Shakespeare’s Champion

Chapter Six

My heart was hammering. The bad time was back again. I sat up in bed, gasping, my nightgown damp against my breasts. I’d been sweating in my sleep. Horrible dreams, old dreams, the worst: the chains, the shack, the rhythmic thud of the iron headboard against the wall.

Something had wakened me, something besides the dream; or maybe something had sparked the dream. I scrambled out of bed and pulled on the white chenille robe I keep draped across the footboard. As I tied the sash tightly around my waist, I glanced at my digital clock. One-thirty. I heard a sound: a quick, light rapping at my back door.

I crept out of my bedroom. It’s next to that door. I put my ear against the wood. A voice on the other side of the door was saying something over and over, and as my hand reached for the switch, I realized the voice was saying, “Don’t turn on the light! For God’s sake, don’t turn on the light!”

“Who is it?” I asked, my ear pressed to the meeting of door and frame so I could hear better.

“Jack, it’s Jack. Let me in, they’re after me!”

I heard the desperation in his voice. I pushed the dead bolt back and opened the door. A dark form hurtled past me and crashed on the hall floor as I slammed the door shut and re-locked it.

I knelt beside him. The faint radiance provided by the nightlight burning behind the nearly shut bathroom door was almost useless. His breathing was ragged and loud; no point in asking him questions. I moved my fingers up Jack’s legs first: wet boots, damp blue jeans-it was raining again. My hands moved higher, running over his butt and crotch; then I felt his chest, his back, under his padded waterproof vest.

The detective rolled to his right side. He groaned when my fingers found the sticky patch on his left shoulder. I flinched, too, but I made my hand return to the wound. There was a hole in the vest. I probed further. There was a big hole in the vest, and the shirt underneath was ripped. It seemed plain enough that Jack Leeds had been shot high in the shoulder.

“I need to look at this in some light,” I said. His breathing seemed closer to normal. He was shaking now, from cold and perhaps relief.

“If you turn on a light, they’ll know I woke you. They’re gonna knock on your door any minute.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, trying for control. He made a little sound through clenched teeth.

I’d have to turn on the outside light, then. I thought about Jack’s wet boots and the little roof over the back porch.

“Crawl into the first door on your left,” I said. I hurried into the kitchen, glad my leg was so much better. I washed my hands in the dark. I filled a saucepan with water. Returning to the back door, I edged it open and listened; not a sound beyond the cool patter of the rain. I opened the door wider. The security light in the parking lot to the rear of the apartment building also benefited my backyard, at least a little. I could see the dark wet footprints Jack had left on the boards. I poured water over the porch and steps, wiping out the marks of his entrance. I could only hope “they” (whoever they were) wouldn’t be observant enough to wonder why my sheltered porch was soaking wet.

Shutting and locking the door again, I automatically placed the inverted pan in the kitchen drainer. I stood in the middle of the room, thinking furiously. No, there was nothing more I could do. Jack had surely left tracks on the wet ground, but it was beyond my power to obliterate them.

I padded silently into my bedroom. “Where are you?” I whispered. This was like playing hide-and-seek, in a scary kind of way.

“By the bed, on the rug,” he said. “Don’t want to mess up your sheets or your floor.”

I appreciated the consideration. “How’d you get here? To the house?” I asked, ashamed of the anxious undertone I could hear in my own voice.

“Over the fence, from the back lot of the lumber place. But I went further down to the vacant lot at the corner, then cut back here on the pavement. I started to come to your front door, but then I figured they might have a car cruising the neighborhood by now, if they’ve stopped to think. So I went up your driveway, around your carport, and took the stepping stones to the back door.” He paused. “Oh, shit, the porch! Footprints!”

“I took care of it.”

I could sense his movement as he turned to stare in my direction. But all he said was “Good.” His eyes closed, I thought, and he shifted positions painfully.

My eyes had done some adjusting, enough to make him out. He hadn’t cut all his hair off, as it had looked at first. He was wearing a black knit watch cap and he’d tucked all his hair up under it. I eased it off. Of course the cap hadn’t done anything to keep his head dry. The released strands spread in rat’s tails across the white bedside rug.

He opened his eyes and regarded me steadily. I found myself running my fingers through my hair to fluff it out. Ridiculous. I couldn’t postpone dealing with the wound any longer.

