Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) by Melissa Yi, Melissa Yuan-Innes Page B

a sink by the window at the base of the U. I
could imagine Ryan boosting me up on that counter. Hmm.
    On the other side of the kitchen doorway,
I'd crammed a table, to make it an eat-in kitchen, and a metal shelf for my
cereal boxes. The shelf barely fit between the built-in ironing board and the
door to the interior fire escape stairs, so there wasn't as much room for
shenanigans, but the table still had possibilities. I wondered if he'd ever
done it on a kitchen table with Lisa.
    Lisa.
    I grimaced and lathered up my hair. I was
a jealous woman. No denying that. But from all signals, she was now out of the
picture.
    For all I knew, Ryan really did just want
my DSL with a side order of apartment security. And Tucker might only want what
he couldn't have.
    But my entire body hummed the opposite
tune. I bent from the waist, the water sluicing through my hair and flowing
over my back. My skin was warm and wet.
    Ryan and I had been virgins when we met.
Because I had good girl hang-ups and he'd been indoctrinated by the church, we
held off on the main event for almost a year. Which meant we specialized in
foreplay. We could have taught a night course in kissing, a weekend lesson in
massage, and given college credits in oral sex. And once we finally got around
to full-blown sex, we'd read and talked and nearly done it so many times, we
turned it into an honours degree, summa
cum laude .
    Now he was right outside my door, waiting
for me.
    Oh, God, I might not be able to wait for
him. My hand drifted between my legs, dipping again and again. Maybe it was
better this way, release myself so I could think more clearly...
    "Jesus!"
    Ryan's voice was so sharp and angry, it
cut through the pounding of the shower and my libido. I froze. This guy did not
take the Lord's name in vain. For him, it was a worse curse than the f-word.
    I rinsed off the soap and conditioner,
briskly now, my heart thumping for a different reason. Something was wrong.
    I climbed back into my used clothes and
didn't bother to wrap my short hair in a towel. I threw open the door.
"Ryan?   What's wrong?"
    He was standing in the doorway to the
kitchen, frowning by the wall-mounted phone abandoned by the previous owners.
"Hope. Sorry." Then he stopped and stared at me.
    My cheeks were already flushed from the
shower, but they would have heated anyway, under his gaze, raking me from
messy, towel-dried hair to my still-intrigued breasts, right down to my
slightly damp toes. I knew exactly what he was thinking. His brow furrowed. His
nostrils flared. A muscle clenched in his jaw.
    Just for a second. Then he shook himself.
"Sorry," he said again. "Finish your shower."
    "I'm okay." Maybe I'd misread
his cues. I wished I'd wrapped myself in a towel instead. More classic. More
prone to slipping to the floor.
    He shook his head. "No, you relax.
Really."
    I cocked my head. "Ryan. What is
it?"
    He sighed and walked back to the front
hall. "I knocked over your mail and found something."
    He handed me a plain white piece of paper
folded in half like a flyer. I unfolded a black and white photocopy of a
picture of a tombstone. The name, prominently engraved in the rock:
    HOPE.

 
 
 
    Chapter
13

 
    Someone had photoshopped my name on a
tombstone picture and left it in my mailbox.
    I almost dropped the piece of paper.
    It could have been a coincidence. It
could have been some mass mailing about the death of hope with a follow-up
about the saviour who could save us. But somehow, I didn't think so.
    After the near death thing, plus Ryan's
paranoia, plus the weird phone calls, seeing my name on a tombstone made me
really glad he was staying tonight. And it made me wonder what the hell was
going on.
    As Ryan pointed out, the name on my
mailbox is H. Sze, not Hope Sze. So if this was personal, someone deduced my
first name and where I lived in order to send me a picture a tombstone with my
name on it.
    Who did it?
    Only one way to find out. I walked to the
kitchen for a Ziploc