by Sarah Blair
“Hutch said?” Tom raised his eyebrows.
Sidney snapped her mouth shut. Then opened it again to amend her statement.
“Ah! Tsht!” Tom held up his hand. “Plausible deniability. Thank you for the coffee. I really do have a lot of work to do now.”
“Yeah, okay.” Sidney caught a few files as they slid off the top of his stack. “I’ll leave you to it. Thanks for letting me water your plants.”
“Anytime!” He waved, but didn’t lift his head from his notes.
She left the medical examiner in his office and went back out through the lab. The blonde hair from the cadaver caught her eye again and she remembered Mitch and that look on his face. Sidney checked to make sure Tom had settled in his office, out of sight, then took a detour over to the table.
The toe-tag read: Harris, Deirdre.
The date of birth wasn’t that far off from the chief’s age. That narrowed it down to wife, or possibly a sister who hadn’t been married or changed her name. She moved up to take a peek under the sheet at the woman’s face.
The woman had powder white skin with a deep red pattern covering one side of her face, almost like a sunburn. The same coloring flowed down across her chest and spread beneath the sheet. Sidney recognized the signs of lividity. Whatever happened to her, she’d come to rest face-down and the blood had pooled in her body, settling just beneath the surface.
Remnants of thin lines at the edges of her eyes and mouth, along with a slight puffiness made it apparent she’d had a recent Botox treatment. The name Deirdre suited her. Even in death, her too large lips remained slightly puckered. She had the same permanent expression Sidney had come to associate with the mothers of her boarding school friends as they tried to defy time and genetics.
Who are you? She wondered. Not wanting to take a chance at Tom finding her still snooping around after he’d already been so generous, she headed back out to the loading dock.
Mitch didn’t wear a ring. Never mentioned anyone at home. But the way he’d acted towards the woman on the table was deeply personal. Something didn’t add up.
Sidney’s stomach grumbled. Half a donut and an extra dose of caffeine weren’t going to fuel her through the rest of the day. There were two mysteries on her plate now that weren’t going to get solved on an empty stomach. She headed out through the parking lot, glancing over to see Mitch’s SUV still parked.
Mitch sat in the driver’s seat with the phone to his ear. He scowled and his mouth turned down. He was unhappy about something, but then again, if he’d just lost someone close to him, it made sense.
She considered inviting him to lunch, but didn’t want to interrupt his conversation. Sure, he’d apologized to her for his words this morning, but even though she was concerned, she didn’t want to invite his wrath again. Enough time with her grandfather had taught her to value avoidance over confrontation. Instead, she made her way towards the foot bridge that crossed over the FDR and headed for lunch alone in the fresh air along the esplanade.
Seven
Sunlight warmed the interior of the Land Rover while Mitch sat with the keys in his hand. He hung up with his lawyer and made a note of the appointment time at her office later that afternoon.
There were funeral arrangements to enact. He’d have to drop off his black suit at the cleaners. He’d have to call Dee’s mother. He made a list.
Reaching into the glovebox, he shook out a few more antacids and ground the chalky tablets between his molars. The buildings around him towered even larger than normal. The bricks and steel closed in, threatening to crush the breath right out of him.
Mitch put the key in the ignition and opened the window. Cold air rushed in.
He stared down at the unplayed phone message from Deirdre again. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what was on it. He couldn’t imagine it was anything good. In spite of all that, he couldn’t bring himself to delete it yet.
A flash of auburn drew his gaze out the window. He recognized the messy bun and narrow figure hunched into a black trench coat as the breeze gusted up off the river.
The corner of his mouth turned up. She wanted to be a real agent so bad, she was already dressing for the role. Though, nothing on their current docket required Sidney’s presence at the morgue. So, what the hell was she doing there?
It would be easy enough, and probably better for his acid-reflux to let it drop. He should absolutely pretend he hadn’t seen her at all, and continue with the rest of his day.
Against his better judgment, he slid out of his car and set out after her, wanting nothing more than a good distraction from the shit-storm of his morning.
He thought maybe he’d lost her until he caught a glimmer of her hair against the backdrop of a building. She strolled up the block, then cut around the other end of the medical complex. A thought crossed his mind, and he decided to turn the situation into a teachable moment about paying attention to her surroundings.
He tailed her down the block, across an access path leading over the FDR to the esplanade, keeping his steps as light as he could manage so he wouldn’t draw her attention. An endless cavalcade of barges churned up the East River into a muddy brown, but Mitch only saw the water out of his peripheral vision. His gaze remained set on Sidney while she strolled along the path. The wind picked up fine, loose strands of her hair making the rich red tones come alive like licking flames.
She was so much smaller than he was, physically, but there was something else that radiated from her he couldn’t quite name; like the whisper of a ghost he could feel but never manage to see.
On the mornings he arrived first in the office, it felt cramped and empty. When she entered, everything changed, the loft expanded and lightened like his lungs when he pulled in the first breath after waking from a deep sleep.
