by Donna Ball
He said gently, "I know."
Then she had to look at him. In his gaze was written a quiet understanding of the truth; it was the same thing that was in her own. She had shared herself with him. It didn't matter how or why, whether it was wrong or right. There was a bond between them now; there was no breaking it or ignoring it. And for just that moment, as the hot electric wind swept down to buffet her and David's gaze held her like an embrace, it didn't matter who he was at all.
She slowly lifted her arms to encircle him; he bent toward her. They kissed.
Passion flared, swift and intense. The gentle, exploratory nature of last night's first kiss was gone, and they came together in mutual urgency, greedy and sure . His power swept through her, charging and galvanizing her. She drank of him hungrily; her fingers pressing and shaping the straining muscles of his back, exploring the damp warm texture of his neck beneath his hair, traveling down to his waist and tracing his shape. She felt his hands upon her naked back, pressing into her ribs, the length of his strong hard thighs and the hardness of his pelvis against hers. Exhilaration flooded her, and a sweet wild madness blotted out everything else but David and her need for him.
His lips left hers, but only for a moment, to whisper her name, to brush her face, to touch the sensitive hollow just beneath her ear. A thrill of desire went through her and left her weak. His face was a blur before her, a textured collage of softness and roughness, fever and dampness, beneath her shaky fingertips.
His hand traveled slowly up her ribs and slipped beneath her halter, cupping her breast. She lost her breath, and her muscles went watery as his fingers lightly caressed her hard, swollen nipple. A knot of need tightened low in her belly and spread on quivering wires of sensation to every part of her body. Unconsciously, she pressed herself against him, aching for him, wanting him blindly.
He lowered his head, he kissed both of her breasts, one after the other, deeply, lingering, through the material. The ache had become painful, and she moaned with it.
"Teale," he whispered, holding her. She could hear his breathing and feel it against her neck. The thunder of his heartbeat matched her own. "Let's go inside. Let me love you."
Yes, she thought, and closed her eyes. Yes....
But, against his shoulder, she was shaking her head, slowly and deliberately. "No," she whispered hoarsely.
She brought her hands to his arms, tightened them there, and then pushed herself away. He didn't try to stop her.
She was shaking, heated and weak. Every nerve in her body stung and ached, crying out in protest against the sudden deprivation. She wanted him. Nothing was going to change that. The ache wouldn't go away. But even as she knew that, she said again, "No."
She saw his face, flushed and passion-hazed, and his eyes, light and dark. The wind swept down again and tossed his hair, except for a single strand that was caught in the dampness of his forehead. She wanted to touch that strand and smooth it away; she wanted simply to touch him, one more time. With all the will in her being, she did not.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tried to stop the trembling. She looked at him helplessly, wanting him to understand, knowing that he already did.
She said as steadily as she could, "If we—made love tonight, could you be sure it wasn't just because—I was doing my job?"
He answered hoarsely, but without hesitation. "Yes."
An ache swelled inside her throat that felt like the beginning of tears. She had to turn away, and she shook her head sadly. "I couldn't," she whispered.
After a moment, he came up behind her and lightly dropped his hand onto her shoulder. Nothing more, just that gentle, comforting touch of his hand. Then she heard the breath of his sigh. "Oh, Teale," he said heavily, "this isn't good, is it?"
Her eyes blurred hotly; determinedly she blinked them clear. She couldn't find her voice, so she simply shook her head, violently.
In a moment, with a light pressure on her shoulder, he turned her to face him. He tried to smile, but there was a seriousness and a hunger in his eyes she couldn't ignore. "We're playing by a whole new set of rules now, aren't we?" he asked gently.
"Yes," she whispered, because there was no point in denying it.
He nodded. His gaze moved over her face once, briefly, and then back to her eyes. Again, he tried to smile. "Well, that's what makes life interesting, isn't it? You never know the outcome."
Perhaps. But she knew what would become of David and her: nothing. Nothing at all. It simply wasn't possible.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. The next words were among the most difficult she had ever had to say. "Some things haven't changed, David. The most important things. It would be dangerous for you to forget that."
He dropped his gaze briefly. "I won't."
When he looked at her again his expression had altered, almost by force of will, becoming casual and light. "Do you need a ride to work tomorrow?" he asked.
She shook her head quickly, adamantly. To show up for work in David's sports car, to have everyone in the department speculating and grinning and nudging themselves, to risk having the captain take her off the case.... "I'll call Sam.”
“All right, then." His eyes lingered on hers for a moment longer. "I'll see you soon."
She nodded.
He moved forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Good night, Teale."
He turned and walked back into the apartment, guided by the light of the candle through the living room and toward the front door. But Teale stayed outside long after she'd heard the door close, watching the distant storm, alone with her own troubled thoughts.
**************
David spent a long time driving along the coast road because he didn't want to go back to his house while people were still there. He parked for a time and watched the lightning illuminate the clouds, forming ominous shapes in fleeting revelations. He was accustomed to dealing with crises; the unexpected was routine for him. But he had never had to face a crisis like this, and the usual formulas he employed to solve complex problems seemed pat and didn't apply. Perhaps it was because, for the first time in many years, he was being forced to listen to his heart and not his head.