“Let’s get your vest off,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. I scooted closer. “Hold out your hand. I’ll help you sit up.”

Jack had better night vision than I did. His hand was on mine instantly. I gripped and pulled, automatically giving the “Huh!” of heavy exertion. I leaned him against the side of the bed and unzipped the vest. I pulled it down his right arm first. I eased it across his back, leaning almost against his chest to accomplish the maneuver. I smelled the wet of his vest and his shirtsleeves, and the scent of his skin, the faintest trace of some aftershave. Then I scuttled over to his left side, held up his left arm with one hand while I tugged at the vest with the other. He gave a deep groan, and I sucked my breath in sympathetically. But I didn’t stop. The vest wasn’t actually stuck; it was the movement of his arm and shoulder that was causing him pain.

His flannel shirt, now, that was stuck. I fetched my heavy kitchen scissors and began to cut through the thick material. This proved impossible and dangerous in the darkness. I left to push the bathroom door wide open. I’d worried about the nightlight, but I figured a nightlight in a bathroom was no big wonder, and it was my habit. Suddenly switching it off might be even more suspicious.

With the slightly improved visibility I could just see enough to cut off the shirt without hurting Jack worse. He was leaning back against the bed with his eyes closed.

I wanted to call Carrie, but her arrival would be a dead giveaway. Jack was still shivering, but it didn’t seem to be as teeth-chattering a tremor as before.

There was a single loud knock at the back door. Jack’s eyes flew open and stared into mine, only a few inches away.

“They won’t come in,” I promised. I looked down at my robe. It was streaked with dirt and damp and blood. I unbelted it and draped it over Jack, wiping my hands on its hem. I went into the hall and up to the back door, as noisily as I could.

“Who is it?” I asked loudly. “I’m going to call the police!”

“Lily, hey! It’s Darcy!”

“Darcy Orchard, what the hell are you doing knocking at my door in the middle of the night? Go away!”

“Lily, we just want to make sure you’re all right. Someone broke in over at the store.”

“So?”

“He took off running across the back lot. He scaled the fence and went into the lumber yard lot. We think he climbed out and came across the tracks.”

“So?”

“Let us lay eyes on you, Lily. We gotta be sure you’re not being held hostage.”

That was clever.

“I’m not letting you in my house in the middle of the night,” I said baldly, figuring that would be congruent with my history and character. And it was the simple truth. They would not come into my house.

“No, that’s fine, honey. We just want to see you’re okay.” Darcy did a good job of sounding concerned.

I switched on the light above the back door, which I’d been hoping to avoid in case Jack had left traces I hadn’t anticipated. I stuck my head out the door and glared at Darcy up on my back porch and the group of men in my backyard. Darcy wasn’t dressed for the weather; he looked exactly like he’d run out the door in whatever he had on. His thinning hair was plastered to his head. His pale eyes glistened in the porch light. Darcy was enjoying himself.

I swept my eyes over the four bundled figures clustered together behind him, enduring the light rain and chill wind. I was trying to gather in a look at the posts supporting the little porch roof while I was at it.

Dammit all to hell. Jack had left a bloody fingerprint on one of them; but it was on the inside toward me, thank God.

To make sure their attention didn’t wander, I stepped out on the tiny porch in my nightgown, and five pairs of eyes bugged out.

I heard a reverent “Wow,” which Darcy instantly suppressed by turning to glare at the offender. Despite the fact that all the men had pulled up their collars and pulled down their hats, I could recognize the exclamation had come from the boy who worked at the loading dock of the lumber supply house. I wondered how they’d picked Darcy to be the one who got his name on the record, so to speak.

“See, I’m fine,” I said, not having to work at sounding furious. “I’m under no duress, and I could walk away from this house right now if I wanted to freeze. How come all of you are out in the rain chasing a burglar, anyway? Don’t you have an alarm system that calls the police?”

As I’d hoped, going on the offense made them begin to back away.

“We were having a little…” Darcy paused, clearly unsure how to end the sentence.

“Inventory,” said one of the men. His voice was oddly muffled since he was trying to keep his face buried in his collar. I was pretty sure it was Jim Box, Darcy’s workout buddy and coworker. Jim had always thought quicker than Darcy, but without the panache. Behind him, a figure crouched with a hood covering most of his features, but I would recognize that thin, mean mouth anywhere. Tom David Meicklejohn, in mufti. Hmmm.

