The Scent of Shadows

5

Ben Traina forgot nothing. The Italian restaurant was the same place he’d taken me on our first date, years earlier, in a borrowed pickup truck and a suit that didn’t quite fit. This time his clothes did fit—a snug pair of jeans that made me look twice, and a worn leather jacket that called for a third glance—and the vehicle was his own, though still a four-wheel drive and still souped to the nines. The restaurant had hardly changed at all.

Taverna Deliziosa was an intimate Italian-American hole-in-the-wall that lived up to its name. The dual scents of Italian sausage and fresh bread greeted us at the door, and Sinatra wafted from invisible speakers. The dining area was simply one large room with heavy velvet curtains to soften the corners, and photos of Italian sports and movie stars adorning the crumbling brick walls. A mahogany bar lined the opposite side of the room, its mirror reflecting us back on ourselves, and its edges adorned with greenery, grapes, and old Chianti bottles. Individual tables sported red-and-white checkered cloths, and were topped with atmospheric gold hurricane lamps that did little to brighten the room.

There were a fistful of couples dining tonight, and a Mormon family with an absolute brood of children had taken up the long trestle in the corner. Only one man was alone, his back to us as he sat hunched at the bar. I studied his face through the bartender’s mirror but saw nothing to alarm me. A retiree probably; older, graying, and harmless looking enough, but I still maneuvered so my back was to the wall and the scope of the entire room available to me. If Ben noticed, he didn’t let on.

“The waiter knows you by name,” I said after a bottle of Panna and a bread basket had been placed in front of us.

Ben shrugged out of his jacket. He was wearing a shortsleeved, collared shirt, and it moved nicely with his body. I looked up, trying to focus on his words, but his lips were equally distracting. “They keep cop hours and it’s on the way home.”

He said nothing about it being the setting for our first date, so neither did I.

“Seems I’m a little overdressed, though,” I said, motioning down. I’d worn slacks in concession to the blade sheaths fastened at my boot and lower back, but had chosen a bright coral top to stand out against the contrasting black, its neck draping nearly to my navel. A short battle with double-sided tape had ensured it concealed all the right spots, while a matching purse easily concealed my aluminum kubotan, only six inches long. I could have the blunt steel barrel in my hand in one quick move. I might be paranoid, but I was fashionably paranoid.

“That’s all right,” Ben said, leaning his elbows on the table. “I’m enjoying looking at you again, Jo-Jo.”

I blushed, such a novel reaction for me that I was forced to look away.

We’d seen each other just once after the attack. I’d just been discharged from the hospital, and it was a long enough period for the bruises to have faded from my skin but short enough that neither of us had yet become the people we were today. I didn’t talk much back then—didn’t see or think or taste or feel much either—and I’d been too afraid to call him or to meet, knowing that the sweetness of the moment—being pierced beneath that concerned gaze as he remembered how I’d felt beneath him—was the same thing that would make it bitter.

I was right. I hadn’t been able to clear that bitterness from my throat long enough to reach for words, and didn’t know what to say even if I had. Do you still love me? Why won’t you touch me? Please stop looking at me that way. So after moments turned into minutes, the silence prolonged, the younger Ben had run out of words as well. He looked, then walked, away. And I was left feeling more alone than ever.

“Jo?”

“Sorry.” I shook my head, realizing both he and the waiter were now looking at me.

“I asked if you’d like some wine with dinner.” He laughed, a little self-consciously. I must have been staring at him forever. “I don’t know what you drink anymore.”

“Wine would be great,” I said, forcing a smile, but I had to wonder if we should really try to start this again.

Once upon a time—and it was a long time ago now—we could’ve married, and continued on together. Or we might have just as easily drifted; a simple slipping away of two people who’d grown up and apart. Either way it would have been a choice unmarred by tragedy.

Instead, the unnatural death of hope lingered between us, a love murdered as surely as I was meant to be. So the question was, in this world, in my current reality, was that something that could be overcome? Because I was frightened by the long dormant emotions stirring inside me. It felt like I was on the verge of something risky and steep. An emotional precipice I could either leap from into a headlong tumble or pull back from and wisely head for safety. For a full decade now I’d chosen only safety.

