by Mary McBride
He came into the den, snow in his hair and his teeth clenched against the cold. “It’s freezing out there,” he said, shrugging out of his leather jacket.
“Come warm up by the fire.”
“Good idea.” He held up a small canvas bag. “Mind if I stash my stuff in the bathroom off the kitchen?”
“That’s fine.”
“Be right back.”
While he was gone, Sara traced her index finger around the rim of her wineglass and tried not to think about the last time she’d spent an evening in this room with a man. Those thoughts, however, weren’t so easily denied.
It had been a cold night, just like this one, almost a year ago to the day, when Carter McKay had arrived to take her to the Beaux Arts Ball, the annual open house and formal dance for the art museum. Her parents were out of town, but since they were fairly substantial contributors, Sara was obliged to attend in their absence. Only she hadn’t wanted to go. Really hadn’t wanted to go. Dreaded it, in fact.
Even now, a year later, she couldn’t come up with a reason she had felt that twinge of panic while she dressed for the affair. The weather had been bad, just like tonight, but Carter was a good driver and the museum, in Patriot’s Park, wasn’t all that far away. Her gown, a deep blue satin moiré, was divine. It was even a good hair day. But by the time Carter arrived, she had managed to tie her stomach in a tangle of knots and to work herself up into a full-fledged, clammyhanded, heart-thumping tizzy.
“Why don’t we just stay home?” she’d asked, hiding her inexplicable terror beneath a cool facade. “We could light a fire, Carter. Close all the blinds. Make love on Mother’s new Aubusson rug.”
“We can do that afterward,” he’d replied rather brusquely as he held up her long black velvet coat. “We’re already late, Sara. Let’s go.”
“I’m not feeling all that well.”
It wasn’t a lie, yet it was. She felt ill enough to toss her cookies right that minute at the prospect of having to go to the party, yet at the same time, she knew she’d recover immediately if he’d just agreed to stay home.
He had agreed, grudgingly. But after he’d sulked and whined and generally made her feel as if she’d ruined not just his night, but his entire life, Sara had insisted that he go, if only to enjoy the final hour or so of the party. And to her amazement, once he was gone, she felt calm and content and... well... free.
“I like this room.”
The lieutenant’s voice startled her. She’d been so lost in thought and the depths of her wineglass that she hadn’t been aware of his return.
“Thank you. I do, too.” She gestured toward the chair on the opposite side of the coffee table. “Well, make yourself comfortable, Lieutenant. If you’d like a glass of wine...”
He shook his head as he settled into the big club chair. “You don’t have to treat me like a guest, Miss Campbell. In fact, it’s okay if you want to consider me just a piece of furniture.” He grinned that lopsided but lethal grin of his, making Sara wonder what kind of furniture was so perfectly upholstered in denim and flannel that it was nearly impossible to look away.
She glanced at the clock on the rolltop desk. It was only seven-thirty, a mere twelve hours since she’d awakened in the hospital. It felt like a month or more. All of a sudden she felt bone tired. As if to confirm it, her jaws contracted in a yawn she wasn’t quick enough to stifle.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
“How’s your head?”
She reached up to feel the tender bump just above her ear. “Not bad. I’m sorry I wasn’t more help with those pictures. I hope you don’t get in any trouble for bringing them here.”
He shrugged, as if getting in trouble was something he did on a daily basis. “No problem. Why don’t you go to bed if you’re tired? You don’t have to entertain me. As I said, Miss Campbell, just consider me a piece of furniture.”
She smiled. “You’re the first piece of furniture I’ve seen wearing a gun. The first person, actually.”
“I can take it off if it bothers you.”
“No. Just the opposite, actually.” She tucked her legs a little farther beneath her. “It makes me feel safe.”
“You should probably think about getting one if you intend to keep living here. I mean, even after we put this Ripper guy behind bars.”
“I don’t know. Knowing me, I’d be shaking so hard that I’d wind up shooting myself instead of an intruder.”