As she made her way down the esplanade, the world responded to her in subtle ways; pedestrians parted to let her pass, the dull autumn foliage brightened into rich jewel tones as she strolled by, hell, even the squirrels and birds paused to watch her.
Jesus, he was losing his mind.
The sapling in a raised planter that he ducked behind didn’t allow him any real cover, but he gave her a solid lead before he stepped out. It was wide open space until the building up ahead. If she happened to turn around, he’d be made in an instant. But she never did look back, and he chalked in a mental note to tell her when he caught up.
He followed her to an upscale brunch spot with a more casual rooftop bar. A group of women came out laughing and clogged up the walkway.
Sidney slipped right through, but it took Mitch some effort to weave his way to the other side. By the time he made it around, she was out of sight. He stared down the way they’d come, but couldn’t spot her. With a gruff sound in the back of his throat, he turned to retrace his steps.
The world spun. His back slammed into the building. Air exited his lungs in a whoosh. Vision filled with the depths of a sparkling aquamarine ocean, and he was drowning.
Sidney leaned into him. He held his breath, praying she couldn’t feel how instantly his body betrayed him. He’d wanted a distraction. But, shit.
Careful what you wish for, buddy.
Every ounce of willpower went to keeping his palms pressed flat to brick façade, instead of reaching around her narrow waist to tug her closer. Lithe fingers curled into fists on the lapels of his trench and she tilted up onto the toes of her heavy boots.
“Why are you following me?” Her nose was centimeters from his. The bittersweet coffee on her breath was close enough to taste. Her gaze roiled with the intensity of a tropical storm.
“I could ask you the same question.” He ground the words out between clenched molars, wrestling back the memory of her lips on his with literal fireworks exploding overhead. “Why aren’t you at the office?”
Her eyes widened a fraction before she wet her lips and dropped back to her heels. If she could read his mind, he would be in huge trouble.
“Williams had to
pick up his daughter. You said you wouldn’t be back. So, I decided to take Tom some coffee.” A glance to the bricks at the side of his head before she locked back on his gaze let him know she wasn’t necessarily lying, but not telling the whole truth, either.
“You packing heat, or just happy to see me?” She quirked a carefully sculpted eyebrow. A smile played across her pink lips. They both knew he kept his weapon concealed in a holster at the small of his back.
What the hell was she playing at? Even worse, why was it working?
Having survived too long without satisfaction, his body reacted on base instinct. The rough masonry between the bricks scraped his fingertips. He swallowed hard.
One quick move is all it would take, and he’d have her hot breath on his ear. God, he wanted to know what her pulse felt like fluttering against his tongue. Would she taste sweet and delicate or salty and dangerous?
If she was trying to distract him, it was certainly working. Before he could do something he’d surely regret, he grabbed her shoulders and forced her two steps back. Reframing his thoughts into profiler mode helped him gain some mental distance from the situation.
Mitch cleared his throat and adjusted his coat, bringing the subject back around where he wanted it. “When did you make me?”
Disappointment, hurt, and anger flashed across her features like lightning, settling into a particular defiance when she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Sitting in your car.”
“Wait.” His thoughts tangled. “Seriously?”
She shrugged and turned on her heel, pert little nose in the air. “And you say I’m not ready for the field.”
“I said it takes years of experience and training.” He kept his feet planted, unsure if he could even stand upright without the support of the wall at his back.
“I know what you meant.” She took a few steps toward the door then turned back to him as naturally as if they were heading out to a work lunch with the rest of the crew on any other day. “Do you like eating oysters?”
Her pointed choice of words made his heart stutter. Blood rushed up to his face, then drained down to places it really shouldn’t settle. He pushed off the wall, light-headed and woozy, and opened the door to the restaurant, motioning for her to enter first.
“Only when they’re fresh.”
Eight
Sidney grabbed a seat at a small table overlooking the East River. They were on the early side of lunch, so the rooftop bar was running slow and they had the place mostly to themselves.
Mitch came back from the bar with the beer she’d asked for and one for himself. “Have you been here before?”
“A couple times,” Sidney said. “It’s a good view.”
She honestly hadn’t been expecting him to take her up on the lunch offer. Normally, she’d ask out of politeness, and he’d say he had work to do, or someone else to meet.
“Cheers,” Mitch raised his bottle.
“TGIF.” They clinked and drank.
“So.” Mitch tilted his chin to the way they’d come in. “Want to tell me what you were doing down there?”
Sidney’s cheeks flamed. He’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in flirting, even though she’d mostly been trying to keep him distracted from her reason for visiting Tom. She wasn’t technically a real agent yet, and Hutch wasn’t technically a real client. But, there was also New Year’s . . . .
Of course he didn’t want to flirt, she told herself. He’s your boss, you idiot.
“I was just—” She tried to figure out how to explain.
“Not paying the least bit of attention to your surroundings?” He leaned back in his chair. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to be a field agent.”
After a moment of relief, she perked up. “I knew you were there. If I’d acknowledged you, I couldn’t have gotten the drop and figured out what you were doing following me.”
