Under Cover

by Donna Ball

  "Next to lobster, my very favorite seafood," he assured her, following.

  His gaze moved around the room and he commented, "You have an interesting apartment, Teale. Not at all like what I expected."

  Teale decorated with extravagant use of colors—indulging her love of rich tones and bright colors in her decorating scheme to compensate for the blandness of her wardrobe. Her own pale coloring would have been overwhelmed by the bright oranges, yellows and blues she adored had she worn them, but in her apartment she gave herself full rein. Her decorating scheme had been called absurd, blinding, startling and—by the less tactful—hideous. She thought "interesting" was a mild way of putting it.

  Her sofa was covered in a brilliant blue-and-red Indian print, the carpet was daffodil yellow. One wall was painted fire red and hung with abstract prints in violet and yellow. A whimsical orange rocking chair dominated one corner, and an array of oversize rainbow-colored cushions were scattered along the walls. The windows were lined with bright blue sheers beneath drapes of a bold red-and-white print. The end tables were covered with paisley scarves; shadow-boxes and wall shelves held an eclectic array of collectibles: paperback books, records, glass miniatures, ginger jars and odds and ends from twenty-eight years of living. A cuckoo clock that didn't keep time was displayed on one wall, next to a framed cover from an 1899 Sears-Roebuck catalog. Whatever she valued, she displayed, and that was why she was somewhat disconcerted when David noticed the seashell he'd given her the night before sitting on the shelf next to a photograph of her parents on their wedding day.

  To distract him, she said, "It's just an ordinary apartment. What did you expect, Miami Vice?"

  He turned the shell over in his hand, smiled and replaced it. "Something like that."

  "Not on the Bretton Beach Police Department budget." She vowed to get rid of that seashell at the first possible opportunity. She didn't know why she had brought it home in the first place.

  But she did know why she'd saved it, and she also knew she wasn't going to throw it away. Not yet.

  He picked up the photograph. "Are these your parents?”

  “Yes," she said shortly. "Don't snoop. I didn't go prying into your private things when I was at your house."

  He laughed. "The hell you didn't! You only tried to take my house apart room by room." She frowned in irritation, and he added, "Besides, you've seen how I live. It's like a hotel room. There's nothing there to pry into. Your place is like a treasure trove."

  "Or an attic." She went into the kitchen, leaving him to follow or not as he pleased.

  "Exactly. Full of clutter and color and a thousand stories. Remember, I told you it was hard for you to be less than honest? This apartment proves it. Everything you've ever thought or been is written all over the walls."

  That assessment made her somewhat uncomfortable, though she suspected it was true. Her professional life was structured, regimented and too often fraught with secrecy and deception. Her home was the only place she could express herself freely, and she did it with a passion. What disturbed her was the fact that David recognized that so easily, and that, in a single glance, he'd learned more about her than she wanted anyone to know.

  She took a can of tuna from the cabinet and applied the electric can opener to it. "Do you always make such a big deal out of things?" she inquired, somewhat irritably.

  David leaned against a counter. "Only things that interest me. And, as I may have mentioned before, you interest me."

  "I'm flattered."

  She went to the refrigerator and took out mayonnaise, celery and onions. When she turned to close the refrigerator door with her elbow, David was in front of her, very close. She didn't know why that startled her. Perhaps it was a sudden awareness of the strangeness of the domestic scene—David Carey, here in her kitchen, politely relieving her of a jar of mayonnaise and a bunch of celery, preparing to dine on tuna fish and ginger ale after last evening's feast of lobster and champagne. Perhaps it was the fact that he looked as comfortable here as he had over an elegant candlelit table, and just as natural. Perhaps it was simple awareness of him, his tanned forearms, his flat abdomen, his lean thighs, the brush of his hand against hers as he took the celery from her and the warm, fleeting scent of his cologne. She felt the small hairs on her arms prickle with his closeness, and she turned quickly away.