"Imagine," he murmured to himself at last, with a weary, slightly amused shake of his head. "At my age...."
The party was over when he got home, but George was waiting up for him.
"How did it go?" David asked without interest. The power, he noticed, was on at his house. He wondered if it had been restored at Teale's.
“The usual. There was a message." George watched David alertly as he handed him a folded note. "Diangelo. He's made the first move."
David read the message without expression, then crumpled it into an ashtray. He sat down heavily, swinging his feet up onto the coffee table, his arms folded across his chest. His eyes were brooding and abstract, and he asked abruptly after a moment, "Do you ever think about dumping it all? Just sailing away to some island in the South Pacific and leaving it all behind?"
George snorted. "Only every day and twice on Sundays." He touched a match to the paper in the ashtray and watched as tendrils of smoke began to curl upward.
"I've been thinking about it a lot lately."
George looked at him, and then his expression sharpened into amazement. "You're serious."
David said nothing.
George shook his head in a mixture of astonishment and derision. "Man, you're crazy. You couldn't get out even if you wanted to. And you don't want to. You've got too much invested—we've all got too much invested. You'd be climbing the walls inside a month."
"Maybe," David agreed absently. "But sometimes I think... well, this just might be my last job."
George stared at him, and suddenly his eyes narrowed in understanding. "It's that woman," he pronounced decisively. "That female cop. She's getting to you."
David didn't respond at once. His brow remained drawn in heavy, contemplative silence; his hands laced over his chest. Then he stood
slowly, and his smile was sad. "That she is," he admitted, and turned toward the bedroom. "That she surely is."
*****************
SEVEN
During the next week a tropical depression hovered off the coast, unwilling to upgrade itself to a full-size storm, gathering energy, waiting. The sky remained swollen and overcast, and the humidity was so high that Teale's hair was damp by midmorning. Occasional afternoon thunderstorms, would erupt, promising an end to the heat and the tension, but in fact would do no more than spatter the ground with a few fat drops of rain before retreating again, gathering force for the grand event everyone knew was coming. For two hundred thirty-five dollars Teale retrieved her car and her freedom of movement. She lost the argument with Captain Hollis over wearing a wire when she was with David. She said nothing to Sam or the captain about the evening spent with David in her apartment watching Rear Window and listening to the distant storm.
The course of the Carey investigation was just as static and oppressive as the atmosphere outside. Every move Teale made was hampered by yards of red tape, every avenue she opened turned out to be a blind alley, forcing her at last to declare bitterly that it was no wonder David Carey was always a step ahead of the game—he didn't have to deal with the bureaucracy.
After more effort than should reasonably have been required, Teale finally got a look at the Diangelo file. She studied the photograph of a short, balding middle-aged man—someone's grandfather or favorite uncle. She tried to imagine the malevolence behind that bland countenance, and when she read his record she didn't have to imagine. It made her ill. How could David be involved with a man like that?
Stay away from him, David had told her. He's bad news, Teale, and you're about to get in over your head.
"Still working on your straight-line theory?" Sam commented over her shoulder. There was a touch of disgust in his voice. He, too, was frustrated with the course of the investigation and was anxious to move on to something more promising. "Honey, the only way you're going to get close enough to Diangelo to recognize him from that photograph is if David Carey introduces you to him at a dinner party. And the way things are going, that doesn't look very likely, does it?"
"It doesn't hurt to cover all the angles," she replied somewhat shortly, and closed the file. "We're sure not getting anywhere taking the long way around."
She opened David's file and began to go through it again, slowly, page by page.
Sam groaned. "What the hell do you think you're going to get from that? You've read it so often the print's beginning to fade. Besides, there's nothing in there lover boy hasn't already told you in all its gory detail."
"Yes, there is," she said slowly. She tapped her pencil against the pages thoughtfully. "Something's not right here."
"Yeah, well, I'll tell you what's not right. This whole investigation, that's what. We're sitting here spinning our wheels while every night David Carey is raking in hundreds of thousands of illegal dollars. I'll tell you the truth, Saunders, I'm about ready to recommend we wrap the whole thing. Bust Carey, be satisfied with what we've got and hope for a better shot at Diangelo next time around."
"No," she said, perhaps too quickly. "You know we can't do that. Besides," she added, somewhat more casualty, "I already tried it with Hollis and it didn't fly."
Not giving him a chance to question her for details, she pointed to a page of the file. "Look at this. These five years he was in Europe—but Interpol has nothing on him."
Sam was unimpressed. "So? Our records exchange with foreign agencies isn't exactly infallible, you know. Hell, we have enough trouble keeping up with information between states."
"Exactly." Teale thumped the page again. "Here, between Florida and Connecticut—another year is missing. And two years beginning in '01."
"Come on, Teale, the man's a shrewd operator. Do you think he's going to let us keep records of every heist he pulls? Men like Carey don't get caught, that's all."