“I could teach you,” he said. “If you wanted.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I doubt if I’ll be living here all that much longer.”
He raised a curious eyebrow. “Too much space?”
“Too much money.” When his face registered surprise, she continued. “My parents liked to live well. I guess this house pretty well describes their life-style. Grand, just this side of gaudy. Anyway, when they died this past January, there really wasn’t anything left except this house, and I had to refinance just to get the mortgage payments down somewhere below the level of the national debt.” She took another sip of wine, then chuckled. “Poor little rich girl, huh?”
“I’m sorry about your parents. I read about that in the paper.”
“It kind of threw me for a loop. One day they were all smiles, all excited about getting out of here and spending the rest of the winter in Bermuda. The next day their plane was missing and presumed lost. Poof. They were gone. Just like that.” As she snapped her fingers, Sara felt that too familiar lump creep into her throat and tears begin to well in her eyes. “Sorry,” she said with a sniff.
“That’s okay. I’d offer you that old cliché about time healing these things, but you’ve probably already heard that a thousand times and haven’t believed it once. I know I didn’t.”
She was just about to ask him how his wife had died when the phone screeched across the room. Sara unwound her legs and began to get up, but Lieutenant Decker was on his feet first. He walked to the desk and peered at the caller ID box while the phone continued to ring.
“Goddammit,” he swore. “How the hell did Cormack get wind of this?”
Sara was beside him, not knowing whether to pick up the receiver or not. “Cormack? Who?”
“From the Daily Express,” he said. “Look. It would be better if you just didn’t answer. Cormack’s pretty shifty. He’s the kind of reporter who can make a mime start talking, and I don’t think you’re a good enough liar.”
“Okay,” Sara said, not knowing whether she’d just been complimented or insulted or somehow strangely preempted in her own home. She didn’t need protection from her own telephone, for heaven’s sake
When it finally stopped ringing, they both stood there staring at it a moment. Well, actually, Decker was staring bullets at the phone while Sara glared daggers at him.
“Anybody else I’m not supposed to talk to, Lieutenant?” she snapped.
“Nobody,” he said. “Not about this, anyway.”
Sara rolled her eyes. “You know, yesterday, if I had taken Arbor Avenue instead of Patriot’s Parkway, none of this ever would have happened.”
“You’re right. And if the Ripper hadn’t killed seven women, you wouldn’t have to worry about becoming the eighth.” He stalked to his chair. “Maybe I will have a glass of that wine, after all,” he muttered. “You don’t have any beer, do you?”
“Yeah,” she grumbled. “Heineken, if that’s all right with you.”
His storm-colored eyes crinkled at the corners, and he laughed. “I like your style, Sara Campbell. And I’m sorry I shouted at you.”
“Apology accepted, Lieutenant. I’ll be right back with that beer.”
Joe brought the long-neck green bottle to his lips and took a small, almost dainty sip, nursing the beer while he waited for Sara to return. After she brought him the beer, she remembered that she hadn’t placed her grocery order for the next morning’s delivery.
“If I don’t get the order in by midnight,” she’d said before she’d gone
upstairs, “they add a five-dollar surcharge to their fee.”
She was careful about money. He liked that. Even more, he liked the fact that she wasn’t the rich candy heiress he’d presumed. Her cash flow problems seemed to make her more accessible, although for what Joe wasn’t sure. He was sure, though, that he needed to keep his mind on business, so he set the half-full beer bottle on the coffee table, then headed upstairs to check the windows he should have attended to earlier.
He tested the front door one more time before climbing the wide marble staircase that led to the second floor. The oil paintings that lined the stairwell made him feel more like a museum guard than a homicide detective. My God, it would take a platoon to adequately secure this place and to protect Sara while she was in it. He ought to get her out of here whether she wanted to go or not Maybe he should arrest her for her own good, he thought, only half in jest.