  "Would you like to know what it is about you that interests me?" David placed the celery and mayonnaise on the counter beside her.

  "Pickles," she said.

  "Not even close."

  "No. I forgot the pickles." She started to turn back to the refrigerator, but he held up a hand.

  "Allow me."

  Teale stretched overhead for a mixing bowl and she didn't have to glance around to know that David was watching. She was too acutely aware of how sparsely she was dressed, of how her torso was exposed and her breasts thrust forward as she lifted her arms. The awareness was both discomfiting and strangely exciting, just as it would be to any woman who knows she is being watched by a man, and who likes it.

  The refrigerator door opened and closed, and David placed a jar of pickles on the counter with the rest of the ingredients. "Do you want to know?" he repeated.

  "No."

  His tone was reproving. "I thought we were going to be honest."

  She sighed. "All right. Tell me, why do I interest you?" She broke off a stalk of celery and began chopping.

  "That's it." He smiled. "You have ethics. When you make a pact you stick to it and you don't cheat. You haven't, for example, asked me about Diangelo."

  Everything within her stopped. Her hand paused in its chopping, her breath caught in mid-inhalation, her heart skipped a beat. She heard the refrigerator motor click on and a car door slam outside, but inside everything was suspended.

  But it was only for an instant. Her heartbeat resumed at an increased pace, her mind started working with the same heightened rapidity. She resumed chopping the vegetables, and she inquired casually, "Would that be cheating?"

  "Yes, it would. Because under the terms of our agreement, I would have to answer you honestly."

  All right, she thought. Everything inside her seemed to be working double time. Her thoughts were racing, and adrenaline was flowing. Even her stomach was jumping as doubt warred with certainty, reluctance with determination. It's worth a shot!

  She put down the knife; she turned to face him. She hadn't realized how close he was standing until just that moment. When she turned, her shoulder almost brushed his chest. For some reason, that only made her heart beat faster.

  She looked up at him. She asked calmly, almost casually, "If I did ask you, what would you say?"

  He looked at her soberly. "I'd say," he answered, "stay away from him."

  His eyes were slate-colored, heavy with things she couldn't read. She could see the slow rise and fall of his chest and the beginnings of his beard stubbling his chin. "He's bad news, Teale, and you're about to get in over your head. I'd tell you to back off, for your sake and mine."

  Slowly, he lifted his hand and touched a damp strand of her hair that had strayed over her forehead. His voice had a husky texture, deep with sincerity. His eyes were fixed on hers, seeming to try to probe into the very depths of her mind. "I would say that you're about to make a big mistake, one neither of us can afford. And I would ask you to believe me on this, even if you don't listen to anything else I say. Because it's important, Teale. I wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't."

  Her throat was dry, and her heart was pounding slowly and steadily. Her face was warm where he touched it, and she couldn't seem to break away from his gaze. He was so close a mere breath would have closed the distance between them, yet the way he looked at her made him seem even closer than that. How easy it would be to say Yes, she believed him, Yes, she trusted him, Yes, she would do whatever he said. To lean forward and let her face rest against his chest, to feel his arms, warm and secure, encircle her, to lift her head and taste him and let he
r blood rush and senses open, to let him push everything else aside except what he could make her feel. And she wanted to . In that moment she wanted it more than anything else in the world.

  She held his gaze. She took an unsteady breath. She said quietly, "I'm going to bust you, David Carey. I promise you that."

  He smiled. His fingers moved slowly down from her forehead to the curve of her neck where they curled against her skin for just a moment in a brief gesture of affection. "No, darling," he answered gently. "You're not. I promise you that."

  He dropped his hand and stepped away. Teale turned back to the cutting board and resumed her task with a hand that was somewhat less sure than before.

  "So," David inquired as she began to assemble the ingredients in the bowl. "What did your partner think of our little rendezvous last night?"

  "You mean what did he think of you?"

  He shrugged. "That, too."

