaps we could have lunch.”

Ouch! He’d been demoted. From lover to former boyfriend status, all in an instant, suitable for get-togethers in public places, a greeting kiss on the cheek, but the rest of her body arched safely away from him. “Take care, Mandy.”

“You too.”

Definitely taken down a few rungs. Well, what did he expect? He hadn’t exactly broken her door down with return visits or rung her phone off the hook after her last weekend at Hampton Junction. To be honest, he hadn’t bothered because he knew there was no point. Mandy Caterril would never be happy away from her poodle practice in Manhattan. Just like Shauna, the uptown physiotherapist, before her, or Cindy, the TriBeCa theater director, before them.

East Side, West Side, all around the town. The tune popped into his head. Wonderful, beautiful, fun women from every part of the greatest city on earth, and not a hope in hell any one of them could cope with being the mate of a country doctor. As far as they were concerned, he’d made a mistake choosing to practice where he had.

Shit! Enough with the gloomy woulda, shoulda, coulda crap. He didn’t feel like just rolling over and going to sleep either. He grabbed the New York Magazine by his bed and flipped through the theater section. But it was long past curtain time, both on and off Broadway. Ought to kick himself in the ass for not having planned ahead and at least given himself a show.

Then he had an idea.

A crazy idea, but one that would be exactly the no-strings-attached, one-night-only encounter he felt in the mood for.

“Could you connect me with the home of Dr. Melanie Collins, please,” he said, having contacted an operator at New York City Hospital. “It’s Dr. Mark Roper.”

“The Chief of Internal Medicine?”

He hadn’t known that about her. “Is there another Melanie Collins?”

“I’ll see if she’ll take your call,” said the man on the other end. He didn’t sound very hopeful.

“Dr. Roper,” Melanie said, when he was plugged through to her. “This is a surprise.”

“It is for me, too. I had to stay over unexpectedly. If you have time, I wondered if we could continue our conversation about Kelly?”

She gave a throaty chuckle that made more than his hopes rise. “Sure, if you like. But I just ordered some Chinese food. Say, why don’t you come on over here and share it with me – they always send too much – and I’ll open a bottle of wine.”

It was so blatant a response to his overture, despite its being exactly what he had in mind, he went briefly dumbstruck. What was his problem? Seconds ago he’d wanted her to say yes. Now he balked. Why? He certainly had no hang-ups about women who took the initiative, in fact, quite enjoyed them. The age difference? No, he’d been there, too. Yet from the place in his stomach that turned when he encountered a bad taste or a foul smell, he once again felt a slight revulsion. This wasn’t right for him. “Oh, thank you, that’s really generous, but I’ve got an early meeting, which is why I’m staying over. I was hoping we could talk on the phone.”