Deeper Than the Dead

46

Anne led the way up the sidewalk to the home she had grown up in, a sturdy Craftsman-style house of dark painted wood and stone. Soft amber lights flanked the front door. Rosebushes lined the front walk. The roses glowed white in the moonlight.

Vince followed her up the steps, admiring her behind in a pair of blue jeans. “You live here alone?”

“With my father. He allegedly needs a keeper.”

“Right. You said his health is poor. What does he have?”

“His heart is bad,” she said. “Literally and figuratively.”

“How old is he?”

“Seventy-nine,” she said, unlocking the front door and letting them in. She glanced up at him, catching the surprise on his face. “My father was an English professor with a wandering eye. My mother was his much-younger student.”

Vince kept his mouth shut. He had to be happy her father was seventy-nine and not forty-nine. Anne started to go down a dark hall, and he caught her gently by the arm.

“Whoa, sweetheart. Don’t go charging down dark hallways,” he cautioned. “Do you keep all your doors and windows locked?”

“As of this week I do,” she said.

Vince flicked on the hall light. “You can’t be too careful. We still don’t know who this killer is, but he’s not the guy sitting in jail. He could be someone you know.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“And that’s what this kind of predator counts on. He hides in plain sight and gets a rush out of knowing no one suspects him.”

“That’s unnerving,” she said, that emotion plain in her pretty brown eyes as she looked up at him.

“Better that you know it than not. You don’t exactly fit the victimology, but you’re the right age, and God knows you’re pretty,” he said, tracing a blunt-tipped forefinger down her pert little nose. “You don’t have a connection to the Thomas Center, but I don’t have a crystal ball, either. He could know you some other way and decide you meet his profile well enough.”

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“I just want you to be careful, honey. If you’re in a situation that doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason you feel that way. Get yourself out of it and call me. Day or night. Or call the sheriff’s office and ask for Mendez. Okay?”

She nodded solemnly as she looked up at him. His gaze lingered just a little too long on the full soft bow of her lower lip. The memory of the taste of her was still in his mouth. Electricity hummed in the scant distance between them. It made her skittish.

“I’ll give you the nickel tour,” she said, her voice a little breathless as she turned and started down the hall.

The first door they came to was a cozy library/office with a big old mahogany desk and heavy leather chairs. A masculine room. Her father’s study, the built-in shelves crammed to the ceiling with books. Vince checked the window to make certain it was locked.

Amber light shone under the last door on the hall. Her father’s bedroom.

Anne knocked and cracked the door open. “I’m home.”

Her father was sitting up in his bed in maroon pajamas, reading. An oxygen tank sat beside the bed, clear tubing conducting the air into his nostrils. He didn’t even look over at his daughter, but merely grunted his acknowledgment.

“Did you take your meds?”

He made a sound in his throat that might have meant anything.

“If you didn’t, I have an FBI agent here with me, and he’ll make you take them.”

Even that got no response from the old man. Anne shut the door and rolled her eyes. “The love is overwhelming, isn’t it?”

She said it with such dry sarcasm, Vince thought she must have long ago stopped caring whether her father felt anything for her.

“Does he have a problem with speech?” Vince asked as they started back down the hall.

“No,” she said. “He’s an ass.”

“Oh.”

And yet, she had given up finishing her education and going into her chosen field to come home and take care of him. When her mother died. It wasn’t difficult to piece the story together from what she had said at dinner the night before and what he had just seen for himself. She must have come home because her mother had asked her to. The fact that she had, despite her feelings for the old man, spoke volumes to the kind of woman Anne Navarre was.

“Do you think I’m a terrible daughter?” she asked.

“No. Actually, I was just thinking you’re pretty remarkable.”

She wasn’t comfortable with that and dodged his gaze. “Damn, I forgot to ask him if he’d seen any homicidal maniacs in the house.”

“That’s my job, anyway,” Vince said.

She showed him through the rest of the house, hesitating a little when they came to her bedroom.

“Afraid to go in there with me?” he teased as they stood outside the door.

“No! Of course not,” she protested.

He liked watching her when she got rattled. She made him think of an annoyed little cat, ready to get her back up and hiss at him.

He leaned down a little too close to her ear and murmured, “I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

Brows low, she huffed an impatient sigh and pushed the door open.

The room was neat and tidy, feminine but not frilly. Vince wanted to take time and absorb the surroundings, knowing what he found here would speak volumes about her, but she wasn’t having it. She backed out of the room before he could say anything and started down the stairs.

“Looks like the place is all clear, ma’am,” he said, following her.

“That’s a relief,” she said, leading the way back into the kitchen. “I’m not a very good hostess. I should at least offer you a drink for making sure I’m not going to end up a corpse tonight. Would you like something? Wine? Tea? I have arsenic, but I’m saving it for my father’s birthday.”

“A little wine is never a bad thing,” Vince said.

