Desert Places

by Erica Abbott

  “So we’ll just have to try again.”

  Lea came to her and said softly, “Tell me what you want, Jean. Show me.”

  She asked all of the questions silently, one by one.

  Here? Or here?

  More?

  Like this?

  And Jean answered every question with her body, gave up the secrets of a lover to Lea. She surrendered everything. When she finally had to beg Lea to stop, Lea collapsed happily on top of her. Jean cradled Lea’s head on her belly, stroking her fingers through the soft waves of her hair.

  “All right?” Lea asked softly.

  “God, Lea.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Sleep if you can. I’ll be right here.”

  A pleasant heaviness rendered Jean nearly immobile. “Will you hold me?”

  She could feel Lea’s smile on her skin. “As long as you want.”

  With Lea’s arms securely around her, Jean drifted into the soft clouds.

  Not drifting, falling. She was falling into nothingness. Her body tensed as she waited to hit the ground.

  “No!” She jerked awake, then sat up, trembling. A dream, it was only a dream.

  The next moment Lea was holding her shoulders, caressing her as if she were gentling a horse.

  “It’s okay, Jean. You’re safe. I’m here.”

  “Sorry,” Jean murmured. “Nightmare.”

  “I’d be more surprised if you didn’t have one. What can I do?”

  Jean’s shoulders ached. “How about two ibuprofen and some water?”

  Lea brought her the pills and a glass. Jean swallowed the medicine and said, “Thanks. Sorry I woke you up.”

  “I wasn’t really sleeping. I was listening to you breathe.”

  “Sounds kind of boring.”

  “It wasn’t, actually. I’m just so grateful—” She stopped and Jean realized she was close to tears.

  Jean turned and said, “Come here.”

  Lea seemed to dissolve into Jean’s arms. Every part of her was smooth and strong, yielding, inviting. Jean explored her, taking pleasure in her pleasure, surprised and delighted at Lea’s easy submission.

  Finally Lea gasped, “Touch me now.”

  Jean took her over the edge joyously. As Lea sank back down into the bed, she clutched at Jean. Jean’s head found Lea’s shoulder and she circled one arm around Lea.

  “Thank you,” Jean whispered.

  “I think I’m supposed to say that,” Lea replied, her voice thick and drowsy.

  “Will you stay tonight?” Jean asked softly.

  “As long as you want,” Lea answered a moment before she relaxed into sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jean woke to the pleasant aroma of freshly brewed coffee. She sat up and stretched. Her shoulders were painful and a gentle probing of her side revealed a darkening bruise. Her nose was sore too. She groped for her glasses before she remembered they lay smashed on the roof of the county building. She finally found her backup pair in the bedside table drawer.

  The memory of the fear came back to her, but it was at arm’s length now, softened and eased by the night in Lea’s arms. She didn’t know where they were going exactly but she would always be grateful that Lea had been with her when Jean needed her.

  Lea came in looking freshly showered. “Good morning,” Lea said. “How do you feel?”

  Jean gave her a full report. Lea handed her a steaming mug and gently touched Jean’s cheek. “You’re going to be looking a little like a raccoon, I’m afraid. I should have put ice on that last night.”

  Jean sipped at the hot coffee and warmth curled into her stomach. “We were busy last night.”

  The halfsmile appeared on Lea’s face. “We were too busy to have dinner, in fact. You must be starving.”

  Jean eyed her, disappointed that Lea was wearing the robe Jean had discarded on the bathroom floor. “I’m hungry, all right. Come back to bed.”

  “Before you’ve finished your coffee? What a loose woman you are.”

  “You have no idea. Come here.”

  Lea sighed deeply. “I really, really want to. But I have to go. I have a lot of work to do today and I have to get ready for a press conference we’re doing live for the noon news.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  Lea’s face became grim. “We watched the county attorney fall off the roof of a building last night while he was attempting to kill his deputy. We haven’t had a news story this big in years. I need to tell the press some of what we know while we make sure Franklin’s boss doesn’t get away.”

