NIGHT WATCH

by Carla Neggers

  “Do I?”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled sadly. “You’re so naive, Rowena—or maybe I’m too jaded. I hope...” He paused, looking pained. “I hope I’ll find other people as willing to forgive and forget as you are.”

  “I know you’re barred from certain financial activities for life, but I should think if you’ve served your sentence and take a little time to prove your good intentions, someone will give you a second chance.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  There was an edge to his words this time. She wondered if it had more to do with his fear of the future than his regrets about the past. But he launched into a discussion of how San Francisco had changed in the three years he’d been away, and Rowena was grateful he didn’t insist on having her talk about herself. Still, she ate her pasta as quickly as she could, telling herself she wasn’t taking the sergeant’s advice.

  He was still at the bar, his back to her. Every time she stole a look at him, she could taste his mouth on hers, feel the hot probing of his tongue. Was his kiss deliberate? Impulsive?

  Did she dare trust him any more than Eliot Tyhurst?

  It didn’t matter. Whatever he was after, she wanted a chance to leave him as distracted and taken aback and aching as she was.

  After she and Tyhurst had finished their main courses, Rowena agreed to a cup of coffee, but refused dessert. And she insisted on paying for her own dinner. This time she didn’t just go along with him as she had with his choice of restaurant and decision to drive. There’d be no more impulsive behavior, no more indulging curiosity or a ridiculous need not to show weakness to a burnt-out San Francisco cop.

  When she got up to leave, she saw that Joe Scarlatti had vacated his seat at the bar.

  Where was he?

  There was no sign of his battered truck out in the parking lot, or of him. Rowena wondered fleetingly if he’d taken her advice and had gone home. You’re on your own again, she thought, but quickly reminded herself that she’d always been on her own. A few days of Joe Scarlatti in her life hadn’t changed a thing.

  She spoke little on their way back across the Golden Gate Bridge, into the view that had so transfixed her from the other side of the bay. Glancing at Tyhurst, she tried to imagine what it would be like to pick up the pieces of her life after a prison sentence, however brief. Would she fare any better than he had? Could she be as magnanimous to the person who had put her there? If that was what he was being.

  She couldn’t tell. She was no judge of people, and Eliot Tyhurst was particularly hard to read. She watched him as he drove with both hands on the wheel, his eyes narrowed on the road like a teenager just learning to drive. It had been a while, she realized, since he had driven a car. Thanks to me. No, thanks to himself.

  “Would you like me to walk you to your door?” he asked when he pulled up to her house. It did look like a dreary old castle at night.

  “No, thanks. I can manage.”

  She pushed open the car door and started out.

  He leaned toward her, touched her shoulder. “Is there anyone special in your life, Rowena?”

  A chill ran up her spine. She turned to look at him. She had one foot out on the pavement. “Lots of people.”

  “I lost my wife over this ordeal. She was horrified at my—how did she put it? My ‘unconscionable behavior.’ As if I were a mass murderer.” He sighed, letting his hand fall away. “It’s not easy being alone.”

  She climbed out of his car and looked around at him, feeling a small surge of sympathy. “I guess it’s not so hard when it’s all you’ve known.”

  In a few moments, she was on her doorstep and Eliot Tyhurst was gone.

  The door echoed in the cavernous entry when she shut it behind her. She peeked outside. There was no sign of Joe Scarlatti or his truck. Was he more competent than she’d given him credit for? Or just less interested, less concerned about her safety?

  Mega and Byte floated down the carpeted stairs and rubbed against her leg, welcoming her back.

  “Ahh, kitties,’ she said, “you don’t know how good it is to be home.”

  But she froze, hearing the loud rumble of an old truck engine outside her door. Looking through the window, she saw Joe Scarlatti’s battered truck parallel-parking in a space that was clearly insufficient for its bulk. He didn’t give up. He just parked it at a sharp angle—a thorough eyesore on her attractive, upmarket street—and climbed out with a big bundle tucked under one muscular arm.

  A sleeping bag.