“I don’t have anything chilled, but I have a nice cabernet from a local vineyard.”

Vince flashed the big grin. “I love California.”

She got a couple of glasses out, uncorked the bottle with efficiency, and poured the drinks.

“I like the look of that porch out back,” he said as she handed him his glass.

“Will we be safe?” she asked, glancing up at him from under her lashes. Almost flirtatious, he thought. He wondered if she realized it.

“You’re with me,” he said. “I have a gun.”

She smiled that crooked little smile. “What more could a girl want?”

The back porch was a mirror image of the front, but filled with well-used green wicker furniture strewn with thick flowered cushions; an outdoor room with armchairs and a coffee table and big lush ferns on plant stands.

Anne curled up in the corner of a wicker sofa at one end of the porch where the illumination was as soft as candlelight. Vince took the other end, letting her have some space.

“What did you mean when you told Janet Crane if you were going to be a part of the community?” she asked.

“Presently she thinks I’m a businessman looking to relocate here,” he explained. “I had her show me a piece of property today.”

“No wonder she was so happy to see you.”

“You think she’s just after my money? I’m crushed.”

“You should be relieved she doesn’t want to hang you upside down in her lair and deposit her eggs in you.”

Vince chuckled a little under his breath. “She’s a case study.”

“Not what I prefer to call her, but whatever.” She sipped at her wine, growing serious. “What’s going on here, Vince? Last week this was Ozzie and Harriet-ville. Now you think there are two killers operating here?”

“It looks that way.”

She shook her head. “Things like this don’t happen here.”

“But they do, honey,” he said quietly, reaching a hand out to stroke the back of her head. Her hair was like silk. “They happen everywhere.”

“I feel like I’ve been looking at this lovely jewel box garden all these years only to find out there are snakes in the grass.”

“This too shall pass,” Vince said. “These cases will be solved and closed. There are still more good guys than bad guys.”

She smiled to herself, not a happy smile, as she turned the stem of her glass back and forth between her fingers. The wine swirled gracefully against the sides of the glass, glowing like liquefied rubies in the amber light.

“I said that to Tommy today: This too shall pass.”

Vince shifted a little closer to her. Close enough that he could rest his hand on her shoulder in a reassuring touch. “You’ll get him back, Anne. He doesn’t have a lot of stability in his family life with that piece of work for a mother. He needs you.”

She nodded, but didn’t look convinced. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore or the emotions would come back, and she had no doubt had it with feeling upset and vulnerable. She was a person who kept her emotions as neat and tidy as she kept her house, he suspected. And she probably did that because she hadn’t had total stability in her own life as a child. That explained her emotional tie to Tommy Crane. She looked at the little boy through the eyes of the little girl she had been.

The idea of her as a lonely little girl made him want to scoop her up in his arms and hold her close, make her feel safe.

She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “So tell me about you. All I know is you work for the FBI, and you’re on the fresh side.”

He smiled. “Me? I’m an old cop from Chicago. I come from a big, loud Italian family. I have an ex-wife and two daughters—Amy and Emily.”

“How old?”

“Fifteen and seventeen.” He leaned a little closer, like he was going to tell her a secret. “And I’m forty-eight, and it doesn’t matter.”

Even in the soft porch light, he could see her blush and smile nervously. “And I’m twenty-eight, and I met you yesterday.”

“Yes. And tomorrow, either one of us could be hit by a bus. Life is unpredictable, honey. We should live every day like it might be our last.”

As if he needed a reminder of the truth of that statement, a small explosion took place in his brain, like an electrical circuit shorting out spectacularly. His breath caught in his throat and he had to bend over and put his head in his hands.

Anne was beside him instantly, her hand on his back. “Are you all right? Vince? What is it?”

“Headache,” he said tightly. “Wow.”

“Is there something I can do? An ice pack? Aspirin?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He breathed slowly and shallowly through his mouth, willing off the nausea that was sure to come, and the next wave of pain that was sure to come after that. Damn bullet. Damn bad timing.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Just give me a minute,” he said, rubbing his fingers back through his hair, massaging his scalp in an attempt to relieve some of the tension.

“Is it a migraine?” Anne asked anxiously. “You shouldn’t be drinking red wine.”

“It’s a bullet,” he said, relaxing as the pain ebbed away. A wave of weakness washed over him in its wake. He leaned back against the cushions and turned his head to look at her.

She looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a bullet,” he repeated. “Last winter I became a crime statistic. A junkie trying to rob me, shot me in the head.”

“Oh my God!”

“Most of the bullet is still in there. Lucky for me I never used that part of my brain anyway.”

“You have a bullet in your head,” she said, as if hearing it from her own lips would somehow help her make sense of it. “How can that be? Shouldn’t you be dead?”

“Yep. I should be,” he said. “But I’m not. Instead, I’m just a guy with a headache, and I get to go on living.”

“They can’t take it out?”

