Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 13

He seemed to her to come from nowhere, as if conjured from the purple shadows by a cruel and heartless genie. In spite of that, she never doubted for a moment that he was real; in fact, she wondered if, in some locked-away part of herself, she had even been expecting him.

Oh, God Of course. He’s figured it out. He knows.

In the next moment, bewildered, she thought, but if that’s so, then why is he here? Unless…he still thinks it’s me.

“Hi,” he said. And she responded, somehow, though her heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

And then she saw the unmistakable, unbelievable leap of gladness in his face, in his eyes, and felt the very same within her entire being. Glad to be here? Glad to see…me? Her body shivered and tingled with shock, and her legs weakened. She wanted to run into his arms, touch his face, feel his hands on her body, and know once again those kisses that had seemed to reach into her very soul.

Instead, she stood still, and silent, and so did he.

She saw his hand extend toward her, and she stared at it uncomprehending. What does this mean? she thought. What does this mean?

Then, unbelievably, he laughed and said, “Would you like to dance?”

To see joy and laughter in his face was what she’d wanted, longed for. In response, she should have felt joy, too. But she didn’t. Instead, it was anger that began to rise like steam from the churning soup of her emotions.

Why is he doing this? she wondered. What does he want from me, when he has nothing to give me back? I won’t let him do this to me-I won’t. I can’t. I promised myself, she inwardly whimpered, wanting, childlike, to slap at his hand and shout, Go away! Leave me alone! Hadn’t she just vowed, after last night, never again to let herself need anyone so much? Never again.

A sharp, breathy sound escaped her, it might have been mistaken for a laugh, but it was pain. Pure anguish. But the music filled her ears and invaded her mind like a drug, and she saw her hand reach out as if it were guided by someone else’s will. She saw herself like the young girl in the painting, in a graceful and low-cut gown and high-piled coiffure, as Tom, elegant in embroidered waistcoat and silk cravat, took her hand in his and raised it briefly to his lips. For a moment she was sure that on the cold March breeze she had caught the scent of lilacs.

She took a step backward and Tom followed her onto the landing, as if they were the choreographed first steps of the dance. He guided her gently into position. Then for a few beats they stood still, listening to the rhythm, adjusting to it with their bodies while they gazed at one another. And he was smiling, but she was not.

Their eyes never left each other’s faces as they began to move and sway to the tempo of the waltz, small, tentative steps at first, but gradually gaining in confidence and gusto, until they were whirling around on the gently rocking platform as if it were a ballroom floor. The last of the light faded, and the sky filled up with stars. Yard lights came on and swam in the dark water like reflected moons.

The platform dipped suddenly, riding the wake of a distant and long-departed boat. Jane gasped and lurched toward Tom, off balance. He caught her close while he steadied them both, then murmured, “Feels just like old times.”

“We’re both going to wind up in the water,” she said, her voice bumpy with frightened laughter. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her.

The song ended, the last one on the CD, and silence came to stay. And still he wouldn’t release her from the warm and heart-wrenchingly wonderful prison of his arms. She drew her hands from his neck and shoulder and brought her folded arms between them, and tried to lighten the moment by saying mockingly, “You are surprising.”

She heard the familiar irony in his voice as he responded in the same mode, “You, too, Miss Jane.”

“I’ve always loved to dance,” she said, and the irony faded from her voice as she added, “I guess that’s why I liked the painting so much.”

He didn’t speak. His arms shifted, one hand coming to cover hers and press them against his chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her fingers as his head slowly descended.

As well as she knew he was going to kiss her, as much as she wanted him to, she knew that she would be truly and forever lost if he did. So she turned her face away before he could, saying on a ripple of laughter as false as it was light, “Tom, what in the world are you doing here?”

She could feel his breath sigh soundlessly through his body as he let her go. “I came to see you, what else?” And she knew he was smiling his familiar crooked smile.

“I thought you were going back to Arlington, to try and find out who bought the other paintings.” She was moving away from him, onto the pier, heading back toward the shore, moving quickly to hide the fact that she was trembling.

“I was, and I did.” Tom’s voice and footsteps followed her up the pier. “Seems all but one of ’em are right here in Cooper’s Mill.”