“You’re thinking too hard, Jo,” Ben said, with a smile that made my world tremble.

I leaned back casually, just reclining, I thought. Calm as an earthquake. “How can you tell?”

“Your eyes go black,” he said, peering into them. “Nervous?”

“Petrified,” I said, surprising us both with my honesty. He laughed, and I was startled at the way it boomed out of him at first, then settled into a rumbling chuckle. Were you supposed to forget your first lover’s laugh?

“Don’t worry, I don’t bite,” he said, leaning forward again. “I wouldn’t dare.”

My gaze dropped to his lips. Too bad.

I searched for a subject that wouldn’t stir my hormones or remind us of the past or, God forbid, make my heart start that perilous tumble, finally settling on a part of his life that had nothing to do with me. “Do you still write?”

He nodded. “I’ve graduated from poetry, though. I’m into mysteries now, whodunits. Nothing published yet, but I’m still trying.”

“I’m glad. Your poetry was wonderful.”

He shrugged, a self-conscious rolling of the shoulders that gave away just how much it still meant. “It keeps my mind agile, anyway. I like creating the worlds, the characters, the situations.”

“And solving the mysteries?” I asked, and he nodded, popping a piece of bread in his mouth. “Is that why you like being a cop?”

He stopped chewing, looking thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure I do like being a cop.” And even he looked surprised at the admission.

“Then why do it?”

“I have to. It’s a compulsion. A calling.”

“An obsession?” I asked warily.

He looked at me. “Yes.”

I hesitated. This was fragile territory again. “Because of what happened to me?”

He blinked, but his expression didn’t change. I guess he figured if I could speak about it so openly, he could as well. “And because I can’t just live a comfortable life on the sidelines while horrible things happen to people who can’t protect themselves.”

I just stared at him, determined to say nothing until he answered my question.

He shrugged again, but there was a tremor, a visible fury, beneath the movement this time. “What do you want me to say, Jo? Yes, what happened to you, to us, marked me. It changed the way I viewed the world. How could it not?”

I found I couldn’t meet his eye. “But how can you let it still affect you?”

Ben circled the question like a tiger, coming at me from another direction. “What about your career, then? The photographer who captures the truth but remains safely on the other side of the lens. Nobody and nothing touches you, is that right?”

I folded my arms over my chest. That wasn’t right at all. My photography was good and relevant. Granted, Xavier’s criticism about not making money at it was almost true, but my photos had been heralded for their clear and unflinching look at Vegas’s most forgotten streets. When I snapped a photo, I leeched the neon from the scene, and what remained was even more startling for its stark simplicity. People lived on these streets. Teens were corralled into prostitution on these corners. There was a great deal more lost out there every day than in all the glittering casinos combined. I wanted people to recognize and think about that.

“We all become who we need to in order to survive,” I said stiffly.

“And who have you become, Joanna? A warrior? Some superwoman bent on vengeance who needs no one and nothing?”

Strange choice of words, I thought, pursing my lips. “Criticizing?”

“Simply asking.” But we both knew there was nothing simple about it.

“I was changed too, Ben,” I said, taking up the offense. “When someone holds out their hand to me I don’t grab it readily. I’m always on the lookout for the fist behind their back.” My eyes automatically traveled to the lone man sitting at the bar.

“Most women don’t think that way.”

“Yeah, and I envy those women. I even remember, vaguely, what it was to be one of them.” I leaned back in my chair and blew out a long breath, aware that I sounded way too bitter to be just twenty-five. “But more than envy them, Ben, I fear for them. I especially fear for the ones who will become like me.”

We used our waiter’s return with the food and the wine as an excuse not to talk, but when we were alone again, Ben said, “There’s no one like you, Jo.”

I rammed my fork into my pasta. “Don’t try and sweet-talk me now. You’ve pissed me off.”

He smiled and I wished he wouldn’t. I felt myself toeing that precipice again. Tumble, tumble, tumble. It made me want to push him away and run from the room, screaming. It made me want to draw him near and into my bed, sighing. I had more practice with the former, so I pushed.