“Right, we have to do pre-Christmas inventory,” Darcy said, relieved. “Takes all night. We’d turned off the alarm because we were going in and out.”

“Um-hmm,” I said, neutrally. As I’d anticipated, they began to back off even more quickly, though still keeping their eyes on my nightgown. I decided to burn it.

“Aren’t you going to go wake up Carlton, too?” I demanded, jerking my head toward Carlton’s little house, almost identical to mine. “Maybe he’s a hostage.”

The bedraggled group began to herd toward Carlton’s house, where I’d noticed a light burning in the bedroom. I figured Carlton had company and would give them as warm a reception as I had. I slammed my back door shut, turned the locks as loudly as I could, and switched off the porch light quickly, hoping they would fall in a puddle in the sudden darkness.

Fools. Dangerous fools.

It made me sick that I had exposed myself to them. I crossed my arms over my chest, tried to feel warmer.

I went into my bedroom and padded past Jack to get to the window. Opening the shades a trifle, I peered out. Yes, Carlton was standing at his back door now, in an attractive velour bathrobe and nothing else, looked like. He was very angry.

Even as I watched, he slammed his own back door and switched out his light. I’d closed my eyes the second before, so when I thought my vision had adjusted, I peered into the darkness again. I could make out vague shapes, trailing back across my yard and up the steep embankment to the railroad tracks. They’d given up the chase.

“They’ve gone,” I said.

“Good,” Jack said. His voice was a little steadier, but hoarse with suppressed pain. I shut the shades again, tightly, and loosened the tiebacks on the curtains so they fell shut, too. Instead of switching on the overhead light, I used the bedside lamp. I knelt down by Jack again. His eyes had closed against the sudden light. I stared at him for a long moment. I was thinking that I’d better have put my money on the right horse, or the consequences would be too drastic to imagine.

I sat back on my heels. The shoulder wound was the only injury Jack had. It had stopped bleeding. It looked awful. I didn’t have any experience treating bullet wounds, but it seemed that the bullet had plowed through the top of Jack’s shoulder; and since the bleeding had stopped, I knew it hadn’t severed a major blood line.

So infection had to be the biggest danger. I’d have to clean the wound. Unless…

“Is there any chance of me taking you to the hospital?” I asked.

He shot me a look that said the question had been as futile as I’d feared. “I’ll get back to my place,” Jack said. He began trying to push himself up from the floor with his uninjured arm.

“Oh, sure.” I was scared of treating the wound, so my voice came out harsh.

“Obviously, this is too much of a risk for you,” he said, in an I’m-trying-to-be-patient voice.

Quelling my impulse to haul him to his feet, twist his good arm behind his back, and propel him into the nearest wall, I inhaled a calming breath. I let it out evenly, with control.

“You don’t get to tell me what risks I’m prepared to assume,” I said.

“I can go back to Little Rock, but you live here.”

“I appreciate your pointing that out to me. Give me your hand.” I was going through my own set of shakes. Stepping outside in my nightgown had chilled me to the bone in all kinds of ways.

Jack reached out with his good hand, and I planted my feet, gripped the hand firmly, and pulled up. His face twisted as he rose to his feet. Standing, he was taller than me, his physical presence dominating. I decided I preferred him on the floor. No. I felt more comfortable with him on the floor.

“You’re freezing!” he said, and stretched out his good arm as if he would gather me to him. My white bathrobe fell off him and crumpled in a dirty heap. The remains of his shirt hung in rags around his shoulders.

“We’re going into the bathroom to work on your wound,” I told him, trying to sound confident. “Can you walk?”

He could, and was sitting on the toilet seat in a few seconds. I got out all my first-aid equipment. I had some sterile water, and some bandages containing powdered antibiotic, and a tube of antibiotic ointment. I had a lot of gauze and some tape. The Lily Bard MASH unit for wounded detectives.

The sterile water was even in a squirt bottle.

I worked the rest of the shirt off Jack, tried not to be distracted by his resulting bareness, and draped him with my oldest towels. I swept his half-dry hair over onto his sound shoulder. I assumed nurses and doctors learned how to detach themselves from touching people so intimately; I had not. This felt very personal to me.