“Really?” said Jane faintly. “Imagine…” What is he saying? she wondered, trying desperately to read the thoughts behind that dry and casual voice. What does he suspect? Or does he know?

“Yeah, one that I guess didn’t sell was still there at the auction company’s warehouse. Didn’t take us long to check it out. The rest, it seems, your friend Connie Vincent bought.”

“Really!” said Jane, her voice high with feigned surprise.

“Yeah, looks like I’m gonna have to wait until tomorrow to see about those, though. Apparently, they’re locked up tight in her shop.”

But you’re lying, Jane thought. Because as important as whatever it is you’re looking for seems to be to you, I know you’d go in after it right this minute, locks or no locks. If you’re waiting for morning, there’s a reason for it. What is it? What are you up to, Agent Hawkins? Why are you lying to me?

“I’m just amazed you got here so fast.” Words tumbled over themselves in their rush to leave her, the way they did at parties, or other occasions when she felt ill at ease. “Actually, I just got home myself, a little while ago. I haven’t even had time to change my clothes, or-”

“Yeah, how come? Greenville’s…what? A hundred miles from here?” And she could hear the tenor of his voice change with his frown.

“It’s a long story,” she said, tossing it off with light, rueful laughter. I know he still suspects me, she thought, shivering as the evening chill found its way inside her jacket and penetrated instantly to her bones. And I’m making it worse.

But she couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not until she’d had a chance to find out for sure. Bacause…what if it wasn’t true? There still might be an innocent explanation for everything. Oh, God, she prayed, please let there be an explanation. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might have been so wrong, so stupid.

As soon as he could, when they’d left the narrow pier behind and begun to trudge uphill across the broad expanse of lawn, Hawk moved up to walk beside Jane. “Where are your daughters this evening?” he asked, making it sound like an effort at polite and casual conversation, though it was something he really did need to know.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the deck, smiling gamely, as if trying hard to remember her manners. He was surprised to find that he had to fight with every ounce of will he possessed to keep from reaching for her and pulling her back into his arms. Surprised by how much he wanted to stroke her and hold her and murmur soothing things into her hair, until she trusted him enough to tell him what she was trying so hard not to. Dammit, Jane, don’t lie-you’re not good enough at it.

“The girls are with their father,” she said in a gracious-hostess voice as she started up the stairs, once more preceding him. “Skiing. They’ll be gone all week. Where are you staying, the Best Western?”

“Uh-huh,” said Hawk absently. What he was wondering as he topped the last step and moved across the deck, was whether he could expect the bureau’s “surveillance” to extend this far outside the house. He was amazed how much it unsettled him to think of someone listening to his private conversations, for a change.

“I understand the rooms there are quite nice. Please come in.” She pulled the French doors shut after them and bustled through the living room and into the kitchen, turning on lights, setting thermostats and firing questions over her shoulder at him as she went. “Can I get you something to drink? Have you eaten?”

Her kitchen was like her, he thought. Nice. Ordinary. The kind of kitchen you felt comfortable in right away. White curtains at the windows of a breakfast alcove, blue checks on the walls, touches of yellow in sunflowers and daisies…

“Would you like coffee?”

Still thinking of bugs, he shook his head and coughed over his muttered reply.

Her smile was brilliant and painful. “Well. All right, then. Please make yourself comfortable. We’re a very casual household-realty. Just help yourself from the fridge if you’re hungry”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll just step outside for a smoke, if that’s all right.”

“Oh-of course. But you don’t have to go outside. I can get you an ashtray-”

“No, that’s okay, I’d rather-really.”

“Oh, well, then.” A valiant smile flickered across her face. “I won’t be long…”

He waited until he heard a door close somewhere down a hallway before he let himself out the kitchen’s side door. In the carport he paused to light up, and managed a couple of deep drags on the way out to where he’d parked the red Nissan. With the cigarette stuck between his lips and smoke curling into one eye, he unlocked the trunk and opened his travel bag, removing from it a small black object which he put in the pocket of his jacket. He then closed and relocked the trunk, took one last pull on the cigarette, dropped it onto the gravel at his feet and went back into the house.

