HIS PARTNER'S WIFE

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Why wouldn't two burglars have immediately unplugged and taken the obviously expensive television and stereo equipment before exploring further? Her sewing machine was a fancy, electronic model that did everything but wash the dishes. Wouldn't they have considered it worth taking? Besides… Now the discontent stirred anew.

  "The cat had been napping in there."

  "What?"

  She saw that she'd startled both men.

  "It must not have just happened," Natalie explained, thinking it through as she went. "I shut the door to my sewing room last night. When I got home today, that door had been open long enough for the cat to have taken a nap on the fabric I'd laid out in there. And Sasha wouldn't have relaxed enough to take a nap in the open unless strangers were long gone. Which means I didn't scare him away."

  Geoff Baxter looked doubtful at her logic.

  John frowned thoughtfully. "The coroner hasn't arrived yet. She'll be able to give us a time frame."

  "I suppose it doesn't matter what time he was killed."

  The two men stirred.

  "I know it does to you," Natalie conceded. "To your investigation. But to me… Actually, I'd rather think he wasn't still in the house when I got home. The idea that he was standing behind one of the doors, listening to me, maybe even watching…"

  John half rose to his feet, then seemed to force himself to sit back down. His face was grim.

  Natalie hunched inside the afghan. "That gives me the creeps," she concluded simply.

  John made a gritty sound and slapped shut his notebook. "Damn it, you're coming home with me tonight."

  She wanted nothing more, but her pride, so important to her, insisted she protest. "I have friends I can stay with."

  "Yeah, and I'm one of 'em." He stood. "I'll see if I can bail out your toothbrush and drop you at home right now."

  "But I can drive."

  "No." His pointed gaze took in her knotted fists and the shiver she couldn't hide. "You're in shock. Mom's with the kids. She'll enjoy babying you."

  Ridiculous to feel disappointed. Of course he wouldn't stay with her. He had a murder to investigate. She knew the drill: he would probably work for twenty-four straight hours, canvassing neighbors, supervising crime scene technicians, following up on the tiniest leads. The older the trail, the less likely that a murderer would be caught, Stuart always said. Homicide cops did not drop an investigation to take the night off and pat the little woman's shoulder.

  "I … that's nice of you, but shouldn't you ask your mother?" Natalie had only met Ivy McLean a handful of times, the first at Stuart's funeral. John was divorced and his two kids lived with him. His mother must be baby-sitting tonight.

  Geoff cleared his throat. "You know Linda will give me hell if I don't bring you home with me."

  Natalie doubted his wife would go that far. The two women were casual friends because of their husbands, but they had so little else in common, they'd never progressed beyond the occasional invitation to dinner.

  A tiny spark of bemusement penetrated the numbness she'd wrapped around herself as snugly as the afghan. "I do have women friends who can run me a hot bath and tuck me in. Really, you don't have to…"

  John's hard stare silenced her. "Yes. I do. I'd rather know where you are."

  Because she was a suspect in a murder investigation? The thought shook her. John couldn't really believe even for a second that she would do something like that, could he?

  "Yes. All right," she said, sounding ungracious but too discombobulated to figure out what woman friend would actually have a spare bedroom without putting a child out. She would have to explain, too, listen to exclamations of horror, perhaps endure avid curiosity. Ivy McLean was the mother of not just one son in law enforcement, but three. She would have heard it often enough before to imagine the scene without wanting the details. Natalie didn't like the idea of putting out a near-stranger, but if she just took a hot bath and went straight to bed, she didn't have to be much trouble.

  "What else do you need?" John asked. "Are you on any prescriptions? What about a nightgown or clothes for morning?"

  Morning would be Saturday, and she wouldn't have to work, thank heavens.

  "My purse," she said, explaining where she'd dropped it. "The middle drawer in my dresser has jeans, and T-shirts are in the one below that. I left a sweater draped over a chair in my bedroom. Nightgowns are in the top drawer."

  "Underwear?"