  “Are you going to make an arrest today?”

  Shaking her head, Lea responded, “Not unless we have to. Tesóro PD is watching the house just in case. I want the ballistics report on Franklin’s gun first and we’re going to execute search warrants today on both home and office.”

  Jean absorbed this. “You’re going to be gone all day, I guess. Do you need me?”

  Lea leaned in for a kiss. “I sure do.”

  Jean returned the kiss and murmured, “I mean at the press conference.”

  Lea sat back again, clearly reluctant. “No. In fact, I recommend you stay in all day. The press and God knows who else will be calling you. If I were you, I wouldn’t answer the phone unless you know the number. Just hide out at home and recover a little. There will be lots of time for you to face people tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Jean added a moment later, “I’m sorry you can’t stay. We could have breakfast, read the Sunday paper and just loaf around.”

  “I promise you such a Sunday morning in the near future.”

  Jean chewed at her lip. “So you’re not going to suddenly become too busy to see me again?”

  Lea took the mug from Jean’s hand and put it on the bedside table. She put her hands on either side of Jean’s face, holding her firmly and looking into her eyes. “Jean, last night was better than I imagined it would be and believe me I thought it was going to be pretty wonderful. I think you’re beautiful and giving and sexy as hell. I would like nothing better than to stay with you today, but I really do have to go. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Lea’s words warmed her down to her toes. “Okay. Go be the sheriff for a while. Will I see you tonight?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Is the casserole still available?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ll be here. I don’t know how late, but I’ll be here.”

  * * *

  Jean watched the news conference on television. Lea had changed into her uniform and looked so cool under the reporters’ questions that Jean had trouble remembering the warm and passionate woman in her bed last night.

  Lea said that official identification of the body was “pending notification of next of kin.” She would only identify the body as “a county employee” and hinted that the official investigation hadn’t yet determined whether the death was a homicide, suicide or accident.

  Jean shook her head. It had been an accident, in a way. Certainly Del had had no intention of dying. The thought caused her to realize with a jolt that she hadn’t thought of Charlotte once yesterday, not at the moment she thought she was going to die nor when she was making love with Lea. She really had put Char behind her, she realized. She had finally left Charlotte in her past where she belonged.

  Did she have a future with Lea? She hoped so but Jean still wondered. They were apparently highly compatible in bed at least, but there was so much more to know. As she watched Lea, she realized that being with a law enforcement officer was probably always going to be difficult. Late-night calls and huge volumes of work—never mind the challenge of Lea being an elected official—faced them if they decided to continue their relationship.

  She set her uncertainty aside for the moment and turned off the set. She had turned her cell phone off before her shower but now she picked it up and checked her voice mail.

  There was a brief message of concern from Rita and a much longer one from Linda Hawkins. She jotted down both
numbers to return the calls. She didn’t bother to note the numbers of the two newspapers, three television stations and one radio station that wanted to interview her about last night. But there was also one call she felt compelled to return right away.

  “Commissioner Forsythe,” Jean said. “Thank you for calling.”

  “Oh, my dear,” Forsythe sounded genuinely distressed, “are you all right? I just talked to Carl Parson at the Tesóro Press and he told me all about it.”

  I doubt that, given what Lea isn’t telling the press. Jean said cautiously, “I’m not sure what he told you.”

  “He said—he said it was Del—I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it. It must be a mistake of some sort.”

  Jean bristled. “I was there, Commissioner and I can promise you that Del Franklin managed to throw me off that roof.”

  “Oh! Of course, I didn’t mean it—I didn’t mean you’d made a mistake, I just—why would Del do such a thing?”

  Jean didn’t want to risk saying anything more, so she settled for, “He didn’t tell me. I’m sure the police and the sheriff’s office will figure out everything eventually.”

  “Yes, of course. Of course. I should call Jaime and Hayward again, I suppose. We’ll need to write a press release or something tomorrow. You’ll be there, I assume?”

