Compromising Positions

by Beverly Bird

  There was a short silence. “I’m sure I do.” She called out to a roommate or husband, for someone to bring it to her. “Is this about Dr. Byerly, about that picture of you two?”

  “No. It’s about the man who wanted to take Lisette Chauncy’s, body out of the morgue yesterday.”

  Brigid breathed a quiet, “Oh.” A moment later, she added, “Okay, I’ve got it here.”

  “Turn to the first page of the city section.” He waited. There was the rustle of paper, then he heard her gasp.

  “That could be the guy,” she said, her voice excited. “I mean, he looks different without his hair all slicked back. And that mole underneath his right eye wasn’t there. I would have remembered, that.” She hesitated. “And my guy had a mustache,” she finished.

  “You didn’t mention that yesterday,” Jesse said sharply.

  “It was small, scraggly,” she explained. “Like he was trying to grow it. I didn’t remember it until I saw him looking so cleanshaven here.”

  He recalled, in retrospect, that Charlie might have been sporting the thin beginnings of a mustache yesterday, too, when he had run into him briefly on his way to Angela’s office. It hadn’t seemed odd at the time. He hadn’t yet talked to Brigid.

  He tried to remember the condition of the man’s hair and failed. He’d been in a hurry. But it had probably been combed forward again, greasy or not, or Jesse would have thought something was odd.

  Jesse was sure of one thing. He’d upset some kind of applecart when he’d dashed out of his office. Charlie had no doubt turned tail out of the morgue, covered the two blocks between there and Jesse’s office, while he had been talking to Brigid.

  Why?

  To establish an alibi. Jesse realized. Now he knew two things. Someone had recognized Charlie Price yesterday morning, or they had come damned close.

  “Keep this quiet for the time being. Dr. Cross.” he said finally. “It’s your job.”

  “You don’t have to threaten me,” she said stiffly.

  “Good.” He hung up. rubbed his temples and stood up to go change. It was time to find a pair of hip boots. Hadley or not. the mud was getting deep, and he had no alternative but to start slinging it or sink in it.

  Chapter 16

  By the time he stood in the hallway outside Angela’s room, Jesse felt like a fool. He knocked once, sharply, and Melanie Kaminsky’s voice came back to him.

  He identified himself.

  “Put your ID up to the peephole,” she called back suspiciously. “It doesn’t look like you.”

  He wished he could believe that she was getting carried away with this. Unfortunately, she wasn’t. He stuck his opened wallet up to the hole. A moment later, he heard locks clicking and the door opened. Melanie took one look at him and cracked up.

  “Jesse? What are you doing?” Angela gasped from behind her.

  He was dressed in black jeans—nothing odd about that. But he had on a red Phillies baseball jacket that was marginally too small. He wore a pair of reading glasses that she had never seen him use. He hadn’t shaved, at least since this morning, and it gave him a deliciously disrespectable air, like the one he’d had after spending the night on her sofa. But the kicker was the hat—a fisherman’s cap.

  “It’s not...you.” she managed to gulp, fighting the almost overpowering need to laugh, as well.

  Jesse grimaced. “The jacket and cap are Gunner’s. I swung by my sister’s place on my way. I couldn’t find anything close to what I needed in my own closet.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’ve put it all together. And I didn’t want to be followed here. You were right, and the lunatic does seem to have eyes in the back of his head.”

  Angela felt her legs fold. She sat hard on the sofa. “I’d thought you believed me all day.”

  Jesse looked at Melanie without answering. “Take a break, Detective. Burn off some of the cabin fever. Take as long as you need, and if the Do Not Disturb sign is still out, don’t come back until it’s gone.”

  There was a click as the woman let herself out and the door closed behind her. Angela got to her feet again. She fisted her hands at her sides, her heart thudding too hard, too fast.

  “What are you up to?” she asked, her voice thin.

  He shrugged out of Gunner’s jacket and threw it over a chair. The hat and the glasses followed. He dropped down onto the sofa and looked up at her.

  She was the best thing he had seen all day.

  She wore shorts—of the sweatpants variety again—with a drawstring waist along with a short T-shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair was wild. Her toenails were painted crimson. She looked like a cheerleader again, and the sight was refreshing. wholesome, clean—just what he needed right now. He wondered ut that. How could a woman who was able to take on so many flavors with a simple change of clothing always manage to be just what he needed at any given time?

  “Will you come over here?” he asked. “Will you stop standing there staring at me as if you expect me to grow horns? I’ve got them under control.”

  Angela shook her head helplessly. If the Do Not Disturb sign is still out. don’t come back until it’s gone. Her muscles felt stiff, brittle at the way he gave orders, blithely, without any consideration that his wishes might not be the only ones. “You should have asked me first,” she whispered.

  He knew what she meant and didn’t pretend not to. “Should I have? Really?”

  His voice was soft, caressing, and she understood. She’d been afraid that his behavior toward her would change now. Yet she was still panicked when it didn’t.

  She let out her breath. “I don’t know,” she said miserably.