  She could rinse out the ones she was wearing. But she'd sound so missish if she suggested that, Natalie tried to match his matter-of-fact tone. "There's a small drawer on top next to the mirror."

  "Good enough." John left to go fetch her things. He and Geoff had a brief discussion she couldn't hear at the door. A moment later, Natalie heard Geoff telling the Porters he needed to ask them a few questions.

  In the living room, they sat side by side on the couch, Mrs. Porter clutching her husband's hand. She sat very straight, a dignified, tiny woman whose dark hair was whitening in streaks, her husband a tall, thin man whose color was none too good. Her eyes were bright, his dull. Natalie remembered guiltily that she'd heard something about bypass surgery a few months back. Had anybody in the neighborhood brought meals or even just expressed sympathy? Their kindness today made Natalie feel terrible about the way she'd shrugged off the casually mentioned news.

  Geoff's questions were routine. Had they seen or heard anything out of the ordinary? Cars they didn't recognize?

  Shaking her head, Mrs. Porter said, "We grocery shopped this morning, then had lunch."

  So they did actually go out.

  "This afternoon Roger mowed the lawn while I deadheaded the roses. I don't believe a car passed the entire while. Did you see one, dear?"

  He frowned, giving it careful thought. "No. No, I didn't notice one."

  "Then we lay down for a quick nap," his wife continued. "I'd just begun thinking about putting dinner on."

  Geoff thanked them gravely and closed his notebook. Natalie carefully folded the afghan and laid it on the arm of the chair.

  Standing, she smiled even as she felt the hot spurt of tears. "You've been so kind. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been home. Please, let me know if there's ever anything I can do for you."

  "Oh, my dear!" Mrs. Porter stood and came to Natalie, taking her hand, hers dry but surprisingly strong. "We've wished we could help you since your husband died! All by yourself in that big house. You come see us anytime." She turned a commanding gaze on the detective. "You will let us know when you catch the man who did such an awful thing, now won't you?"

  "It'll be in the newspapers," he promised.

  "Assuming you do catch him," she said acerbically, sounding like her sharp self for the first time tonight.

  Geoff's expression became wooden. "We'll do our best, ma'am."

  "See that you do." She gave Natalie's hand a last squeeze. "Warm milk does help you sleep."

  "I'll remember that." Natalie was teary again as Geoff escorted her out. She must still be in shock. She wasn't usually so emotional.

  "We will catch him," Geoff promised as they crossed the street. "Count on it."

  "I know you will." Natalie paused on the sidewalk in front of her house and gazed at it, wondering if it would ever seem familiar and safe again. She felt again the sense of wrongness, and this time, it raised goose bumps on her skin. She rubbed her forearms. "I only hope you arrest him soon. It's going to give me the creeps to go home, wondering why they were in my house and whether he could get in again."

  "Maybe you shouldn't go home." Frowning, Geoff held open the car door for her. "Until we figure out for sure what they were after."

  She liked the way he worried about her. Even if his concern, too, was for Stuart's sake.

  "Yeah, but I don't want to develop a phobia about my own house." Natalie sighed and climbed into the passenger seat of the dark blue car. "We'll see how it goes."

  He nodded, as kind in his way as the Porters had be
en. Voice gruff, he said, "Just remember, there's a fine line between bravery and idiocy. Don't push yourself to do something you're uncomfortable with."

  "I won't," she promised.

  John McLean emerged from the house carrying her overnight bag and purse. Both she and Geoff turned their heads to watch him cut across her lawn. She liked watching him move, with the discipline and grace of an athlete, his stride purposeful and long.

  What would she have thought of him if she were a normal citizen who didn't know the investigating officers? Natalie wondered idly. Would his physical bulk and the bulge of the gun he carried in a shoulder holster have intimidated her? She certainly couldn't have known that he had a dry sense of humor or that his eyes often held a twinkle even as his mouth remained unsmiling. Or that this cop in a dark, well-cut suit would go home most days to cook dinner for his children, help them with homework, supervise baths and tuck them in.

