Ricochet

Chapter 26

“I USED TO,” HE SAID. “I’M NOT SURE I DO ANYMORE.”

Despondently she leaned her head against the sofa’s back cushion. “I’m not sure I do anymore, either. I think I was terribly naive, perhaps foolish.” She smiled but it was with self-deprecation. “Maybe I’d watched too many movies. My plan was to marry Cato, so I could find evidence against him, which I could hand over to the authorities. He would be convicted and sent to prison.

“I would have my vengeance for Chet, and Cato’s criminal career would be over. He would no longer be duping the trusting public who vote him into office.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Then I would be able to begin again. Clean slate. Make a fresh start on another life.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “But I didn’t plan on this. I didn’t make a contingency for his catching on before I could expose his crimes.” Looking over at Duncan, she said, “How is this going to end?”

“I don’t know yet. We’ve got no evidence. Nothing except your say-so, and that’s not good enough.”

“I realize that. Besides, I’m officially dead.”

“You will be for sure if either Savich or Laird learns you’re alive. I can’t hide and protect you forever.”

“Chet’s letter?”

He frowned. “Still iffy. Too much room for a good defense attorney to maneuver.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“First I’ve got to know the court cases that Laird threw out for Savich. Case numbers, who the offender was, what he was charged with. That will take some research. Delicate research, because we can’t tip our hand while we’re doing it.

“We also need to locate more sacrificial lambs, like Chet. If we find some who’ve been languishing in prison long enough, growing more bitter by the day, they may be willing to deal with us for a reduced sentence, maybe even for time served. But we’ve tried that tack before.”

“And they die.”

“And they die.” He stood up and began to pace. “You said there was no paperwork, phone records, receipts, canceled checks, bank books.”

She was shaking her head. “There’s a safe in the study, but Cato never gave me the combination to it.”

“We’ll get into the safe if we ever get a search warrant. But we must show probable cause to obtain a warrant. What about his office at the courthouse?”

“He wouldn’t dare keep a record of transactions like that in his office, would he?”

“Doubtful. And again, we’d need a search warrant.” He socked his fist against his open palm. “How does Savich pay him?”

“I would guess Cato has a bank account somewhere out of the country. The Cayman Islands, maybe. We went there on a trip once.”

“You’re probably right, but digging into those records involves the Feds, all kinds of red tape and legal-” He stopped midsentence.

“What?”

“Legal procedures,” he said absently. “I need to think about that some more.”

“Okay, I’ll make dinner. You think.”

He tried, but it was hard for him to concentrate while she moved about the kitchen. He was seated at the table, a tablet in front of him, pen primed to take notes. But he was easily distracted.

Elise reaching for something on the top shelf, lifting her T-shirt and exposing a band of skin.

Elise bending down to get a colander from a lower cabinet.

Elise’s breasts at his eye level as she walked past.

His frustration increased in proportion to his distraction, and it made him angry. Eventually he gave up the pretense of working and set the table. She served dinner. She must have sensed the dark mood that had settled over him because she didn’t initiate conversation. They ate in virtual silence.

Finally she said, “Good shrimp.”

“Fresh off the boat.”

“Would you like more French bread?”

“No, thanks.”

“Salad?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

He tossed an empty shrimp shell on the plate in the center of the table now heaped with them, and popped the meat into his mouth. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. You’re being awfully quiet.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Oh.” She ripped a paper towel from the roll he’d brought to the table and cleaned her hands. “I was thinking earlier today.”

“About what?”

“I was thinking that if I’d gone to the police with Chet’s letter as soon as I received it, you and I might have met then.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” He ripped off a paper towel and wiped his mouth. “Instead you got chummy with Savich and made your bed with Cato.”

She looked as though he’d slapped her. But once she’d recovered from her initial hurt, she got angry. “That’s right.”

“Yeah, yeah, you did what you had to do. Used what you had. And we all know what that is. You used it first with Cato Laird, then with me. Probably Savich, too, even though you’ve denied it. That’s a real lucky charm for you. It works every time, doesn’t it?”

She scraped back her chair. “You can be a real bastard.”

He stood up just as quickly. “But at least I’m not a-” He caught himself before he said it, but the unspoken word hung there, trapped in the tension between them.

“Don’t back down now, Duncan. Say it. At least you’re not a whore.”

