A Perfect Stranger
Page 18
“Does this new ring tone mean you’ve told her about Lisa?”
When Marlowe merely shot him a look, he nodded. “Got it. None of my business. On that note, M, I’ll ride off into the sunset and my meeting. When you’re thinking with your head again, give some consideration to the junior partner thing. I know I blew it with the DMV photo, but come on, Ethan Lyons and Cristian Turner look a hell of a lot alike.”
“Yeah, except for the part of Lyons’s left earlobe that a Rottweiler mangled long before the last DMV picture of Turner was taken.”
“I’ll remember that for future comps. Solution’s in the details.” Val raised his voice and his hand to Darcy. “I’m thinking dinner tomorrow night, darling. Any restaurant you want. My treat.”
She pushed upright, eyes twinkling. “Oh, never be that open-ended with me, Val. I have expensive taste, and I happen to know you’re still working on a raft of old IOUs.”
“McDonald’s it is. Well, wish me luck, people. I’ve never stood up and told my story before.”
Darcy waited until he was gone to stroll over and hook her arms around Marlowe’s neck. “Curious as I am to know what he means, I’m going to set that and all other questions aside in favor of a single pressing one.”
Drawing her firmly against him, Marlowe looked into her incredible blue eyes. “And that is?”
She brought her mouth within an inch of his to whisper, “How many times do you plan on making love to me tonight?”
His eyes gleamed. “Depends.”
“On?”
“Your stamina.” And as he covered her mouth with his, Marlowe felt the pain inside him begin to slide away.
MIDNIGHT CAME AND WENT. With a sprinkling of stars overhead and the moon glowing like an enormous white pearl, Darcy brought a bottle of wine to her back porch, sat next to Marlowe on the step and poured.
Smiling smugly, she tapped her glass to his. “Remember, this break was your idea, not mine—should the question of stamina happen to arise.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little out of practice these days.”
“Could have fooled me.” Turning slightly, she played with his hair. “Do you want to talk?”
“I’m working on it.”
Because she knew he was, she helped him out. “Who came up with the Bert-and-Ernie diversion on Faldo Road, and did you hear any of the conversation between Ethan and me before you got there?”
Marlowe’s lips twitched. “That was Comet’s idea. Guess he likes Sesame Street. As for what I heard, I picked up while Lyons was telling you the place belonged to his Aunt Hannah.”
“Which you’d already figured out, and I’m really glad you had since he was pushing me toward his idea of a Graceland bed at the time.” She swirled her wine. “You know, for a moment while he was strapped down, I almost felt sorry for him. No one could want to be that insane.”
“That obsessed. That dangerous.”
“I know, but really, Marlowe, according to his grandfather, Ethan’s been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since he was thirteen—which, on a side note, accounts for the gaps in the gifts he sent me. He’d been released on a twelve-hour pass the day he escaped. I mean, get real, what kind of doctor authorizes a pass for someone as sick as that?”
“One who likes money.”
“Then for his sake, I hope he’s got a huge stash of it, because by the time Elaine gets through with this story, said doctor will be stripped of his credentials and possibly forced to take refuge in Panama.” Laughing, she tickled his ribs. “Is that a grin I see on your supersexy face?”
“I just had a picture of Lyons’s shrink sitting next to your former coworker on that Panamanian flight.”
“Oh, I think Trace’s story is a little different than Ethan’s. I truly believe Trace could be helped if he’d bother to try. Wouldn’t make him a more likeable person, but a few less neuroses and a little anger management couldn’t hurt.” She regarded the moon. “It was Trace I saw at the hospital, you know. Elaine said he came to her place to talk, and wound up putting put his hand through a wall. Broke three knuckles and his thumb. His hand’ll be in a cast for weeks.”
Leaning back on one elbow, Marlowe let his eyes roam the small garden. “In the cop world, your tone would be described as gleefully malicious.”
“Which I can only justify by claiming that the shock of this nightmare hasn’t worn off yet.”
“Would another round of wild sex upstairs speed that process along?”
“Might.” But she sighed and, leaning over, drew a circle on his chest. “Vacation would be better. Or…” she raised her eyes “…a bedtime story.”
He sipped his wine. “Nice segue, Darcy. Wish I had a nice story for you in return, but the only one I know doesn’t end with happily ever after.”
She kissed his chin. “Would it help if I told you that Comet’s a very chatty man, and he knows a great deal more about your past than you probably realize?”
He stared at her in mild suspicion. “You talked to Comet about my past?”
“No, he talked to me while we were driving to the hospital. Just blurted it out in one long, rambling sentence.”
“He told you about Lisa.”
She nodded.
Marlowe’s gaze shifted to the grass. “She was five years old when a sniper’s bullet killed her. Elizabeth—her mother—and I had been divorced for four years. But I had every weekend with Lisa from the time we split up. I took her to an amusement park one Saturday night. Shouldn’t have because I’d been threatened earlier in the week. But she wanted to go, and her birthday was three days away.”
“Little girls know how to get around their daddies,” Darcy said gently, and brushed his cheek.
“Lisa was alive when we went to the park and dead when we left. The guy who’d threatened me earlier that week must have followed us. He was aiming for me, but he missed and killed her. I remember screams and sirens and flashing lights. I remember swearing I’d get him. I remember the guilt eating away at me and not caring if it ate me up.”
“Did you catch him?” Darcy asked.
“Oh, yeah.” A trace of a smile crossed Marlowe’s lips. “I cornered him seven months later. He shot, then I shot. He got me in the shoulder. I got him in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.”
Darcy waited for the rest. When he didn’t continue, she ventured, “He was dead, but…?”
“It didn’t help. It didn’t change what was. It didn’t do what I wanted it to do, what I needed it to do, what I’d somehow expected it to do.”
“It didn’t bring her back.”
“No, it only made me shut down. I think now I was right on the edge of no way back when Lugo called me. I was tempted to say, ‘Screw you,’ buy a ticket to Margaritaville and leave it at that.”
“But instead you took the job and screwed up my life.”
He laughed a little, moved the hair from her cheek. “That pretty much sums it up. With one important omission.”
“Which is?”
Setting a finger under her chin, he brought her mouth to his. “I love you, Darcy. Didn’t think I would. I didn’t think I could. But I do. Suddenly Margaritaville’s lost its appeal.”
“And the guilt?”
“Still there, but manageable, and I’m guessing normal. I want to go forward. I want the future to matter. I want you to be my future, or a very large part of it.”
“Future’s kind of a scary word to me,” she began, but he pushed her onto her back and kissed the objection away.
When he lifted his head, she laughed. “So much for drawing out the moment. Before I wind up senseless and tripping on emotion, I guess I’ll say I love you, too. Which still sort of amazes me when I think about it, because while I make friends easily, I hardly ever get involved. You snuck in, Marlowe, and I have to tell you, that scares the hell out of me.”
“Fair enough. Means we’re staring off on even ground.”
“Oh, good.” She nipped his bottom lip. �
�Now, exactly where would that even ground be? Here or New York?”
He grinned. “I’m flexible.”
“In that case, we’ll flip a coin.” Moving her mouth to his ear, she gave him a gentle bite and whispered, “Later.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4662-5
A PERFECT STRANGER
Copyright © 2010 by Jacqueline Goff
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