by Lois Greiman
—Father Pat,
upon finding Chrissy necking with Marv Kobinski in Holy Angels’ chapel
RIVERA TURNED BACK toward me. I couldn’t see very well in the darkness, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t smiling. “Well, Chrissy, curious why I’m here?”
I swallowed, pulled my gaze away with an effort, and sifted through my purse for my keys. Nonchalant and dismissive. Go, me! “Not particularly.”
“Really?” he asked. “And why is that?”
“Murphy’s Law,” I said, and pulled out my trophy, eleven keys and a big-ass can of pepper spray. I couldn’t remember the purpose for half the keys, but knew what to do with the spray. And damn, if it wasn’t tempting.
Rivera was watching me with the cozy warmth of a glacier. “Are you saying you know why I’m here, or that you’re too shit-faced to care?”
“For your information, I am not shit-faced,” I said, and finding the proper key with startling aplomb, turned to slip it into its lock. Strangely though, it no longer fit. In fact, the doorknob seemed to be doing some sort of intricate fandango. I tried to follow its lead. Rivera waited, fuming silently behind me, then cursed with some vigor, pushed me aside, and grabbed my keys.
The door opened like magic.
I stepped regally inside. Magicians had never impressed me. They always have it up their sleeves.
Rivera followed me inside. I scowled, or tried to. “I don’t remember inviting you.”
“Sorry if I’m not as suave as Dr. Trueheart.” He flipped on the hall light and turned toward me. We were standing awfully close. Seems I had forgotten to move away from the door.
I glared at him. “What do you want?”
“What exactly were you planning for the good doctor, Chrissy?” he asked. “Hoping for a deep psychological bond, or just a roll in the hay?”
“Excuse me for saying so,” I said, proud of my sophisticated tone even though the floor was starting to undulate gently beneath me. “But I don’t believe my private activities are any of your concern.” I turned coolly away, but he grabbed my arm.
His teeth were gritted. “Where’d you get the hound?”
I was temporarily perplexed, until I remembered he was nuts. “And there it is,” I said, giving him a dismissive glance. “Proof that you’ve gone mad. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Maybe he intended to smile, but his teeth were still clenched. “The greyhound,” he said. “I believe its name was Sissy Walker.”
“Oh, crap,” I rasped. Reality came rushing in like a three-hundred-pound linebacker. I felt the blood drain to my knees and tried to stumble away, but he tightened his grip.
“How’d you find Tricia?”
I should have apologized right then. Should have fessed up, vowed to refrain from speaking to anyone ever again, and prayed he considered me unworthy of torture. Instead, I tilted my face up to his and gave him my best glare. “You’re not the only one who can investigate, Reebler. In fact, David’s right. It looks like you’re doing a piss-poor job at it.”
I think that for a moment he considered tossing me out the window. Luckily, the contractor who’d built my house was too cheap to put a window in the vestibule. “My wife is off limits, McMullen. You understand that?”
“Ex!” I said, which makes it pretty clear, I think, that I harbor some latent suicidal tendencies. “Ex-wife, Rivera. That means she left you. Why do you suppose that is?”
His face was red now, his jaw clenched. “Stay the hell away from my family.”
“Or what?” I tried a sardonic chuckle. I might have snorted a little. “Or you’ll beat me senseless?”
I was thumped up against the wall before I had time to cover the snort.
“You’re already fucking senseless,” he snarled. “What the hell did you want from her?”
His fingers dug into my upper arms, his body was flush against mine. I was breathing like a winded sprinter. But my dander was up and my adrenaline was rushing along at a heady pace, melding with the alcohol in my saturated system. In my experience, there’s not a combination in the world more likely to scramble brains than the heady mix of adrenaline and liquor. “Let me go or you’ll wish to God you had.”
He chuckled at my threat. No snorting at all. “How so?” he asked. “I don’t need Viagra, and I’m not partial to wine. What did you want from her?”
It took me a moment to remember who we were talking about, but he was leaning closer now, so close I could feel his thighs against mine. They were really hard. As was my breathing. “I didn’t want anything from her.”