He could hear the water running as he tiptoed down the hallway and into what had to be Jane’s bedroom. Please, God, he thought, curling his fingers around the electronic receiver in his pocket, let her take long, long showers.

It took him all of fifteen seconds to zero in on the frequency and then locate the first bug, behind the headboard of her bed. That made him mad. Just what in the hell, he wondered, were they hoping to hear from that one? He quickly found another one behind the mirror above her dresser, then spent a suspense-filled and futile five minutes going over the rest of the room before he was willing to call it clean.

Ignoring the girls’ bedrooms, he moved on to the kitchen next, one ear always tuned to the sounds coming from the other end of the hall. He was just finishing up in there when he heard the water shut off. Hurrying now, he skipped the phones and went straight to the living room. So far, two per room seemed to be the limit; he could only hope he’d found them all.

Back in Jane’s bedroom, a door opened. Another closed. Jeez, thought Hawk, grinding his teeth, take your time, dammit! For a woman, she sure was fast. Probably what came from having two daughters and apparently only one bathroom in the house.

He was standing in the middle of the living room, shaking and jingling a handful of small metal objects-about the size of watch batteries-when he heard her bedroom door open.

Damn! he thought. What in the hell was he going to do with the blasted things? He couldn’t very well carry them around in his pocket.

There was pretty much only one thing he could do. Casting one quick look over his shoulder, he opened the French doors, stepped onto the deck and hurled the handful of expensive, state-of-the-art listening devices as far as he could into the woods that bordered the lawn. He broke into a smile when he saw one hit a branch of the oak tree nearest the deck and fall into the bird feeder. Let them try to figure that one out, he thought, envisioning with a great deal of enjoyment the faces of the FBI techs monitoring the mikes when they heard nothing but twitterings and chirpings and random pecking sounds.

“I told you, you don’t have to do that outside,” Jane said from behind him.

He turned to find her standing in the softly lit living room, one hand on the frame of the open door, and almost groaned aloud. She was wearing cream-colored leggings and a long-sleeved knit tunic in a dusty rose shade of pink. And he’d been right about the way she looked in it.

“I actually have ashtrays for my guests, believe it or not.” The shower seemed to have restored her natural serenity. She was smiling slightly, her head tilted a little to one side, and her hair was brushed back from her face and damp from the shower. He didn’t think she’d washed it; she sure as hell hadn’t had time to blow it dry. Her face had the scrubbed-fresh, no-makeup look that always seemed to make her appear so vulnerable, as if she lacked a certain critical layer of protection. The elusive and indefinable scent he associated with her drifted to him on the cold night air.

Nice, he thought, and felt his heart quiver inside him.

“Come inside,” she said gently. “It’s getting cold out.”

Once more he followed her into the house. “I’m going to warm up some soup,” she said as he was closing the door behind him. “Want some?”

“Sure,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, following her into the kitchen. “What’ve you got?”

She’d opened a cupboard and was scanning its contents. “Uh, looks like clam chowder, minestrone and chicken noodle. Oh, and here’s a can of lentil.” Her nose wrinkled; obviously she wasn’t fond of lentil.

“Minestrone’s fine,” he told her. “Unless you’d rather-”

“No, no, minestrone’s good. I’m not a gourmet cook,” she warned him as she deftly opened cans. “As you can tell.”

“Oh. Well, then, forget it,” he said, straight-faced. And got a quick, startled look before she laughed.

He watched her while she worked, only half listening to the tale of her day’s travels, the promised “long story” about why it had taken her so long to get home from Greenville. He was thinking about how he was going to do what he’d come to do. What he had to do. Wondering just how he was going to manage to get his hands on something he could be absolutely certain had her fingerprints on it and no one else’s.

It was when she opened the dishwasher and began taking cups and bowls out in preparation for setting the table that he knew he had his answer.

“Here, let me do that,” he said, stepping quickly forward as she turned with her hands full of dishes, catching her by surprise.

“Oh-no,” she automatically began. “You don’t…” But she had no stock protest ready, and could only juggle the dishes clumsily as he took them from her.