“But, how did you know?” His wide forehead furrowed in confusion. “You never looked back. Not once.”
“You weren’t exactly quiet about shutting your car door. Also, there’s a gajillion windows in this city. I totally saw you coming over the bridge behind me.” She traced the droplets of condensation down the edge of her bottle. “And do you ever get that tingly, crawly feeling on the back of your neck? That.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the oysters arrived on a bed of ice. Instead of continuing with his line of questioning, he sat there, studying her for a moment. Sidney took up her cocktail fork and loosened the oyster in its bed before she tipped her head back and downed it all in one shot. The ocean flavor filled her mouth as she bit down and then swallowed.
Mitch’s eyes never left her face. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at her like that since January. It gave her that tingly feeling in more places than the back of her neck. Right when she thought he might be having an aneurism, he grabbed up the lemon and proceeded to squeeze the juice all over his side of the oysters.
“Oh, stop! What are you doing?” Sidney waved his hand away.
“What? I like the lemon.”
“You can’t just go around squirting all over them. They’re meant to be savored.” Sidney loosened one he hadn’t attacked with the lemon juice yet and offered it to him. “You have to eat the first one naked.”
He quirked an eyebrow.
She played her own words back inside her head and his neck flushed just as pink as her’s felt. She plowed through the awkwardness anyway.
“The lemon is an acid. It cooks the flesh and changes the flavor if you let it sit. By the time you get to the last one it’ll be ruined. When you eat the first one naked, you can get the full flavor of the liquor on a fresh palette. After that, you build slowly with the different condiments. It’s about subtlety. Layers. A journey.”
Mitch’s mouth twitched as he downed the oyster. Then he winced and shook his head like he was taking a shot of tequila. “It tastes like snot when you do it plain. I didn’t realize you were an oyster connoisseur.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She made her next oyster with a twist of lemon, and a dab of cocktail sauce. “Just a little, like this. You don’t want to overwhelm it.”
He drank another swig of his beer while he watched her. “All right. What don’t I know about you? How’d you learn so much about oysters?”
“One of the girls on my hall at school was from L’Arcachon in the southwest of France. I spent a summer with her family there. They own an oyster harvesting company. They’re very particular about their livelihood.”
“I was not expecting that.”
Sidney laughed. “Have you ever been to France?”
“No, the only time I’ve traveled abroad was that six hour window I spent on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.”
“Mais tu parles français.”
“Oui. And Spanish. A little Italian. Some Arabic.” He shrugged. “I thought for awhile I might try for INTERPOL, but it didn’t work out.”
His thumb circled around the empty third finger of his left hand. Gray eyes grew unfocused and distant for a split second before he shook his head roughly. “That was a long time ago. I started at the Bureau and there was so much to do here already, that was it.”
Sidney was deeply intrigued, but the downward tilt of his mouth told her not to dig. She filed the information away for later. “No hobbies? What do you like to do when you’re not at the office?”
“Wait, there’s more to life than hunting down the denizens of darkness?” He canted his head in feigned confusion.
Sidney couldn’t really blame him. Ever since she’d joined the agency, her social activities had taken a deep nose-dive. “Touché.”
They clinked bottles again.
“I like to run,” he said. “Not so much a hobby, as a fitness requirement though.”
“Usually, I swim. There’s something about being in the water without any other distractions. It helps me clear my head.”
> “I swam for awhile on a relay team in college. It was fun.”
Sidney studied his physique, trying to figure out which stroke he’d have specialized in. “Butterfly?”
“Backstroke.”
“That’s surprising, with the way you’re built.” Sidney hoped he’d skip the fact that she spent any time at all noticing his physique.
“Yeah, well. Doesn’t make much difference these days. Speedo doesn’t fit the same anymore.”
The image of Mitch in a speedo flashed into her mind and she barely caught her jaw from dropping. A flurry of inappropriate comments danced across her tongue and she snapped her mouth shut before any could escape. Sidney forced her gaze to remain out on the water until her pulse settled to a more regular rhythm.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Guess I’m going to have to break out the sexual harassment training videos for a refresher course.”
“Why? Has Williams been hitting on you again?”
Mitch laughed and smoothed his hand over his bare head. “It’s not his fault I’m so ruggedly handsome.”
“No comment.” Sidney shook her head. “I don’t want to get a stern warning from the HR department.”
Now he laughed deep and real, gray eyes sparkling like the sunshine on the busy water. “Lake, you are the HR department.”
“Well, in that case, can we discuss how much I enjoy it when you roll up your sleeves and talk about the deadly pH levels of goblin piss?” She kept her tone light so he could take as much or as little meaning as he wanted to from her admission.
“Hey, that stuff can dissolve concrete.” He pointed at her in mock-seriousness. “Don’t mess around with those beady-eyed little bastards. I mean it.”
Sidney grinned, but her happiness was tinged with frustration. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, seeing Hutch had stirred up needs and desires she’d been trying not to acknowledge lately. Not that she wanted to date or have a significant relationship with anyone right now, but the best thing she’d had between her legs recently was her purple vibrator.