Dead Calm

by Lindsay Longford

  “You have a real flair for giving orders, Sophie.” There was that flash of something unnerving in his eyes. “But I’ll stand. Thank you. If you don’t mind?”

  “Sit. Stand. Jump out the window. I don’t care.” She gulped her tea, felt its warmth right down to her toes. The tea-bag tab dangled against her nose. She wanted Finnegan out of her house. She wanted a shower so badly she could scream. What was going on in his head? He kept swinging back and forth between this strange kind of teasing and the cold, judgmental Judah who’d first appeared after— After she’d filed the DUI report on his partner. That had changed everything.

  She gulped again, too quickly. Coughed. “About your questions?”

  “Right.” He cupped his mug with both hands. Cop mode now. No grin. No sly comments. No electricity jittering at her. “You treated the woman when she came in, right? Do you remember her?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Judah. Of course I remember her.” Sophie sank into the nearest chair. She placed her mug on the table, watching the amber liquid swirl in the purple mug. Very carefully, she lifted the tea bag out and wrapped its string around the bowl of her spoon, squeezing until the bag was drained. She laid it on the table. Moved it. “She died.”

  “Hell. This day just keeps getting better and better. What a damned mess.”

  She lifted her head so fast she almost saw stars. “There’s an understatement.”

  Over his mug, his bleak gaze met hers. “Like you said, it wasn’t my case. I hadn’t heard what happened to her. But she’s the reason I need to get some answers from you. I don’t like coincidences. I thought it was weird that me and Tyree found that baby at the church the same night you had your beating victim.”

  “You found that baby at a church?” Sophie stared at him. “How odd. Where?”

  “The Second Baptist. In the manger.” He shrugged. Tea slopped down the side of the mug. “Damnedest thing.”

  Sophie felt her heart give a quick little jump. Felt a softening in her very bones. “In the manger?”

  “Right. Anyway, what can you tell me about her?”

  “The baby?” Sophie couldn’t stop thinking of that small face with its calm brown eyes.

  “No.”

  Even in her distraction, Sophie noticed that he was on the prowl again, playing with her blinds, tugging at the Halloween tea towel dangling from her stove.

  “The woman. Was she conscious when she was brought in? Did she say anything to you? There was squat all on the report. Just where she was found on the street in a residential area. Nothing more. Nobody’s canvassed the area yet. Been one of those nights.”

  “Full moon. The holiday.” She stood up. Lifting the kettle, she refilled her mug. “The ER was a war zone.”

  “I’ll bet. Anyway, did you find any identification on her when you examined her? Anything?”

  “No. You think she and the baby are connected, don’t you?”

  “I’m curious. Like I said, I don’t like coincidences.”

  “Cammie and I wondered about that.” Sophie sipped her tea and let her mind wander to the past hours. “The baby is Asian. The woman was. Didn’t necessarily mean anything since we have an increasingly large Vietnamese population. In the little time we had to think about things, we wondered. The baby’s in the pediatric ward.” Swirling the tea, she stared at Finnegan. “It’s a shame.”

  “It’s always a shame. Violence. Hate.”

  “Death.”

  “Yeah.” For the first time since he’d come into her kitchen, he was motionless. “People are vicious.”

  “Some are.”

  “Most.”

  “That’s a grim world view. A sad one.”

  “It’s reality. I’m a cop. I see what people can do to each other.”

  “I do, too. But I don’t think the lunkheads make up the majority.”

  “You’re a fool, then.”

  “Really? You’re full of compliments tonight, Judah, aren’t you? Today, I mean. A silver-tongued devil. One compliment after another. Will my ego ever recover?”

  Something that might have been amusement gleamed in his tired eyes again, softened the creases at the corners. He lounged against the sink. “I think your ego will survive.”

  She laughed in spite of her annoyance. She’d had worse jabs thrown at her in med school, but for some reason Judah’s comment still stung. Clearly having a moment or even sixty of wild sex together hadn’t thawed his view of her. And that was why his slow, deliberate statement hurt. “I’m a fool because I believe people are basically pretty decent? Because I don’t think humanity’s a lost cause?”

  “It’s the world I see every day.” He rubbed the mug across his forehead. Pale plumes of steam drifted across his face. “A lousy world.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “Well, there you go, Doc. You got your point of view. Me? Every day I see what people can do. And they never cease to surprise me with the evil they can come up with. Seems they don’t even have to put their minds to it.” He shut his eyes and breathed in the steam from the tea. “Under the right circumstances, each of us is capable of anything.”

  “If that’s how you feel, then how can you do your job? Why don’t you give up? In the face of all that evil, what’s the point?”

  “Hey, I do my job. I go out and do my job. That’s all. That’s what they pay me to do. I collect my paycheck. There’s no other point.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe the man I knew could live like that. Not the man who still holds me responsible for his partner’s suicide. That man cared.”

  “You really are a fool, aren’t you, Doctor Sugar?”

  “And you have to go on the attack, don’t you, Detective Finnegan? When the knife cuts too close to the bone?”

  Abruptly he placed his mug on the counter. Went on the move again. Literally.