  "What makes you think I'd even ask him?"

  "I know about partners," he answered. "And you and Sam seem particularly close. I don't imagine there's much the two of you don't discuss."

  Once again, his eerie ability to read her to the letter made her defensive instincts bristle. "As a matter of fact, Sam did have a few things to say." She began to spread mayonnaise on the bread. "Are you sure you want to hear?"

  "I can take it."

  "He thinks you're arrogant, phony and a little bit nauseating. He said he'd heard better lines at a singles bar and that you had the morals of an alleycat and absolutely no finesse. I believe he also mentioned the word 'sociopath.'"

  David's eyes twinkled. "The typical response of a jealous male."

  "Jealous? Of you?"

  "Of you."

  "Don't be ridiculous. Sam's my partner, nothing more."

  "That's good to know," he smiled, and too late Teale realized the entire line of questioning had been directed at nothing more than finding out exactly what her relationship with Sam was. She knew she should have been annoyed, but in fact she was absurdly gratified.

  "It's also good to know," he went on, "that you don't share Sam's, er, rather dubious opinion of me."

  She put the sandwiches together and sliced them diagonally. "What makes you so sure I don't?"

  "Oh, come on, Teale. Sociopath? No finesse?"

  She pretended to consider the matter. "Well... I'll grant you finesse. To a certain extent, anyway."

  "Thank you for that," he murmured. "I do try."

  She handed him his plate and reached into the refrigerator for two cans of ginger ale. "Do you want a glass?"

  He lifted an eyebrow. "Now who has no finesse?"

  She thrust the cold can into his hand. "You're the one who wanted to go slumming tonight. Let's eat in the living room. The show's starting.''

  "And sociopath?" he persisted, as he followed her to the sofa. "You can't really believe that."

  "What else would you call a man who makes a career out of preying on the weak and flaunting the laws of society?"

  He flashed her a grin. "Smart?”

  But this time Teale was not amused. Perhaps it was the peculiar intimacy ~of that moment in the kitchen, perhaps it was seeing him, as she had all night, in a new light. Perhaps it was nothing more than her emotions getting in the way of her professional judgment again. But she really wanted to know.

  She sat on the sofa, arranging a coaster for her ginger ale, settling her plate in her lap. She looked at David as he sat beside her. "Why do you do it?" she asked seriously. "You're bright, articulate, well educated; you could do almost anything you wanted for a living. Why this?"

  She half expected a flippant reply, or no reply at all. She was somewhat surprised when he answered, "I do it for the same reason you do, Teale." His tone was just as serious, just as matter-of-fact as hers had been. "There are dozens of other things you could do, just as there are for me. But none of them have quite the same appeal, do they? The glamour, the excitement, the danger, a new challenge every day. You and I are not ordinary people, and we would never be satisfied living ordinary lives. That's why."

  She drew a breath to protest, resenting the comparison and wanting to deny it was true. But she couldn't. He was right. They were on opposite sides of the law, they were opposite personalities, they were poles apart in life-style and values, yet at the root of the matter there was something about them that was the same. They were equally matched in skill and determination, equally motivated to win, equitably trained for the job; they understood and yes, in some odd way, even respected each other. Warring generals sent out to destroy each other who, without the war, would have been best friends. There was something very unsettling in that realization.

  Still, she felt as though she should make some token denial, but David forestalled her by clicking on the remote control. "Shh," he said intently. "The show's starting." And he settled back to watch.

  ****************

  SIX

  At some more rational point in her life Teale supposed she would look back on the evening she spent curled up on the sofa eating tuna fish and watching Rear Window with one of the most wanted criminals in the state as an aberration, a touch of eccentricity brought on by incipient job burnout or simple insanity. But at the time it was happening, nothing in the world could have seemed more natural—even though she did notice she spent more time watching David than she did the movie.

