HIS PARTNER'S WIFE

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Every time John had been here a good deal, like when he was rebuilding her fence or this summer when he painted her house, she'd begun to feel uncomfortable in some way she had never wanted to analyze.

  Natalie made a face. Oh, come on, she jeered herself. Why lie to me, myself and I? Face it, his sheer physical presence was what unsettled her. When he painted her house, he'd worn faded jeans and, in the heat of the sun, stripped off his T-shirt, baring rippling muscles and sweat-slick tanned skin. He was pure male, and she didn't want to think of him that way. She wanted him to be genderless, unthreatening. She didn't want to feel…

  Natalie swallowed, the telephone still in her hand. Slowly she hung it on the cradle and finished her own sentence.

  She didn't want to feel aware. Tingling, warm, excited, alive. And she couldn't help it when she was with him.

  Maybe he hadn't acted different after that night they'd talked at his house. Maybe she was the one who'd frozen in panic after she'd sat there in her bathrobe, conscious of the intimacy and her relative state of undress, of the tiredness and discouragement that made him seem so approachable, of the fact that they were the only people in the house awake. She'd sat close enough to see his spiky eyelashes and the bristle on his unshaven jaw, the lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes, the easing of his hard mouth as he smiled, the bluntness of his fingers, the…

  Humiliated, Natalie moaned and buried her face in her hands. That night, she had not once consciously thought, This man arouses me, but she had gone back to bed aching and restless and thinking about him, if not in that way.

  Wonderful. She was attracted to Det. John McLean and was admitting that fact just when she needed him most and when he felt his honor required that he take care of her. How horrible if he ever suspected, even for a moment, how she felt!

  Lifting her head, dry-eyed, Natalie thought, We are friends. We can be just friends.

  But not tonight. Tonight she wouldn't call him back.

  Perhaps it was time she started dating. Maybe that was the trouble. She'd been alone for a year now. Her emotions and body both had thawed, and John was the nearest unmarried man. What she would do was let her friends know she was ready to date. They were always suggesting somebody. Far better to take that route than to turn her loneliness into a crush on John.

  She went about her evening chores more absent-mindedly than last night. Sasha decided to sleep with her again, and Natalie thought maybe she'd leave the litter box up here for good rather than putting it back in the garage when the police were done. Especially if she was going to keep the bedroom door closed and locked at night.

  She read for a few minutes, then turned out the light. She hadn't lain there in the dark for more than a minute before, feeling silly, she switched the light back on and got out of bed to brace the darned chair under the bedroom doorknob.

  "Who's to know?" she asked the cat, and went back to bed.

  When she awakened with a start hours later, her first, grumbling thought was that Sasha had walked on her. Feeling disoriented, she rolled over to see the digital clock. The glowing green numerals told her it was 12:51.

  Mind less foggy, eyes adjusting to the dark, Natalie saw Sasha on the floor halfway to the door. She seemed to be frozen, staring at the door.

  Natalie was reaching for the lamp when she heard an audible thump. Pure terror shivered over her skin and stopped her breath.

  Not moving a muscle, she strained her ears. Her lungs were ready to explode when another sound came. A bump. As if somebody in the next room, in Stuart's study, had knocked against the closet door or the desk.

  She was not alone in the house.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  John liked kicking back with his brothers. Connor was his closest friend, Hugh next best, maybe just because he was the youngest, but they were still close. Since John was tied down by the kids, the brothers tended to hang out here, at his place.

  Tonight Hugh had cooked spaghetti, his specialty, with Maddie's earnest help. She softened him up. As a cop and a man, he was too hard-assed for John's taste—come to think of it, maybe that was why he was John's second-favorite brother. Having listened too closely to his mother, Hugh's mission in life was to get the scumbags off the street. Problem was, Hugh was far too quick to decide someone was a scumbag. Excuses left him unmoved, and the word sympathy was not in his vocabulary. If someone didn't have his sense of morality, he didn't bother trying to understand why not or see their viewpoint. John and Connor worried about shades of gray; Hugh apparently wore glasses that made the world clear-cut black-and-white.