She picked up her place setting and carried it to the counter, slinging disposables into the trash can, clattering the rest in the sink. He did likewise. They were careful not to touch or even to look at each other.

By the time they finished cleaning up, he was regretting what he’d said. He carefully folded the dish towel, then for ponderous seconds studied the faded stripes woven into the muslin, silently cursing himself for being a son of a bitch and a hypocrite.

Turning to her, he said, “I’m tired. I’m worried. The strain got to me. I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”

“Oh yes, you did.”

“Elise.”

She backed away from the hand he extended toward her. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m sick of it. All of it.”

Her expression was the cool, closed mask she’d showed him at the awards dinner. Without animation or excitement for a sentimental, romantic movie. Without hope for a happy ending.

Saying nothing more, she went into the bedroom and soundly closed the door behind her.

He awoke to the sound of birds chirping somewhere close. It was still early. The sun wasn’t fully up. He rarely woke up in time to see a sunrise, but he’d gone to sleep unusually early. After trying to wrestle his way through his jumbled thoughts and conflicting emotions, he’d given up and allowed his eyes to close. That’s the last thing he remembered. His sleep had been deep and dreamless.

He threw off the light quilt and stood up, stretching to work the cramps out of his muscles. He thought about going for a run while it was reasonably cool, but decided he wasn’t awake enough yet. He would wait awhile and then go. After Elise was up.

The bedroom door was closed, as it had remained since she’d disappeared through it last night.

He pulled on his jeans. He used the bathroom and conscientiously put the seat down. He wondered what people did at this time of the morning if they hadn’t been called into work or they weren’t exercising. Reading the newspaper? Watching the morning talk shows? He didn’t have a newspaper and he didn’t want to disturb Elise by turning on the TV.

Coffee. He would make coffee and go light on the amount of grounds.

But in the midst of the process, his hands fell still. He stared out the window above the sink. The water was calm this morning, almost like glass, undisturbed save for the small wake of one lone fishing boat.

Why had he become so mad at her last night? If Elise had been successful at collecting evidence against Laird and Savich, would he have acted like a jerk and condemned her as he had? Or would he be lauding her courage, commending her for making such a tremendous sacrifice to her personal happiness?

Was he actually blaming her for failing at what he himself had been unable to accomplish? With all his training and advanced degree, with the support of the police department behind him, he hadn’t brought these criminals to justice, either.

And he hadn’t denied himself a personal life in order to do it. Elise had.

But he hadn’t been so much angry as jealous. That’s what it boiled down to. He’d become angry because he couldn’t stand the thought of her with Cato Laird. With any man. Except himself.

He didn’t think about it, he just left the paper filter and the empty carafe on the counter and walked to the bedroom door. Without hesitation, he opened it.

She was lying with her back to him. When the door hinge squeaked, she raised her head from the pillow, then rolled onto her back and looked toward the door. Seeing him, she came up on her elbows. “Is something wrong?”

“No.”

She glanced toward the window. “What time is it?”

“The sun’s not quite up.”

“Oh.”

And then there was silence except for their breathing while they stared at each other across the dim room. Duncan walked to the side of the bed. She smelled of warmth and sleep. She was wearing the new pajamas she’d bought yesterday. Under the thin cotton tank top her breasts lay soft.

His voice a harsh whisper, he said, “Did you fake it?”

For several moments, she looked at him with dazed puzzlement, then her eyes cleared with understanding. “Yes.”

His heart plummeted.

“Every time while I was married.” She gave a small shake of her head, adding huskily, “But not with you.”

He dragged in a deep, restorative breath. Never breaking eye contact, he unbottoned his jeans and pulled them off, then stepped out of his boxers. He pulled back the light covers and got in beside her, stretching out above her, trapping her head between his hands.

He lowered his forehead to hers, resting it there, inhaling her scent. “You’re married to him.”

“Legally. But I’m not his wife.”

She angled her head and touched her mouth to his, tentatively. He made an inarticulate sound of surrender and sank into the kiss. His fingers burrowed in her cropped hair, but the passion was tender, not turbulent.

For a long time they kissed, sometimes deeply and wetly and sexily, sometimes just the mere brushing of their lips. Eventually he raised his head and gazed down into her face, now flushed with more than sleep.

“Let me…” She pushed him away so she could remove her tank top and matching shorts, then pulled him back down to her. Skin to skin, they sighed with pleasure as his mouth melded with hers once again.

