Ashes to Ashes

30

CHAPTER

“KATE, IT'S ME. Uh—John. Um, I'm at the office. Give me a call if you get the chance. I'd like to go over some points in these victimologies with you. Get your take. Thanks.”

Kate stared at the phone as the line went dead and the message light began to flash. A part of her felt guilty for not picking up. A part of her felt relieved. At the core she ached at the lost opportunity to touch him in some way. A bad sign, but there it was.

She was exhausted, stressed out, overwhelmed, feeling as low as she had in years . . . and she wanted John Quinn's arms around her. She hadn't taken his call precisely for that reason. She was afraid.

What a rotten, unwelcome feeling it was.

The office was silent. She and Rob were the only ones left in their section. Rob sequestered in his office down the hall, no doubt writing a long and virulent report to file in her personnel jacket. On the other side of the reception area, in the county attorney's offices, there were any number of assistant prosecutors at work preparing for court, strategizing and researching and writing briefs and motions. But for the most part the building was empty. For all intents and purposes, she was alone.

Her nerves were raw from spending hours listening to the voice of her dead client confessing her fears of being hurt, her fears of being raped, of being killed, of dying alone, and Kate's own voice reassuring her, promising to look out for her, to get her help, fostering a false security that had ultimately failed Melanie Hessler in the worst possible way.

Rob had insisted on playing the tapes over and over, stopping and rewinding in sections, asking Kate the same questions over and over. As if any of it would make any difference at all. The cops didn't want to hear about the subtle nuances of Melanie's speech. All they wanted to know was if Melanie had expressed a fear of anyone in particular in the last few weeks of her life.

He'd been punishing her, Kate knew.

Finally, he'd hit the nerve one time too many. Kate stood, leaned across the table, and pressed stop.

“You've made your point. You've had your revenge. Enough is enough,” she said quietly.

“I don't know what you're talking about.” He said it almost as a taunt, without a speck of sincerity. He wouldn't look directly at her.

“I like this office, Rob. I like most of the people I work with. But I'm damn good at what I do, and I can get another job in a heartbeat. I won't take you trying to manipulate me and punish me.

“Now you'll excuse me,” she went on. “Because I've just had the third worst twenty-four hours of my life and I feel like I'm on the verge of a psychotic break. I'm going home. Call if you don't want me to come back.”

He hadn't said a word as she walked out. At least she hadn't heard him for the pulse roaring in her ears. God knew she probably deserved to have him fire her, but there simply wasn't any tact left in her. All pretense of manners and social bullshit had been scraped away, leaving nothing but raw emotion.

She felt it flooding through her still, as if some vital artery had ruptured inside her. She felt as if she might choke on it, drown in it.

And all she wanted was to find Quinn and fall into his arms.

She'd worked so hard to put her life back together, piece by piece on a new foundation, and now that foundation was shifting. No. Worse—she'd discovered it was built directly over the fault line of her past, just covering up. Not new, not stronger, just a lie she'd told herself every day for the last five years: that she didn't need John Quinn to feel complete.

Tears welled in her eyes, and despair yawned through her, leaving her aching and empty and alone and afraid. And God, she was so tired. But she choked the tears back and put one foot in front of the other. Go home, regroup, have a drink, try to sleep. Tomorrow was another day.

She pulled her coat on, scooped up her file on Angie, grabbed her mail and her messages and the faxes that had piled up in the tray during the day, and dumped it all into her briefcase. She reached to turn the desk lamp off, but her hand strayed to the shelves, and she plucked out the little framed photo of Emily.

Sweet, smiling little cherub in a sunny yellow dress. The future bright before her. Or so anyone with ordinary human arrogance would have thought. Kate wondered if tucked away somewhere in someone's old shoe box there might be a similar photograph of Angie DiMarco . . . or Melanie Hessler . . . Lila White, Fawn Pierce, Jillian Bondurant.

Life didn't come with any guarantee. There'd never been a promise made that couldn't be broken. She knew that firsthand. She'd made too many with the best of intentions, then watched them crack and come apart.