  But with Maddie and Evan, Hugh laughed often, made ridiculous jokes, and even seemed to feel occasional twinges of tenderness. John had hopes that fatherhood would one day seriously change his outlook on human nature.

  The brothers didn't talk shop until John had tucked the kids into bed. Hugh was the only one of them still in uniform; John was a detective in Major Crimes, while Connor had gotten sucked into the child abuse unit, where he saw some of the ugliest human behavior of all. John didn't envy him. Hugh liked patrol work and scoffed at desk jockeys playing banker in their suits and ties.

  Tonight, Connor had been particularly quiet during dinner, his gaze often resting on Maddie. John knew he was working a vicious rape-beating case of a little girl. She'd been left in a coma.

  With the kids upstairs and out of earshot, John asked him about the investigation.

  Silent for a moment, Connor shook his head at last, bafflement written on his blunt face. "What the hell. There's no doubt Mama's boyfriend did it. She's the only one who won't believe it. Says some stranger broke in." He grunted. "Of course, he had to have locked the door on his way out—oh, yeah, and put the chain on. The place was locked up tight."

  "Idiot," was John's comment.

  Expression hard, Hugh said, "I hope you broke all his fingers."

  His big hand squeezing the beer can until it began to crumple, Connor growled, "I'd like to do worse than that to him, but I was civil." He paused. "I don't envy him once he's in the pen. Boys there don't like child rapists."

  Nobody commented; they didn't have to. At the Washington State Penitentiaries in Walla Walla and Monroe, child abusers were often kept in solitary for their own protection. The toughest drug lord had kids. You might sell heroin to a thirteen-year-old, but you didn't rape a six-year-old girl.

  "Another beer?" Connor asked and, after a round of nods, went to the kitchen. The biggest and beefiest of the three brothers, he was dressed down tonight in faded jeans with holes worn at the knees and a T-shirt that might once have been green. On his return, he tossed them each a cold one. "We should have cleaned up earlier," he announced. "Now I don't want to."

  "I cooked," Hugh said peaceably.

  John shrugged. "I'll do it later."

  His youngest brother peeled the tab and took a swallow. Nodding at John, Hugh asked, "You getting anywhere on Natalie Reed's body?"

  "That could be taken two ways," Connor observed, an undertone of humor in his voice.

  "No," John snapped, giving his brother a sizzling stare. "It couldn't."

  Both paused with beer cans suspended halfway to their mouths and studied him with raised brows. "Touchy," Connor said at last.

  "She's a widow," John said between gritted teeth.

  "Widows remarry."

  "Or screw traveling salesmen," Hugh suggested.

  John uttered an obscenity. "Stuart Reed was my partner. I'm taking care of his widow. End of story."

  "Uh-huh." Doubt from middle brother.

  "Yeah. Sure." Mockery from baby brother.

  John swore again. They laughed.

  Connor had the grace to sober first. "We're just giving you a hard time. She's a looker and a nice lady. It's time you noticed."

  "We're friends."

  "I hear tell that you can be friends and lovers both."

  Hugh was shaking his head before Connor got halfway through the
sentence. "Men and women can't be friends. Sex gets in the way."

  They had an amiable argument on the subject that got them past the rocky moment. Connor finally directed them back to the beginning.

  "This Floyd. You find out anything?"

  "Damned little." John told them what he'd done so far and what he'd learned. "With everything I know about this guy, I'd have bet he'd go straight back to dealing." He gestured with the hand that held the beer can. "So he got arrested. Them's the breaks. He knows that. He also knows that if he can avoid making an enemy who'll tip us off, chances are good he'll never see the booking room again. Moving drugs through Port Dare isn't all that hard."

  Hugh crushed his empty can with his hands. "Your point?"

  Connor's thoughtful gaze didn't leave John. "Come on, boy. His point is, what the hell is a drug dealer doing in Natalie Reed's house?"

