Deadly Charm (11 page)

“I need to wash my face.”

He nodded. “My shirt could use a go-round in the washing machine since you're in a cleaning mood.”

I'd soaked part of his shirt. Thank goodness I'd abandoned makeup that day. “I may have ruined it if I had on mascara.”

“You've ruined my shirt before.”

I blushed at his reference to when I ripped his bodice.

“You paid me back for that today when you felt me up in front of your friends.”

“Those aren't my friends. And I didn't do it in front of them. Bell, I said I'm sorry for that. I was—”

“Drunk.”

“Yeah. Drunk. Let's just say I'm kinda like your Brennan Manning. Not to imply he's a drinker. I'm just saying, maybe my cheese slid off my cracker today.”

“That's makes two of us. My cheese seems to have found a permanent home elsewhere.”

“Don't get me wrong, baby,” he said. “You've spoiled me. Touching you wasn't
all
about being drunk. I like a good bodice ripping now and then, too, though I think it'll be so much simpler if we just took our clothes off in the privacy of our bedroom. And I'll be happy to help you with that tonight if you have any trouble.”

“I've been dressing and undressing myself since my preschool days. I think I can manage.”

“I don't trust you. Let me see for myself.”

“I'm afraid that won't be happening tonight, Jazzy.”

He began to unbutton his shirt, slowly, with a seductive grin.

“What are you doing, Jazz?”

“Modeling healthy undressing. You did ruin my shirt again.” By now he'd finished unbuttoning. He slipped out of his shirt and handed it to me. A wet circle of moisture from my tears stained his undershirt, giving me a new appreciation for “wet T-shirt.” He pulled the undershirt over his head in one swift motion. Held it out to me.

I couldn't stop staring at his amazing torso. And he knew it.

“Your turn,” he said sheepishly.

I took the shirts from him. “I'll put these in the wash. Do we have a baby's death to discuss or not?”

“Why not? You're not paying me to look pretty for you,” he said, grinning at me.

That would totally be worth it
.

“What exactly
am
I paying you, Jazz?”

“You don't have to pay me at all.”

“Yes, but I
will
compensate you for your time and effort. This is business.”

“I'm a little more interested in pleasure right now.”

“We'll deal with pleasure later.”

“I'll hold you to that, Mrs. Brown.”

“You'd better,” I said.

Jazz put his shirts in the washer for me, and afterward settled onto the living room sofa with me again. God knows I could hardly concentrate with a bare-chested fine man in my presence, especially since I could actually have him without committing a sin. At least not technically. I thought. Maybe.

Okay, if I couldn't be clear on it, we definitely shouldn't do anything. I had to get my mind in order. It was time to work.

Jazz stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. “So, what's the first thing you ask in a homicide case?”

“Who stands to profit from the kid's death?”

“And who would that be?”

“Nikki Thunder.”

“Why her?”

“She's not the motherly type.”

“So I see.”

“Do tell,
husband
.”

He sat back and grinned at me. “At no time did I forget that I'm your husband.”

“You were flirting with her right in my face.”

“It's not like I
kissed
her or anything. Oh, wait. We
can
kiss other people in our marriage, can't we?”

“I made a mistake, Jazz.”

“You certainly did.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Are you? Because I would have thought that, being sorry, you would make some effort to communicate with me. I gave you several weeks.”

“I tried to let you know that I want you.”

“You tore up my favorite dress shirt. That was supposed to let me know you're ready to be faithful to me?”

“I didn't cheat on you.”

“What do you call what you were doing?”

“A mistake.”

“That's funny. Kate said the same thing.”

“I'm not your skanky ex-wife.”

“No, you're my skanky current wife.”

I wanted to slap him. In a different time I would have, but Mr. Cool couldn't hide his raw hurt from me.

Still, he looked repentant about his comment. “You were supposed to slap me,” he said. “What happened to my feisty woman?”

“If that's your opinion of me, slapping you wouldn't do much to change it. Besides, you did tell me not to hit you again.”

