The Secret of the Villa Mimosa Read Online Free PDF Page B

door. “Just one thing. Do you have a mirror? I want to see what I look like. I still can’t get out of bed, and nobody seems to own a hand mirror in this hospital.”
    Phyl hesitated; she knew it was dangerous. First, because the girl was only a few hours out of the coma. Second, because she was bruised and battered, and with her swollen face and shaved head she looked like hell. And third, because she might suddenly recognize herself and remember what had happened. And it was too soon. It would be too much of a shock.
    “Maybe tomorrow,” she promised, waving good-bye. “I’ll bring a mirror.”

5
    “Y ou’re young,” Dr. Niedman told the girl later the next morning. “Strong as a horse. It would take more than a broken skull to kill you.”
    “But they
shoot
horses to kill them, don’t they?” she wailed irrationally. “And I got pushed over the cliff.”
    Niedman sighed. Detective Mahoney had called him and insisted on interviewing the girl earlier that morning. That was why she was so upset.
    “Don’t believe everything you hear from the cops,” he said with a cheerful grin. “Maybe you were just out walking and fell. After all, who would want to harm a nice girl like you?”
    “I don’t know,” she said simply. “But then I don’t know who I am either. If I did, maybe I would know why someone wanted to kill me.”
    There was a knock at the door, and Phyl Forster came in. Her blazing blue eyes met Niedman’s. “I heard Mahoney was here,” she said angrily. “Did he ask your permission to interview the patient?”
    “Unfortunately he did. He said that you had given him forty-eight hours and that every hour that passed made his job more difficult. Now that the patient wasawake and sitting up and taking notice, he suggested we might be thought to be obstructing the course of justice. I had to agree, though I didn’t approve.”
    Phyl snorted angrily. She thrust a Saks bag at the girl and deposited a kiss on her cheek. “For you,” she said. “To perk you up for the unveiling.” She turned back to Niedman. “Today’s the day she gets to see your handiwork.”
    Niedman laughed as he stood up to go. “Sorry about the haircut,” he said to his patient, “but I’m the best stapler in the business. A few months and you won’t even remember you had to be patched up.”
    “Oh, I hope I will,” she said, looking alarmed, and they laughed.
    “First, though, we have to get you out of that hospital nightshirt and into something a bit more flattering,” Phyl said. “The nurse will help you change, and I’ll be back in a minute.”
    The girl stared wonderingly after her. Then she opened the bag and unwrapped the layers of white tissue paper. She smiled with pleasure as she saw the pale pink silk and lace. “How pretty,” she said, running her hand across its cool smoothness. “How lovely.”
    Phyl was on the pay phone in the hall, calling the precinct, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for Franco Mahoney to pick up the call. “You jumped the gun, Mahoney,” she said when he finally responded. “By seven hours, not to mention the period of ‘reassessment’ we talked about.”
    “I talked it over with the surgeon in charge,” he replied coolly. “He gave me the go-ahead. Naturally, if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have done it.”
    Phyl gritted her teeth. He was an arrogant, interfering bastard, and he might have done untold harm to her patient. “Goddammit, man, what did you ask her? Why didn’t you let me be there at least?”
    “Hey, hey, I’m no ogre. I was gentle. I didn’t insist, for God’s sake. I asked her what she knew and she said,‘Nothing.’ I asked her her name, and she said she didn’t know. I couldn’t decide whether she was telling the truth or just stalling. You’re the expert, you tell me?”
    “Of course she’s not stalling, you idiot! The girl’s been traumatized. She can’t remember because subconsciously she doesn’t want to remember. She