“What was it, then? Take a Greyhound to the Park Day? They must have forgotten to send me the memo.”
“Forgive me,” I said. One of his thighs was propped between mine, pressed with insane intimacy against my crotch. “But I’m not accustomed to being accused of murder. It makes me do strange things; I might even try to exonerate myself—or figure out why you’re such an ass.”
He scowled and his grip loosened a little, but he didn’t move away. “Maybe it’s because of women like you.”
“Did you know a lot of women like me when Daddy saved you from juvie?” I asked.
If he was surprised I knew about his past transgressions, he didn’t show it.
Instead, he smiled. “What did you do to make Bomstad go off the deep end?” he asked.
“I didn’t do anything.” When I inhaled my breasts brushed his chest. I was pretty sure it wasn’t making my nipples hard. I was probably just cold. “And you damn well know it.”
“Christ!” he said and closing his eyes, leaned away the slightest degree. “I don’t know anything.”
I laughed. Probably because of that suicidal problem again. “And you think that’s my fault?”
“Did he need the Viagra, Chrissy? Even around you?”
“How the hell would I know? I wasn’t—” My breath stopped for a second. My heart may have, too. I bit my lip, trying to think. It didn’t help. “What do you mean . . . even around me?” I asked.
“You know exactly what I mean,” he said and leaned close again. And now I felt something hard and long against my belly. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a flashlight this time. In fact, it felt more like a nightstick.
“Oh,” I said. It might not have been my brightest quote. Then again . . . He was staring at my lips. I licked them. I’m not a tease or anything. My lips were just dry. “You don’t even like me, Rivera.”
“No.” His gaze never left my mouth.
“And I detest you.”
“It’s a pickle, isn’t it?”
A frickin’ big pickle if I was any judge. And I was. “You accused me of murder.”
“Did you do it?”
I growled. Really. Like a she-wolf or something. I shoved at his chest. He swayed back a little, which just pressed his crotch more firmly against mine.
“Did you?” he asked.
“No!”
“Well, that makes it simpler, then,” he said, and kissed me.
I’d like to say I tried to fight him off. That I was shocked and outraged. That he was too powerful for me, teeny as I am. That I thrashed wildly . . . or at least . . . called him a big meanie or something. But I think I might have been a little too busy tearing at his belt. One second I was up against the wall and the next he was flat on his back and I was atop him. Life’s funny.
But my hands were shaking, and I was having trouble with his buckle.
“Jesus, woman!” he growled and pulled me up the length of his body. It’s embarrassing to think about, but I’m afraid I might have whimpered. “No wonder it’s been fourteen months.” He pulled my head down to his and kissed me, hard and deep, making something curl up in my gut and go soft between my legs. But my brain was still functioning. Kind of.
“It hasn’t been fourteen . . .” I paused, put a little space between us, and realized suddenly that my bra was undone and his hand was cupping my breast. I tried to stifle the groan. Maybe. “Months,” I finishe
d, but his fingers were doing some sort of forbidden voodoo and I think my tongue was hanging out.
“Closer to fifteen,” he said, and unbuttoned my blouse with his left hand. Wow. An ambidextrous cop with a nightstick!
I was panting hard. “You don’t know that,” I said, and fumbled with his buttons.
“Unless you lied about your relationship with Bomber.” He kissed my breast. I managed to refrain from passing out. “Or were doing it with your lawn boy.”
His lips touched my nipple. When I opened my eyes next I found that his shirt had been ripped open. Maybe that should have given me pause, but his firm chest was as alluring as Swiss chocolate.
I mean, despite my rather checkered past with men, I’m a pretty fair judge of chests. His was beautiful.
“McMullen?” he said.
“You’ve got a really nice body,” I said, and felt suddenly and inexplicably like I was going to cry.
He propped himself up on his elbows. His erection moved with him, under my skirt which had pooled up around my waist like vanilla pudding.
I leaned down and kissed him for all I was worth.
He kissed back, then growled and pushed me to arm’s length. “How the hell drunk are you?”