“I’m going to clean the wound,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I lifted the plastic squeeze bottle. “So, did you recognize the men after you?” I asked. I squirted sterile water onto the bloody furrow. Jack turned whiter, and dark stubble stood out sharply on his lean cheeks. “Answer me, Jack Leeds,” I said sharply.

“Not all of them.” His voice more of a gasp.

“Of course there was Darcy.” I squirted again, this time from the back. I thought of tiny fragments of shirt, or microscopic bits of the vest, that might be embedded in this tear in Jack’s flesh. I felt dreadfully responsible.

“Uh-huh.” His eyes closed. I kept going with the lavage.

“Who was another one, Jack?”

“The kid, the one with the pimples, works on the loading dock at the lumber and home supply place.”

I patted the area dry with the cleanest whitest washcloth I had. I examined it. It looked clean, but how did I know? I wasn’t used to cleaning on a microscopic scale. I squirted.

“And the guy with the big belly, the one who looks like a good heart-attack risk, I’ve seen him.”

“That was Cleve Ragland, works down at the mattress factory,” I murmured. “Cleve’s been arrested for drunken driving at least twice, got a kid in jail for attempted rape.”

Squirt, wipe.

“The other guy,” Jack gasped, “isn’t he a cop?”

“Uh-huh, Tom David Meicklejohn-in plain clothes. He kept to the back like it was possible for me to mistake him,” I said, hoping the plowed track of the wound was clean enough. At least Jack’s eyes were open again, though he wasn’t looking at my face.

“And then there was Jim, works in the gun department, works out with Darcy. Another coworker.” I patted again.

It looked dry. It looked clean. I leaned even closer to inspect it, and nodded in satisfaction. I hoped I hadn’t hurt Jack too much. He had a very strange expression on his face.

“Lean forward,” I told him. I spread the antiseptic ointment on the wound. I put an antiseptic pad on the shoulder, with a strip of surgical tape to hold it in place.

“Lean back.” I padded the wound with sterile gauze in case he bled again, and unrolled surgical tape to secure the gauze. Jack’s face relaxed while I did this, and I felt proud of myself. I turned and began to search the bathroom cabinet for a pain reliever. While my back was to him, Jack’s finger traced the curve of my hip.

I stood still, not believing it.

“Are you crazy?” I said. “You just got shot!”

“Lily, all that got me through that bandaging was your breast wobbling about three inches from my face.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Did I hear you step out in front of them in your nightgown?” he asked.

I nodded.

“No wonder they were all quiet. Not a one will be able to sleep tonight.”

“You’d left a handprint on one of the posts.”

“You did a damn fine job of distracting.”

“I hated doing that. Don’t talk like it was easy.”

“I hope I know better.”

“We need to get your wet clothes off so you can come get in bed.”

“I thought you’d never say it.”

I noticed that he wasn’t any longer mentioning going home. And he’d never suggested we call the police, though in view of Tom David’s presence, that had probably been wise. I shook out a pill, handed him a glass of water. He swallowed it and leaned back, his eyes closed.

I pulled off Jack’s boots and socks, wiping off his wet cold feet with a hot washcloth and drying them vigorously with a towel. But I left him to remove his own jeans. I went outside one more time, to clean the bloody fingerprint from the post. That had been niggling at me.

It was still raining. Any other traces Jack had left would surely be obliterated.

I’d turned down the bed, and by the time I came in the room, Jack had managed to climb in and cover up. On my side. His chest was bare and it occurred to me he was most likely bare all the way down.

I’d given him one of the pain pills Carrie had left me a few months before when my ribs had been bruised. It had knocked Jack Leeds clean out, as I’d expected.

I yanked the blue nightgown off and stuffed it in the trash can. I pulled a pink one out of my dresser drawer. It was almost as pretty; I buy good nightgowns. I put the bloodstained bathrobe into my washer and set it to wash on cold; as an afterthought, I threw in Jack’s damp jeans, socks, and underwear, which he’d left in a heap on the bathroom floor. Hot water would have been better for his stuff, but I couldn’t stay awake for two loads. While the clothes churned through the shortest cycle, I straightened up the bathroom and set out a toothbrush, still in its wrapper. I rechecked all the locks. Then I put the washed clothes in the dryer.