“Do you want me to leave now?”

He was fishing for me to tell him how badly I wanted him to stay. Not a chance. “You just put your shirts in the washing machine, but you can take them out if you'd like. You can go
home with wet clothes on and die of pneumonia for all I care.”

Then he asked a silly question. “Did I hurt your feelings?”

“That was your goal, wasn't it?”

“Actually, my goal was to get you to convince me of how wrong I am. You were supposed to be outraged and say…” He cleared his throat and imitated me, hands on hips and all. “I'm not skanky. I'm a woman of God!” He sounded more like Flip Wilson's Geraldine than like me.

“Maybe I
am
skanky, Jazz. I've certainly made all kinds of mistakes with men, including you, maybe especially with you. You had your hands in my blouse in front of a two-way mirror, and I was only in that room with you for a couple of minutes.”

“You put a stop to it.”

“You may find this hard to believe, but sometimes I actually want to do the right thing. Every now and then I have a rare moment of clarity in which I want to act like somebody who believes she's worth something.”

“Do you think my being intoxicated and trying to touch you means you're not worth anything?”

“C'mon, Jazz. I'm convenient to you now. You didn't even have to make much of an effort. Dance with me, and put your hands in my blouse. You didn't hesitate because it's like you said, I'm skanky. No need to respect me.”

“You've got me all wrong, Bell, if you think that's my opinion of you.”

“
You're
the one who said I was skanky. And
you're
the one feeling me up in public.”

“It wasn't in public.”

“You've got
me
all wrong, too, Jazz. I let one of my dearest friends kiss me because I knew I broke his heart. I didn't stop him because he's been one hundred percent there for me for the last ten years. He was just a teenager when we met. I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already had.”

Jazz turned his head away from me.

“And maybe I was a little confused, too, but it wasn't about whether I wanted to be with you or Rocky. I didn't think I deserved you, Jazz.”

His gaze came back to me. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm not the kind of woman gorgeous men like you choose. You know it, and I know it.”

“I don't like you talking like this.”

“You're out of my league.”

“That's crazy.”

“Is it? I'm not that young, and I don't have a flawless body like Kate's. Or Nikki Thunder's.”

“Don't do this, Bell.”

“Would you have kissed me if I hadn't kissed you first that night we met?”

“Yes, I would have.”

I felt a little hopeful. I always thought it was my boldness that got us started. “Really, Jazz?”

In answer he leaned into me and gave me a long, lingering kiss, as gentle and tender as the first one we shared. “I would have kissed you. Maybe not that night, but I'd have come back. I keep coming back to you. I am my beloved's.”

I hung my head.

He lifted it up. “You gotta say your part, too.”

“I can't.”

“Say it, Bell.”

I whispered the words. “My beloved is mine.”

“I am yours. And you're not skanky. You did hurt me, though.”

“You hurt me, too.”

“Don't we have a dead child to discuss?”

Let the debriefing begin!

Again.

 

Jazz's fingers meandered lazily up and down my arm while I sat on his lap and cuddled with him. I thought we might end up debriefing for real!

“Who are the players here?” he asked.

My sofa felt tiny, and I liked it that way. “Ezekiel said Rocky's crew had gone to the church for a meeting, so that leaves the Thunder gang.”

“Which consists of?”

“Ezekiel; Nikki; Sister Lou; the nanny, Sister Joy; and the kids Zekia and Zeke.”

“Where were they?”

“According to Thunder, Nikki was asleep. He was upstairs doing lectio—”

“Ezekiel Thunder does
lectio divina
?”

I smiled. Sat up and turned to face him. “I'm impressed you know what that is.”

“I'm impressed that
you
do, charismatic girl.”

“I'm kinda Emergent. I happen to dig the spiritual disciplines. But back to brainstorming.”

I settled back against his chest. “Sister Joy was reading, Sister Lou was probably cavorting with the demonic—Thunder didn't say. Little Zeke was somewhere with a full bladder, and Zekia was giving Zeekie a bath for the first time in her life.”