“I'm sorry, Em,” she whispered. She pressed the picture to her lips for a good-night kiss, then tucked the frame back into its hiding place, where the cleaning woman would find it and dig it back out.

She let herself out of the office and locked the door behind her. A vacuum cleaner was running in the office across from hers. Down the hall, Rob Marshall's door was closed. He might still have been there, plotting how to screw her out of her severance pay. Or he might have gone home to—to what? She didn't even know if he had a girlfriend—or a boyfriend, for that matter. Thursday could have been his bowling league night for all she knew about him. He didn't have any close personal friends within the department. Kate had never socialized with him outside the obligatory office Christmas party. She wondered now if he had someone to go home to and complain to about that bitch from the office.

The snow had finally stopped, she noticed as she took the skyway to the Fourth Street ramp. Six inches total, she'd heard someone say. The street below was a mess that city crews would clear away overnight, though this time of year they might decide to leave it and hope for a couple of warm days to save the city some money for the storms that were sure to come in the next few months.

She pulled her keys out and folded them into her fist, the longest, sharpest one protruding between her index and middle fingers—a habit she'd developed living in the D.C. suburbs. The ramp was well lit, but not busy this time of night, and it always made her edgy walking around in it alone. More so tonight, after all that had gone on. Between the murders and the lack of sleep, her paranoia was running high. A shadow falling between cars, the scrape of a footstep, the sudden thump of a door—her nerves twisted tight every time. The 4Runner seemed a mile away.

Then she was in it, doors locked, motor running, heading home, one layer of tension peeling away. She tried to focus on letting the knots out of her shoulders. Pajamas, a drink, and bed. She'd drag her briefcase there with her and sit propped up by pillows on the sheets still rumpled from lovemaking.

Maybe she would change the sheets.

The enterprising guy from down the block kept a blade on the front of his pickup five months a year and supplemented his income plowing driveways. He had plowed the alley. Kate would write him a check and leave it in his mailbox tomorrow.

She drove into the garage, remembering too late the burned-out light. Swearing under her breath, she dug the big flashlight out of her glove compartment, then climbed down from the truck, juggling too much stuff.

The smell hit her nose just a second before her foot hit the soft, squishy pile.

“Oh, shit!” Literally. “Shit!”

“Kate?”

The voice came from toward the house. Quinn's voice.

“I'm in here!” she called back, fumbling with the briefcase and the flashlight and her purse.

“What's wrong? I heard you swearing,” he said, coming in.

“I just stepped in a pile of shit.”

“What—Jesus, I smell it. That must have been some dog.”

The flashlight clicked on and she shined it down at the mess. “It couldn't have been a dog. The door was shut. Gross!”

“That looks human,” Quinn said. “Where's your shovel?”

Kate flashed the beam of light at the wall. “Right there. My God, you think someone came into my garage and did this?”

“You have a more viable theory?” he asked.

“I just can't imagine why anyone would do that.”

“It's a sign of disrespect.”

“I know that. I mean, why to me? Who do I know who would do something that strange, that primitive?”

“Who've you pissed off lately?”

“My boss. But somehow I can't envision him squatting in my garage. Nor would I want to.” She limped outside with him, stepping only with the toe of her soiled boot, trying not to smear more feces on her garage floor.

“Do your clients know where you live?”

“If any of them do, it's not because I gave them the information. They have my office number—which forwards to my house machine after hours—and they have my cell phone number for emergencies. That's it. My home number is unlisted, not that that would necessarily stop anyone from finding me. It isn't that hard to do if you know how.”

Quinn dumped the mess between the garage and the neighbor's privacy fence. He cleaned the shovel off in a snowbank while Kate tried to do the same with her boot.

“This is just the exclamation point at the end of my day,” she grumbled as they went back into the garage to put the shovel away. She shone the light around to see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be.

“Have you had any odd things happen lately?”

She laughed without humor. “What about my life lately isn't odd?”

“I mean vandalism, hang-up calls, strange mail, anything like that?”