  “You can bring the sign back in yourself if you like,” he said evenly, and she wondered just how much more patience she could expect this man to possess. She hadn’t even seen him put the sign on the other side of the door. She’d been more preoccupied with the way he looked.

  She shook her head again.

  Jesse reached up and caught her hand. She gave a small gasp. But he didn’t pull. He didn’t demand. He urged and she settled onto his lap, facing him.

  He felt her muscles go rigid. He placed a hand deliberately on each of her thighs. Her skin was warm.

  “This has been the most miserable day I can ever remember having.”

  Angela hesitated, then nodded. “It’s been a doozy.”

  “And this almost—almost—makes it all go away. I don’t want anything more from you than this, Angela.” It wasn’t true, he realized. Not at all. “Until you’re ready to give it,” he added.

  She met his eyes and thought he was probably lying. Something trembled inside her that he even cared enough to bother.

  “You never saw that hair.” It was out before she had know she was going to say it. But it had been tormenting her all nigh

  Jesse tilted his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes. For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer.

  The fact was, he wasn’t used to explaining himself, he realized He was even less familiar with wanting to.

  “Angela, I was there in your office the day you did the autopsy,” he said finally. “I told you that the hair was probably mine. I thought you were genuinely shocked. And I trust my own perceptions of people. That wasn’t a court of law out there today I didn’t take an oath. It was just twenty or so bloodthirsty people who would have loved nothing more than to rake you over the coals and destroy your reputation. Mine, too. At the instigation of Charlie Price. I thought a hair worth splitting. So to speak.”

  “Oh, Jesse. If it ever goes to court, you’ll have to tell the trut and they’ll remember this—they’ll have it on tape—and they’ll know that you lied.” For me. It was both beautiful, and so very dangerous.

  He opened one eye to look at her. “Spoken like a true politician. Better watch yourself there, angel. You might become one of us whether you like it or not”

  “But that’s exactly what will happen!”
/>   “I’ll roll with it if and when the time comes.”

  She had never known anyone as strong, as steady, as this man. The depth of his strength struck her hard. She couldn’t believe he had done this for her. At election time.

  “In the meantime, there’s probably something else you should know,” he added.

  She stiffened instinctively, warily.

  “I probably would have split that hair for anyone under the same circumstances. I would have split it if you were a man, if I had seen that same reaction on your face that day in the morgue. I would have split it if you looked like my mother. But...”

  She held her breath.

  “But I am very, very glad that you don’t look like my mother.”

  He grinned. A breathless laugh escaped her.

  She was no good at this, she thought She never had been. Not even before. She wanted to touch him now. She ached to do it. To get still closer. And she didn’t know how. She knew that if she tried, the reflex would be wooden and clumsy.

  “Angela,” he said softly, and it was as though he had read her mind. “I don’t know how to handle this, either. Damn it. I don’t know what to do.”

  She knew he wasn’t talking about their current problems now. He was talking about what Charlie had done before. Her heart thundered in a paroxysm of hope and dread.

  “I know what I want to do,” he murmured. His voice changed, and her heart thumped so hard against her chest that it stole what little breath she had left. “I want to touch you everywhere he did. The same places, the same skin. I want to somehow erase it for you...the evil, the pain, and lay down different memories in each place instead. Good ones. And I’m scared to death that if I try to do that, you’ll run and I’ll lose you.”

  His words were so perfect. They made everything inside her ache more.

  She couldn’t answer. Her eyes filled. She yearned all over again...and still, in that dark place inside, she feared. But she didn’t fear him anymore. She feared herself.

  “I need to ask you something,” he said. “I need to know. In all this time...has there been anyone else?”

  Angela flinched. “Yes.” She shook her head nervously. “No.”

  He almost smiled. “Which is it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He thought about it.

  Maybe it didn’t. He admitted that he wanted her to say yes for selfish reasons. If she said yes, then that would take some of the pressure off him. There was a difference between holding a nice piece of china and an heirloom antique that could not possibly be replaced.

  If the answer was no, if it turned out that he was holding an heirloom, then sheer panic could make him mishandle it. drop it. If he was faced with an heirloom, and he knew it, then he thought maybe he might never be able to bring himself to touch her at all.

  He wanted to touch her. Desperately. And backing off from her now could quite possibly be as cruel as moving in too quickly—marking her as different, damaged, unworthy of the effort. He felt overwhelmed and inadequate. He almost groaned.

  “Okay,” he said. letting out his breath, taking his hands back deliberately. “Where’s the television remote?”

  She looked at him blankly for a moment. “The remote?”

  “Angel. I badly need something to do with my hands, and the way my instincts are going would scare you to death.”

  She tried to laugh. It came out more like a gasp. “On the table there,” she breathed.

  He shifted his weight to one side to look.

  “Jesse.”

  “What?”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ve got all the time in the world, angel.”

  He managed to smile. He wondered how pained it actually looked.

  Angela hadn’t expected him to stay the night under the circumstances. She ached, both with her own need and with a helplessness she hated. She couldn’t give him anything, and acutely aware of that, she was ashamed. She was terrified to try. But his wanting was there in his eyes anyway, a certain banked heat each time he glanced at her.