When all the lights were out, I slid into bed on the wrong side. The night was silent except for the friendly sound of the tumbling dryer and the detective breathing heavily beside me, and I slept.

I opened my eyes about five-thirty, later than I usually get up. To see my clock, I had to raise myself to peer over the dark mound that was Jack. I thought I’d heard him go into the bathroom, heard the water running, but he seemed to be asleep again. I could barely discern the outline of his features. The bedclothes had fallen down, and I could see his exposed shoulder because of the white of the bandage. I covered him back up, very carefully, not wanting to wake him. His loose hair had fallen over his face. Gently, as delicately as I could manage, I brushed it back.

The rain was drumming on the roof again, loud enough to penetrate the comforting drone of the central heating. I made my own trip to the bathroom, rinsed out my mouth. I snuggled back down into bed, turned away from my sleeping companion. I sank into a half-doze, random thoughts floating through my head.

It was Friday. Not a good day to start back to Body Time, considering my interrupted night. Nor a good day to resume karate. But I had to work today… Deedra, the peculiar Mookie Preston, the Winthrops, another afternoon appointment… I waited expectantly, but I couldn’t summon the surge of purpose I needed to feel at the onset of the working day.

What I felt instead was a surge of hormones. Jack Leeds had woken me the night before, beating on my door. Now he was waking me in an altogether different way. Jack was stroking my back and hips. I sighed, hardly knowing if it was one of exasperation or sheer desire. But I certainly didn’t feel apathetic any longer.

I knew he could tell I was awake. When I didn’t speak, he scooted closer, fitting his body to mine. His hand circled around, cupped a breast, resumed the rhythmical stroking. I had to bite my lip to keep silent.

“What happened to ‘after this job is over’?” I asked finally, and my voice was more like a gasp.

“Waking up in a warm bed with a beautiful woman on a rainy day in winter”-and while he was speaking his hand never stopped-“has overcome my business instincts.” His voice was breathy and low. His mouth began to deliver little sucking kisses to my neck, and I shivered. He began to ease up the pink nightgown. It was now or never. What did I want? My body was about to take over from my brain.

I turned toward him, putting up a hand to press against his chest and hold him at a little distance-I think-but at that moment his fingers slid between my legs and instead I wrapped my arm around his neck and pulled him close for a kiss. It was so dark and private in my room, like a quiet cave.

After a while, his mouth descended to cover my nipple through the nightgown. I reached down to touch him. He was swollen and ready. It was his turn to do a little moaning.

“Do you have…?” he asked.

I reached across him to grope in the night-table drawer for protection.

Jack began to whisper to me, telling me about what we were going to do and how it was going to feel. His hands never stopped.

“Now,” I said.

“Wait a little.”

I waited as long as I could. I was shaking. “Now.”

And then he was in me. I arched against him, found his rhythm. My pleasure was instant, and I cried out his name.

“Again,” he said in my ear, and kept on going. I tried to keep pace, once again matched him. I began urging him on, gripping him with my inner muscles, digging my nails into his hips. At last he made an incoherent sound and climaxed, and I did, too.

He collapsed on top of me and I put both my arms around him for the first time. I ran my hands over his back and bottom, feeling skin and muscles, planes and curves. He nuzzled my neck gently for a minute, withdrew from me, and rolled onto his back. The white gauze was spotted with red.

“Your shoulder!” I raised up on an elbow to look. My bedroom was getting a little lighter; the dark and secret cave had opened to the world.

“I don’t care,” he said, shaking his head from side to side on the pillow. “Someone could come in here and shoot me again, and right this moment I wouldn’t care. I tried to stay away from you, tried not to think about you… if they hadn’t been so close, I wouldn’t have come here, but I can’t be sorry. Jesus God, Lily, that was absolutely-wonderful. No other woman… God, that was sensational.”

I was shattered myself. Even more than by the physical sensations Jack had given me, I was a little frightened by the urge I had to touch him, hold him, bathe myself in him. In self-defense, I thought of all the women he’d had.

“Who are you thinking about?” He opened his eyes and stared at me. “Oh, Karen.” I was frightened that he knew so much about me that he would read my face that way. His own eyes lost their glow, flattened, when he said the name Karen.