“Why start now?”

“Good question, and one that didn't sit right with Sister Joy, their nanny.”

Jazz rested his chin on my shoulder. “So have you heard the kids' story?”

“I heard a third-hand version from Rocky, but the gist is Zeke needed to use the bathroom and Zekia stepped out. Zeekie allegedly drowned after Zeke finished his business and left Zeekie alone, presuming Zekia would go right back in.”

“That's what I heard, too, and I heard it right from the children.”

“Did Cruella De Vil actually let them tell you themselves?”

“Cruella was very accommodating to me.”

“What do you think of it, Jazz?”

“They told it the
exact
same way. Using the exact same words. The likelihood of two
adults
doing that is slim to nil. Two kids do it, and I'm sure it's scripted.”

I went on, “And what's the likelihood of a teenage girl who never gave her little brother a bath inexplicably doing so? And him ending up dead?”

“It could happen. What if the teenage girl is a sociopath? That kind of thing shows up around that age sometimes.”

“Come on, Jazz. Zekia is a sweetie pie. Nikki Thunder is responsible. I just know it.”

“How?”

“Look at her reaction. It was…off. And that whole ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away' thing? How many mothers of dead babies have you heard say that?”

“Not many, and I've had to deliver bad news to a lot of mothers.”

“Have you heard
any
?”

“Bell, I've known some people to have extraordinary faith in the aftermath of a homicide.”

“Does Nikki strike you as being extraordinarily faithful? And what about that thing she said about taking a bath?”

Raucous laughter burst from his mouth. He cocked his head and regarded me. “I still think you're letting your jealousy get the best of you.”

“Who said I'm jealous of her?”

“Oh, come on. You saw her scoping me out as soon as we walked into the room. She judged me to be an alpha male and you the inferior female.”

“Inferior?” I climbed off his lap and scooted away.

He grabbed at my waist. “Hey, where are you goin'?”

I pouted on the cushion next to him, a little mad that I no longer shared his warmth. “I'll have you know that in no way am I inferior to that woman.”

He grinned, enjoying my irritation. “I said
she
thought you were inferior. That's why she sized me up right in front of you. She didn't see you as a worthy adversary, that is, until you went Columbo on her right before we left.”

“I wonder what made her think I'm
inferior
? Could it be your
flirting
right in front of me?” I thrust my fists inside the crooks of my elbows, body armor firmly in place.

“It was very subtle.”

“Not too subtle for me to see.”

“You were watching very carefully. You think I didn't know that? I wanted to see how far she would take things.”

“How far did she take things, Jazz?”

“Far enough for me to form a less than flattering opinion about her.”

“I'm not paying to have women ogle you.”

“You're not paying me at all.”

“I plan to. What are your consulting fees?”

“I don't have consulting fees. I have more work than I can handle at my job. Besides, I wouldn't take your money, Bell.”

“What? Is my
money
inferior, too, alpha male?”

He laughed. I fumed.

“What are you laughing at?”

“The fact that you're in a rage.”

“I'm reacting to your insults.”

“I didn't insult you. I told you what Nikki Thunder thinks of you.”

“Let me tell you what I think of
her
. She's a deeply disturbed, utterly self-absorbed, wholly narcissistic cow.”

“What makes you think so, Columbo?”

“That's
girl
Columbo. You saw. She wouldn't let me talk to those kids, allegedly because she was protecting them, but they sat there huddled in grief and she didn't so much as touch them.”

“Anything else, Bell?”

“She's skanky. While she was still a teenager, she lured Ezekiel Thunder away from his wife. After Mrs. Thunder had gone out of her way to help the little ingrate. Then
Nikki
conveniently became Mrs. Thunder, probably before the woman's body was cold—not that being Mrs. Ezekiel Thunder is a peak experience in life. Now she's on the make for
my
man before her son's rigor mortis has set in.”