  This time she followed him. “So tell me, Finnegan, why did you become a cop? If you don’t see any point to it?”

  With one long finger, he lifted the corner of the opened newspaper on her center island, let the pages rustle back in place. “Tell me about your vic.”

  “Oh? Can’t answer my question?”

  “Come on, Sophie.” He slapped down the spoon he’d picked up. “Tell me about the vic.”

  “Funny how we distance ourselves, isn’t it, Judah? Cops call their people ‘vics,’ ‘perps.’ We say ‘the gunshot,’ the ‘bleeder,’ the ‘crispy critter.’ Our language puts space between us and the people we treat. The people you arrest. We create that safe distance. For us. So we don’t have to feel pain. So we can walk away at the end of our shift. And every time we do, it makes seeing the human in front of us that much harder.”

  “I see them. I see what they do. I don’t want to get to know them. I’ve got no desire to understand them and offer sympathy. My job’s to catch them if I can and stick them behind bars so they can’t hurt anyone again. That’s what the city pays me to do. I earn my paycheck.”

  “I don’t see how you can get out of bed each day and go to work if that’s what you truly believe about your job.”

  “I don’t want to know why a rattler strikes me. I don’t need to understand its nature. I kill it. And then it doesn’t crawl out and bite me in the ass.”

  She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah. That’s pretty obvious.”

  She poked his forearm and was aware again of the tensile strength that lay beneath the skin. “I know you cops are cynical as hell, but under all that machismo—yes, in their own way the women cops are full of macho too,” she added as his eyes met hers. “But under all that stuff you guys carry around with you, cops usually have a sense of being one of the good guys, one of the guys making a difference. Sure, it’s always you against the world, and I get that. It’s the hunker-in-the-bunker mentality. We have it in my job. But—” and she poked him in the ribs again “—here’s the deal. All the cops I’ve known believe what they do is imp
ortant. They have to believe in something. Knights in blue, fighting the good fight.”

  “All the cops?” Judah’s eyes flashed to hers, he didn’t move, and, that fast, George was suddenly there between them, that ghostly presence as real and as dangerous as if he were standing there with Judah in her cluttered kitchen where a pot of brilliant red geraniums splashed their color against a white wall.

  Her pulse sped up, danced around as the moment stretched out.

  And then, in a flat, hard voice, he repeated, “Tell me what else you know about your vic, Sophie. You don’t want to talk about what happened on the beach. I don’t want to argue world viewpoints. I want to know about the vic. That’s all. Tell me about the vic.”

  Over his shoulder through the red-and-white blinds of her kitchen window, a glimpse of smoke-gray skies and then his cop face filled her view, that energy crackling all around her, slamming against her.

  Chapter 5

  And that was that.

  She let all that male hostility and energy whirl around her, let him wear himself out against her silence.

  She couldn’t summon the strength to deal with Judah and their ghost, not both at the same time. Not today.

  Like staccato gunshots, his questions banged into her. “Did anyone come to check on her? Someone who knew her? Were there any phone calls asking how she was doing?”

  “No. No. And none,” Sophie finally reported. That was how it felt. Like giving a morbidity report at the hospital. That clipped, that objective. Stripped of emotion. Facts, nothing else. No opinions, no second thoughts. “The body hasn’t been released yet.”

  Judah’s questions, unlike those of the committee, were impatient, ricocheting off the walls.

  “C’mon, Sophie. There must have been something.” He took a step closer and all the air in the room went swooshing out of her lungs. “Unless you’re deliberately holding back on me?” He placed one hand flat on the table and leaned into her space. “Are you? Holding back?”

  She took a breath. “Why would I do that, Judah?”

  He didn’t answer, just fixed her with that stare that made her feel as if she’d run a red light, embezzled hospital funds, and kicked a dog.

  Or killed someone.

  “You want to take a step back, detective? I need to get something out of the refrigerator.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You don’t lie worth a damn.”

  “I’m not lying.” She crossed her arms.

  “Of course you are.” He studied her. “It’s in the eyes, Sophie.”

  “I want a glass of juice. And toast. I need to get the bread and orange juice out of the refrigerator.”

  “Sure you do. But in a minute. Let’s finish this. I’m almost done.” He didn’t budge.

  And for once she couldn’t summon up the nerve to push past him.

  “Fine. Whatever you say. But I have places to go. You know how it is.” She threw his words back at him. “People to see. Things to do.” She kept her arms folded.

  “I’ll bet.”

  Nope. This wasn’t like reporting to the hospital committees. This was a whole new kind of bad. Whip-snapping between her and Judah with every piece of information she gave him, this tension wore her out. Every comment came flying at her loaded with at least three different meanings. And all because of his partner, the man who’d bailed out of life and left everyone else holding a bag full of guilt and misery.

  Complicated.

  Not how she liked to deal with people. She liked simple, not this underlying sense that she was walking through a minefield in the dark. The casual observer would have seen nothing more than Judah pacing and heard only questions about the woman who’d died. But the crackle and pop came from the slant of his eyes in her direction, the quick glances and the curl of his voice around her name every time he said it. From the way he used his body, leaning in toward her, placing an arm on the table and cutting off any avenue of escape.

