“I’m glad. I thought I might have to sic Joanna on you.”
“No, not that,” she teased, knowing Joanna could be just as forceful as she was when the situation called for it. She wondered what Joanna, who’d warned her away from her own brother, would say if she saw them together now. He’d never seemed to her to be the kind of man Joanna described: fickle, faithless, unable to commit to anything besides his career. If anything, after seeing him with Tyree, hearing his story last night, he struck her the opposite way—as a man who stuck once he decided to care about something. Maybe he’d showed her a side of himself he kept from his family or maybe he was different with her. “Joanna doesn’t approve,” she said finally.
His mouth tilted in a self-mocking smile. “I don’t blame her. I’ve never exactly been great relationship material. After a while the most patient woman gets tired of waiting around wondering when I’m going to show up or when I’m going to do more around the house than sleep and deplete the refrigerator.”
His gaze drifted downward, to her abdomen where his fingers sketched a pattern on her belly. Was he trying to warn her off, too? Or perhaps that this was the way he was and he didn’t intend to change. Maybe it was time she let him know a few home truths, too. “I wouldn’t sit around waiting for anybody. I’d hire a housekeeper and do what I wanted to do.”
He smiled. “I’m sure you would.”
From the way he said that, she wasn’t sure whether he considered that a good thing or a bad one. “I haven’t exactly been the poster child for great relationships either,” she confessed. “I never wanted to bring guys around Tim, especially when he was younger, let him grow attached to them only to have them leave. I always kept men a separate part of my life.”
He took her chin in his hand and turned her face toward him. His gaze was intense, but at the same time reassuring. “I’m not going anywhere, Dana, not unless you want me to.”
He must have misread her meaning. She didn’t have abandonment issues, at least none that he figured into. If anything, at the moment, she was the one guilty of abandonment, having failed to bring Tim home.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
“I want to go get my brother.”
“When? Now?”
She nodded.
“That’s not a problem. Why don’t you give him a call and let him know we’re coming? I’ll go wash up.”
He touched his lips to her shoulder before climbing out of the opposite side of the bed. She watched him walk to the bathroom. Damn! She had to be insane not to give herself one full day alone and conscious with him. But she missed her brother and wanted to see for herself that he was all right, that things between them were all right. She picked up the phone on the bedside table and dialed his cell phone.
“Hey, Sis,” he said when the call connected. “I wondered when you’d get around to calling me yourself.”
She’d asked Jonathan to call him last night from the hospital fearing he’d hear a news report about the events in the unfinished house and worry. Jonathan had told him that she’d call him as soon as she could. Now, she heard the chastisement in her brother’s voice at her lack of promptness in getting back to him.
Unsure she wanted to tell him everything that happened that night, she said, “Things have been a little crazy around here since then.”
Unrepentant, Tim said, “I bet.”
Dana ground her teeth together. “I’m home now. Do you want me to pick you up?”
“Nah, Ms. Kenner said she’d bring me home when I was ready.”
“When?”
“In about an hour, I guess. See you then.”
The line went dead. She hung up the phone and threw off her covers. While she’d spoken to her brother, she’d heard the sound of the shower come on in the bathroom. She got a condom from the nightstand drawer and went to join Jonathan.
He didn’t seem surprised to have her slide in the shower behind him and wrap her arms around his waist. His hands covered hers and he brought one of her palms to his lips to plant a soft kiss there. “Trying to sneak in a quick one before we have to go get your brother?”
Hearing the humor in his voice, she said, “What a delicate way you have of phrasing it, but yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“None.” He turned so that he faced her and pulled her into his arms. She tilted her face up for his kiss. For the next few moments she concentrated on nothing but the warmth of the water, the heat of his embrace and the cold certainty that, despite their own histories and personal baggages, she didn’t want to let this man go without a fight.
Dana had barely finished dressing and fixing her hair when she heard Tim’s key in the lock. “Hey, Sis, where are you?” he called.
She hurried down the steps to greet him. Even in the short time they’d been separated, he seemed to have grown another inch.
He smiled when he saw her and grabbed her in a bear hug once she was close enough for him to do so. “I missed you.”
She smiled against his shoulder. He was man enough to take her to task for what he saw as her deficiencies, but there was still enough of the little boy in him that he sought her comfort and reassurance.
But suddenly, he stiffened. She pulled back to look at him and noted where his attention centered—behind her, to watch Jonathan descending the stairs.
It should have occurred to her to orchestrate a better meeting between the two of them than this. She knew Tim regarded Jonathan as an opportunist taking advantage of his older sister, despite the implausibility of that assumption. Half of her wanted to shake Tim and ask him when had he ever known her to allow anyone to walk all over her. The other half of her understood his hostility. For what other reason would Jonathan have been upstairs except to share her bed? His presence on the stairs was like throwing it in Tim’s face that they had just been together. Inwardly, she groaned. Dealing with men and near men could sometimes be a colossal pain in the ass.
“What is he doing here?” Tim said finally.
