SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT, they both awoke, moving up slowly from a deep, sated sleep. Uncertainty hovered briefly at the edges of her consciousness, then vanished beneath a new sensual onslaught. She was ripe and heavy with wanting again, and he was hard and taut with renewed hunger. But this time, they found the gentleness that had eluded them before.
Their bodies became an erotic playground, familiar only in its outlines, but not in the details. Her fingertips traced rock-hard muscles and bristly hair and the satiny skin of his throbbing shaft. And his hands and lips found every curve and hollow, every private place that had once been hers alone.
There were tiny hesitations as she tried to hold on to that privacy, those inhibitions of a lifetime. But Michael was relentless, the intrepid explorer, demanding that she yield it all up to him. And she did, giving her self away even as she demanded and received the same from him.
And later still, she awoke again, this time to see a pale light outlining the windows. The bedside lamp was still on, showing the disorderly heaps of clothing scattered about on the floor—mute testimony to the night’s frenzy.
Images drifted slowly through her wakening mind: Michael’s dark head moving slowly up between her legs, his big hands curved around her hips as he held her atop him, her blond hair drifting over his dark, curly chest hairs as she slid down his body, teasing him unmercifully by moving very slowly toward the object of her erotic journey.
She wanted him again and she smiled sleepily at the impossibility of it all. But the light at the window was growing steadily brighter, chasing away the dark passion of the night and bringing the harsh reality of the day.
She fought that reality for a time, but its grip only strengthened. So she got out of bed, moving slowly and carefully, not wanting to disturb him.
He opened his eyes as she was struggling with the back zipper of her dress. He sat up quickly, even though sleepiness still dulled his dark eyes. She averted her gaze from his nakedness as he pushed aside the bedcovers.
“You’re leaving?” he asked in a voice still thick with sleep.
“Yes.” She turned away, searching for her shoes, then finding them half under the bed. When she bent down to pick them up, he slid an arm around her and tumbled her back into the bed.
“What is this—guilt time?”
She pushed away from him and scrambled out of bed—away from the feel of him, the smell of him. “I have a busy day.”
“It’s Sunday.” He sat up again and swung his legs over the side of the bed, then sat there staring at her as she balanced on one foot and then the other, putting on her shoes. She hated him for being so comfortable in his nakedness and his memories of the night.
“I know it’s Sunday.”
“What’s going on here, Amanda?”
“Maybe I should be the one asking that question.”
He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “You really are feeling guilty. Why?”
“You won, Michael—okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”
He stared at her for a very long and uncomfortable moment, and she almost let herself believe that he was puzzled by her words. But then he nodded.
“Okay. It was a memorable victory, Counselor.”
Chapter One
Diesel fumes fouled the air of the island as the bulldozer and the front-end loader drove off the barges, leaving deep tracks in the white sand that had been brought in long ago. It looked like an invasion—and to the island’s owners, it was.
The island had no name. Two miles long and nearly a half mile wide at its center, it sat in the middle of Mohawk Lake, forcing the deep, clear waters to part around it. The island had been claimed by the first Dutch settlers in the Hudson River Valley, though it was more than a century before they decided to do something with it.
By the mid-1800s, the owners had become prosperous, and after establishing themselves in suitably grand mansions in nearby Port Henry, they began to build summer homes on the island. There were five families, linked by long histories and much intermarriage over the generations, and they all built large homes they called cottages, despite their size.
The families had long since set up the island as a private corporation. Through the past winter, there’d been meetings and letters and phone calls and faxes: the first dissension within the group—though, being the kind of people they were, it was a genteel sort of dissension. But in the end, they agreed to permit the construction of a new cottage by one of the families, whose numbers had increased more than the others, thanks to a politely frowned upon divorce and second marriage.
So the bulldozer began to rip up ancient trees and to dig into the dark, rich soil. None of the owners was present, though all knew that construction was about to begin. Most of them had come to terms with it by now.
But one of them sat in his richly paneled office and stared at the date and worried. He reminded himself that only a small portion of the island’s 320 acres would be touched. The odds were certainly in his favor. But still, he wished desperately that his memory of that night were clearer, even though he’d spent the past twenty years trying to forget what he did remember.
At some point during those years, he’d managed to separate the man he was from the man he’d been that night. That man had been an aberration, fueled by fear and anger and too much Scotch. He had long since forgiven himself because that man wasn’t really him.
“T.G.I.F.,” AMANDA SIGHED as she reached for her glass of wine, took a sip and set it down again. She’d found some wonderful jumbo shrimp—the big, chewy kind—and was making a bowl of shrimp salad. She’d have some for dinner tonight, then take the rest out to the island with her tomorrow.
She was looking forward to spending the weekend out there—the first since last fall. And she’d have the place to herself, too. No one else was planning to go out this weekend.
Not that it was going to be a weekend of leisure—unfortunately. She grimaced as she thought about the bulging briefcase she’d brought home. It was exactly a month since Lewis Brogan, her boss and for many years the district attorney, had reluctantly announced his retirement due to ailing health. Amanda was now the acting D.A., and until a new assistant could be hired, she was doing two jobs.