His sex was hard, probing her middle, and by the time the lengthy kiss ended, they were restless, wanting more. He levered himself up so he could look at her. She was the stuff of dreams. He brushed his fingertips through her pubic hair, trailed them around her flat navel, up to circle her breasts before settling on one.

He gently reshaped it, then took her nipple into his mouth and made love to it. She covered his hand with hers in a gesture of offering, while her other hand cupped the back of his head and held him close. He was guided by her sighs, told what she liked by her soft groans, and learned what she best responded to when her hips came off the bed and she gasped his name.

He kissed his way down her torso and nuzzled the delta between her thighs. Sliding his hands beneath her hips, he scooped her up toward his face and pressed it into the soft hair. He spoke her name, God’s name, love words, swear words.

Finally, his lips damp with her, he raised himself above her, and kissed her mouth as he sent his penis deep into her. He thought he had remembered. He hadn’t. It was better than memory. From tip to root, she gloved him. Snug and hot. Woman. Elise.

When he started to move, he pressed one of her thighs toward her chest to increase the friction and her pleasure. Her fingertips caressed the small of his back, lower over his butt cheeks, flirted with the crevice, driving him mad.

His strokes grew faster, deeper. He wanted to hold back, make it last. But his climax was racing toward him. He slid his hand between their bodies, applied his fingertip to her in tight, slippery circles.

Her body arched. She called his name and clutched him to her.

He emptied himself into her, thinking: How could anything that felt this right, this perfect, possibly be wrong?

They lay face-to-face, heads sharing the pillow. His penis was limp in her hand, but each time her thumb glanced the tip, it sent a frisson of sensation through his entire body.

“I couldn’t fight it anymore,” he said.

She gazed at him a bit sadly. “Will I be something you regret?”

He hugged her closer, whispering into her hair, “No. No. No matter what happens, I’ll never regret this.”

They kissed. When they pulled apart, he said wryly, “I had my nerve coming to you this morning after what I said to you last night. Why didn’t you tell me to get the hell out and leave you alone?”

“Because you might have.”

“You didn’t want me to get the hell out and leave you alone?”

“Shamelessly, no.”

They exchanged affectionate smiles. His hand was cupped between her thighs. He squeezed gently. “It’s not only about this, Elise.”

“No?”

He gave a negative motion of his head. “Maybe the first time I saw you, yeah. But even after discovering who you were, and thinking I’d probably never see you again after that awards dinner, you stayed in my mind. You haunted me. The night Trotter was shot, I realized why, and it was more than the obvious. You looked…solitary. Alone. Sad.”

She touched his cheek.

“Here you were, a rich lady of leisure, with a handsome, influential husband who worshiped the ground you walked on. It didn’t make sense to me why you would look so unhappy and…Jeez, I just realized the right word. Afraid. You looked afraid. And, even though I was investigating you for a possible crime, my first instinct was to help you.”

“It certainly didn’t seem you wanted to help when I came to your house that morning.”

“I was scared.”

“Of me?”

“Big-time scared. Because for all my honorable posturing, I also wanted you naked, like this. Don’t smile. That’s quite a conflict for a cop.”

“I’m only smiling because I’m glad you have me naked, like this. But I don’t make light of the conflict. That conflict is a measure of the man you are. If you hadn’t been conflicted about me, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”

His head went back several inches. He looked at her with an unspoken question. She nodded. “I said as much that night in the old house. Weren’t you listening?”

“I was listening. I thought you were speaking generally.”

“No,” she said. “You were as much a surprise to me as I was to you, Duncan. I thought the years with Cato had destroyed that part of me. I thought I would never feel attraction for another man. Then you spoke to me at the awards dinner, and you took my breath.”

“I took your breath? Really?”

“Hmm. And you have every time I’ve seen you since. I was desperate for your help, Duncan. But I was equally desperate to be with you.” She leaned forward and kissed his chest, took a love bite out of his pectoral, then did something incredible to his nipple with her tongue.

He grew hard in her hand, but he angled away from her. “We can’t,” he said unevenly. “We’re oh for two on safe sex, and I don’t have anything to use.”

Like a cloud moving across the sun, sadness dimmed the lambency in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.” She paused, drew a deep breath. “Cato made clear that he didn’t want a child. He insisted I have a tubal ligation before we were married.”