At the top of the stairs, he glanced left and right, then turned right down the wide hallway toward the spot where a wedge of yellow light cut across the thick carpet. Through the partly open door he saw Sara sitting cross-legged in a large swivel chair, staring intently at a computer monitor, oblivious of everything except whatever was on that screen. He couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed that she wasn’t taking her predicament more seriously or happy that she seemed to feel safe in his care.
Hell, maybe he was all wrong about the Ripper. Maybe the guy packed up his ski mask and left town once somebody IDed him. Maybe Sara wasn’t in danger at all and that phone call was just a wrong number. Yeah. And maybe it would be eighty-five degrees tomorrow and the sun would come up in the west.
Even though the door was open, he tapped softly.
“Come on in, Lieutenant,” she said without taking her eyes from the monitor or her fingers from the keyboard. “Sorry this is taking so long. Everybody in town must be ordering groceries tonight in this bad weather. What kind of sausages do you like, link or patty?”
“Excuse me?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Sausages. You know. Those things that go with eggs at breakfast.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Links,” she said, cutting him off as she hit a key. “Oh, patties, too. What the hell.” She punched another key.
He stood behind her while her fingers scrambled over the keys and she crammed a virtual shopping cart with wonderful food. Exotic stuff. Leeks and scallions and Greek olives. Capers and mangoes and...
“What the hell is Swiss chard?” he asked when she keyed an X beside it, then shivered when she said it was like spinach, only better.
He pictured his refrigerator with its obligatory six-pack, milk that was sour more often than not and yogurt that always expired before he got in the mood to eat it. Since Edie died, his diet had consisted mainly of fast food and slow antacids.
“There,” Sara said. “All done.”
The monitor went dark. The only remaining light in the room came from the lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. A big bed, Joe noticed, covered by a fat floral comforter and mounded with at least a score of pillows in every imaginable shape and size, hardly leaving room for one person, much less two. Two? The thought sort of ricocheted in his brain for a second, taking him by such surprise that he sucked in a sudden breath, one that was laden with Sara Campbell’s come-hither perfume. He dragged his gaze from the bed to her. Back to business.
“Okay with you if I just wander around up here, checking windows?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, unwinding her legs and standing up. “There are seven bedrooms, though. Maybe I’d better give you the fifty-cent tour.”
“Great.” He followed her into the hallway, averting his eyes from the sway of her backside while he ignored her musky fragrance, less than eager just then to be visiting six more bedrooms and viewing God knows how many more seductive beds.
“Last but not least,” she said, opening the door and flipping on the wall switch in her parents’ room. Several black-shaded brass lamps lit up to cast a restrained amber glow on the paneled walls and coved ceiling. As always, Sara felt as if she were walking into a page of Architectural Digest where everything was slick and fastidious and perfectly proportioned. Picture perfect. Just like the couple who had inhabited this room.
“There’s a set of French doors behind that Chinese screen, Lieutenant,” she said, pointing to the wall opposite the enormous four-poster bed. “They open onto a little terrace on top of the music room.”
“More doors,” he muttered as he headed in that direction.
Sara remained where she was, mere inches across the threshold, feeling unwelcome, rather like an intruder, even though her parents had been dead for eleven months. They’d moved to this house when she was seven, and in the ensuing twenty-four years she probably hadn’t spent more than twenty-four minutes in this sanctum sanctorum, as she’d referred to it in her snide teenage days.
A photograph of the couple—dashing Jack and glorious Gloria—smiled at her from an ornate silver frame. There was no room for Sara in the picture, just as there hadn’t been much room for her in their lives.
“It’s cold in here,” she said, hugging her arms around herself, aware that the chill she felt was more than a draft from the open French doors.
She heard Decker pull them closed, heard him mutter a little string of curses as he slid the brass bolts into place. He reappeared, scowling, from behind the tall screen.
“You’ve got more doors than bloody Buckingham Palace, Sara Campbell.”