  Rowena had the door open by the time he reached it. “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  “I’ll take any room but the morgue in there.”

  “Sergeant, you aren’t invited to spend the night.” It was an outrageous thought. How could he mean to spend the night after their kiss? “I don’t need you here.”

  “I’ll bet the hell you don’t,” he said sardonically.

  She wouldn’t let him get to her. She just wouldn’t. “Eliot Tyhurst and I had a pleasant, innocuous dinner. He made no mention of wanting to see me again.” She threw up her hands when all Joe Scarlatti did was stand there waiting for her to let him in. “This is absurd. I assure you, Tyhurst is finished with me.”

  Scarlatti shook his head, every inch of him the pro now, not the hothead who’d risked kissing her. “He went around the corner after dropping you off, parked, got out and walked a few yards to where he’d have a view of your ivory tower up there. Maybe he was contemplating the stars, but I don’t believe it.”

  “And what of it?”

  “He’s not finished with you yet, that’s what of it. The bastard’s just getting started.”

  Five

  Rowena gave him a little room off the kitchen that had a studio couch with a mattress that must have been stuffed with dried sticks. Joe didn’t know what the hell it was doing there because pretty soon he discovered that the musty, earthy smell that was keeping him awake emanated from a thirty-pound bag of potatoes. He was in the pantry. The gall of the woman. He was looking after her miserable hide and she’d stuck him in with the potatoes!

  He slid himself down deep into his sleeping bag and gritted his teeth. His whole body was tense. He should be unwinding at Mario’s with a couple of beers, a little chitchat with some friends, maybe a little hanky-panky with an attractive and willing woman.

  Hell. He should be upstairs making love to Rowena Willow.

  It was what she was afraid would happen if she gave him a room any closer to hers. He was sure of it. He’d gotten the pantry because she had responded to his kiss in the restaurant in a way that scared the hell out of her.

  And him, too. Her hunger had stirred not just his body but his sense of responsibility. He had to think for a change, not just act. When he’d gone on leave, he’d promised himself he would use the six months to try to pull himself together. He had no business encouraging Rowena to fall for an emotional wreck like himself.

  Not that she would. And not that he really felt like such a wreck anymore. The fog of his soul was lifting. Was it because he was working again—or was it because of Rowena?

  Two cats jumped up onto his chest and pawed his sleeping bag. He had visions of them using him for a litter box or settling in for the night, so he bounced them unceremoniously back onto the floor. Cats were all right, but not in his bed and not in this quaint little house of horrors.

  Their yellow eyes shone as they looked back at him in the darkness. If he weren’t a big tough cop, Joe told himself, he’d probably get the willies.

  All in all he figured it’d be a long night.

  * * *

  It was.

  He awoke stiff and sore. He didn’t require the usual couple of seconds to shake off sleep and remember where he was: he knew exactly where he was. What he needed time to remember was why he was there. What did a sensible cop such as himself expect to accomplish sleeping in the pantry of a weirdo like Rowena Willow? How the hell could he keep an eye on her? The . house was so damn
ed huge, an entire SWAT team could slip inside and make off with her without his knowing.

  Well, he thought, staying over must have seemed like a good idea last night or he wouldn’t have done it.

  Then again, Joe Scarlatti was known for being impulsive. He bent rules, took risks. He acted fast when he needed to, relying on the instincts and reflexes born of training and experience. Thinking too much could get a cop into trouble.

  But not thinking at all...

  He shook off his introspective mood. It would lead him down a path he did not want to go, not this morning. Instead, he climbed out of bed, pulled on his pants and headed into the kitchen.

  The only signs of Rowena Willow were the still-hot kettle and the two cats stuffing their faces at their dishes over by the door to the courtyard. Presumably they hadn’t got their food out themselves.

  He searched the cupboards for something resembling coffee and came up with a dozen different kinds of teas and finally, way back behind a plastic bag labeled Chamomile, a small jar of instant coffee. It took some muscle to open. There were a couple of spoonfuls of grounds caked at the bottom of the jar. He had to scrape them out. Even then, they came out in clumps that he hoped boiling water would dissolve.