Duncan lay perfectly still, assimilating that.

“I agreed to it because I certainly didn’t want his child. I didn’t think beyond getting vengeance for Chet. I thought being childless was a small price to pay.” A tear slid from the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She touched his lips. “I may have been wrong.”

He pulled her tight against him. As he cradled her close and pressed her face into his neck, he thought he might yet have to kill Cato Laird.

Recognizing the complicated classical piece he was playing on the piano, Elise smiled even before she opened her eyes. He didn’t play “sometimes,” as he had told her. If he played Mozart that expertly, he played often. What else about Duncan Hatcher didn’t she know?

She knew he was an excellent lover. Her body ached, but deliciously so. They’d made love for hours, leaving each other only for calls of nature, and once for glasses of iced water, which they’d drunk only to revive themselves before indulging in more.

There were also long interludes of conversation, some of it the lighthearted banter of lovers. They exchanged information, the getting-acquainted kind of facts that new lovers find fascinating about each other.

However, a lot of their discussion was much more serious. She resented each time Cato’s name was spoken, but she sensed Duncan’s urgency to strike hard and soon. He laid plans. She listened, argued, wished aloud that they could simply go away together, leave Cato and Savich to the devil.

But he couldn’t walk away from his responsibilities.

She couldn’t abandon her vow to avenge Chet’s death.

They knew this. They also knew they might not survive the inevitable showdown. This fear went unspoken, but it was there, as real and powerful as their desire. The uncertainty of their future increased the fervency of their lovemaking. They engaged hungrily, their passion tinged with desperation.

And there was something else. As serious to her as the fear of losing him was the fear that he still harbored doubts about her character. Once when she’d pulled back, he blinked her into focus, gasping, “Why’d you stop? I mean, if you want to stop, that’s fine. But why did you start if you didn’t-”

“I did.”

“Okay.” His question stood. She wouldn’t meet his eyes until he laid his hand against her cheek and forced her to look at him.

“Because of what you said last night, Duncan. I don’t want you to think that I was like this with him. It wasn’t the same.”

“Elise,” he said on a soft groan. “You are here. With me. Now. That’s what matters to me.”

Freed to love him as she wished, she had. She turned warm now at the memory of how sensually she had prolonged his pleasure, how he’d moaned her name as his hands bracketed her head, how full and rigid he’d become before her tongue nudged him over the brink and he came.

Then he had gathered her against him, her back to his front. He kissed the nape of her neck. “Rest,” he suggested in a drowsy voice. Reaching around her, he covered her breast. They lay quietly for a time, then he idly brushed her nipple with his fingertips.

“How am I supposed to rest with you doing that?”

“Sorry.” But his hand wandered down over her hip, along her thighs, between them.

When he pushed his fingers into her, she sighed his name.

“Shh,” he said. “You can sleep if you try.”

She tried. For about sixty seconds. Then she murmured, “Keep your thumb still.”

“Okay.”

But of course he didn’t and soon she was clamping down on his hand in the throes of a dreamlike but all-consuming orgasm. It subsided and she relaxed against him, whispering, “Cheater.”

His chuckle was the last thing she remembered before drifting off to sleep.

She wondered now how long she’d slept. Looking toward the window, she guessed by the position of the sun that it was midafternoon. As she got out of bed, he ended Mozart’s Sonata in C Major and began playing another classical piece.

After the first few bars, she identified the tune and her heart constricted. Quickly, she pulled on her pajamas and went to the door. There she paused to watch him as his hands moved fluidly over the keys, never missing a note, playing with the same level of intensity with which he made love.

She went to him and combed her fingers through his hair. He turned his head and smiled up at her, but continued to play.

“Für Elise,” she said.

“Für Elise.” He built to the crescendo, his arms and shoulders as involved as his hands, then let the tempo and volume gently coast back down to the final poignant notes. He removed his hands from the keys and took his foot off the pedal. When the last reverberation died, he swung his right leg around to straddle the short bench and placed his hands on her hips, pulling her toward him.

“Beautiful, Duncan.”

“No,” he said, nuzzling the cleft between her breasts. “Beautiful Elise.”

“You lying son of a bitch!”

They both started at the sudden and unexpected voice.

DeeDee Bowen was standing in the open front door, glaring at them. Furiously, she kicked the door closed; it slammed shut behind her. “You do play the piano.”