“Williams does all right-private sector, tenure. But it was Straffo’s kid who found the body. This guy’s looking good for doing Foster, in his kid’s school, where his kid can slip on the blood and vomit, and he’s representing him. Yeah, takes all kinds.”
“It’s possible Straffo believes he’s innocent.”
“Yeah, maybe. Straffo doesn’t know that his own wife was one of the notches on Williams’s belt. Williams likes to hunt and gather among the staff and mothers. Has the morals of a rabbit, and Rabbit’s one of the things we’ve got him on. Had some in his toy box in his bedroom. It’s the illegals we charged him with so far, and that’s where Straffo answered the call. It bugs me.”
“Lawyers do what they do, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, but say you had a kid and you find out one of her teachers is playing twist the pretzel in her school.” Because her current position was too comfortable, and she feared she might just drop into sleep, Eve pushed up. “That he uses illegal substances for his own sexual satisfaction. Do you figure you’d jump to defend him?”
“It’s hard to say, but at first thought, unlikely. Then again, maybe Straffo has the morals of a rabbit, too.”
“Bet he wouldn’t jump so fast if he knew his client had dipped into his own personal well.”
“Do you intend to tell him?”
Eve thought of Allika, her guilt, her fear. “Not unless it pertains to the case. If I find and can prove that Williams killed Foster because Foster knew about the affair, yeah, Straffo’s going to get some bad news.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t already know?”
“No, I’m not sure. And I’d be looking hard at him, too, if I could place him at or near the scene. He was in his office by eight-thirty that morning. That gives him a little squeeze time to have done it, but it’s a very tight squeeze. He was in a partners’ meeting from eight-thirty to nine, and in his office again, with his paralegal, admin, and several others in and out until he left for a lunch meeting at noon. He’s looking clear on this.”
“I’m not quite sure why you would have looked at him. It wasn’t Foster doing his wife, after all. Now if Williams had been murdered…”
“Reputation.” She shrugged. “It’s not such a stretch that Foster was killed to protect a reputation. Williams-that beeps the loudest. But I don’t think Straffo would have cared to have his wife’s infidelity made public.” She fought back a yawn. “Bad for the image.”
“I can promise, Lieutenant, that if I were in Straffo’s position, I’d aim for you and your paramour. Not some innocent bystander.”
“Back at you.” But because it made her think of Magdelana again, Eve shut it off. “Anyway, we’ll keep squeezing Williams, see what oozes out. Um…I’m getting poked from various directions that we-I usewe as it’s going to be the only pronoun in this case-need to go see Mavis and the kid.”
“All right.”
“That’s it? Just all right?”
“It’ll be fine. We survived the birth. A baby all wrapped up in a pink blanket should be a welcome relief after that ordeal.”
“I guess. Peabody says we need to take a gift. A teddy bear or something.”
“That should be simple enough.”
“Good. You do that part. I don’t get the bear thing. Aren’t bears something people generally try to avoid so as not to be mauled?”
When he laughed, she glanced over. And just looking at him, seeing the laugh in his eyes when he looked at her, had everything inside her going warm.
She laid her hand over his as he drove through the gates of home. “Let’s try for that balance Nadine was asking about,” she said. “And for a while, no case, no work, no obligations. Just you. Just me.”
“My favorite combination.”
She made the move, wrapping her arms around him, rubbing her lips to his when they were out of the car. And the warmth that had bloomed inside her spread like spring. Every doubt, every hurt, every fear, every question drained away in it.
Just you, she thought again as they glided into the house. Just me.
By tacit agreement they made their way to the elevator. The stairs would take too long. Once inside, riding up, he nudged her coat off her shoulders, and she his. But the gestures weren’t hurried, weren’t frantic. Instead they were smooth and easy, with the knowledge they’d reclaimed something that had slipped, just for a moment, a finger’s span out of reach.
In the bedroom there was a glimmer of moonshine, soft and blue through the windows, through the skylight over the bed. They undressed each other, distracted each other with long, lingering kisses, long, lingering strokes.
Her heart felt as if it were back, exactly where it belonged, and beating fast and thickly against his.
“I missed you,” she said, holding tight. “I missed us.”
“A ghra,”he murmured, and thrilled her.
She was his again, completely his again. His strong, complicated, and endlessly fascinating wife. Close and his, with nothing between them. The taste of her filled him, the long, lean lines of her enticed him.
Here was the balance Nadine had questioned, and that no one who didn’t feel it, didn’t know it, didn’t have could ever fully understand. They simply fit, all the complex and ragged edges of both of them, simply fit. One to the other, to make each whole.
When they lay on the bed she wrapped around him, and she sighed again. A sound he knew meant they were home, at last. Needing to give, he used his lips, his hands, his body, until the sigh became a moan.
No one else, she thought, could ever reach her as he did. And, feeling him quiver at her touch, knew for him it was the same.
As she rolled over that first liquid crest, she cupped his face in her hands. She brought his lips to hers once more for a kiss of shattering tenderness.
“My love,” he repeated in Irish. My only. My heart. She heard his voice as he slipped inside her, saw his eyes as they moved together.
Slow and lovely and real. And every brutal thing that belonged to the world was separate from this. Then fingers twined, mouths meeting, they slipped away together.
Later, curled against him, content and drifting, she murmured, “Lucky us,” and she heard him chuckle in the dark before she slid into sleep.
12
HE WAS INCENSED. HE COULDN’T BELIEVE SHE was going to go through with it. Bluffing, he decided. She was bluffing.
Reed Williams cut through the water with hard, angry strokes. He’d tried sweet talk, he’d tried temper, he’d tried threats. But that damn Arnette was being hardnosed about this-the principal standing on principle.
Or professing to be. Hypocritical bitch.
Bluffing, he thought again as he kicked off the wall of the pool and streaked his way to another lap. He’d just do another five laps, let her stew a little.
He’d been sure she’d stand by him, or if she wavered, she’d value her own position enough to secure his.
It was that fucking cop, he decided. Had to be a dyke-she and that brown-eyed partner of hers. Real bitches.
Most women were, you just had to know how to handle them.
And if he knew anything, he knew how to handle women.
Knew how to handle himself. Knew how to handle whatever came along.
He’d handled Craig, hadn’t he? Poor bastard.
No way they were going to hang the poor bastard’s murder on him, especially with Oliver Straffo in his corner.
And wasn’t that lovely, lovely irony? Not that Straffo’s wife had been a particularly exciting lay. But all that guilt and misery had given a certain flavor to the quick bump at the holiday party, and the single nooner at his place.
But God knew, he’d had better.
He wasn’t going to resign over a little sex, that was for damn sure. And if Arnette followed through and began termination procedures, well, he’d warned her. He wouldn’t go down alone.
Once he reminded her of that-again-she’d settle down.
A little winded, he finished his final lap, gripped the edge of the pool as he began to remove his goggles.
He felt a little prick, a little buzz just below the crown of his head. He lifted a hand to swat at it, as if it were a mosquito. His fingers tingled.