She uttered a soft gasp when he let one-a soup bowl-slip through his fingers.

He spat out his standard, all-purpose cussword under his breath as it shattered, then mumbled, “Ah, jeez-I’m sorry…” He deposited the rest of the dishes haphazardly on the table and dropped to one knee beside the scattered shards, his handkerchief in his hands.

But she was already there before him, on her knees and pushing his hands away, saying in a breathless, almost panicky voice, “Oh, don’t-please. Here, let me-I don’t want you to cut yourself…”

“Can’t believe I did that. Here-put ‘em in here.” He held his handkerchief like a basket and watched her while she carefully deposited the larger shards in it.

“It’s okay-really. I told you, we’re a casual household.”

“I’ll replace it. Just tell me-”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t think I have a complete set of dishes in the entire house. There, I guess that’s most of it.”

He rose to his feet, cradling the broken china in his hands. “Trash?”

“Under the sink. Here, let me-”

“‘S’okay, I got it.” He kept his back to her as he dumped the shards into the trash, so she couldn’t see him fold two of the largest pieces into his handkerchief and tuck them away in his pocket.

He was smiling lopsidedly as he turned back to her, saying, “Listen, I sure am sorry…” It was only when he saw her swiping blindly at the floor with a paper towel that he realized she was crying.

Like most people in law enforcement, Hawk had long ago become inured to women’s tears. Not only was it a matter of self-preservation; it was also his experience with both sexes that tears usually tended to flow in amounts directly proportional to the degree of guilt of the weeper.

But this woman? Crying?

He couldn’t believe it. This was Jane, the woman who’d confronted an intruder in her hotel room with a Roy Rogers cap pistol and brought an experienced FBI agent to his knees. She’d been knocked out, chased through the streets of the nation’s capital and endured six hours locked in a moving truck without food, water or toilet facilities, had even braved seasickness, all without so much as a sniffle. This he couldn’t understand at all. This he couldn’t tolerate.

“Hey, Carlysle, what is it? What’s wrong?” he growled, awed and fearful, thinking maybe, possibly, even hoping she’d cut herself. Hoping it was something so simple. He squatted in front of her, balancing on the balls of his feet, and gently touched her beneath the chin, trying to get her to look at him. But she turned her face away from him so abruptly he felt the cool splash of her tears on the back of his hand.

She rose, eluding him, and threw the balled-up paper towel into the sink with an angry, jerky motion.

“Why are you here?” she asked suddenly, in a voice like the cry of some small, hurt animal. “What do you want with me?” She’d asked him the very same things once before, he remembered, but with different inflections. It was amazing what a difference those inflections made. This time he felt her words like arrows in his heart.

He hesitated, thinking of the pieces of broken china in his pocket, wondering if there was some way she could have seen him put them there, some way she could know. “What do you mean?” he asked warily as he stood, moving slowly and with great caution, the way he would in the presence of a cornered and unpredictable suspect.

She kept her face averted and didn’t answer. He studied her, the curve of her ear, the side of her neck and the damp hair curling there. He remembered how soft her skin was, and the way she smelled. And he told her the simple truth: “I came because I needed to see you again.”

She laughed. Not a comfortable, gently mocking chuckle, like the last time she’d skewered him so deftly with that particular weapon. This was a high, sharp bark of sheer disbelief, and he thought about the irony of being rejected for telling the God’s-honest truth, when he was accustomed to having his glibbest lies taken as gospel.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” he asked, approaching her cautiously. He put his hands on her shoulders, and his jaw clenched involuntarily when she flinched. He turned her toward him, his hands firm but gentle when she resisted. Still she kept her face lowered, hidden from him, and he understood finally that she was distressed and humiliated by her tears.

Since he couldn’t very well offer her his handkerchief, he reached for the roll of paper towels she’d left on the counter, tore one sheet off and then, instead of handing it to her, began oh so gently to mop her cheeks with it. He was probably clumsy-tenderness didn’t exactly come naturally to him-but in any case, she gave a funny little sniffle, sort of a half laugh, and finally looked up. Her eyes were open, and gazing straight into his.