“No,” she said, then automatically thought of the three hang-up calls last night. God, was it just last night? She'd attributed them to Angie. That made the most sense to her. The idea of a stalker had never occurred. It still didn't seem a possibility.

“I think you should park on the street,” Quinn said. “This might have been some transient going through the neighborhood, or it might have been some kid playing a joke, but you can't be too careful, Kate.”

“I know. I will—starting tomorrow. How long have you been here?” Kate asked as they started for the house.

“Not long enough to have to do that.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I just got here. I tried calling you at the office. I tried calling here. I went to the office—you were gone. So I took a cab. Did you get my messages?”

“Yes, but it was late and I was tired. It's been a rotten, rotten day, and I just wanted out of there.”

She let them in the back door and Thor greeted them with an indignant meow. Kate left her boots in the entry, dropped her briefcase on a kitchen chair, and went directly to the fridge to pull out the cat food.

“You weren't avoiding me?” Quinn said, shrugging out of his coat.

“Maybe. A little.”

“I was worried about you, Kate.”

She set the dish down on the floor, stroked a hand over the cat, and straightened with her back to Quinn. Just that one little sentence brought the volatile emotions swirling once more to the surface, brought tears to her eyes. She wouldn't let him see them if she could help it. She would choke them back down if she could. He was inviting her to need him. She wanted to so badly.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm not used to anyone caring—”

Christ, what a poor choice of words. She wasn't used to anyone caring about her anymore. The truth, but it made her sound pathetic and wretched. It made her think of Melanie Hessler—missing for a week without anyone caring enough to find out why.

“She was my client,” she said. “Melanie Hessler. Victim number four. I managed to lose two in one night. How's that for a record?”

“Oh, Kate.” He came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, folding his warmth and his strength around her. “Why didn't you call me?”

Because I'm afraid of needing you. Because I'm afraid of loving you.

“Nothing you could do about it,” she said.

Quinn turned her in his arms and brushed her hair back from her face, but he didn't try to make her look at him. “I could have done this,” he murmured. “I could have come and put my arms around you and held you for a while.”

“I don't know that that would have been such a good idea,” she said quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because. You're here to work a case. You've got more important things to do.”

“Kate, I love you.”

“Just like that.”

“You know it's not ‘just like that.'”

She stepped away from him, instantly missing the contact. “I know that we went five years without a word, a note, nothing. And now in a day and a half we're in love again. And in a week you'll go. And then what?” she said, moving restlessly, hands on her hips. “What am I thinking?”

“Apparently, nothing good.”

Kate could see that she'd hurt him, which hadn't been her intent at all. She cursed herself for being so clumsy with such fragile feelings, but she was out of practice, and she was so afraid, and fear made her awkward.

“I'm thinking about every time in those five years that I wanted to pick up the phone but didn't,” Quinn said. “But I'm here now.”

“By chance. Can't you see how that scares me, John? If not for this case, would you ever have come? Would you ever have called?”

“Would you?”

“No,” she said without hesitation, then softer and softer, shaking her head. “No . . . no . . . I've had enough pain to last me a lifetime. I wouldn't have gone looking for it. I don't want any more. I'd rather not feel anything at all. And you make me feel so much,” she said, her throat tightening. “Too much. And I don't trust it all not to just disappear.”

“No. No.” He caught hold of her by the arms and held her in front of him. “Look at me, Kate.”

She wouldn't, didn't dare, wanted to be anywhere but right there in front of him on the brink of tears.

“Kate, look at me. It doesn't matter what we would have done. It matters that we're here now. It matters that we feel exactly what we felt back then. It matters that making love to you this morning was the most natural, perfect thing in the world—as if we'd never been apart. That's what matters. Not the rest of it.

“I love you. I do,” he murmured. “That's what matters. Do you love me?”

She nodded, head down, as if she were ashamed to admit it. “I always did.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. Quinn caught them with his thumbs and brushed them away.

“That's what matters,” he whispered. “Anything else we can work around.

