Aphrodisiac Read Online Free Page B

period. They just weren’t right for her figure. Sometimes she’d even pair them with a baggy Planet Hollywood sweatshirt that made her head look like a peanut —”
    “Hold on, Ms., um, what was your name?”
    “Oz.” I counted down. Ten, nine, eight…here it comes.
    An amused glint. “Like the wizard?”
    “Exactly.” Remind me to change my name.
    “Ms. Oz, I’m familiar with the case, and I can tell you our medical examiner was quite certain there was no struggle.” He opened a file and slid a pair of glasses on for a quick read. “Nothing in the way of breaking and entering at her residence. Prescription antidepressants less than a year ago. Next of kin acknowledged some problems with alcohol. Both the brother and handwriting analyst confirmed that the suicide note was written by the deceased. Pretty open and shut.”
    I’d heard it all before and wasn’t convinced. “The suicide note was my next point.” I placed my copy on his desk, since he made no effort to search the file for the one that was most likely in it. “See the first line about the golden priestess of the sa-zi-ga ? That’s me.”
    “What’s you?”
    “I am the golden priestess of the sa-zi-ga .”
    “Congratulations.” He nodded the way you do when humoring someone gone bughouse.
    “I realize my dull strawberry blond curls may not look so golden at this moment. I’m overdue for a highlighting.”
    “Tell me something. Just what does this crap have to do with your friend’s suicide?”
    Time for the hard sell. “Gwendolyn Applebee’s suicide note is not a suicide note at all. It is a beautifully written poem filled with metaphors that contain a covert message. A message written under the eyes of a killer she needed to deceive. And the secrets within it will lead us straight to her murderer.”
    “Right. I saw that movie, too. Unfortunately, in the real world most people in a situation like that couldn’t even write their own name, much less compose some kind of mystery poem.”
    “Gwendolyn Applebee wasn’t ‘most people.’ She could name every botanical species on the planet. She could read three ancient languages. Her articles were published in academic journals. She was an accomplished poet. And, oh, you should have seen her watercolors.”
    “I’m sure they were lovely. Sorry about your friend, Ms. Oz. However —”
    “Believe me, this poem is not just a poem. One line refers to a magician. Then there’s the garden of bells and a pearl. A crescent moon. Oh, yes, the loyal sentry. That’s me again. I am the sentry as well as the sa-zi-ga priestess.”
    “Welcome to the land of Oz,” he murmured, no doubt thinking I wouldn’t hear it. He cleared his throat. “Ms. Oz…”
    “It’s Dr. Oz, Detective.” Reaching into my purse I handed him my business card. “With all due respect, I am a psychologist, and while Gwendolyn Applebee may have been a complicated woman, she was not suicidal.” I didn’t like being ridiculed, and the edge in my voice showed it.
    He responded in kind. “I don’t care whether you’re Dr. Oz or the wizard himself. Unless you can come up with some earthshaking details, no way are we going to pursue this case any further.”
    And to think I considered giving him a tube of Do-Me-Good personal lubricant as a thank-you gift for reactivating Gwen’s case.
    Detective Roach casually glanced down at my card. “Sex therapist?”
    “That is correct. And that is what the sa-zi-ga is all about. It’s an ancient form of sex therapy that was practiced about four thousand years ago. Remedies for helping men maintain their erections, increasing their ability to pleasure a woman, all sorts of things.”
    He broke into a demented grin.
    “Do you find this funny, Detective? You think there weren’t premature ejaculators in the days of the pyramids?”
    He sat there speechless, his mouth hanging open like a hound dog’s on a hot day. His eyes panned left to right, checking out his colleagues at