And once again he thought of the sea, and of dolphins, and of rain, and sunshine breaking through clouds, and rainbows over gray water. But now, for some reason, there was a poignancy in her gaze that touched him deep inside. The towel he was holding brushed the tear-filled creases at the corner of her eye and then was still. And he lowered his head and kissed her.

At first he thought it was going to be all right. He felt her breath sigh through her body, and her lips begin to soften as he touched them. It felt to him as though he were kissing her for the very first time. So sweet, so sweet, he thought, although it was salt he tasted, and he wondered why he suddenly ached so much inside.

Until he realized he was remembering the first time he’d ever kissed Jenny…

He thought it must have been autumn, following the spring he’d turned sixteen. Grief-stricken and rebellious, he’d fled his house, heading straight and true across the backyard to Jen’s house, as usual. Meeting at the boundary between their two properties, they’d gone for a walk in the woods nearby. He’d been hurrying, furious. He remembered the swish and crunch of leaves underfoot, and the squirrels that fled, scolding, before them. Don’t cry, Jen had said, reaching for his hand. And she’d leaned over-he’d had several more years of growing to do, and she’d been as tall as he was then-and she’d kissed him. He’d stopped and faced her, daring her to run away. But she’d just looked solemnly back at him, never blinking, never wavering. He’d never kissed anyone before. He’d thought his heart might punch a hole in his chest. He’d tasted salt then, too, he remembered. Only then, the tears had been his…

He felt her lips-Jane’s lips-quiver, and almost groaned aloud when she turned her face aside. He held himself still, except for his jackhammer heart, and whispered, “What’s the matter?”

He could feel her trembling. She said in a cracked and testy voice, “Please don’t do this.”

He felt as if he were balanced precariously on the edge of a chasm, afraid even to breathe. “Why not?” She shook her head desperately. He gave a short huff of puzzled laughter. “We’ve done it before.”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was…” Phenomenal was the word that came immediately to mind, but he settled instead for “good.”

She gave a little gulp that was more like a whimper than a laugh. “Oh, yes.”

“Well, then…”

She drew away enough so that she could look at him, and he was left tensely stroking her shoulders, simply to keep himself from pulling her against him. She whispered, “But it’s different now.”

“Yeah, it is.” God, he wished his heart wouldn’t beat so hard. His lips quirked wryly. “We’re not in a truck anymore. Looks to me like we’ve got all the time, space and privacy we need for what comes-” He stopped suddenly, thinking he understood. That unaccustomed tenderness assailed him.

Thoroughly ashamed of himself, he rubbed his hands up and down her arms, drawing her cold hands into his and cradling them both against his chest. “Hey,” he said gruffly, “is that what’s bothering you? The ‘what comes after’? Look, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Far as I’m concerned, ‘what comes after’ is always a mutual decision. Hell, I’m no Neanderthal.”

Her eyes stabbed at him like darts when he said that, and she muttered almost angrily, “Don’t be ridiculous-I know that.” Then her lashes dropped like curtains, and she gave a small, helpless sigh. “It isn’t that.”

“Then…”

She shook her head, drew breath for another sigh, and he could see her struggling with it, working toward a decision of some sort. Part of him-the heated and lusty, eternally adolescent part-waited, panting and confident, for the moment when he could pull her back into his embrace, knowing that it would be only one endless kiss from there to her bedroom. The other, the wounded and wary adult part of him, knew that nothing would ever be so simple for him again.

“It’s different,” she said, so carefully he wondered what it must have cost her to keep her voice steady. “Because I care about you.”

A chuckle rattled around inside his chest. “I care about you, too.” But it was the kind of thing he’d said many times before. It was too glib and came too easily, and he could tell by the bottomless look she gave him as she pulled her hands from his that she knew it.

She shook her head and turned away, rubbing her arms as if she was cold. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he said, reaching for her again, still half laughing, “That’s supposed to make things better, not worse.”

He was completely unprepared when she rounded on him, flinching angrily from his outstretched hand. “I care about you…too much,” she said as her eyes leaked liquid fire. “Too much. Do you understand?” He waited, dumbstruck and scarcely breathing, for her to finish. “And you’re still grieving for your wife!”