“The knowledge of violence is my playmate, Ben,” I said, twirling angel hair around my fork. “I bed down with it in the evening and wake with it again in the morning. That’s never going to change.”

“I know about violence, Jo. Seeing what I see every day on the job…” He shook his head, poured wine into our glasses, and took a sip, his eyes growing dark. “It’s enough to make me want to head out onto the streets with you instead.”

I drew back. “But that’s—” Not what I’m doing, I wanted to say.

“Wrong?” he finished for me, mistaking my puzzlement for disagreement. “Why? How’s it different from the way you scour the streets? Searching. Stalking.”

“I take photos. I just look. I’ve never…touched someone,” I lied. I had. Once. But to be fair, he’d touched me first.

“You think I shouldn’t feel this way because of my badge.” It was a statement, not a question.

His defensiveness intrigued me, even as it gave me pause. “That badge gives you access, power over other people.” Maybe I was oversensitive to the power one person chose to wield over others just because he could, but this seemed pretty straightforward to me.

But Ben was already shaking his head, breaking a piece of bread apart in his hand, dipping it in the oil. “What this badge gives me is a second pair of eyes. Good thing too, because if I had to filter every foul rotted thing I see in this city through my own eyes I’d go mad. But this way it’s bearable. It won’t climb into me.”

Then what was that look? I wanted to ask him. What was that flicker I saw skirting his gaze, adding a hard glint to his narrowed eyes?

It occurred to me then that this was just as much of a blind date as the one with Ajax. I didn’t know who Ben really was. I knew the boy he used to be—the one tormented by his father, disappointed by his mother—but where had the past ten years taken him? What had he been doing? Why did he get divorced? And when did he get the tribal tattoo I’d seen branding his left shoulder when he reached for the bread?

Why, after all this time, had he asked me out?

“Has it ever, Ben?” I said, thinking his answer might tell me a little about all those things. “Gotten into you, I mean?”

He didn’t reply for a while, staring into the flame of our hurricane lamp as he chose his words carefully. “There was this call last week, the third time a unit was sent to this guy’s house in a month. Typical asshole wife-beater…except this time he’d decided to beat on their two-year-old son. So the boys show up, he greets them with open arms, throws the door open, calls them by name. ‘Hey, Harry! Hey, Patrick! How ya doin’?’”

Ben shook his head in disgust, gesturing with his fork. “Invites them right in because he knows his wife isn’t going to say shit. Meanwhile, the only thing holding that boy’s left leg together was his unbroken flesh. The hammer was right there on the coffee table.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, still shaking his head. “And that prick is standing there with this shit-eating grin because we know he did it, he knows we know, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

“So the boy gets taken to the hospital, patched up—though everyone knows it’s like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound—and sent home with that bitch who won’t lift a hand or say a word to save him.”

“Ben,” I said softly, knowing he wasn’t really talking about that woman, but another. “That’s not fair.”

He looked at me for a moment, then his expression cleared and he shook his head on a sigh. “No, maybe not. But it’s not fair having to watch this man go free either, hoping next time he’ll make a mistake. That there’ll be a witness around who isn’t too scared or young to speak up against him. And that’s what really gets me. Sometimes, all I want is to be that witness.”

I nodded, because I could see what he was saying, easily. What was a little bit of patty cake with some bastard’s face when he’d just sent his kid to the E.R.? It wasn’t the same, Ben was right about that. Child abuse and wanting a little payback weren’t even in the same universe.

But it still made me take a second look at the man across from me. Where was the boy who’d seen everything in terms of black and white? When had he become comfortable with that particular shade of gray? Granted, most people never even had to entertain these sort of moral questions. His job planted him firmly in that muddled area, and who was to say I wouldn’t feel the same? That I too would need, as he called it, a second pair of eyes?

Who’s to say, I thought uncomfortably, my mind veering to Ajax and the way I’d gone for the jugular—literally—when defending myself against him, that I didn’t already?