“My life has been so empty since you left, Kate. I tried to fill the hole with work, but the work just ate away more of me, and the hole just got bigger and bigger, and I kept digging like crazy, trying to backfill. Lately, I've been feeling like there's nothing left. I blamed the job, thought I'd given away so many pieces of myself to it that I don't know who I am anymore. But I know exactly who I am when I'm with you, Kate. That's what's been missing all this time—the part of me I gave to you.”

Kate stared at him, knowing he meant what he said. Quinn might have been a chameleon when it came to the job, changing colors at will to get the result he wanted, but he had never been less than honest with her in their relationship—at least until the end of it, when both of them had pulled the armor tight around bruised hearts. And she knew what it cost him to open himself up that way. Vulnerability was not something John Quinn did well. It was something Kate tried never to do at all herself. But she felt it now inside her, pushing hard at the gate.

“Have you noticed how our timing really sucks?” she said, winning a smile from him. He knew her well enough to realize she was trying to back them both away from this edge. A little joke to slacken the tension. A subtle sign that she wasn't ready, didn't have the strength to deal with it all just then.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said, easing his arms around her. “I think right now you need to be held, and I need my arms around you. So that's working out pretty well.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She let herself put her head on his shoulder. Resigned was the word that came to mind, but she didn't fight it. She was too tired to fight, and she did indeed need to be held. She didn't get many opportunities these days. Her own fault, she knew. She told herself she was too busy to date, that she didn't need the complication of a man in her life right now, when the truth was that there was only one man for her. She didn't want any other.

“Kiss me,” he whispered.

Kate raised her head and invited his mouth to settle on hers, parted her lips, and invited the intimacy of his tongue on hers. As with every kiss they had ever shared, she felt a glowing warmth, a sense of excitement, but also a sense of contentment deep within her soul. She felt as if she had been unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for this, and could now relax and breathe again. A sense of rightness, of completeness.

“I need you, Kate,” Quinn whispered, dragging his mouth across her cheek to her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered, the need pounding inside her like waves against rock. The need speaking above the fear that this would all end in heartache in a day or a week.

He kissed her again, deeper, harder, hotter, letting the reins out on the hunger racing through him. She could feel it in his muscles, in the heat of him; she could taste it in his mouth. His tongue thrust against hers even as he dropped one hand down her back and pulled her hips tight against his, letting her feel just how much he wanted her. She groaned deep in her throat, as much at the stunning depth of the need as at the feel of him hard against her.

Breaking the kiss, he leaned back from her and stared at her, his eyes hard and bright and dark, his lips slightly parted. He was breathing hard.

“My God, I need you.”

Kate took his hand and led him to the hall. At the foot of the stairs, Quinn pulled her to him again for another kiss, still hotter and deeper, more urgent. He pressed her back against the wall. His hands caught the bottom of her black sweater and pulled it up between them, exposing her skin to the air, to his touch, giving him access to her breasts. She gasped as he pulled the cup of her bra aside and filled his hand with her. It didn't matter where they were. It didn't matter that anyone going by could have glimpsed them through the sidelights at her front door. That fast her desire for him outstripped all sense. There was only need, primal and fierce.

She gasped again as his mouth found her nipple. She cradled his head and arched into the contact. She lifted her hips away from the wall as he shoved her snug knit skirt up and stripped down her black tights. Suddenly there was no case, no past, nothing but the need and feel of his fingers exploring her, stroking her, finding her most sensitve flesh, sliding into her.

“John. Oh, God, John,” she breathed, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “I need you. I need you now.”

He straightened and kissed her quick and hard, twice, then looked up the stairs and back at her, then over his shoulder at the open door to her study, where the desk lamp cast an amber glow that just reached the old leather couch.

In the next moment they were beside the couch, Quinn stripping her sweater over her head, Kate impatiently pulling at his tie. In a few rough moves their clothes were off and abandoned on the floor. They sank down, tangled together on the couch, breath catching at the coldness of the leather. And then the sensation was forgotten, gone, burned away by the heat of their bodies and the heat of their passion.