  An old-tasting, bad cup of coffee was preferable, he reasoned, to no coffee at all. So long as the stuff didn’t poison him.

  The cats finished feasting and wandered off, ignoring him.

  Joe checked the front of the refrigerator, the table and the counters for a note from Ms. Rowena telling him what the hell she might be up to this morning. There wasn’t one.

  Guess I’m on my own. Apparently she didn’t own a coffee mug, either. Then he found a freestanding cupboard holding about two dozen china cups and saucers, each one different, none of a variety that had ever worked its way into his life. He chose a design with a black-and-gold band on the rim; it looked more masculine than forget-me-nots.

  “You’re a sick man, Scarlatti,” he muttered to himself, “to worry about such things.”

  He scooped out the few grounds that refused to dissolve and drank the coffee black. It wasn’t as bad as some he’d had, but it wasn’t good. Fortunately he wasn’t hungry. He hadn’t seen anything he considered suitable for a quick breakfast in his search through her cupboards. He was not about to spend the next twenty minutes cooking hand-cut oats.

  Coffee in hand, he wandered down the hall to the front entry, figuring Rowena would hear him and give a yell. The morning sun was filtered through sheers on the panel windows next to the door, but instead of cheering up the place, it only made it seem lonelier. Joe peeked into the drawing room.

  “Hi, guys,” he said to the stuffed animals.

  They just stared back at him.

  He patted the suit of armor in the entry on the shoulder as if it could commiserate with his plight and sipped his coffee, trying to figure out a way to get a decent hold on the cup. His fingers were too thick.

  Probably, he thought, he should just go home, call Hank Ryan, tell him he was out, done, fìni, Rowena Willow could handle Tyhurst herself. He wouldn’t mention that he’d kissed her.

  But he started up the sweeping stairs.

  Somber paintings and old photographs hung on dark Victorian wallpaper. Where the stairs curved, there was a window seat made of polished wood, no cushion, no pillows. Heavy drapes were drawn over the window above it. Even the cats wouldn’t hang around there.

  On the second-floor landing the doors to what rooms he could see were all shut. There were more forbidding paintings—portraits of dour men and women and eerie forest landscapes--and more dark wallpaper. Joe decided he was just as glad he’d had the pantry.

  He paused and listened.

  Tap-tap-tap...

  The sound, barely audible, was coming from the third floor. He finished off his coffee in one big swallow and headed up, not skipping steps lest he trip and break his neck, but moving quickly, with a renewed sense of energy.

  Rowena Willow at work.

  That would be something to see.

  He came to the third floor and was struck immediately by the sunlight streaming in through the bright clear glass of tall windows unfettered by drapes and sheers. The walls were painted a warm, ultra-pale peach. Underfoot was a simple runner in a soft neutral color. A window seat was cushioned in a peach-flowered fabric and piled with pillows. Everything was bright, clean, simple.

  Rowena, Rowena, Joe thought. I haven t even begun to figure you out.

  Not that figuring her out was necessary to keeping Tyhurst from hurting her, he told himself. Pull back, my man, pull back. You don’t belong in her world.

  The tapping sound had stopped. Joe figured she must have heard him. He walked down the hall and turned left through an open doorway, into a large, airy, cheerful state-of-the-art office. A computer and fax machine and copier hummed, but the place smelled faintly of cinnamon; he spotted a bowl of potpourri on the edge of one of four long desks.

  Rowena sat at one of them in the middle of the room, her back to him, staring at a bunch of numbers on a computer screen. Her hair was pinned up, not a strand hanging loose, and she had on a russet-colored jumpsuit and no shoes.

  She did not look around at him. Joe figured she was either pretending she didn’t know he was there or didn’t, in fact, know he was there.

  He cleared his throat.