I pressed up against him, my emotions a tangle of hormones and frazzled senses.
He puffed out a breath and eased his hand along my thigh. I was pretty much bare to the waist. His fingers skimmed under my skirt and he gritted his teeth. “Don’t you wear underwear?”
“Yes,” I said as his thumb snagged my thong. “But I don’t have to.”
“Holy Christ,” he groaned. I felt his erection buck between my legs.
“I didn’t kill Bomstad,” I said and slipped out of my blouse. My bra drooped below my breasts. I let it fall onto his chest, white lace against dark skin.
He exhaled carefully. “Okay.”
“He was a client. Nothing more.” Leaning down, I kissed him again. My hands were on his biceps, which bunched and quivered as my nipples brushed his chest.
I pushed back up. He gritted his teeth against the increased contact of our lower bodies.
“Did you want more?” he asked.
I let my gaze travel down his chest to his belly. There wasn’t a molecule of fat. Just smooth, lovely muscles and a narrow band of dark hair that disappeared beneath his waistband. I put my hands on his belt buckle again, moving slower this time, lest I screwed up again and had to kill myself.
“He seemed like a nice man,” I said. The belt opened beneath my quaking fingers. “You know?” I glanced at his face. A muscle jumped in his jaw as I released the buttons on his fly.
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “A nice guy?”
His erection eased out, bulging, thick and long, through his boxers. I swallowed. “Of course. I mean—” Thank you, Jesus. “—what else would I care about?”
That muscle jumped in his jaw again. He brushed his thumb over my nipple. I jerked like I’d been shot and let my head fall back, but I managed to remember his words and refocus.
“What’d you think?” I asked. I might have been panting. My hair had come loose and was falling down around my face like a waterfall gone mad.
Maybe it dawned on me that I was straddling him like a mountain lion in heat, that I’d torn off his shirt and was now peeling off his pants. Maybe I realized the ridiculousness of my words, but maybe I was pretty much past that point of coherency.
“I don’t usually do this,” I said.
He brushed his knuckles between my breasts, then slipped his hand behind my neck. “Once every fifteen months?” he asked and pulled me down for a mind-bending kiss. I stretched against him, balanced on top.
“I’m really . . .” I began, but he slid his hand up my thigh and massaged my ass. “Sensible,” I finished and sighed, because it felt so good, so ridiculously right. And at that moment I sniffled. I couldn’t help myself.
I felt him tug at my panties, felt his erection shift between us, and wiped my hand across my nose, trying to hide the traitorous emotion.
I knew the minute he knew. He stiffened beneath me. All of him. Not just the good parts.
“McMullen?”
I hid my face against his shoulder.
He shifted slightly, trying to see me. “McMullen?” His voice was soft.
I sniffled again, then bit my lip and swore like a fat linebacker in the heat. But only in my head. “I’ve got a little bit of a cold,” I said. “Sorry.”
For a moment I could feel him trying to believe my lame-ass lie, then, “What’d you have to drink?”
“I told you, I’m not—”
He rolled me onto my side. I tried to stay where I was, but I’m so light . . .
We lay side by side, touching here and there. It was hard to avoid eye contact, but I reached down and pulled up my skirt, baring all . . . or at least most.
His gaze lowered, darkened, held. “Jesus!” His voice was raspy with emotion. And in that moment I thought I loved him.
My eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Christ!” he said, and before I could stop him, he was on his feet and dragging me with him. “You’re drunker than . . .” His gaze dropped like lead to my breasts. His jaw flexed. “Shit!” he said and, turning on his heel, he marched out the door.
24
There is no greater hell than realizing you’re in love with the guy you hate.
—Elaine Butterfield,
when her nemesis bested her in a high school debate
I SAT STRAIGHT UP in bed. I was certain my insomnia wasn’t due to sexual frustration. I hadn’t really wanted to do it with Rivera, anyway. He’d accused me of murder, for crying out loud. No self-respecting woman would want to do it with a guy who had accused her of murder, even if he was as hard as a Greek statue and . . .