  Her mind roved further. If she'd never met Detective John McLean, if she weren't a widow of barely a year, could she have been attracted to him?

  Jolted, Natalie uttered a small, startled sound that Geoff, mercifully, seemed not to notice. Where in heck had that idea come from? For goodness' sake, she'd known John for several years and never once thought of him in those terms! He was Stuart's friend. Period.

  No, not period. Of course he'd become her friend, too. Why else had she needed him so desperately today?

  Of course she wasn't attracted to him. She would have noticed before now.

  No, Natalie knew perfectly well what she was doing. John was an excuse, that's all. What she was avoiding thinking about was her house, and especially what—who—lay upstairs, or of the cleaning job she'd have afterward. Would she ever be able to go upstairs again without her heart pounding? Would she be able to stroll into the den—stepping just where the body now lay—and sit down to use the computer without a frightened consciousness of where blood had soaked into the carpet?

  Natalie was grateful for the distraction John provided when he stopped by the open car door. At the same time she noticed that he carried a brown paper grocery bag in his free arm, she caught the whiff.

  "My bread!"

  "It seemed a shame to let it go to waste." His rare smile relaxed his face. "I doubt we're going to lift a fingerprint from your bread machine."

  "Thank you." Those wretched tears threatened again. If one more person was nice to her, she was going to start sobbing. Natalie took the grocery bag and wrapped her arms around it, the delicious aroma and warmth almost as comforting as a hug. She blinked hard. "John, I almost forgot poor Sasha. She's going to be scared by all the strangers trooping through."

  "Actually, I just shut her in your sewing room." John cleared his throat. "She was, uh, somewhat annoyed. I doubt you want her in there, but we can't have her in the den."

  "No, that's fine." The fabric could be washed again before she cut it out, the pattern pieces taped. "Her litter box is in the garage." As if they wouldn't find it.

  "And her food in the kitchen. I saw it. Don't worry. I'll take care of the cat."

  As he'd taken care of her gutters and her Christmas lights and the rotten branch from the maple tree that had splintered a ten-foot stretch of the cedar board fence that enclosed her backyard.

  "You're always so nice to me." She sounded watery.

  The two men exchanged a look.

  Seemingly galvanized, John slapped the roof of the car. "Geoff, you get started here. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

  "Then get the hell out of here." Geoff gave her a crooked smile. "Forget the warm milk. Raid the liquor cabinet."

  She laughed through her tears as he closed her door and John got in behind the wheel.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Natalie felt John's searching gaze as he started the car.

  "You okay?" he asked again, quietly.

  "Of course I am!" She wiped wet cheeks. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Well, yes, of course I do. It shook me up, and I suppose I'm in shock, a little."

  "More than a little." The car accelerated into traffic on Neah Drive

  . Speaking deliberately, John said, "The first time I saw a man who'd been murdered, I stayed cool long enough to get outside and around the corner of the warehouse where he'd been gunned down. Threw up everything I'd eaten in the past twenty-four hours. I went back in and did my job, but every so often I'd find myself looking at him and just being hit by it—that's a guy like me, flesh and blood. That's what my blood would look like spilling out." He gave his head a shake. "Nothing brings your own mortality home like the sight of violent death."

  "I suppose that's part of it," she admitted. "I don't like to think that my head…"

  His hand closed briefly on her knee. "Most of us don't walk into a crowbar."

  "No. I know." She bit her lip. "But he was in my house. So maybe…"

  When she hesitated, he finished for her. "Next time someone will take a swing at your head."

  Her nod was tiny and slightly ashamed. Shouldn't she be grieving for the death of even a stranger, feeling—how did it go?—that the loss of any man diminished her? Instead she felt violated because he had bled out his life in her house.

  And she was afraid.

  "Natalie, look at me."