There was silence again, and when the scraping of our forks across the plates became the loudest thing in the room, I began to fear we’d reached an impasse, that this was where it would end between us—the idea of violence between us—the same as it had all those years ago.

“How’s Olivia these days?”

Back to neutral territory, I thought, not knowing whether that made me want to laugh or cry. “Great,” I managed, over the lump that’d grown in my throat. “She’s an engineer at a space sciences laboratory. She devises innovative new ways to enhance sexual performance in a weightless environment.”

“Remind me not to fly NASA.”

I had to smile at that. Ben was one of the few guys who had never fallen under Olivia’s spell, and believe me, he was in a definite minority. Then again, Ben Traina had only ever had eyes for me.

“She’s still beautiful and flighty and trusting,” I said, aware of those eyes on me now. I thought about that for a moment. “You’re one of the few people who never put her down, you know that? I always loved that about you.”

He looked surprised. “Why would I? She’s as beautiful inside as she is out. Tough in her own way too.”

“Yeah, but nobody else seems to realize that.”

“Maybe it’s because she doesn’t let them.” At my raised brow, he said, “Hey, you’re the one who said we all become who we need to be in order to survive.”

True. I nodded, though it made me wonder again. Who had he become?

“Anyway,” he said, laughing self-consciously, like he knew what I was thinking, “I don’t want to talk about Olivia tonight. Go back to what you always loved about me.”

That surprised another laugh out of me. “Narcissist.”

“Damn right.”

I decided to risk a little. “I can’t tell you everything,” I said, leaning forward. “I’d need all night and we don’t have time.”

His lids went heavy, eyes growing soft. There was the Ben I knew. “Then tell me one thing.”

I didn’t even have to think. “I loved the way you never tried to change me. I loved how you never compared me with my sister. I loved your honesty.”

“That’s three things,” he said, and linked a hand with mine. His palms were wide and smooth and warm, and the heat from them flowed up my limb, flooding my body. I could have orgasmed right there, just from his touch, and I wondered if he was feeling as light-headed as I.

“Three of my favorites,” I agreed, squeezing lightly, licking my lips, tasting wine—and hope—as warmth flooded me again.

“I suppose I’ll have to ask you out again to hear the rest,” he murmured, tossing me a knowing look.

I toyed with my pasta, letting out a slow steadied breath. “Your books,” I finally said, “how do they end? The murderer is caught? The villain punished? Justice is served?”

“That’s the standard M.O. for mysteries.”

“And they all live happily ever after?”

He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Those who are still living at the end of the book, I guess. Yeah.”

Sadly, that sounded more like fantasy than mystery to me, but I didn’t want to tell Ben that. I swallowed hard before glancing back up. “So. How’s this story going to end?”

“The guy gets the girl, of course.” And he shot me that dizzying grin. I returned it without hesitation, and just like that all thought of control dropped away. The room and all the people—single guy at the bar included—folded in upon themselves and disappeared. I bit my lip, he licked his, and we leapt together.

Three hours and two bottles of wine later we emerged from Taverna Deliziosa as though from a cocoon, sated with food and wine, but further intoxicated by long looks, meaning-filled laughter, and the touch of fingertips across flickering stretches of candlelight.

Outside, we fell on each other like ravenous wolves.

The crisp air bit into our skins but dissipated like steam upon contact with the heat streaking from Ben’s body into mine. He kissed me, first pressing me against the building, the stark contrast between the cold brick behind me and his heated grip making me gasp and grind further against him. Next we were leaning against a low cinder-block wall, me straddling his straightened legs as his left hand snaked up my bare back to knot in my hair, pulling lightly. His right hand found access into my scooped blouse, and he fondled me there, echoing his caress with his tongue, mouth firm and rich on mine, tasting of unchecked lust and Italian grapes. Finally, we found ourselves reclining in the cab of his truck, his lips working my nipples through the silk of my blouse, teeth teasing, while his hands cupped me both above and below. I moaned and felt the echo slide down my body into his until it hummed through the erection pressed against my thigh.

