"Your fault?"
"I'm the one who persuaded her to go out with Mallory in the first place. She didn't want to. It started out as a silly joke, and then she . . . she fell in love with him. Oh, Jason!"
"You can't blame yourself for that," he said firmly.
Paige looked around in despair. "I can't live in this apartment anymore. I have to get out of here."
Jason took her in his arms. "Let's get married right away."
"It's too soon. I mean, Kat isn't even ..."
"I know. We'll wait a week or two."
"All right."
"I love you, Paige."
"I love you, too, darling. Isn't it stupid? I feel guilty because Kat and I both fell in love, and she's dead and I'm alive."
The photograph appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. It showed a smiling Ken Mallory with his arm around Lauren Harrison. The caption read: "Heiress to Wed Doctor."
Paige stared at it in disbelief. Kat had been dead for only two days, and Ken Mallory was announcing his engagement to another woman! All the time he had been promising to marry Kat, he had been planning to marry someone else.
That's why he killed Kat. To get her out of the way!
Paige picked up the telephone and dialed police headquarters.
"Inspector Burns, please."
A moment later, she was talking to the inspector.
"This is Dr. Taylor."
"Yes, doctor."
"Have you seen the photograph in this morning's Chronicle?"
"Yes."
"Well, there's your motive!" Paige exclaimed. "Ken Mallory had to shut Kat up before Lauren Harrison found out about her. You've got to arrest Mallory." She was almost yelling into the telephone.
"Wait a minute. Calm down, doctor. We may have a motive, but I told you, we don't have a shred of evidence. You said yourself that Dr. Hunter would have had to be unconscious before Mallory could perform an abortion on her. After I spoke to you, I talked to our forensic pathologist again. There was no sign of any kind of blow that could have caused unconsciousness."
"Then he must have given her a sedative," Paige said stubbornly. "Probably chloral hydrate. It's fast-acting and—"
Inspector Burns said patiently, "Doctor, there was no trace of chloral hydrate in her body. I'm sorry—I really am—but we can't arrest a man because he's going to get married. Was there anything else?"
Everything else. "No," Paige said. She slammed down the receiver and sat there thinking. Mallory has to have given Kat some kind of drug. The easiest place for him to have gotten it would be the hospital pharmacy.
Fifteen minutes later, Paige was on her way to Embarcadero County Hospital.
Pete Samuels, the chief pharmacist, was behind the counter. "Good morning, Dr. Taylor. How can I help you?"
"I believe Dr. Mallory came by a few days ago and picked up some medication. He told me the name of it, but I can't remember what it was."
Samuels frowned. "I don't remember Dr. Mallory coming by here for at least a month."
"Are you sure?"
Samuels nodded. "Positive. I would have remembered. We always talk football."
Paige's heart sank. "Thank you."
He must have written a prescription at some other pharmacy. Paige knew that the law required that all prescriptions for narcotics be made out in triplicate— one copy for the patient, one to be sent to the Bureau of Controlled Substances, and the third for the pharmacy's files.
Somewhere, Paige thought, Ken Mallory had a prescription filled. There are probably two or three hundred pharmacies in San Francisco. There was no way she could track down the prescription. It was likely that Mallory had gotten it just before he murdered Kat. That would have been on Saturday or Sunday. If it was Sunday, I might have a chance, Paige thought. Very few pharmacies are open on Sunday. That narrows it down.
She went upstairs to the office where the assignment sheets were kept and looked up the roster for Saturday. Dr. Ken Mallory had been on call all day, so the chances were that he had had the prescription filled on Sunday. How many pharmacies were open on Sunday in San Francisco?
Paige picked up the telephone and called the state pharmaceutical board.
"This is Dr. Taylor," Paige said. "Last Sunday, a friend of mine left a prescription at a pharmacy. She asked me to pick it up for her, but I can't remember the name of the pharmacy. I wonder if you could help me."
"Well, I don't see how, doctor. If you don't know ..."
"Most drugstores are closed on Sunday, aren't they?"
"Yes, but . . ."
"I'd appreciate it if you could give me a list of those that were open."
There was a pause. "Well, if it's important ..."
"It's very important," Paige assured her.
"Hold on, please."
There were thirty-six stores on the list, spread all over the city. It would have been simple if she could have gone to the police for help, but Inspector Burns did not believe her. Honey and I are going to have to do this ourselves, Paige thought. She explained to Honey what she had in mind.
"It's a real long shot, isn't it?" Honey said. "You don't even know if he filled the prescription on Sunday."
"It's the only shot we have." That Kat has. "I'll check out the ones in Richmond, the Marina, North Beach, Upper Market, Mission, and Potrero, and you check out the Excelsior, Ingleside, Lake Merced, Western Addition, and Sunset areas."
"All right."
At the first pharmacy Paige went into, she showed her identification and said, "A colleague of mine, Dr. Ken Mallory, was in here Sunday for a prescription. He's out of town, and he asked me to get a refill, but I can't remember the name of it. Would you mind looking it up, please?"