  She felt like a mouse with its heart beating fast under the watchful eyes of the cat. Judah was no tame tabby. A farm cat, an alley cat, but no declawed house puss, that was for sure. She resented him for making her feel as though all the power lay with him. She wasn’t used to that sensation.

  He touched the counter with his palm, let it slide down the edge, looked at her, and her damned brain spritzed out with the memory of his palm sliding over her. She shifted restlessly. His eyes met hers, lingered while he said, “All right. So no one called about her, no one came to see her. Was she clean?”

  “Drugs, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She wasn’t a druggie. Her tox screen was clean.”

  “Did she look like she’d been living on the streets?”

  “She wasn’t homeless.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Her nails were manicured. Does that work for you?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Give me a break.” There had been tension earlier. Last night. It had shot them into those go-figure moments on the beach. But the nature of the tension had shifted. The old hostility was back, but it had altered somehow.

  She didn’t like the change. It was worse this time because of the pictures snapping in and out in her head. Because of what she’d let happen. No, not let. She’d wanted to make love with him.

  But they hadn’t made love. Whatever they’d done, it hadn’t been that.

  Why hadn’t she thought? She’d simply reached out for what she’d wanted. Taken what she needed in the aftermath of the lousy night in the ER.

  Taken.

  And told herself it would be all right.

  She’d believed it, too.

  She was wrong.

  Because it wasn’t all right.

  It was all wrong and uncomfortable and she didn’t like feeling vulnerable around him, not with the damned ghost of George hovering between them.

  “Think, Sophie. Think about her shoes, her hair, her jewelry. Anything. You’re smart. You must have picked up something. As ER head, you would have been on top of every little detail. I don’t reckon anything would have gotten by you. Right?”

  “Gosh, Judah, you want me to go find a bright light you can shine in my eyes? I’m not one of your usual suspects, you know. Or perhaps you didn’t realize you were treating me like one of your perps?”

  His footsteps slowed. He frowned. “I’m not treating you like a perp.”

  “Really? Funny, because I feel as if you’re two steps away from bringing in the handcuffs.”

  “Did you see any on the beach?” He sighed. “Hell, Sophie, I’m collecting information. Asking basic questions.”

  “You have a damned intimidating way of asking questions, then, is what I think.”

  “This is only a friendly interview, cop to witness. Anything else is your imagination.” He chuffed a breath of air in what she thought was intended to be exasperation, but she didn’t buy it. Not for one second. Especially not with his cat-got-into-the-cream expression. The man knew precisely what he was doing to her. He liked making her jumpy. He liked keeping her jumpy, that’s what it was.

  “You know something, Judah? I’ve been a rational woman all my life. Not a violent bone in my body. But, oh boy, you tempt me.” The word tumbled off the tip of her tongue and fell between them.

  There was a long silence, a silence loaded with possibilities and memories.

  He could have said anything. He could have destroyed her with the lift of an eyebrow.

  She’d stepped on a landmine and all she could do was wait for the explosion.

  And then he asked, so gently that she almost threw her mug at him after all, because it felt like kindness and a kind of pity and she didn’t want him to see her vulnerable, not now—

  “Why would I try to intimidate you, Sophie?”

  “Because you can’t help yourself? Because you’re a natural-born skeptic?” She drummed her fingers against her leg. “No, that can’t be right. Y
ou always know what you’re doing. I have to assume you’re bringing on the attitude for some reason of your own.”

  “What reason would that be?” He leaned forward.

  Because you still blame me for George’s suicide? Because you can’t forgive me for his weakness? Because you’re still judging me? she almost blurted out.

  But she stayed silent. Those were the questions he wasn’t about to answer. Not today, anyway. She edged to the side.

  A mistake. The heat of his body engulfed her, and before she understood what she’d done, she’d taken a step back, needing to put distance between them.

  An unsettling idea after this morning, that she needed distance. Her insides still quivered when she remembered what had happened, remembered the unbelievable intimacy of what they’d done with each other. And every time those images flickered in her brain, her body sparkled, went hot.

  It had seemed right at the time.

  So right.

  In the aftermath, though, she wanted that distance. Without it, Judah would walk right over her.

  Curious, this instinct to keep him at arm’s length, because she wasn’t a woman who built walls or analyzed her relationships.

  Straightforward, cards on the table. What you see is what you get. That was her motto. It had worked for her, too. Until now.

  Until Judah, this Rubik’s Cube of a man. Not easy at all.

  Or, she thought, watching his unblinking eyes in the gray light, he might not walk over her. Was he making her feel like a suspect he was grilling? Or was he right? Was it all coming from inside her? Was it his attitude? Or was he tapping into a sense of guilt?

  Was that the source of this uneasiness?

  Her brain seized the idea and galloped away with it.

  Deep down, did she have doubts about her decision to push for the blood test on George? She’d said over and over that she didn’t. No sirree. No doubts on her part. But…

  Had she shoved some ugly little doubts into some closet in her mind? Doubts Judah was picking up on? Was he opening the door and saying, in effect, “Y’all want to come on out into the daylight and play with Sophie’s head for a while?”