  Hugh of the dark hair and icy eyes said offhandedly, "Looking for drugs. What else?"

  In unison, his older brothers turned their heads to stare at him.

  He shrugged. "You know the rumors that a P.D. cop waltzed off with a huge shipment of heroin. What was it, a year and a half, two years ago they started? Okay, so nobody has turned in his badge to move to Minnesota or suddenly inherited a million bucks from a great-aunt once removed. Doesn't stop the rumors. Must've happened, right? What if Floyd thinks he knows something? Why couldn't Stuart Reed have been the man?"

  "Because he was my partner. Because I knew him." John was uncomfortably aware that his voice didn't hold the force he'd meant to inject into it. Once in a while, he'd wondered about Reed's ethics. But their arguments had been over a pocketed "tip," not stealing a shipment of heroin.

  Connor made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. "There's always worthless gossip like that. You don't take it seriously, do you?"

  Hugh laid his head back on the couch, set his feet on the coffee table and tossed the crushed beer can into the air, caught it and tossed it again. "Nah. Which isn't to say that somebody else doesn't."

  John surprised himself by saying, "Any way you two can try to track down this rumor? If I start asking, people will know why."

  Connor nodded his understanding. "And you don't want Natalie to hear you're even considering the possibility her husband went rotten."

  John sidestepped that one. "Hugh especially might get further asking questions on the street."

  "Don't mind trying."

  Connor shrugged. "I'll do my best."

  Silence settled, all of them slouched comfortably, Hugh still throwing pop-ups and catching them.

  "I should get home," he said finally. "What time is it?"

  John turned his head. "Midnight."

  "Thought you had Saturdays off," Connor remarked.

  "Big plans tomorrow." Hugh sounded satisfied. "I'm going sailing with a pretty lady. John's rumors will have to wait."

  "Hell, it's not like I'm racing toward an arrest."

  Conversation continued in a desultory manner, nobody eager to hit a lonely bed. John was starting to suspect he was going to be sorry tomorrow morning about seven o'clock—if he was lucky—when Evan unfailingly started his day. Maddie was old enough to sit her brother down in front of Saturday cartoons and even pour them both bowls of cereal. He'd hope they had a rare hour or two of harmony, with no noisy squabbles only he could settle. Having children killed any desire for a nightlife, and not just because you had to pay baby-sitters damn near minimum wage these days.

  Hugh decided first that he had to go, with Connor groaning and levering himself off the couch to follow at his heels. John was seeing them to the door when the phone rang. His brothers stopped and turned with him. No good news came at—he shot a glance at the grandfather clock in the front hall—12:54 a.m.

  One of the four phones in the house—lazy Americans—hung in an alcove under the stairs. He snatched it up. "McLean here."

  "Detective, this is Isabelle Simon in Dispatch. You asked us to let you know if there was a call from 2308 Meadow Drive

  ."

  Adrenaline shot through him. The phone creaked when his grip tightened. "What is it?"

  "Possible intruder in the house. A unit is en route."

  "So am I," he snapped, and tossed the phone onto the table. He went straight to the small safe he'd had installed. Grimly he said, "That was dispatch. Natalie thinks there's someone in her house."

  His brothers swore and turned toward the door.

  John, who'd paused only long enough to grab his piece and a backup, brushed past. "Somebody stay with the kids."

  "I will," Connor said quietly. "You go with him."

  Hugh leaped in on the passenger side an instant before John rocketed his car out of the driveway. Steering with one hand, he slapped the light on the roof. The streets in Old Town were empty and dark; the few cars he encountered on the highway made way for the flashing red and blue.

  In a remote, cold part of his brain, he knew he was driving faster than was safe or justified. He didn't give a flying you-know-what. Hugh was smart enough not to say a word, only picking up the pistol John had tossed onto the seat. Discarding the holster, he shoved the gun inside the waistband of his jeans.

  The radio crackled; a patrol unit reported having arrived. A moment later an officer murmured that a window was broken and asked for backup.