Kate wrapped her long legs around him, took him into her body in one smooth stroke. He filled her perfectly, completely, physically and deep within her soul. They moved together like dancers, each body exquisitely complementing the other, the passion building like a powerful piece of music, building to a tremendous crescendo.

Then they were over the peak and free-falling, holding each other tight, murmuring words of comfort and assurance Kate already feared wouldn't hold up to the pressures of reality. But she didn't try to dispel the myth or break the promise of “everything will be all right.” She knew they both wanted to believe it, and they could in those few quiet moments before the real world came back to them.

She knew that John needed to give that promise. He had always had a strong compulsion to protect her. That had always touched her deeply—that he could see the vulnerabilities in her when no one else, not even her husband, could. They had always recognized the secret needs in each other, had always seen each other's secret heart, as if they had always been meant for each other.

“I haven't made out on this couch since I was seventeen,” she said softly, looking into his eyes in the glow of the lamplight. They lay on their sides, pressed close together, almost nose to nose.

Quinn smiled like a shark. “What was the guy's name—so I can go and kill him.”

“My caveman.”

“I am with you. I always was.”

Kate didn't comment, though she instantly called to mind the ugly scene of Steven confronting her and John in his office. Steven choosing the weapons he used best: cruel words and threats. Quinn taking it and taking it until Steven turned on her. A broken nose and some dental work later, her husband had taken the war to a new playing field and done his best to ruin both their careers.

Quinn caught a finger beneath her chin and brought her head up so he could look into her eyes. He knew exactly what she was remembering. She could see it in his face, in the lowered line of his brow. “Don't,” he warned.

“I know. The present is screwed up enough. Why dredge up the past?”

He stroked his hand down her cheek and kissed her softly, as if the gesture would seal off the door to those memories. “I love you. Now. Right now. In the present—even if it is screwed up.”

Kate burrowed her head under his chin and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. There was that part of her that wanted to ask what they were going to do about it, but she kept her mouth shut for once. It didn't matter tonight.

“I'm sorry about your client,” Quinn said. “Kovac says she worked in an adult bookstore. That's probably the connection for Smokey Joe.”

“Probably, but it spooked me,” Kate admitted, absently stroking a hand down his bare back—all lean muscle and hard bone, too thin. He wasn't taking care of himself. “A week ago I didn't have anything to do with this case. Today I've lost two clients to it.”

“You can't blame yourself for this one, Kate.”

“Of course I can. I'm me.”

“Where there's a will there's a way.”

“I don't want to,” she protested. “I just wish I'd called Melanie on Monday, like I usually do. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with Angie, I would have been concerned that I hadn't heard from her. She'd become emotionally dependent on me. I seemed to be her sole support network.

“I know this sounds odd, but I wish I had at least worried about her. The thought of her being caught in a nightmare like that with no one waiting for her, wondering about her, concerned for her . . . It's too sad.”

Quinn hugged her close and kissed her hair, thinking she had a heart as soft as butter behind the armor. It was all the more precious to him because she tried so hard to hide it from everyone. He had seen it all along, from the first time he'd ever met her.

“You couldn't have prevented this from happening,” he said. “But you may be able to help her now.”

“In what way? By relieving my every conversation with her? Trying to pick out clues to a crime she couldn't have known would be committed against her? That's how I spent my afternoon. I would rather have spent the day poking myself in the eye with a needle.”

“You didn't get anything off the tapes.”

“Anxiety and depression, culminating with a row with Rob Marshall that could have me reading want ads soon.”

“You're pushing your luck there, Kate.”

“I know, but I can't seem to help it. He knows just how to punch my buttons. What do you have for me to do? Could I stretch it into a new career?”

“It's your old career. I brought you copies of the victimologies. I keep having the feeling that I'm looking right at the key we need and not seeing it. I need fresh eyes.”

“You have all of CASKU and Behavioral Sciences at your disposal. Why me?”

“Because you need to,” he said simply. “I know you, Kate. You need to do something, and you're as qualified as anyone in the Bureau. I've forwarded everything to Quantico, but you're right here, and I trust you. Will you take a look?”