“He’s a guest in this house and you will treat him as such.”
“Yeah, right.” Tim picked up the bag at his feet. “I’m going to go put my stuff away.” He moved off, went to his room and shut the door.
Damn! She shut her eyes and counted to ten for patience as Jonathan’s arms closed around her from behind.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. When I spoke to him yesterday, he was so accommodating, I thought he’d gotten over whatever thing he has with me.”
“That would make life too easy, wouldn’t it?”
He kissed her shoulder. “Well, he’ll have you all to himself this afternoon. I have to go in for a while.”
She figured as much. At the very least, she knew he’d have to report the details of what happened to his superiors. “Do you need me to go in, too? Make some sort of statement?”
“How about you write down everything that happened as best as you can recollect it, for now. Moretti’s dead. As far as I know, the investigation is closed.”
She nodded. “That shouldn’t be too hard. I got a lot of practice writing yesterday.” She went to the kitchen and got a yellow legal pad and a pen from one of the drawers, then sat down at the kitchen table to write down everything she remembered. When she was finished, she slid the pad to Jonathan.
He read through the sheaf of paper she’d filled. “Why did Moretti want to know if you’d seen the car that picked up Amanda Pierce?”
“I don’t know. Maybe there was something about it he thought I might have remembered that would have identified it. At the time I got the feeling that’s what this was all about. He thought I saw something that would link him to the car. The irony is, like I told him, I don’t remember anything. I was too busy being disgusted with seeing two yuppies flashing their wealth in the ’hood.”
Jonathan stood. “Walk me out?”
She took his hand and followed him. When they got to the door she asked the question that had been plaguing her since she’d fled the
motel room, but hadn’t really wanted to know the answer to. “The officers who were watching me. What happened to them?”
He squeezed her hand. “They’re gone.”
She lowered her gaze to watch his thumb sketch a lazy pattern over her skin. Intuitively, she’d known that, but hearing it flat out disturbed her. She didn’t know those men, but it seemed unfair for them to lose their lives over something they weren’t a part of while she still had hers.
“That isn’t your fault, Dana. That was their job.”
“I know.” She let out a long weary breath. “So much death, Jonathan, and over nothing.”
“But it’s over.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her mouth. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Jonathan pulled away from the curb in front of Dana’s house, grateful that she hadn’t proved to be more inquisitive than he could handle at the moment. He’d already heard from Mari that the scarf Moretti had used was probably the same one used to kill Amanda Pierce. It bore the same black-and-white pattern she described seeing.
As of yet, no one had been able to locate Moretti’s two accomplices to verify his story. The key Moretti’s girlfriend had given him turned out to belong to a room in a storage facility where they found Pierce’s belongings, minus her clothes. Her notes verified she’d met with Randall—Old Specs—and he’d given her Moretti’s name.
It was all tied up neatly with a ribbon that said, case closed. The brass seemed to want to look at it that way, but they would, considering that one of their own was responsible for at least four deaths and that wasn’t even counting Malone. They wanted it wrapped up, so they could tell an edgy public that the threat to their safety had been quashed. But something niggled in the back of Jonathan’s mind, just below his consciousness, that didn’t allow him to let go of the case that easily.
Mari was sitting at her desk when he walked into the squad room. She leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and surveyed him as he took off his jacket and sat across from her. “I didn’t think I’d see you in here today.”
“Time, tide, and paperwork wait for no man.”
“I hear that. How’s Dana?”
“She’s fine. Still sounds like Lauren Bacall with a frog in her throat.”
“She’s lucky you decided not to take the trip out to Brooklyn.”
Maybe so, but he didn’t feel lucky. Luck would have been not leaving her at Moretti’s mercy in the first place.
“Did she tell you what happened?”
Mari had to know she did and was fishing for information. He took the folded sheets of paper on which Dana had written from his pocket and tossed them to Mari. “Let me know if you notice something unusual.”
Dana had written down everything, including what Moretti had said, what she thought he’d meant when he said it. He’d learned from what she’d written why some of the first words out of her mouth were that she thought he was dead—the certainty with which Moretti had promised that he, Jonathan, wouldn’t kill him.
Mari finished scanning the pages and looked up at him. “Am I missing something, ’cause I don’t get it?”
“I don’t either. Even if Moretti found out that Pierce was on to him, he’s not that much of a hothead to strangle a woman, or even if he was, why not use his bare hands? Why not shoot her? There are a million other ways he could have gotten rid of her body besides leaving her in a garbage can where anyone could find her.” That had never made any sense to him, no matter who’d killed her. “He told Dana he knew I wouldn’t kill him. He had to know that any mercy on my part was over once he’d taken her. And rather than come along like a good boy, he tried to fire on me.”
“What’s your point?”
“He planned on not making it out of that building. My only question is why?”