And as if that weren’t enough, there was a decision to be made. She was thinking about that as she finished preparing the shrimp salad, when the doorbell rang, startling her. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and her condo complex of busy young professionals didn’t generally extend to impromptu neighborliness. She barely knew any of them.
When she peered through the little security eye, all she saw was a magnified detective’s shield. She had just made out the word Lieutenant when a very familiar voice came through the door.
“It’s Michael, Amanda.”
In the space of a second, nine years vanished and she remembered the threat he’d made that night, at Mayor Teddy’s party. He’d said he was going to show up on her doorstep some night, with photos of her client’s next victim. But nine years had passed. Surely...
She undid the locks with trembling fingers as the other images of that night flooded through her, images that by all rights should have faded long ago. Except that they hadn’t, and she’d come to fear that they never would.
She opened the door, uncomfortably aware of her ratty T-shirt and faded jeans. Somehow, she managed to affix a polite smile to her face, together with a genuinely quizzical look.
“Sorry to bother you at home,” he said, stepping into her foyer and filling entirely too much space. His gaze swept over her, and she felt even grungier—especially when she saw amusement glitter in those dark eyes.
Amanda had seen that look before—especially recently, as her new job and his brought them into fairly regular contact. But she realized, with a prickly awareness, that this was the first time they’d been alone together since that night.
“I need some information, and you came to mind.”
“Information?” she asked, puzzled. “About wh
at?” One of her staff was always on call if the police needed something.
“The island. Do you happen to have a beer? I’m thirsty.”
She nodded, barely able to restrain a smile at the brashness that was so much a part of him. She started back to the kitchen, and he followed her. After taking a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, she was about to get out a mug, but he reached around her and took the bottle.
He pried off the top and took a long swallow. Then she saw him eyeing the shrimp salad. “Would you like some to go with your beer?” she inquired.
“That’d be great.” He leaned forward to peer at it. “What are those dark specks in it?”
“Tarragon.” She spooned some onto plates for each of them, then cut two wedges of cheddar. When she handed him his plate, he sniffed at it.
“Oh yeah, I’ve had this before. I like it.”
They sat down at the small kitchen table, Amanda having decided that the occasion didn’t warrant the dining room. Then she remembered the loaf of French bread and got up to get that. Michael was already busy demolishing his plate of shrimp salad. His manners weren’t crude, but he ate with gusto—which, she thought, was pretty much the way he did everything. More memories shivered through her.
“Why are you interested in the island?” she asked as she got out a bread knife and started to slice the loaf. Was she really so foolish as to be hoping that he’d only used it as an excuse to come here? Yes, she decided, she probably was.
“We found a body out there this afternoon—or rather, the construction crew did. It was a skeleton, actually. The bulldozer dug it up.”
She whirled around in astonishment. “A body?”
“Yeah. Would you mind putting down that knife? Knives make me nervous.”
She put it down and sank into a chair. Michael got up and finished slicing the bread, then carried it to the table and calmly began to butter a slice.
“I know the construction’s not at your family’s place, but I couldn’t get hold of any of the Verhoevens. So until I do, I thought I’d see what you might be able to tell me.”
Amanda stared at him. “You’re not putting me on, are you, Michael?” She continued to hope that this was a joke, a way of getting to see her alone.
“Cross my heart,” he said—and did. “Is there any chance that someone from the Verhoeven family could have been buried out there?”
“Not that I know of. I never saw a marker. Besides, all the Verhoevens are buried up at the Old Dutch Cemetery. Their mausoleum is right next to my family’s. I can’t believe this. You said it was a skeleton?”
“Right, and I don’t think there was a casket or a marker, though I guess a wooden casket could have rotted away.”
He paused to wolf down some more shrimp salad, then got up to refill his plate. “The thing is that it’s all a damn mess. The crime-scene squad has been there and they’ll be back tomorrow, but I don’t have much hopes of them finding anything. The bulldozer had torn the place all to hell and back before the skeleton was discovered. In fact, they still haven’t found all of it.”
Amanda grimaced, then began to eat her shrimp salad. Such grisly conversations had long since ceased to affect her appetite: they went with the job. “So you haven’t any idea how long it’s been there?”
“No. I’ve already contacted a forensics expert with the state police. There are tests they can run, and they’ll probably come up with a pretty good guess—especially if we find some pieces of fabric, too.”
“Well, as you probably know, the families have all been on the island for nearly 150 years. But I just can’t see anyone burying a family member out there. And if there was a grave, there’d have been a marker—and I would have known about it.”
“Then I have to consider the possibility that someone decided it would be a good place to dump a body.”
She thought about that and nodded slowly. “I guess it would be—especially during the winter when no one’s out there. There’s a caretaker for the island, who goes out regularly during the winter to check on things, but that’s all.