“All right,” she answered, for exactly the reason he'd said: because she needed to. She'd lost Angie. She'd lost Melanie Hessler. If there was something she could do to try to balance that out, she would.

“Let me put some clothes on.” She pulled the chenille throw around her as she sat up.

Quinn scowled. “I knew there'd be a downside.”

Kate gave him a wry smile, then went to her desk, where the light was blinking on the answering machine. She was a vision in the amber glow of the desk lamp, her hair flame red, the curve of her back a sculptor's dream. It made him ache just to look at her. How incredibly lucky he was to get a second chance.

A petulant voice whined from the machine, “Kate, it's David Willis. I need to speak with you. Call me tonight. You know I'm not home during the day. I feel like you're deliberately avoiding me. Now—when my confidence level is so low. I need you—”

Kate hit the button to forward to the next message. “If they were all like him, I'd get a job at Wal-Mart.”

The next message was from the leader of a businesswoman's group, asking her to speak at a meeting.

Then next a long silence.

Kate met Quinn's sober stare with one of her own. “I had a couple of those last night. I thought they might be Angie. I wanted to believe it might be.”

Or it might be whoever had Angie, Quinn thought. Smokey Joe. “We need to put a trap on your phone, Kate. If he's got Angie, he's got your number.”

He could see that hadn't occurred to her. He saw the flash of surprise followed by annoyance with herself for having missed it. But of course Kate wouldn't think of herself as a possible victim. She was strong, in control, in charge. But not invulnerable.

Quinn got up from the couch and went to her, still naked, and put his arms around her.

“God, what a nightmare,” she whispered. “Do you think she could still be alive?”

“She could be,” he said, because he knew Kate needed to hear it. But he also knew that she was as aware of the odds and the horrible possibilities as he was. She knew as well as he did Angie DiMarco might still be alive, and that they might have been kinder hoping she was not.

I am dead

My need alive

Keeps me going

Keeps me hoping

Will he want me?

Will he take me?

Will he hurt me?

Will he love me?

The words cut at him. The music clawed at his senses. He played the tape anyway. Letting it hurt, needing to feel.

Peter sat in his office, the only light coming in through the window, just enough to turn black to charcoal, gray to ash. The anxiety, the guilt, the longing, the pain, the need, the emotions he could seldom grasp and never express, were trapped inside him, the pressure building until he thought his body would simply explode and there would be nothing left of him except fragments of tissue and hair stuck to the walls and the ceiling and the glass of the photographs of him with the people he had deemed important in his life in the last decade.

He wondered if any part of him would touch the pictures of Jillie crowded down into one small corner of the display. Out of the way, not calling any attention. Subtle shame—of her, of his failure, his mistakes.

“. . . We need to know the truth, Peter, and I think you're holding back pieces of the puzzle. . . . We need to see the whole picture.”

Dark pieces of a disturbing picture he didn't want anyone to see.

The surge of shame and rage was like acid in his veins.

I am dead

My need alive

Keeps me going

Keeps me hoping

Will he want me?

Will he take me?

Will he hurt me?

Will he love me?

The sound of the phone was like a razor slicing along his nerves. He grabbed the receiver with a trembling hand.

“Hello?”

“Da-ddy, Da-ddy, Da-ddy,” the voice sang like a siren. “Come see me. Come give me what I want. You know what I want. I want it now.”

He swallowed hard at the bile in his throat. “If I do, will you leave me alone?”

“Daddy, don't you love me?”

“Please,” he whispered. “I'll give you what you want.”

“Then you won't want me anymore. You won't like what I have in store. But you'll come anyway. You'll come for me. Say you'll come.”

“Yes,” he breathed.

He was crying as he hung up, tears scalding his eyelids, burning his cheeks, blurring his vision. He opened the lower right-hand drawer of his desk, took out a matte black Glock nine-millimeter semiautomatic, and slipped it gently into the black duffel bag at his feet. He left the room, the duffel bag hanging heavy in his hand. Then he left the house and drove out into the night.