  Five minutes into the show David took his glasses from his T-shirt pocket and put them on with a rather sheepish look. "All right," he admitted. "Driving, reading and close work. In fact, anything that requires I see more than three feet in front of my face."

  "Aha," she teased him softly. "That explains why you kept saying I was beautiful—you never saw me!”

  “No," he assured her. "That's why I stand so close to you—to make sure of what I'm seeing."

  Teale had very little time for a social life, but she had never felt the paucity until now. Sitting with David, listening to the muted rumble of thunder far offshore, sipping ginger ale and doing nothing more complicated than watching an old movie on television ... It was nice. It was difficult to remember that none of this was real, that they weren't just an ordinary man and woman enjoying a quiet evening at home. That, in fact, he represented everything she was trained to despise and she was the symbol of all he held in contempt. After a while, Teale stopped trying to remind herself. For the first time in what seemed like many years, she simply relaxed and enjoyed herself.

  At some point in the evening—Teale didn't know how or when—she found David's arm around her shoulders and her head resting comfortably against his biceps. That, too, seemed only natural. She became aware of the warmth of his hand cupping her bare shoulder, the strength of the lean muscle beneath her head, the masculine scent of him, subtle, but unmistakably tantalizing. She noticed how soft the T-shirt material that stretched over his chest looked, and she wondered how it would feel to run her hands over that fabric, tracing the definition of the muscles underneath, feeling heat and firm flesh and the springy texture of hair. Wondering made her stomach tight, and she tried to reproach herself, but all she succeeded in doing was to make herself feel guilty.

  She couldn't help it if she found him attractive, she tried to rationalize. She couldn't control her body's instinctive response to one of the sexiest men she'd ever met. That didn't mean she had to do anything about it. She was perfectly aware that the course of her thoughts was inappropriate, even dangerous, but that didn't stop her from fantasizing.

  Damn it, David, she thought helplessly, why did you have to be who you are? Why did he have to be so bright and so amusing and so unceasingly fascinating? Why did he have to make her feel the way she did every time she looked at him? Why couldn't he be all those things and also be an ordinary man with an ordinary past and an ordinary job?

  Why was it that for the first time in her life she had met a man who interested her on more than a surface level and he had to be a criminal?

  Yet there was more to D
avid Carey than just his criminal activities, and that was what puzzled—and frustrated—her most. His strange sense of honor, that disturbing streak of sincerity; his humor, his wit, his carefree savoir faire... his unnerving perception, his unshakable confidence, his unexpected gentleness. Even the way his eyes flashed when she had accused him of using her– damn it how was she supposed to understand a man like that? And why was it suddenly so important to her that she try?

  She glanced up at him, his face shadowed by the flickering screen, his expression intent upon the action before him, looking vulnerable and relaxed in his glasses and T-shirt. Not like a dangerous criminal. Like a sexy, attractive, oddly endearing man.

  He's a game player, Captain Hollis said. Teale wanted to believe it was that simple, but she couldn't. As hard as she tried, she couldn't dismiss David Carey that easily.

  "I love this part," David murmured. "Funny how it seems old hat now, but when it was first done...”

  Firmly, she focused her attention back on the television set, and with no small effort on her part, soon was caught up in the suspense of the make-believe drama before her. But just as Jimmy Stewart heard the ominous footsteps outside his door, as he struggled to wheel his chair around the tiny apartment and frantically armed himself with flashbulbs, the lights flickered and went out.

  "Oh, hell," said David, disappointed.

  She couldn't help laughing. "I'll tell you how it comes out."

  "It won't be the same."

  Teale felt in the darkness for a candle on the skirted end table beside her. "There must be a storm somewhere up the line; it happens all the time. There are some matches in the drawer of that table next to you— can you reach them?"

  She heard him fumbling around on the table, wincing as a muffled thud indicated the fate of one of her treasures. A stack of magazines went to the floor with a flutter of pages. "I can barely see in full daylight," David apologized. "In the dark..."