Jack Leeds had become a household reference right about the time Lily Bard had, in the same state, Tennessee; and in the same city, Memphis. While my name became linked with that of the crime committed against me (“Lily Bard, victim of a brutal rape and mutilation”), Jack’s was always followed by the trailer, “alleged lover of Karen Kingsland.”

Karen Kingsland, from her newspaper photos a sweet-faced brunette, had been sleeping with Jack for four months when catastrophe wiped out three lives. She was twenty-six years old, earning her master’s degree in education from the University of Memphis. She was also the wife of another cop.

One Thursday morning, Walter Kingsland, Karen’s husband, got an anonymous letter at work. A uniformed officer for ten years, he was about to go on patrol. Opening the letter, laughing about receiving it, in front of many of his friends, Walter read that Karen and Jack were having sex, and having it often. The letter, which Walter dropped to the floor as he left, was quite detailed. A friend of Jack’s called Jack instantly, but he was not as quick as Walter. No one called Karen.

Walter drove home like a maniac, arriving just as Karen was leaving for class. He barricaded himself and his wife in the bedroom of their east Memphis home. Jack came in through the front door moments later, hoping to end the situation quickly and privately somehow. He had not been thinking well. He stood at the door of the bedroom and listened to Walter plead with his wife to say Jack had raped her, or that it was all a malicious lie on the part of some enemy.

By that time, the modest Kingsland home was surrounded by cops. The phone rang and rang, and finally Jack picked it up in the living room and described the situation to his coworkers and superiors. There was not going to be any private or amicable solution, and it would be fortunate if all three involved made it through alive. Jack wanted to offer himself as hostage in exchange for Karen. His superiors, on the advice of the hostage negotiation team, turned him down. Then Jack revealed to them what Walter did not know yet, what Karen had only told Jack the day before: Karen Kingsland was pregnant.

At that point, it would have been hard to find anyone in the Memphis Police Department who wasn’t, at the very least, disgusted with Jack Leeds.

From the living room, Jack could hear Karen scream in pain.

He yelled through the door that Walter should exchange his wife for Jack, since torturing a woman was nothing a real man would do.

This time Walter agreed to swap his wife for his wife’s lover.

Without consulting anyone, Jack agreed.

Walter yelled that he’d bring Karen to the back door. Jack should be standing on the sundeck, weaponless. Walter would push Karen out and Jack would come in.

Detective Jack Leeds went outside, took off his jacket, his shoes and socks, his shirt, so Walter Kingsland could tell Jack wasn’t carrying a concealed weapon. And sure enough, out of the bedroom came Walter and Karen. From inside the kitchen, Walter yelled to Jack to turn around, so Walter could make sure there wasn’t a gun stuck in the back of Jack’s slacks.

Then Walter appeared, framed in the open back door holding Karen by one of her arms, his gun to her head. Now there was tape over her mouth, and her eyes were crazed. She was missing the little finger of her right hand, and blood was pouring out of the wound.

“Come closer,” Kingsland said. “Then I’ll let her go.”

Jack had stepped closer, his eyes on his lover.

Walter Kingsland shot Karen through the head and shoved her out on top of Jack.

And this part, media hounds, was on videotape. Jack’s yell of horror, Walter Kingsland’s screaming, “You want her so bad, you got her!” Walter’s taking aim at Jack, now covered with Karen’s blood and brains, trying to rise: a dozen bullets cutting Walter down, bullets fired unwillingly by men that knew him, men that knew Walter Kingsland for high-strung, hot-tempered, possessive; but also as brave, good-natured, and resourceful.

Jack had been a plainclothes detective, often working undercover. He had a stellar work record. He had a rotten personal life. He drank, he smoked, he’d already been divorced twice. He was envied, but not liked; decorated, but not altogether trusted. And after that day in the Kingslands’ backyard, he was no longer a Memphis cop. Like me, he sank to the bottom to avoid the light of the public eye.

This was the chronicle of the man I was in bed with.

“I guess we’ll have to talk about that sometime,” he said with a sigh, and his face looked immeasurably older than it had been. “And what happened to you.” His finger traced the worst scar, the one circling my right breast.

I lay close to him, put my arm over his chest. “No,” I said. “We don’t have to.”

“The funny thing is,” he said quietly, “Karen wrote that letter herself.”