  She screamed and jumped right up off her chair, which backed out from under her. When she came down, she caught just the edge of the chair and slipped onto the floor. A thick lock of hair fell down one cheek. She was shaking. She got up on her knees and turned, holding on to the seat of her chair as her big blue eyes focused on the intruder.

  Joe smiled. “Morning.”

  She glared at him.

  “Guess I startled you.”

  She didn’t seem too thrilled. Tucking the errant lock of hair back where it belonged, she climbed to her feet and rearranged her jumpsuit, which had gotten twisted in her tumble to the floor. Joe tried not to let his gaze linger on the soft swell of her breasts, but it was one of those things that, by the time you try not to do it, you’ve already done it. Rowena glared at him some more. Her cheeks, however, were flushed. Again he realized that despite her bizarre life-style and genius, Rowena Willow was not unaware of the needs of the flesh, her own included.

  “I thought you would be gone by now,” she said, barely recovered.

  “I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just got up. Haven’t even had my morning hand-cut oats. How long you been at it?”

  “Since five. I like to get an early start. I...” She licked her lips, clearly embarrassed at having jumped out of her skin. “My concentration—when I work, I’m often unaware of other... I don’t hear things. I jump when the phone rings, a fax comes in, Mega or Byte show up.” She smiled feebly. “One of the hazards of the job, I guess.”

  “As hazards go,” Joe said, “it could be worse.”

  She nodded, and the flush receded, the eyes lost some of their angry embarrassment. She licked her lips again. It was about as distracting as the twisted jumpsuit had been. But then she said, “Yes, I understand you’ve faced a number of hazards in your career with the San Francisco police.”

  He frowned. “How would you know?”

  With a small gesture, she indicated her computer. “I looked you up. I’m tied into a number of...” She paused, probably thinking of the right way to explain it to a nontechnical type. “A number of networks. I typed in SCARLATTI, JOE more or less for my own peace of mind and—well, I got quite a lot.”

  Joe stiffened. “Such as?”

  “I would think you would already know.”

  Joe did indeed.

  “If you can spy on me, know things about me, sleep in my house, I see no reason why I shouldn’t find out what I can about you.” Her tone was cool but not judgmental and a nervous look had come into her big blues. “I’m sorry if it’s awkward for you.”

  “Yeah,” he said,
and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  His jaw was clenched tight, his body tense with the pain of being reminded of why he had time to keep an eye on her. Of Matt Lee’s death. Of his own role in it. He didn’t bother turning around. “I’ll let you know.”

  “If you stay—” she hesitated, then blundered on “—please don’t scare me again.”

  He looked around at her, saw how smart and independent and yet vulnerable she was, felt a surge of something he couldn’t identify—something between attraction and protectiveness—and nodded curtly, knowing he had to get the hell out of there, and fast. He had to get himself under control. He remembered last night’s promise to himself: to think before he acted.

  Not thinking before he acted had gotten Matt killed.

  * * *

  For once in her life, the numbers on her computer screen made no sense to Rowena. They were a jumble of high-resolution dots on her color monitor. They might just as well have been baseball scores. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t concentrate. Maybe she needed a break.

  She pushed back her chair, blinked her eyes several times and raised her arms above her head to stretch. Tension and stiffness had penetrated her muscles; her wrists ached. She’d been at her computer for four hours straight and it was only nine in the morning.

  But that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and certainly not the reason she couldn’t concentrate.

  Joe Scarlatti’s presence in her house, however, was out of the ordinary.

  No, I wont think about him!

  She clicked to the next screen of the file she was examining, hoping it would make more sense or at least jog her back into action. She was supposed to be unraveling the tangled financial network of a private winery. A prospective buyer wanted to be certain he knew all there was to know about the company from an objective—and respected—source. Namely herself.

  But still she stared blankly at the screen.

  Instead of seeing financial clues, she saw her tough San Francisco cop’s dark, searching eyes. His rugged face. His thick thighs. Instead of thinking about the future of the mercurial wine business, she thought about the intriguing nature of Joe Scarlatti. His grit and determination. His wit and unusual sense of humor.