  Startled, she realized that they were stopped at a light in the old part of town. An enormous Queen Anne style turn-of-the-century house on one corner was now a bed-and-breakfast; across the street, an antique shop spilled onto the sidewalk from what had probably once been a carriage house. She had been blind to the view of the bay during the drive here, to the arrival of a ferry that had disembarked the long line of cars waiting to race up the hill toward the highway. John lived here in Old Town, just a few blocks away, in a more modest restored Victorian.

  She turned her head to meet his frowning gaze.

  "I will not let you be hurt." His words had the power of a vow. "I promise."

  The idea panicked her. Natalie shook her head hard. "No. Don't promise. How can you? At some point, I'll have to go home even if you don't make an arrest. What if he did come back? Are you going to abandon your children to hover in my shrubbery every night? No," she said with finality. "I don't want to be a weight on your conscience."

  A horn sounded behind them, then another one. For a moment John still didn't move, his electric, brooding eyes holding hers. Then he blinked, shuttering the intensity, and flung an irritated glance at the mirror.

  "Yeah, yeah, hold your horses," he growled, stepping on the gas. He drove the remaining blocks in silence, but her stolen look saw the deep lines carved in his forehead. In front of his house, he set the emergency brake and turned off the engine. Turning a near-scowl on her, he said, "All right. How's this instead? I'll do my damnedest to keep you safe."

  "That," she said, smiling shakily, "I can accept. Gratefully."

  She was going to accept his help gratefully?

  Driving away from his house, John gave a grunt of wry amusement. Oh, yeah. Sure.

  The next moment, his brows drew together. No, he wasn't being fair. Natalie would be grateful, all right.

  She would just hate having to be.

  Actually, he liked that about her. His mother excepted, the women John had known well had tended to be dependent on the men in their lives. They assumed a man would fix anything that was wrong.

  Not that Natalie was the prickly type; far from it. She was warm, gentle, relaxed, a comfortable voice on the phone when he felt like talking out a day's problems. But she was also determined—sometimes infuriatingly so—not to lean on anyone, even if she was a new widow.

  No matter what he did for Natalie, no matter how trivial, she'd thank him gravely but with a troubled expression puckering her brow. Then he could count on her bringing a plate of cookies to the station, or sending a casserole home with him, or buying gifts for Evan and Maddie. She had to balance the scales. Always.

  In John's book, friends did each othe
r favors. Natalie was on her own now, and he didn't mind picking up some of the slack. He liked working with his hands, and if painting her house meant dumping the kids at their friends' homes, heck, they'd have a better time with their buddies than they would if he took them out to the spit anyway. It wasn't as if his five-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter didn't get plenty of his attention. Except for work, he was with them most of the time.

  He knew Stuart Reed hadn't left any life insurance, and he was pretty sure Natalie didn't make enough to be able to afford to put out fifteen hundred dollars or so to have her house painted. The very fact that she bit her lip, let him do the work and thanked him prettily told John that he was right: she needed him.

  She just wished like hell that she didn't.

  Did she feel guilty at putting him out? Hate any hint of dependence? He didn't know, hadn't asked. John would have been over there cleaning out her gutters no matter what. She was his partner's widow. Stuart would have done the same for John's children, if he'd been the one to go.

  Natalie seemed to understand and accept that. She'd let John hold her when he brought the news of Stuart's death. He had stood beside her at her husband's funeral, kept an arm around her as Stuart's casket was lowered into the ground and the first, symbolic chunk of earth was flung down onto its shining surface. That was John's place, and she hadn't tried to keep him from it.

  Huge dark circles under her eyes, she'd gone back to work a week after the funeral. She hadn't asked to be held again, and wouldn't. Admiring her strength, John had found himself talking to her as if she was another man.

  He knew she was a woman, of course. Her ripe curves and leggy walk might have fueled a few fantasies under other circumstances. But that wasn't how he thought of her. It was her laugh and her wisdom and her grave dignity that characterized her. He'd never been friends with a woman before, but somehow it had happened with her, perhaps because he'd known her for several years as his partner's wife. That was another page out of John's book: you didn't lust after a friend's wife.