“You said that you hadn’t been able to reach the Verhoevens. Did you try Lise?”
“Is that Jan’s wife—the ones who are building the house?”
“No. Lise is Jan’s sister. She lives in Manhattan. Let me see if I can reach her now.”
Amanda got up and lifted the cordless handset from its base, then punched out Lise’s number. Lise Verhoeven was one of her oldest and closest friends. She worked in the family’s investment-banking firm on Wall Street She answered on the third ring.
“Lise, it’s Amanda. I have some rather strange news. The construction crew working on Jan and Stacey’s cottage unearthed a body.”
“A what?”
“A body—a skeleton. We don’t know yet how long it’s been there. The lieutenant in charge of the investigation hasn’t been able to reach your parents or Jan and Stacey.” She glanced at Michael, who gestured for her to give him the phone.
“He’s here now and he wants to talk to you.”
She handed the phone to Michael, then sank back into her chair as he began to talk to Lise. She was stunned—and she was beginning to feel something else, as well: violated! There was no other word to describe it. The island had always been a haven for her—a place where the world and all its problems couldn’t intrude. That had become very important to her during her years as a public defender, and continued to be important after she’d switched sides and gone to work for the district attorney.
Anger began to bubble up inside her. How dare someone do such a thing, desecrate her beloved island!
Amanda was certainly far more aware than the average citizen of the horrors of contemporary life—but the island? It was nearly unthinkable! Strangely enough, there’d never even been any vandalism on it. And now this.
She pushed aside her personal thoughts and began to think professionally. Why would someone go to all the trouble to carry a body out there and bury it, when there was the lake itself, or the nearby Hudson—or the thousands of acres of wilderness close by? It didn’t make any sense to her—unless there was some connection to the island itself.
But that made even less sense to her. She knew all the families well and was, in fact, distantly related to all of them. If there were any dark secrets, they would certainly be known to her. And as for the possibility that any of them could be a murderer...
Amanda was certainly not so naive as to believe that murder couldn’t happen in any family, but she was quite certain that no such thing had ever occurred in these particular families.
She wondered how long the body had been there and how closely they would be able to pinpoint the time it had been buried. The arcane science of forensics was beyond her understanding, though she never failed to be impressed by the experts who testified in various cases she’d been involved with over the years.
Then Michael handed the phone back to her and said that Lise wanted to speak to her again.
“This is just incredible, Lise,” she told her friend. “I feel...violated. Nothing has ever happened out there before.”
“That’s what I told Lieutenant Quinn. Is he the same Michael Quinn I remember from high school—that hunk who was a big jock?”
“Uh, yes,” Amanda replied, feeling very uncomfortable with Michael’s gaze on her.
“Somehow, I always thought he’d end up on the other side of the law, even though he was very nice to look at—not to mention fantasize about.” Lise chuckled.
Amanda had to struggle to conceal her reaction from Michael. She couldn’t recall one single time when Lise had ever indicated any interest in Michael. But then, neither had she. It appeared that he’d been a very private fantasy for them both.
“Are you sure that no ancestor of yours could have been buried out there?” Amanda asked, eager to get the conversation back to safer territory.
“Of course I’m sure. They’re all tucked away up there next to your family. Eccentrici
ty just doesn’t run in our families—well, maybe except for Jesse, that is, and she’s only mildly eccentric. Mother and Father are going to flip out when they hear about this. And Jan and Stacey! After all they went through to get permission to build the cottage, they’re going to think there’s a curse hanging over the place.”
Then Lise laughed. “Remember when we were kids and we used to complain because there wasn’t a single ghost on the whole island?”
Amanda laughed. “I remember.”
Michael got up and went to the bowl of shrimp salad again, arching his brows questioningly. She nodded. There went tomorrow’s lunch. She sighed.
“I was planning to go out there tomorrow for the weekend.”
“I wonder if it could be a Native American—if it’s old enough, that is.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Amanda admitted. “But didn’t they always bury their dead in big burial mounds? There were never any mounds on the island.”
“Right. Well, it was a thought, anyway.”
They hung up, and Amanda saw that Michael was watching her with those dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing but gave little away, either. Flat black obsidian. He was definitely in his cop mode—not that he was ever completely out of it.
Well, almost never, she amended silently, cursing the memories that could still be so vivid after all this time.
“Could I have another beer?” he asked.
She got up to get it for him, suddenly back to the realization that they were alone together for the first time since that night. She knew that he hadn’t forgotten about it, even though he’d never mentioned it. It was there in his eyes; she was sure she wasn’t imagining it. But she was equally certain that his memories weren’t as vivid as hers.
“You’re planning to go out there tomorrow?” he asked as she handed him the beer.
“I was. Now I don’t know.” She sat down again, annoyed suddenly that he seemed so at home here, so completely at ease. It was a quality he had that she’d noticed before.
“The island has always been a special place for me,” she told him. “A safe place with so many happy memories. I’m still having trouble accepting that something like this could happen there.”
Lawman Lover Page 2