She was actually hungry. She'd never felt hungry in the morning in her life. Lately, she'd begun to forget what hunger felt like altogether. But right now, bacon, eggs, toast and orange juice sounded like heaven. She danced beneath the water, humming as she worked shampoo into her hair. A dark shadow loomed on the other side of the glass door. Seth slid the door open, his eyes raking her soapy body.
“I tried to be good,” he said. “I tried to be self-controlled. I tried to be civilized and restrained. I tried to resist temptation.”
Raine rinsed foam out of her eyes and blinked at him.
“Oh? And?”
He stepped into the shower and reached for her. “I failed.”
Chapter 14
“You remember the drill?”
Raine leaned across the seat and kissed him. “Don't worry, Seth.”
She meant the smile to be reassuring, but it had the opposite effect. It made him uncomfortably aware that she wasn't taking him seriously enough. If she knew the whole truth, she'd be scared to death.
“I didn't ask if I should worry. I asked if you remember the drill.”
The hard edge in his voice made her pull away, eyes wide and wary. He took a deep breath and tried to soften his tone. “Not one foot out the door of that place without contacting me. Got it?”
“Yes. You have a lovely day, too, Seth. Have fun inspecting the warehouses.” She smiled over her shoulder at him, and was promptly swallowed into the revolving glass doors of the building.
He fought down the urge to run in after her, and distracted himself by keying her transmitter codes into the handheld monitor. He adjusted it until the cluster of signals were showing in the grid, spatial data streaming in a continuous flow of changing coordinates alongside the flashing icons. He punched up McCloud's number.
Connor answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“I need to know everything you can find out about a guy named Peter Marat,” Seth said. “Get Davy to run a check. He worked for Lazar about seventeen years ago until he mysteriously drowned.”
“What's the connection?”
“He's Raine's dad. She wants to prove that Lazar snuffed him. An apparent sailboat accident when she was a kid.”
There was a brief silence. “The plot thickens,” Connor said, in a mock ominous tone.
“Just get on it. One of you guys has to cover her while I'm in Renton. I'm heading out there now. She's at the office. I planted five Colbits on her yesterday. Here are the codes. Got a pen?”
“Hold on a sec ... yes. Go”
Seth read out the transmitter code sequences. “Key up one of the monitors and get your ass over here, fast. I don't want her uncovered. Get Sean to tail Lazar this morning “
“Yeah, sure. No problem. Hup, hup. You know, Seth, when all this is over, you and I are going to have a serious talk about your social skills.”
“No, we're not”
Seth broke the connection and edged the car back into the dense morning traffic. A window dresser was putting up Thanksgiving decorations in a shop, and he stared at him idly while he was waiting for the light A wicker cornucopia with squashes and corncobs spilling out, a papier-maché turkey, mannequins dressed in pilgrim garb. His stomach clenched. Jesse had been killed in January. The winter holidays without Jesse were staring him in the face. He wasn't ready.
Not that holidays had been any big deal to them when they were kids, on the contrary; but they had taken on more significance once they started hanging out with Hank. The holidays had been important to Hank, like some kind of emotional link to his long-dead wife, so he and Jesse had played along, grumbling all the way. Every year they'd buy a pre-roasted Safeway turkey, pumpkin pies, stuffing, all the rest of that holiday slop. They'd scarf the stuff off of paper plates and spend the night listening to Hank's old Julie Andrews and Perry Como Christmas albums, knocking back shots of Jack Daniels until Hank started getting maudlin about his lost Gladys. That was their cue to take him by the armpits and haul him off to bed. It had gotten messy and sad towards the end, when Hank was so sick, but it was as much of a family as any of them had, and they were all three of them grateful for it
For some reason, in the last few years after Hank died, he and Jesse had kept up the habit of hanging together on the holidays. They usually opted for Mexican or Thai rather than the insipid traditional stuff, but the shots of Jack deep into the night were a memorial to Hank. The first Christmas after his death had been depressing, but they'd gotten through it. They'd cracked a lot of lame jokes, clenched their teeth, tossed back the whiskey, and faced it down together.
He had no idea how he was going to face it down alone.
The swishy guy in the store window was arranging the pilgrim maiden's long yellow hair. Seth was comparing the Dynel floss to the warm gold of Raine's hair when the idea came to him. The perfect way to get through Christmas unscathed.
He could kidnap Raine and take her away to the coast with him. Find a hotel room with an ocean view and a Jacuzzi tub and spend the whole holiday in an endorphin-induced haze. Ply her with champagne, hand-feed her oysters on the half shell in between bouts of hot, juicy sex while rain pounded against the window, and surf pounded on the shore. White foam surging across the sand in sensual, rhythmic pulses.
Hell, yes. He almost shouted with glee. That would be one righteous mother of a distraction. Jesse would have been proud of him. He could persuade her. He could play her like an instrument. She was so sweet, so affectionate. It would be awesome. He could hardly wait. He got so excited, thinking about it, that for a minute or two, he completely forgot what the hell he was here for.
Jesse, Lazar, Novak. Bloody retribution. Christ, what was he thinking. Everything was subject to this investigation. Everything.
Still, a part of his mind clung stubbornly to the idea of himself and Raine, the hot tub, the pounding surf. Maybe he could get this fucking nightmare wrapped up by then, and Christmas at the coast with her could be his reward. Assuming he lived through it.
Horns blared. Someone howled an obscenity. The light was green, and he was still staring at the pilgrim maiden's vacuous smile. He laid his foot on the gas and forced himself to remember what Jesse's body had looked like when Novak was done with him.
Just the image to shake a guy's priorities right back into place.
“Can you wait for me?” Raine asked the cabbie. “I won't be long “
The cabbie slumped down in his seat and rummaged for a paperback book. 'The meter's gonna be running “ he informed her.
“That'll be fine,” she assured him.
She rechecked the Lynnwood address on the scrap of paper and walked slowly up to the bungalow. She rang the bell. The door opened and a white-haired woman peered out from behind the chain. “Yes?”
“Dr. Fischer?”
That would be me.”
“I’m Raine Cameron. I called you this morning regarding the autopsy report of Peter Lazar.”
The older woman hesitated, and unhooked the chain. “Come in.”
The doctor seated her in a little parlor, and brought out coffee and a plate of sugar cookies. She sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.
“So, Ms. Cameron,” she said briskly. “How can I help you? I would have been happy to answer your questions on the phone.”
“I didn't have the privacy I needed, unfortunately. I want to ask a few questions about this report.” She fished out the manila envelope that the Severin Bay Coroner's office had sent her.
The doctor's eyebrows snapped together as she scanned the sheets of paper inside. “This was pretty clear and straightforward, as I recall. It was ruled an accident. I remember it quite well. I was the only doctor in the area who had a specialization in pathology, so I was called upon to do autopsies in surrounding communities fairly often. We didn't have many incidents of suspicious death in a place as small as Severin Bay, though. They tended to stick in one’s memory.”