"That's just what I mean. This record is spotty. If he was as good as we think he is, we should have nothing. Instead we have sporadic indication of meaningless connections and petty charges... just enough to let us know he's dirty but not enough to tell us how dirty. And nothing whatsoever that links anything together. Damn," she sighed. "I'd sure like to know what went on in these blank spaces."
Sam hesitated. "Well," he said, "I've got a friend in Central Records at the capital. You want me to give her a call?"
Teale lifted an eyebrow. "Her?"
He grinned. "All my best friends are women."
"Maybe you'd like to run up there and check into it personally."
He considered that. "Maybe I would. As I recall, she makes a hell of a chicken-fried steak."
"Call her," Teale advised. "Make her set those computer wheels to work. There's got to be something more on Carey than we have here."
Teale breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone. At least he had something to keep him busy. As for Teale, .she didn't know what she expected from Central Records, or even why she wanted it. Was she really looking for something to help her break this case—or was she hoping for something that would prove David's innocence?
During the day, she did her job, she devoted herself to the routine of investigation, she assured herself there was no conflict of interest. She did not forget what David Carey was: an underworld figure, an illegal operator, a collection of facts on paper. Not a threat to the safety of the free world, certainly; not a mass murderer or a war criminal or a terrorist, but an enemy to the way of law and order and a key figure in a criminal investigation. And Teale pursued the investigation with just the amount of vigor it deserved, no more and no less.
But at night... at night everything was different.
She saw David Carey almost every evening, always wearing a hidden wire, always with Sam somewhere close in attendance. In the morning she would dutifully turn in the tapes and stoically receive Sam's comments. "Now I know why I never asked you out," he would grumble in passing. Or, "Real fun evening, Saunders. I only fell asleep twice." Or, "Next time pick a movie I haven't seen, okay?" And finally, "What are you doing with that guy, anyway—playing pinochle? I could get more information out of a stopped clock—not to mention more entertainment."
What Sam did not see were the looks that passed between she and David across a candlelit dinner table, the accidental brushings of hands that lingered or the simple smiles. David said nothing because he knew about the wire, of course, and the things he might have liked to say were for her ears only. Teale, recognizing that, was deeply touched. He expertly fielded the questions she felt compelled to ask relevant to the investigation and she was relieved when he did so.
For there were other rewards. When they were together they acted like ordinary people, real people, people who were getting to know each other and enjoyed every moment of it. They went to movies and had lively discussions about them afterward. Over dinner they talked about books and music and nouvelle cuisine. It bored Sam, but it fascinated Teale.
They went to a seashore carnival, and she discovered David had a weakness for cotton candy and that he loved the roller coaster as much as she did. There was no pressure, no deceit, no sidestepping emotional dangers. They were simply at ease with each other, and Teale treasured every moment of it. The constraints of her job—and the hidden microphone—both protected and freed her.
And Sam didn't know about the notes. Over dinner, at the movies, walking along the beach, David would pull out scraps of paper or pick up cocktail napkins and scribble, "Your eyes are so bright I can see myself in them. Does that mean you're happy?" or "I want to kiss you so badly I ache." Or, occasionally, "This one's for Sam." Whereupon he would launch into a tale of his supposed exploits that was so horrific, so outrageous and absurd, that there could be no doubt it was taken directly from a Quentin Tarantino movie, leaving Teale in convulsions of laughter and causing Sam to comment dourly the next morning, "The man's a maniac."
Sometimes, late at night
, as she lay in bed alone, Teale wondered how much longer she could possibly keep up this double life. How much longer could she go on compartmentalizing her thoughts and her emotions—Teale the cop for daytime, Teale the woman for night—when David Carey was the pivot on which all compartments revolved? She told herself she was only following orders; she was keeping an eye on David, she was building his trust, and if anything began to break in the operation she would be in a position to be the first to know. But inside she knew it was much, much more than that. Because when she made out her reports every morning she did not include the looks, the smiles, the notes. She did not include the way she felt every time she was with him, and those feelings were not going to go away.
She avoided thinking about the time when she would be forced to take action on the investigation. That inevitable moment when all the pieces fell into place and there was no more need for candlelight dinners and walks on the beach and quiet conversation. That time when the evidence was collected and the warrant was issued and she would have to pull out her badge and say to David, "You're under arrest." She knew it was coming. But she couldn't think about it.
She couldn't think about that night when they stood on her patio and watched the storm, she couldn't think about the way his eyes lit up when he smiled or the way her stomach tightened when he looked at her or how good it felt to laugh with him or how much she wanted to touch him, sometimes. She couldn't think about her feelings at all, because she knew if ever she allowed the contents of one compartment to spill over into the other she wouldn't be able to deal with any of it. She didn't dare examine anything that was happening too closely; she convinced herself that her integrity was intact by simply not questioning it.
And then the evening came when she couldn't avoid the truth any longer.
She and David were having iced capuccino at one of the trendy new sidewalk cafes on the boardwalk. It was sunset, and the thick gray sky was laced with scallops of bright red and orange. The sea was murky and still. At the horizon a cloud dipped down and sprayed the water with a foggy curtain of rain, and Teale was fascinated by the effect.