She laughed. “You’re probably right. And I don’t need a single one of them, do I? I mean, since I’m not going to be going anywhere.”
“I wish you would. Just for a while. Just until...”
“Read my lips, Lieutenant.” With her arms still tightly crossed, she fashioned a firm, albeit silent, no.
A growl rumbled deep in his throat, then he stalked toward the bank of windows on the south side of the room, wrestling aside drape after heavy drape to test the locks.
“I doubt that anybody’s going to come through a second-story window,” she said. “Aren’t you taking this a bit too far?”
He wrenched the last set of drapes into place, shooting her a hard glare over his shoulder. “Ever heard of ladders?”
“That would be going to an awful lot of trouble, wouldn’t it, for somebody who doesn’t even remember what that guy looked like?”
He turned toward her, brushing dust from his hands and sleeves. “Well, hey, what do I know? If I were the Ripper and somebody had pulled off my mask, I guess I’d just assume she’d get some kind of impression of my face. Any normal person would.”
“I’m normal, Decker,” she retorted.
“I didn’t mean you, for Christ’s sake. I meant him.”
“Oh.”
He crossed the room in a few long strides until he was standing practically toe to toe with her. “And you’re about as normal as a fruitcake at Christmas, Miss Campbell,” he said, glaring directly into her eyes.
“Thank you very much,” Sara snarled, intending to insult him up one side and down the other before the oddest thing happened and her mouth snapped shut. For all his steely-eyed, nostril-flaring, fire-breathing anger, Joe Decker looked like he wanted to kiss her. And right that moment, mad as she was, Sara wanted him to do just that. Kiss her.
You are crazy! she said to herself, before almost yelling at Decker, “Are we through in here?”
“You better believe it.” He brushed past her, gnashing his teeth on his way out.
He jabbed the iron poker into the fire as if he were trying to kill it rather than just stoke up the dying coals. He’d been muttering to himself ever since Sara had slammed her bedroom door fifteen minutes earlier. He was a cop and she was a citizen under his protection and he’d just called her a fruitcake, for God’s sake. Plenty of guys had reprimands lodged in their files for less.
A fruitcake! What was worse, though, was that he’d wanted to wrap his arms around
the fruitcake and kiss her like she’d never been kissed before, and that was so far out of line that it could earn him a suspension without pay if not a well-deserved dismissal. He took a last stab at the glowing embers.
“I’m sorry I was so touchy, Lieutenant.”
When her voice sounded from the doorway, Joe dropped the poker with a harsh clang onto the hearth. Before she was halfway through her sentence, his hand was halfway to his gun. Then he gave a small sigh of relief, and instead of bellowing, Jesus! Don’t sneak up on people like that, he said, “That’s okay. I’m sorry I called you a fruitcake. I was way out of line.”
She had changed into something long and black and velvety, and her bare feet didn’t make a sound as she walked to the couch. She had replenished her wineglass, Joe noticed.
“I guess I’m not all that normal,” she said, settling onto the couch. “But it’s not as if I chose to be this way. Agoraphobic, I mean. It just happened.”
He levered up from his squat before the fire and moved to the chair, picking up his warm beer in the process. “How?”
“How?” His question seemed to take her by surprise. “How did it happen?” She shook her head a little sadly, pondered the crimson depths of her glass a moment before looking at him. “Thanks, anyway. You really don’t want to know.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. Yesterday, when I told my partner, Maggie, about you, she said she had an aunt who hadn’t been out of the house in something like a dozen years.”
“That’s sad.” Her sincerity registered on her face as well as in her voice.
“So, how long do you intend to keep yourself cooped up?” he asked, watching her intently. “A year? Two? Twelve?”
She averted her eyes from his for a moment, which told Joe that she hadn’t really thought it out or measured her future in any way. Sara appeared to be living, or not living, as the case might be, directly in the present. And that made sense, he thought. People panicked in the here and now, not next year or twelve years down the road.