  “Why?” Jean exclaimed. Then she remembered: the board met with the county attorney every Monday morning at ten o’clock. “Is the board making me the acting county attorney?”

  “Yes, of course. I talked to Jaime and Hayward earlier this morning. Who else? I mean you haven’t been here all that long but you’re Del’s deputy after all. And whatever else is going on, we at least know you’re not involved.”

  Jean wanted to laugh. How fortunate it was that she’d been a victim of Del’s murder attempt. She didn’t want to think what this would mean for her relationship with Lea. She said, “We can talk about this in the morning, Commissioner. I’ll see you then.”

  She related the conversation to Lea over their late dinner that evening. Lea had arrived looking tired and Jean tried to guide the conversation away from her day until they were settled with coffee cups in her living room.

  “I talked to your mother today for a while,” Jean said. “She called to find out if I was all right. It took all I had to keep her from driving over here to give me chicken soup and a shoulder massage.”

  Lea smiled. “That’s Mother. I’m surprised she didn’t ask for details about last night.”

  “Are you referring to Del Franklin trying to kill me or what happened after we came home?”

  Lea came close to spewing her coffee. “Holy hell, you didn’t tell her about—”

  Laughing, Jean said, “Well, of course. She’s your mother, so I figured she’d want to know every detail.”

  Lea glared at her. “You had better be kidding.”

  “I’m kidding.”

  “Thank God,” Lea sighed. “All I need is one of her ‘advice’ sessions on how to treat a girlfriend.”

  “Wait. Maybe I want to hear more about this.”

  “You don’t, believe me. How about another topic? Any other topic.”

  “Can you tell me about what you found today?” Jean asked.

  Lea set her cup down. Jean was beginning to recognize an air of quiet satisfaction when Lea was pleased about her work. “It’s been an expensive day for the city. Lots of overtime, but it was all worth it. Ballistics matched on the gun in Franklin’s pocket. He killed Lambert and Todd Moorman as well, we’re pretty certain. But the interesting thing is the motive.”

  “How did you figure that out?”

  Lea shook her head. “Notes on his home computer. Fortunately he was the kind of man who wrote his password down in his desk drawer. Apparently he was planning to run for office.”

  “Del? What office?”

  “Perhaps not surprisingly, county commissioner. He wanted to replace Fontana when his term was up in two years. There were notes about funding and campaign strategies.”

  “Two years in advance seems awfully early.”

  “Not these days. It seems clear that everything he was doing was in an attempt to get as much support for his election bid as possible. That certainly made him easy to manipulate.”

  “Commissioner Forsythe called me this afternoon. A reporter told her about Del.”

  Lea sighed. “I’m not surprised. I called in enough favors to keep the news from being official until tomorrow, but it’s hard to keep a secret like this. It’s the crime story of the decade here.”

  Jean thought for a moment. “Did you get the arrest warrant?”

  “Judge issued it late this afternoon. It’s sealed, of course. We thought we’d serve it tomorrow. We still have a team watching the house just in case.”

  “I’m meeting with the board at ten a.m. It seems I’m the new acting county attorney. What about the meeting as a time and place for you to make the arrest?”

  Lea frowned. “I’m not entirely sure I want you anywhere near this arrest.”

  Jean reached over and stroked the back of Lea’s hand. “I understand how you feel, I do,” she said quietly. “But I really would like to be there. I think I’m owed a moment of satisfaction after last night.”

  Lea nodded reluctantly. “All right.” She moved down the couch and curled herself around Jean. “Don’t ever do that to me again, okay? I’ve been in law enforcement for almost twenty-five years and I’ve never been as terrified as I was last night.”

  Easing her hands down Lea’s back, Jean responded, “Won’t it be like that for me if we’re together? Won’t I worry every time you walk out the door, wondering if you’ll come home?”

