“Welcome. Doyle, remember?”
“Right. I thought if you put it on the door, sometimes it might even be true. The welcome, that is.”
He glanced up to see her smiling. “It might. Either way it’s nice.”
“And you could get one made—I bet Syl could find a metal artist to do it—to put up when you’re not in the mood for company. It could say ‘Go away’ in Gaelic.”
“That’s a pretty good idea. Actually, I know how to say ‘Fuck off’ in Irish, and that might be more interesting.”
“Oh, Simon. I missed you.”
She was laughing when she said it, and as she reached for her wine, he laid a hand on her arm.
“I missed you, Fiona. Damn it.”
“Oh, thank God.” She put her arms around him again, laid her head on his shoulder. “That makes it more balanced, like the two chairs on the porch, right?”
“I guess it does.”
“I have to get this out, and I don’t mean to put pressure on you. But when I dropped Mai and Sylvia off, after I did, all I could think about was that poor girl and what she went through in the last hours of her life. And when I pulled up here, home, and saw you, I was so relieved, so relieved, Simon, that I didn’t have to have all that in my head and be alone with it. I was so glad to see you on the porch, waiting for me.”
He started to say he hadn’t been waiting. Knee-jerk, he realized. But he had been waiting, and it felt good knowing she’d wanted him to be.
“You got back later than I figured, so I—Crap.”
“Last-minute shopping blitz, then the traffic—”
“No, not that.” He’d remembered the FBI and decided he should get it all over with at once. “The feds were here—Tawney and his partner. I don’t think they had anything new, but—”
“A follow-up.” She backed up, picked up her wine. “I told him before I left that I’d be home sometime today. I’m not going to get back to him tonight. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“But I need you to tell me what you know about it. There wasn’t a way for me to find out any of the details, and I want to know.”
“Okay. Sit down. I was thinking about putting something to eat together. I’ll tell you while I do.”
“I have frozen dinners in the freezer.”
He sneered. “I’m not eating those girl diet deals. And before you say ‘sexist,’ look me in the eye and tell me those Lean Cuisine numbers aren’t marketed to women.”
“Maybe they are, mostly, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good, or that guys who eat them grow breasts.”
“I’m not taking any chances. You’ll eat what I give you.”
Amused, as he’d meant her to be, she sat. “What are you going to give me?”
“I’m working on it.” He opened her fridge, scanned, poked into compartments. “Deputy Davey came by to tell me the day you left,” he began.
As he spoke, he tossed some frozen shoestring fries onto a cookie sheet, stuck them in the oven. Bacon went into the microwave. He found a tomato James must have left behind and sliced it thin.
“She was beaten? But—”
“Yeah. It sounds like he’s trying to find his style.”
“That’s horrible,” Fiona murmured. “And it feels true. Was she... she was beaten and trapped and strangled. And still rape puts a clutch in the throat.”
“No, she wasn’t raped. At least that wasn’t part of what Davey told me, or in any of the news reports.” He glanced over, scanned her face. “Are you sure you want this now?”
“Yes. I need to know what might be coming.”
Simon kept his back to her, ordered himself calm as he layered cheese, bacon, tomatoes between slices of bread. “He deviated with the beating, and with keeping her longer. Otherwise, it sounds as if he followed pattern.”
“Who was she? You know,” Fiona said quietly. “You’d have made it a point to know.”
When Simon slid the sandwiches onto the frying pan, the butter he’d spread on the outside sizzled. “She was a student. She wanted to pursue a career in physical education and nutrition. She taught yoga classes and did some personal training work. She was twenty, outgoing and athletic, according to the reports. She was an only child. Her mother’s a widow.”
“God. God.” She covered her face with her hands for a moment, then scrubbed hard and dropped them. “It can always get worse.”
“She fits the body type. Tall, slender, long legs, toned.” He flipped the sandwiches. “If there’s any more, the press doesn’t have it.”
“Did he mark her?”
“Roman numeral four. You’re wondering what number he plans to put on you. I want you to hear me, Fiona, and to understand I don’t say what I don’t mean.”
“I already understand that.”
She waited, watched as he slid the sandwiches onto plates. Shook the fries from the pan beside them. He pulled out a jar of pickles, tossed a couple onto each plate and considered it done.
He put a plate in front of her. “He won’t mark you. He won’t be able to give you a number any more than Perry could. If the cops don’t stop him first, then we’ll stop him. And that’s it.”
She said nothing for a moment, but rose to get a knife, to retrieve the wine. She topped off the glasses, then cut her sandwich into two neat triangles before offering the knife.
“No, thanks.”
She picked up her wine, sipped, set it down. “All right,” she said, meeting his eyes. “All right.”
She lifted half of her sandwich, took a bite. And smiled. “It’s good.”
“A Doyle staple.”
She took another bite and brushed his leg under the table with her sexy purple toes. “It’s good to be home. You know, one of the things I have in those shopping bags is this incredible honey almond scrub they use at the spa. After dinner, and after I give the dogs some more play and attention, we could take a shower. I’ll exfoliate you.”
“Is that code?”
She laughed. “You’ll have to find out.”
“Do you know why I don’t cut my sandwiches into triangles?”
“Why?”
“For the same reason I don’t want to smell like honey and almonds.”
She gave him a wicked look as she picked up a french fry. “Or eat Lean Cuisine. I bet I could change your mind on the scrub. Tell you what. I’ll just do your back. Your big, strong, manly back, and we’ll see how it goes from there. They also had this shop that sold very interesting lingerie. I bought a little something. A very, very little something, which I’d be inclined to model for you, if you try the scrub.”
“How little?”
“Minuscule.”
“Just the back.”
She smiled and nibbled on a fry. “To start.”
She played with the dogs for an hour, endlessly tossing balls, letting them chase her through the obstacle course, then taking turns playing tug with each of them until he wondered that her arms didn’t pop out of their sockets.
But he could see, even when he left the games and sat on the porch to watch, she used the activities, the dogs, the connections to focus. To block out what they’d spoken of before dinner.
She’d deal, he thought, because that’s what she did. For now, she channeled her energy, and whatever nerves brewed under it, into the dogs and somehow transformed it into joy.
“Now I need that shower.” She swiped at her damp face with the back of her hands.
“You wore them out.”
“Part of the plan.” She held out a hand. “I never asked what you were up to while I was gone.”
“Work. And after work, James and I took in some strip clubs.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We took the dogs,” he said as they walked upstairs.
“Naturally.”
“Newman’s a mean drunk.”
“It’s a problem.” In the bedroom she dug the box of scrub out of the shopping bag, opened it for the jar.
“Actually, if you want some speculation and gossip, I don’t think we’re the only ones who’ll have exfoliated in the shower recently.”
“Sorry, what?”
“I came by to pick up the dogs one morning because I needed some supplies and figured I’d save James the trip. Lori’s car was in the drive.”