“Not without turning me into a drooling vegetable.”

“But what will happen with it in there?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. There aren’t a lot of cases to study, as you might imagine. So far the worst side effect is the pain. It comes and goes. It’s nothing I can’t handle. The point is I should have died that night.

“I have a very different perspective on life now. Now, I look around me, I see what I want, I’m going to make it happen. There is no someday. We have here, now.

“I spent a lot of years buried in my career—not that I don’t love it—but I put off a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have, assuming there would be time for it later. I regret that,” he admitted. “I lost my marriage. I know my daughters like I’m a distant uncle, not their father.

“I won’t live like that anymore. You shouldn’t either,” he said. “You’ve got twenty years on me. You can skip a lot of mistakes.”

She sat facing him, one leg curled up on the sofa, the other foot on the floor. She had put on a thick sweater to ward off the chill of the evening. She wrapped it around herself now as she met his gaze, her dark eyes full of sadness.

“My mother was forty-six when she died,” she said quietly. “I never thought she would be gone so soon. I always assumed my father would go before her, and I would have her all to myself for a long, long time . . . I always believed she would be there for my wedding, for my children, for me . . . And then she was gone. Just like that.”

“Life is what happens while we’re making other plans,” Vince said.

Even from a distance, he could feel the ache in her heart. He reached out for her and whispered, “Come here.”

She came to him deliberately. Coming to him, not running from her feelings. Vince took her in his arms and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her to offer comfort, to distract her from sad memories, to fill a lonely corner of her heart.

He kissed her slowly, deeply, savoring the taste of wine on her tongue, drinking in the feeling of her body against his. She melted into him, surrendered willingly, accepted what he had to give her, and gave back in return.

Gradually comfort gave way to desire, distraction to sharp focus and keen awareness.

Vince stroked her hair back from her face, his big hand taking in the delicate lines of her cheek, her jaw, her throat. Her breath shuddered softly as his lips followed the same path.

Her sweater fell open and his fingers found the buttons of her blouse, loosing them one by one. She gasped as his hand cupped her breast and his thumb brushed across the nipple, and gasped again as he closed his lips around the tight bud of flesh.

Anne lifted her hips to let him draw down her jeans and moaned his name as he gently opened her legs, settled his mouth against her, and kissed deeply the most feminine part of her. Her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her, then tugging him back up to share the taste of her on his lips.

Vince shed his jacket, his gun, his clothes, never separating from her for more than a few seconds. He wanted nothing between them but flesh and desire. And when he came to her, naked, she reached out and closed her hand around him, and he thought he might die on the spot.

They made love by turns both slowly and urgently; without words, but in full communication in a language of gasps and groans and eyes locked on each other. Their bodies moved together, arched against each other, tangled and tugged and stroked. She was tight and hot and wet around him. He pushed deep, deep inside her, and they went over the edge together, reality giving way to bliss.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, sweating, panting, communicating entirely with tender looks and soft smiles and sweet kisses. Vince had worried Anne might now recall they hadn’t known each other two days ago, and would retreat into regret, but she didn’t. He certainly didn’t.

Maybe the bullet made him impulsive. Maybe a year ago he wouldn’t have pressed her so hard, so soon. But he sure as hell didn’t regret it. He hadn’t felt anything so satisfying and right in a long time.

Her hair was damp against her cheek. He brushed it back and kissed her softly. She brought her hand up and touched his face. Her small foot slowly rubbed up and down the back of his calf.

“That was highly improper of you,” she whispered, eyes sparkling. They shared a soft chuckle and a softer kiss.

“You’re so beautiful, Anne,” he whispered. “So special.”

He drew breath to say something more, but the sound of his pager bleating broke the spell.

Swearing under his breath, he reached over the side of the sofa to grab his jacket. Pulling the pager out of the pocket, he hit the display button and swore again.

“Mendez.” He looked down at Anne and sighed. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to take this.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not,” he growled. “I want to hold you all night long. I want to make love to you again . . . and again.”

She smiled at him in a way that was knowing and sexy and absolutely female, and he felt himself getting heavy and hot.

The pager trilled again.

“Duty calls,” she said.

“Can I use your phone?”

“In the kitchen.”

Reluctantly, he got up off the sofa and pulled on his clothes. Anne sat up and drew her heavy sweater around herself, curling her bare legs beneath her. She tucked her hair behind her ear and gave him that little half smile that quickened his heart a beat. He contemplated throwing his pager into the neighbor’s yard when it went off a third time.

He went into the kitchen, found the phone, and dialed Mendez back.

“What?” he said impatiently by way of a greeting.

“Did I interrupt something?”

“This had better be good.”

“It’s good,” Mendez promised. “I just got a Telex from Oxnard PD. Julie Paulson’s last arrest for prostitution happened in a vice sweep. Guess who else got caught in the net?”

“Who?”

“Peter Crane.”