  Lea went very still. “I don’t know. Jean, if you can’t handle what I do, I don’t know where that leaves us.”

  Touching Lea reignited all of her feelings from the night before. Jean answered, “I hope it leaves us together tonight. Or do you have to go home?”

  “I do have to go home later,” Lea admitted. “But not just yet. Did you have something in mind?”

  “Yes,” Jean said. “But I’d rather show you than tell you.”

  Lea gave her the crooked smile. “I’m really fine with that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jean walked into the board meeting room at exactly ten o’clock. As usual, the three commissioners were seated in the chairs facing the western view. The mountains looked scrubbed clean from the recent rains, bright purple-blue against the sky. Jean herself felt new and refreshed. Lea had had to leave before dawn but every hour before that had been a joy. The proof that their first night together hadn’t been just an accident or the aftermath of her near-death experience cheered Jean immensely.

  “Good morning,” she said to the three commissioners. The tension was so strong that it felt like another person in the room with them. Carolyn Forsythe had her bejeweled hands busy with a pen, worrying it endlessly from one set of fingers to the other. Jaime Fontana looked tired and his shaving that morning left much to be desired—there were a number of dark whiskers visible under the line of his jaw. By contrast, Hayward Lyons looked preternaturally still, like a waiting predator. Jean went around the table to take a seat, grateful that she would be the only one facing the door.

  “How are you holding up, Ms. McAllister?” Commissioner Fontana asked.

  Jean was well aware that her face looked like she’d been in a prizefight that she’d lost badly. Her shoulders were still painful, but she’d been able to lift her arms to wash her hair this morning so she deemed that an improvement. Fortunately Lea had demonstrated that everything else on her body seemed to be working quite well.

  “I’m fine,” she said briskly. “It’s been a difficult weekend, as you might imagine.”

  “Yes, certainly. We do appreciate your dedication, coming in to work this morning.”

  “Commissioner Forsythe indicated to me yesterday that our first order of business this morning is a press release,” Jean said
.

  Carolyn interjected, “We thought we should make an official statement. Trying to make sure that we express the appropriate amount of regret without assuming any undue responsibility for Del—Mr. Franklin’s actions.”

  Politics, Jean sighed inwardly. Corruption, extortion, murder and they’re worried about public relations. She looked across the table at Hayward Lyons and his hatchet-thin face. He was glaring at her although he hadn’t said a word.

  The door opened and all three commissioners turned in surprise. Lea came in first in full uniform, with Detective Munson following as close as her shadow. Two uniformed officers from the Tesóro PD hovered in the doorway behind them.

  “Sheriff, we’re in a meeting here. Please leave,” Fontana demanded.

  Carolyn Forsythe rose to her feet, shaking. “What on earth is going on here?”

  Lea ignored them both. “Hayward Lyons, we have a warrant for your arrest. Please stand up and put your hands on your head.”

  “What the hell!” Fontana exclaimed. Forsythe sank down into her chair again, all color drained from her face.

  “Ward, what are they talking about?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  Lyons turned and glared at her. “Shut the hell up. Christ.”

  Munson reached up and put handcuffs on Lyons. As he shifted him away from the table, Lyons said to Lea, “This is bullshit.”

  “There are two counts of conspiracy to commit murder and one of attempted murder. I think you’ll be interested to know that the late Mr. Franklin had quite a bit to say about you in his personal notes.”

  “Notes from a dead man!” Lyons spat.

  Jean realized how much he had been counting on Franklin’s death to keep him safe. From his perspective it must have been just as good as Jean falling to her death instead.

  Munson marched Lyons out of the room, saying over his shoulder, “Sorry to break up the meeting, folks.”

  Jean wanted to laugh—Munson had actually made sort of a joke. She didn’t think he’d had it in him.

  Lea was the last to leave the room, making brief reassuring eye contact with Jean before she left.

  Jean cleared her throat. “I think it’s time we started to work on that press release,” she said to the two stunned people remaining. “We have a lot to cover.”