“Oh, no.”

“She did.” After all this time, there was still pained wonder in his voice. “It was from her typewriter. She wanted Walter to know. I’ll never understand why. Maybe she wanted more attention from him. Maybe she wanted him to initiate a divorce. Maybe she wanted us to fight over her. I thought I knew her, thought I loved her. But I won’t ever know why she did that.”

I thought of things I could say, even things I wanted to say, but none of them could repair the damage I’d recalled to his mind. Nothing could ever make up for what Karen Kingsland had done to Jack, what he had done to himself. Nothing could ever get back Jack’s job, his reputation. And I knew nothing would ever erase the memory of Karen’s head exploding in front of his eyes.

And nothing could ever erase what had happened to me a couple of months afterward: the abduction, the rape, the cutting, the man I’d shot. I felt the urge to make some good memories.

I swung my leg over him, straddled him, bent to kiss him, smoothed his long black hair against the white lace-trimmed pillowcase. I was not ashamed of my scars with Jack Leeds. He had a full set of his own. I told him, close to his ear, that I was about to take him inside me again. I told him how it would feel. I could hear him draw his breath, and soon I could feel his excitement. My own heart was pounding.

It was even better this time.

“Why housecleaning?” he asked later.

“I knew how to do it, and I could do it by myself.” That was the short answer, and true enough, as far as it went. “Why detective? What kind are you, anyway?”

“Private. Based in Little Rock. I knew how to do it, and I could do it by myself.” He smiled at me, a small smile, but there. “After a two-year apprenticeship with another detective, that is. There was another ex-cop from Memphis working there. I knew him a little.”

So Jack must be working for the Winthrops.

“I have to get dressed. I have an appointment,” I said, trying not to sound sad or regretful. So my departure wouldn’t seem too abrupt-cold, as Marshall would have said-I gave Jack a kiss before I swung out of bed. Somehow, the further away from him I moved, the more I became conscious of my scars. I saw his eyes on them, seeing them for the first time in one frame, so to speak. I stood still, letting him look. But it was very hard, and my fists clenched.

“I’d kill them all for you if I could,” he said.

“At least I killed one,” I said. Our eyes met. He nodded.

I took a wonderful hot shower and shaved my legs and washed my hair and put on my makeup, restraining an urge to laugh out loud.

And I thought: Nothing. I will ask for nothing.

Jack had found his surviving clothes in the dryer and pulled them on. I eyed him thoughtfully, and rummaged in my drawers for one of those promotional T-shirts that are all one size. I’d gotten it when I’d donated blood. It had swallowed me, but it fit him, rather snugly; but it covered the bandage and his goose bumps. He winced as he maneuvered his left arm into its sleeve. I had the old jacket the hospital had pulled from its rummage closet, the one I’d worn home the day after the explosion. It fit, too.

He’d perked some coffee while I was showering, and he’d made an effort to pull the bedding straight.

“Normally I do better, but with my shoulder…” He apologized as I came into the bedroom to get my socks and sneakers.

“It’s all right,” I said briefly, and sat on the little chair in the corner to pull my socks on. I’d put on two T-shirts, which works better for me in cold weather than a sweatshirt-long sleeves are just a nuisance with housework. The edge of the pink tee peeked from under the sky blue of my outer shirt; happy colors. I’d picked pink socks, too. And my favorite pink and white high-tops. I was the brightest maid in Shakespeare. To hell with the cold and rain.

“Aren’t you going to ask me? About what I was doing last night?” he said. He was sitting on the end of the bed, looking braced for an attack.

I finished tying one bow, put my right foot on the floor, lifted my left. “I guess not,” I said. “I’m reckoning it has something to do with guns, the Winthrop clan, and maybe Del Packard’s murder. But I don’t know. Better not tell me, unless you need someplace to run to when the bad guys are chasing you.”

I’d meant that lightly, but Jack thought I was telling him he should explain his business to me since he’d taken shelter in my home; that he owed me, since he’d “used” me. I could see his face harden, see the distance opening.

“I mean that literally,” I told him. “Better not tell me, unless they’re after you.”

“What will you do, Lily,” he asked, putting his arms around me as I stood, “what will you do, when they come after me?”

I smiled. “I’ll fight,” I said.