Each time we moved I had no memory of doing so, and each time I allowed it, submitting to the desire I saw firing his dark eyes, and answering the breathless demands he whispered against my flushed skin. Only the sharp look and disgruntled muttering of the man who’d been drinking alone at the bar reminded us we were still a part of the world at large…and necking like teens in a parking lot.

Ben pulled away and leaned his forehead against mine, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. Far off, to the east of the valley, a bolt of lightning scissored across the sky, followed by a low growl of thunder. I closed my eyes as if warding away the storm and smiled into his mouth. “Move your hand one inch higher, Traina, and you’re going to have to arrest yourself.”

His laughter was choked, hot on my cheek, and spoke more of his passion than words ever could. It was a shock to find our passion could just start up again, like a match set to kindling, sparking thick in the throat, flaring in our loins, and burning the years that had gathered in between to ashes.

Not only that, but in the time we’d been outside I’d utterly forgotten my surroundings. I’d neglected to peer into the shadows, or look behind me, or hold onto even a tenuous awareness of my surroundings. I’d forgotten to sniff at the air for something foul or putrid, or about demonic faces leering at me in candlelight, or even that I’d been warned to survive the night.

What can I say? There was only Ben, his skin scenting the air, his touch turning the storm-ridden November evening into a humid, tropical night. Years of training melted away under the heat of his flesh. If I had an Achilles’ heel, I thought, Ben was it.

“Come home with me, Jo-Jo,” he whispered.

I moaned against his throat. Oh, how I wanted to. In his home, in his arms, in his bed, finishing what we’d started here. It was where I wanted to be. And where I belonged.

“I can’t,” I said, then repeated it to myself. I couldn’t just let myself pretend the last ten years had never happened. I wouldn’t lose sight of the woman I’d become. That was the woman I needed to be.

“Too soon?” he asked, then sighed—regretful, frustrated, understanding—at my answering nod. “Better than too late, I suppose.”

“I’m meeting Olivia in…” God, was it already eleven? “Half an hour. We have some things we need to discuss.”

He didn’t ask what, and I didn’t offer. Instead he leaned back and peered into my face, arms still linked around my waist. “And I suppose making plans with her was a way to keep you from spending the night with me?”

“Don’t be arrogant,” I said. “Yes.”

He smiled, looking satisfied as a milk-fed cat, and lifted a hand to graze my cheek. “Are you always so practical, Ms. Archer?”

“Hmm.” I kissed his throat, my tongue a tickling trail just below his earlobe. Barely suppressing a shudder, he ran his fingertips up my spine, letting them linger and play along the lines of my bare shoulders and neck. Or I thought it was his fingertips. Pulling away, I reached up and touched cool, slim metal, brought it back in my hand and peered at it in the dim light. “What is this?”

But I knew before I’d even finished the question. The slender silver chain, a double-stranded braid, was simple and inexpensive, and had been given to me by Ben on my fifteenth birthday. But I hadn’t seen it since shortly after that. I thought it’d been lost in the desert.

“You left it at my house,” he said, his voice softer, more hoarse. “On that last night.”

Our last night, I corrected silently as he reached out and gently plucked it from my fingertips. I bent my head and he draped it around my neck, fastening it there. Closing that circle. I let out a deep breath, felt tension I didn’t even know I was carrying drain from my body just as the first raindrop fell to my skin.

I fingered the chain, already warming around my neck. “Thank you.”

He bowed closer, bending to me so we were forehead-to-forehead in the thickening rain. Each other’s umbrella. “Sure you won’t come with me?”

I shook my head, rolling it softly along his, because I knew if I opened my mouth the answer would be yes.

“So practical,” Ben whispered, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “What if, for once, you didn’t worry about consequences? What if you just did what you wanted?”

I pulled away to look at him, my eyes traveling down to his lips, then back up again. “I just did.”

“Do it again.”

So I did. I leaned forward, took his face in my hands, and the sky above us exploded with light. We pressed against each other, body and bone, and he lifted me so my legs were wrapped at his waist, fused at his hips, anchoring me against him. I nearly didn’t make it to Olivia’s at all.