Chapter 46: Alice Gets Jealous

The following day, after Robert had once again paid scant attention to her, Alice called a private detective who she employed on a regular basis, especially with regard to divorce cases, and requested that she follow her husband for the next two afternoons. And she emphasized that if possible, she was to tail him around the hospital where he held his residency.

Nola Gonzalez frowned as she listened to her friend and sometime employer and didn't bother to take any notes. She knew who Robert was and where he could be found and hoped as she always did in such matters that her suspect would not be caught with his pants down.

And, as the early afternoon heat scorched the streets of Los Angeles, Nola entered the hospital and looked around until she found someone's ID card left unattended, filched it and donned a green smock. It was only a matter of ten minutes or so until she located Doctor Robert Ruark coming out of surgery.

And from then on she managed to keep him in sight for most of the day.

As the church bells rang out three-o' clock, Alice was entering the boutique to hopefully finish what she had begun with Nina the day before. She browsed through the dresses for a minute or so, waiting patiently for Nina to pop out of the back room. Some one was in there, that was evident from the sounds of boxes being moved about; and Alice was fairly certain that Melissa was being interviewed for a trainee job with Rosa's real estate firm, having asked Rosa to set something up as soon as possible. Rosa had promised to call her first thing in the morning.

She began to tap her foot impatiently after five minutes had elapsed and no Nina.

The sounds continued to come from the back room and Alice, curious, decided to take a look for herself.

"Nina?" she called at the door's entrance, waiting a moment before walking in unannounced. There was a sudden flurry of sounds at that, as if someone were hurriedly...

'Getting dressed!' Alice realized, and as the jealous rage settled down upon her, Alice burst into the store room to find two women waiting for her!

Nina was pulling a dress over her head, and trying to place her right foot in a shoe at the same time and losing the battle. While a strange female sat leaning back quietly on a loveseat with a red and black design, totally nude except for a pair of black-lace-thigh highs adorning legs that were spread far apart, for Nina had obviously only seconds before been kneeling between them.

She sneered at Alice. And Alice would later swear that the woman's cunt moved as if saying something to her, for Alice had to exert all her willpower to tear her eyes from the woman's clean-shaven cunt and look her in the eye.

"You must be that Ruark bitch thinks Nina's her fuck toy," she said still sneering, and slowly brought her legs together and then stood up to face Alice.

Taken aback at the turn of events, Alice looked to Nina for guidance and information. The young girl gave her both with one word.

"Aimee," she said and trembled with fear. By the time Alice turned back to Aimee, Nina's lover had a razor in her hand and was waving it threateningly at Alice, who had only one course of action -- retreat.

Backing out of the room, Alice's eyes flitting from the razor to the naked Aimee's eyes, Alice used her hand as her eyes to avoid falling down as she backed up fearful of becoming a victim in a sordid love triangle.

Aimee moved quickly, breasts jouncing to and fro as she closed the distance between them, then put the razor to Alice's dark-skinned neck.

"Don't!"

The voice was Nina's, and although terrified of the consequences, she held a small caliber weapon that although wavering back and forth, was primarily pointed at Aimee.

"Don't make me do it Aimee. I love you! You know it. She's... she's been good to me too, and you know better than anyone I need people who are nice."

The tears were streaming down the young girl's face.

"I know I shouldn't have gone with her, especially the second time, but I swear I won't... ever again. But if you hurt her... if you hurt her, I'll use this..."

Nina waved the gun in the air, dramatically.

"On me!"

"No! Don't!" Aimee cried out in alarm. The same words formed on Alice's lips, but the razor at her throat, already having drawn some blood with a minor slice, froze the words in her throat.

Slowly, carefully, Aimee lowered the razor.

"Grab a scarf from the table there," she said tonelessly to Alice. "Stem the blood. It's only a little cut. Then get out."

A wide-eyed Nina now held the gun to her temple.

"Nina," Alice said. "I'm going to leave. I won't be back, I promise, I won't ever be back. Just... put the gun down, please..."

Alice looked at Aimee and said, "For the both of us. We do love you; don't take your love away from the both of us, please?"

"Are you really going?" Nina asked, as if it weren't possible she would and things might return to what passed for normal.

"Yes," Alice responded, and holding the scarf to her neck wound, she moved to the boutique's entrance on wobbling legs. As she stepped into the street, she turned her head to look back and saw Nina handing the weapon to Aimee who quickly replaced it in the drawer it had come from.

Alice called out, "Goodbye, Nina I meant what I said."

The last thing Alice saw as she turned away from the store was the hatred in Aimee's eyes as they followed her out. But she heard Aimee gasp and cry, "Oh, dear god, Nina, what were you thinking?"

And then Alice stumbling half the time, made her way to her car where she sat crying for thirty minutes or more before driving home.

It was five after four when Nola watched Robert come out of surgery with a pretty nurse who was blushing at something he'd just said to her.

As they approached Nola who had busied herself with a clip board and hoped she was invisible, at least to the pair going past her, she heard Robert say,

"It was a perfectly valid question."

"No it wasn't," the nurse protested. "In fact, I'm still not sure I heard you right."

Nola knew that the nurse wanted him to repeat whatever it was because she had needed a moment to formulate an answer that might satisfy him.

"I said," and he smiled down at her and took her gently by the elbow, "how often do you masturbate? It's a simple enough question."

'Yeah, ' thought Nola, 'and one that can open all sorts of possibilities.'

And she strained to hear the answer.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes, Toni, I do."

"Maybe six times a week." Having said this, Toni's hand flew to her mouth as if to stem any further information from leaking out.

"Well," Robert said, obviously pleased with eliciting the response from young Toni, "It shows that you're a healthy, normal woman."

"Really?" She replied wonderment in her tone and she leaned into him.

"I had the impression it was kinda perverted."

"Nonsense," he said, we all have needs and that's one way of insuring that they're met."

"You're not just saying that Doctor Ruark?"

"Of course I'm not just saying it. I mean every word and please, call me Robert, or Rob."

"Rob," she said testing the sound of his name.

"Yes, Rob is fine. But I would suggest you call me Doctor Ruark in the hospital, to conform with the rules, okay?"

"Oh, sure, of course."

"Now where exactly do you live, Toni?"

"I share an apartment with two other girls on Malibu. It's real close to the ocean and you can watch the surfers almost all day. They're really crazy, you know?"

"I do indeed," Robert responded. "I see one or two every week in surgery for a host of reasons, none of which would have happened if they went roller-blading instead."

Nola Gonzalez listened to them and then played her recorder back to see what if anything she'd captured. She had spent a small fortune for this recording device, and while it could produce spectacular results, all to often it garbled the entire conversation. Today, however, it was working to perfection, and that brought a smile to Nola's face.

She diligently followed the couple at a discreet distance in her Honda, drove past them as they parked and circled the block to park three car lengths behind them.

It wasn't difficult to figure out which apartment they were in for of the three available units, two had male names on the mailboxes and the third began with the name Toni Boydan.

"Bingo!" Nola whispered and using a credit card slipped the lock and entered the vestibule. She waited for several minutes to make sure no one was coming out to challenge her and then moved quietly to the door of Toni's apartment and put her ear to the door.

It was so quiet Nola thought she might be eavesdropping on an empty apartment and moved from the front door down the corridor to the rear exit and once again listened carefully.