I yanked myself out of bed and tottered across the floor. I was barefoot. I was also naked. And why not? It wasn’t as if some crazed officer of the law was going to barge in and take advantage of me. Hell, David would have been a more likely candidate. And far more desirable. He actually had a brain.
My pacing brought me to the kitchen. The air from the freezer felt good against my face. The ice cream felt even better on my taste buds.
But the truth hurt. I had probably read David’s intentions entirely wrong. He probably had no interest in me, either. Maybe Rivera was right. Maybe I had been a little bit drunk. And maybe that had colored my perception somewhat. David’s fiancée, the fabulous Kathryn LaMere, probably had no reason to be jealous of me, as David had intimated. Okay, not intimated, said right out loud.
I sat down with the ice cream carton and felt sorry for myself. I mean, I wasn’t chopped liver. I looked down at my boobs, examined them philosophically one at a time, and nodded. Not bad. I straightened in my chair, sucked in my gut. Okay. I scooped up another spoonful of ice cream and decided that I’d be jealous of me.
Bitch. If she had a lick of sense she would be, too. In fact, she must be. What kind of red-blooded American woman would let a guy like David fraternize with another woman and not worry? The answer came with disturbing speed: Kathryn LaMere, a woman who was young, gorgeous, classy, and smelled like . . .
I stopped masticating. She’d smelled like Jivago. I was sure of it. Or Shalimar. Okay, perhaps I wasn’t quite so sure. But maybe she’d been the woman in Bomstad’s house. Maybe she’d wanted . . . ummm . . . I hit brain freeze for a second. But then it all came storming in: She was insanely jealous—of course she was. That’s why she felt such a need to pretend to David that she wasn’t. I plowed up another load of ice cream and thought harder. Not only was she jealous, she was probably a murderer. She’d probably killed Stephanie Meyers because David had been interested in her. And then Bomstad. Well, okay, Bomstad didn’t exactly tie in. But there was a lot about Bomstad that didn’t make sense. Maybe they were having an affair and the Bomb had threatened to tell David. So Kathryn, knowing about his heart condition, had loaded him up on Viagra
and sent him to me. Because, yes indeedy, she was jealous of me, too, and was hoping to implicate me in Bomstad’s death.
The insanity of the entire idea was not lost on me in spite of the fact that I had just consumed my weight in alcohol and ice cream. Still . . . I closed the carton and took a seat in front of my PC. I typed in Kathryn LaMere and after a grinding hesitation, her engagement photo popped onto the screen. Yep, she was still gorgeous and classy and young. I continued to search. There was something about a Feed the Children banquet where there was a picture of her spooning up mashed potatoes to an underprivileged crowd in East L.A. Her hair was upswept and her expression demure. I had never quite managed demure. I’d tried it once for the senior prom. Dad had asked if I was constipated.
I continued the search and came up all but empty.
Hmmph. I sat back in my chair and ruminated. All the info I had found on Ms. LaMere had taken place in the past two years. Where had she been before that?
Maybe in the back of my mind I hoped she was playing a shell game, conning the innocent elderly out of their pensions in Trenton, but then I remembered her accent and did a search of the LaMeres in Europe. There were several hits. None of which turned out to be her.
Curiouser and curiouser. Not that I was a techno genius or anything. But David’s fabulous fiancée looked like she came from wealth. One would think I would be able to find a few tidbits about her sailing with the Kennedys or having high tea with the queen.
I shut down the computer and stretched. Still naked. Still looked pretty good, I thought, and wobbled back to bed.
Sleep finally took pity on me. Alcohol is a sedative for some people. For me it’s copious calories.
By morning, I had a splitting headache and had come to the realization that I was an idiot. David’s high-priced fiancée was about as likely to commit a murder as she was to dance on the moon.
Still, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, even after my final appointment, when the retiring Mrs. Feinstein confessed she had been a bunny in a former life. I’d always suspected it anyway, I thought, and turned off my office light before wandering into the reception area. It was Elaine’s night to work late. I glanced at her, remembering my promise to Solberg and feeling guilty down to my salmon-colored Aldos.