  Hugh got on the horn and gave their position and ETA. Patrol and dispatch both acknowledged. John slowed briefly when a light turned red, then sped across the intersection once oncoming traffic stopped. His gut was clenched with naked terror.

  His vision was double right now: the street ahead, a peripheral awareness of other vehicles; and Natalie alone in her bedroom, dialing 911, cringing with each beep as she depressed a button, whispering her address as she waited for someone to burst into her bedroom with a length of pipe swinging at her head.

  He swore aloud, harshly. That lock on her bedroom door was useless. Worse than useless, because it gave a false sense of security. He could have installed a sliding bolt—but a determined killer could slam through one of those flimsy, hollow-core bedroom doors whatever the lock on it.

  He took the last corner on two wheels and careened to the curb. While Hugh got flashlights from the trunk, John consulted in low voices with one of the two patrolmen. Normally the first officer on the scene would have been lead, but knowing John and whose house this was and seeing the look on John's face, Wently backed off fast. He and his partner would ride shotgun tonight.

  John and Hugh followed him around the house, moving quickly past windows, keeping close to the walls.

  A back window was wide-open. Somebody had smashed a jagged hole in the glass just large enough to reach a hand in to the latch. Crouched to one side of the window, John used the faint light from street lamps a block over to scan the family room in the daylight basement. The couch was against the wall, and none of the other pieces of furniture were substantial enough to offer any real cover. Nodding to Hugh, John went in, dropping five feet to the carpeted floor. While his knees were still absorbing the shock, he had his gun extended in both hands and was turning in a quick semicircle.

  With a soft thud, Hugh landed beside him. Silently they crossed to the door, took simultaneous peeks into the hall and, with John's nod, went through it, each covering one direction. As smoothly as if they'd worked together for years, they swept the house room by room. Thank God, the crime scene tape and seal were intact across the door to the garage. It would have been a nightmare to search. As it was, John was fighting a raging need to race up the stairs and find Natalie, to hell with procedure.

  The brothers took the stairs in a rush, John checking out the study while Hugh handled the sewing room. The bathroom door stood open; his flashlight picked out the tub enclosure behind sliding glass.

  He and Hugh communicated with a glance. Both took up position in the hall, away from the bedroom door.

  John raised his voice but kept it calm. "Natalie, it's John. You okay?"

 
A dense silence answered him. He waited rigidly, counting the beat of seconds, feeling a muscle jerk in his cheek.

  What if they were too late?

  No! he answered himself fiercely. God damn it, they weren't too late! She was being cautious. Smart.

  "Natalie," he said again, pitching his voice a little louder. "You there?"

  He caught a faint gasp and then, "John? It is you?"

  Relief rocked him. He braced a fist against the wall to keep himself from staggering. Somehow he still sounded collected. "Hugh and I are both here. Are you alone?"

  The next sound might have been a muffled sob, followed by a scramble of feet, a strange scraping and then the click of the flimsy lock.

  When she flung open the door, he met her in the opening. Her bedside lamp was on, and he had a brief glimpse of her, all legs in another oversize T-shirt, brunette hair tumbling over her shoulders, eyes huge and dark. The flashlight thudded to the floor. With his free arm, he crushed her against him. She hugged him, fingers gripping his shirt and biting into his back, her face burrowing at his chest.

  "It's okay. It's okay," he heard himself murmuring hoarsely, his mouth against her hair. The slam of his heartbeats damn near deafened him.

  After a moment he had the presence of mind to shove the gun inside his waistband at the small of his back so that he could use both arms to hold her. He moved his hands over as much of her as he could reach, kneading, soothing, satisfying himself that she was well and whole.

  At long last, but too soon, Natalie gave a hiccuping sob, then a sniff and lifted her head.

  She peeked past John's shoulder. "Hugh?"

  His brother's voice came from just behind him. "I'm here, Natalie."

  "Were you … were you the one sent when I called?"

  "No, ma'am. I happened to be at John's. Two other officers are outside. I'd best go relieve their minds."