  He was frustrated, she saw. He had to be. And frustration would inevitably lead to anger and disgust. She’d seen it happen before.

  At midnight, he ordered a bottle of brandy from room service. “Want some?” he asked, pouring.

  “It’s a safe bet that I’m not going to be driving anywhere tonight. Yes. Thanks.” She sipped nervously and settled on the sofa again.

  Jesse sat down, as well. His eyes fell on the jacket and cap again. He grimaced. “I must have looked like an overgrown adolescent dressed up like that.”

  In spite of everything, she actually felt herself grin. “If you lose the election, I don’t think you should go into private investigation.”

  “This sort of thing has never been required of me before.”

  “Good thing,” she murmured.

  He looked at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

  She hesitated, then chuckled. “Yes.” She sobered. “I don’t think you should try to repeat the process.”

  “Why, Angela. Are you suggesting that I stay here tonight?”

  Her face colored. She made herself look at him. He watched her chin come up.

  Good enough, he thought. Plenty good enough. He nodded. “I’m staying.”

  He took up the remote again and flipped channels. He finally settled on an old movie from the fifties. A young Hepburn was doing a credible job of holding Spencer Tracy at arm’s length, given the fact that they were probably all over each other off screen, Angela supposed.

  “Are you relaxed now?” he asked.

  Her head jerked in surprise. “Yes. I am.”

  “Then can I point out that six feet between us on this sofa is not really necessary?”

  She felt foolish. She felt relieved. She slid closer. She simply hadn’t known how to close the distance herself, hadn’t dared to.

  He shifted his weight to put his feet up on the table. He lifted his arm and drew her beneath it. And it was like it had been on her own sofa before he had known the truth, his heart thudding softly beneath her ear, his warmth good and strong against her. Angela closed her eyes and just let it be. If every once in a while the tempo of his breathing changed and he moved his weight again infinitesimally. almost uncomfortably, she chose to ignore any hidden meaning there.

  She thought, impossibly, that she was as happy as she had ever been, and Charlie Price could be damned.

  When she woke hours later, it was dark and Jesse was gone.

  She sat up stiffly and half-unconsciously reached a hand across the sofa. No one was there, and she realized that she heard water running. She got to her feet. moving uncertainly toward the bedroom. The glowing green numbers on the bedside clock read 4:42. He probably hadn’t slept at all.

  She felt a guilty flush creep over her. How could she have been so naive, so selfish as to have wanted him to stay? Ah, the guilt. She thought of all the incredible things he had done for her over the past few days and she hugged herself, fighting another urge to cry.

  Before she’d made a conscious decision to do so, she found herself inching her way toward the bathroom. He was in the shower. She stopped outside the door. It was not quite closed. A crack of light escaped.

  She put her hand on the knob, then pulled it back again.

  I can’t.

  In all this time. has there been anyone else?

  There had been, and, if she was going to be honest with herself, that was what terrified her now. She wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t the least bit concerned that he would hurt her. She trusted him. It wasn’t that.

  It was her.

  On the only occasion when she had gotten...physical with someone in fifteen years, she had forced herself. She had gritted her teeth and had closed her eyes and had made herself go through the motions. It had happened not long after the trial. She’d been angry, and it was the only way left to her in which to fight back. It had been a desperate attempt to prove that what Charlie had
done would have no lasting effect on her.

  She’d been wrong. It had been a painful, humiliating experience. It had been as bad as what Charlie had done to her, because she had, in effect, raped herself.

  Since then, she’d learned to listen to her body. She’d tried for a while, now and again, just to see what would happen. But the jail doors had always slammed shut. Everything inside her had gone cold, rigid, even cringing, as soon as any man touched her. And when it happened, when she had stiffened and wanted desperately to pull away, then she had learned how to do it. She had left men confused and angry, but since that first time she had been true to herself. And finally, she had simply stopped trying.

  She was terrified to listen to her body now, because everything inside her wanted to open those doors.

  She hugged herself, shivering. She couldn’t bear to do the same thing to Jesse. To start, to try...and have those doors slam down. Jesse deserved more than that. She deserved more. Because she knew that with him, she would force herself again. She would make herself finish what she had allowed to start. This time, she would not do it to prove something to herself, but because she would feel she owed it to him. But that wouldn’t really matter. It would still be ugly, awkward, and it would ruin a relationship that had become precious to her.

  Still, in fifteen long years, she had never felt like this inside before. Maybe that was enough. Maybe she ought to trust it. Nothing had happened when he had kissed her, nothing but good.

  I don’t know how to handle this, either. I don’t know what to do. She heard his voice again and knew that the admission was amazing in itself. Most men wouldn’t have made it.

  Ah, he was so different. So good, so strong and confident within himself. A Hadley. There were, she decided, some good aspects to such inborn arrogance.

  She wondered, almost abstractly, if she was falling in love with him. The word reverberated in her head and terrified her. She pushed it away. She didn’t dare love him...not if she couldn’t give him anything.

  But she could try. She could try to see if she could.