“You want me to explain to you the workings of that son-of-a-bitch’s mind? I haven’t the faintest clue. Why’d he kill himself? Maybe he didn’t want to get locked up with the rest of the scum of the earth? To me, Moretti is just as bad as any of the other skels and gangbangers we bring in here. The only difference is he had a badge. And you know what will happen now? Every single one of his busts, every single one of his convictions will get looked at again, if not dismissed outright.”
She exhaled, calming herself. “You’re looking to make sense out of something that is essentially unexplainable. If criminals made sense we’d all be out of a job. Forget it, Stone. It’s over. You of all people should be glad it is.”
He shrugged. Maybe she was right. He was looking for explanations where there weren’t any. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to hide their part in Father Malone’s death in the first place? Even though the statute of limitations for murder never expired, what could anyone have proven 25 years later when almost every piece of evidence, every witness, save for an old reformed drunk, had disappeared? Only Moretti could answer those questions, and he was dead. Maybe it was time he let it go.
He filed his report and left. He managed to last a whole twenty minutes in the shrink’s office before he had enough and walked out. He didn’t need his psyche delved into, no matter what the department thought. He’d done what he had to do, no more, no less. What they’d trained him to do.
He knew what he needed. She was waiting for him in a little house in Mount Vernon. He got in his car and drove home.
Dana spent the afternoon out of sorts after Jonathan left. Tim obnoxiously refused to come out of his room for anything except to use the bathroom, punishing her in that passive/aggressive way men tended to adopt when they didn’t get their own way.
For want of anything better to do, she’d lain down for a nap, only to dream of strange disjointed images that seemed not to belong together. After a while she got up, cajoled Tim into going to the store for her, and fixed a quick and uncomplicated dinner of spaghetti with meat sauce, Italian bread and salad.
Jonathan got back as she was getting ready to bring the food to the table. She pulled the door open to find him standing on the other side of the door, smiling. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, not knowing what to make of his mood. “Did you take care of everything you needed to?”
“Almost.” She stepped back as he stepped up to cross the threshold. Once inside he pushed the door closed and took her into his arms. He leaned his back against the door and ran his hands up her back to place her arms around his neck. “Did you miss me?”
With some difficulty she held back her own smile. “Maybe.”
He pulled her closer to him. “Liar,” he whispered against her ear before pulling her lobe into his mouth and releasing it slowly. When she pulled back to look at him, he winked at her.
She shook her head, unused to this playfulness in him. “If you’re so sure of my answer, why’d you bother to ask the question?”
“Is that garlic bread I smell?”
She didn’t know if it was the cop in him or the man that felt compelled to answer her questions with questions of his own. “If it hasn’t burned to a cinder in the oven by now.”
“Give me a minute to wash up and I’ll help you.” He swatted her bottom and headed up the stairs.
Dana shook her head watching his ascent. Then she went back to the kitchen and took the bread from the oven. Thankfully, it had survived with only a little charring around the edges. Before she’d finished slicing it and placing the pieces in a bowl, Jonathan was back, wearing the same clothes, though his jacket was gone and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.
She set the bread bowl on the table. “No shower?”
“Not tonight. What can I help you with?”
“You can get the salad out of the fridge.”
He did as she asked. Within minutes she had the table set and the food laid out the way she wanted it. “Sit,” she urged. “I’ll go get Tim.”
She went to her brother’s room and knocked on the door. “Tim, dinner’s ready.”
“I’ll be out in a minute to get something.”
>
“No you won’t. You’ll come and sit at the table like a human being.”
She waited a minute. When the door didn’t open, she knocked again. “Right now.”
The door opened. Tim stood on the other side, looming over her, a sour expression on his face. “Fine.” He marched past her and slumped into one of the kitchen chairs.
Dana ground her teeth together. That was a teenager for you. He’d do what he was told, but he’d try his damndest to make everyone else miserable in the process. She slapped a smile on her face and went back to the kitchen.
“I hope everyone is hungry,” she said in a false cheery voice. She claimed the seat that was next to Jonathan and opposite her brother. But as the meal progressed, she grew more annoyed with Tim. Time after time, Jonathan tried to engage him in conversation, asking about his time in Florida, his plans for school next year, his fascination with basketball and video games. Tim answered in monosyllabic grunts, when he bothered to give an answer at all. Finally, on the verge of braining her brother with the salad tongs, she excused herself intending to start cleaning up the kitchen.
Tim was up from the table a second later. “The game is still on.” He went to his room and slammed the door shut.
Dana gritted her teeth. Tim hadn’t even bothered to remove his own plate from the table. She looked at Jonathan. “What am I going to do with that boy?”
He got up from the table and closed his arms around her from behind. “Leave him alone, Dana. He’s doing what he’s supposed to do.”
“What’s that? Getting on my last nerve?”
“No, he’s looking after your best interests.”
She sighed. “So I should just put up with rude behavior?”
“No. I’ll have a talk with him.”
She’d noticed how well that had gone during dinner. “And what are you going to say to him this time?”
He nuzzled her neck. “That I’m in love with his big sister and to please cut me some slack.”
Body Of Truth Page 28